The Pendle Zodiac: A Guide through the Sacred Landscape of Pendle
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By Thomas Sharpe
Spirit of Pendle Publishing, 2012 Buy this Book!
Thomas Sharpe (b. 1970) was born and lives in the area of Pendle, in the Rose County of Lancashire, in northern England. This area is well-known from the 1652 visit made by George Fox, a founder of the Quakers or Friends, during which, at a well on Pendle side, he had a mystical or Christic vision. As a result of this vision, Pendle has been strongly linked with the Quakers, and the well is called George Fox’s Well. A 2002 publication, The Lancashire Witches, Histories and Stories, edited by Robert Poole, is described as “the first major study of England’s biggest and best-known witch trial, which took place in 1612.”
The author first became open to clairvoyant perception in 1989, using a book by Carl Rider, Your Psychic Power: A Practical Guide to Developing Your Natural Clairvoyant Abilities. Rider’s book was based on exercises taken from Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, by Rudolf Steiner. In response to a question, he wrote that the Carl Rider book “guided my clairvoyant imaginations, though without an adequate background of interpretation which a broader study of Anthroposophy would have provided.” He had been inspired by the work of Walter J. Stein and books on projective geometry, attended some lectures related to the work of Rudolf Steiner, studied Goethe’s spiritual science, and in 2008 began a study of Anthroposophy, partly to acquire a fundamental basis for his natural clairvoyance in relation to the geomantic work in Pendle. He made several valuable contributions to the 2011 publication of the Brunnen von Christus Group, The Writing of the Heart, Book II.
From the Preface: “The supposition of giant zodiacal effigies set around the Pendle landscape was originally illustrated through the unostentatious ‘Terrestrial Zodiacs in Britain: Nuthampstead and Pendle Zodiac’ (1976), by N. Pennick and R. Lord, Institute of Geomantic Research, Cambridge.” The author’s revision “is somewhat in the spirit of [William] Blake — a documented lifetime’s journey exploring the Pendle landscape, charting my cumulative visions and experiential encounters with the super-sensory world. The panorama that unfolds will genially inaugurate the reader into a mythical landscape, complete with landscape zodiac, sacred geometry and geomantic alignments.” From the beginning of the first chapter: “My background is local to Pendle, having been born under the presence of Pendle Hill, as viewed from the west-facing windows of the house in which I grew up. My early interests included art, with a leaning towards the natural sciences, particularly ornithology and conchology. Therefore, along with a comprehensive knowledge of the genera of flora and fauna, I can identify most native bird species. Then of course, I spent my time illustrating these through artistic media.” This authentic and priceless little book — 65 pages in length, including 15 illustrations and an extensive “Bibliography & References” section — transports us to the serenity and mystical green beauty of the English countryside, and wastes no words at all. The chapters are short, yet the content is profound, and repeated readings bring further understanding. The first chapter is titled “Etheric Clairvoyance,” and, in addition to offering essential biographical information, it describes subtle awakenings within the spiritual world, especially the Elemental world. The second chapter describes an encounter, in a lucid dream, with “The Lady of the Well,” who is perceived inside a hollow Faery mound. “Her disposition was both generous and kind and also somewhat homely and house-proud. Bearing no sign of old age she was not young either, rather ageless.” More »
