Tony Grist (poliphilo) wrote,
Tony Grist
poliphilo

John Michell RIP

John Michell died. I wouldn't say I was a disciple, but whenever I have pursued some particularly far-out line of speculative thought- anything to do with UFOs, ley lines, King Arthur, Glastonbury, standing stones and so on- it's a pretty sure thing that MIchell was loitering about somewhere in the vicinity.  I must have read some of his books- though I'm not sure which- because the New Age books that weren't written by him were mostly inspired by him- and you can't dip your ladle into that nutricious porridge without it coming out full of Michell. Earlier this year I found myself navigating round South West England with his book Sacred England as my guide and he led me to a very wonderful romanesque bas relief of St George in a  suburb of Dorchester that even the locals don't know is there. He was a man who knew a fabulous number of things- all of them fascinating, many of them nonsense. And the dear thing about him is that he was in on the joke.  He was a savant, a mystic, a trickster, a conjurer, a twiddler and tweeter on the Pipes of Pan. His scholarship was ludic, because- as he fully believed- the universe is too. He wasn't serious- or responsible- but he cared- and is in the line of those- which includes Shakespeare and William Blake and Kipling and Stukeley and Dion Fortune and so many other of my heroes and heroines- who have treated and written of England as holy ground.
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  • 19 comments

  • On Mature Reflection

    I dreamed I'd co-authored a book about how I came to leave the Church. I was leafing through the finished article and finding it very glum. My…

  • Earworms And Rain

    Binge-listening to variant versions of Matty Groves/Little Musgrave means I now have it as an ear worm. It could be worse; it could be the Birdy…

  • Matty Groves

    I'm sure there's a version where the husband cuts his wife's head off and kicks it against the wall but I can't find it. Did I make…