We do not need to remember Orpheus and other Greek legends to know that the gateways to the Otherworld can be dangerous.
There are endless stories about the famous special places, the cult sites, the ritual places and haunted places.
It seems that many places have a certain quality, which might be god or evil, positive or negative, making you lucky or sad. Generally I heard and read many stories that a place can transform you. That is why our investigation has to be careful.
Jacques Vallee, the researcher I admire, tells in “Confrontations” about a dark story he found in Dion Forturne’s writings about a medium, Netta Fornario, who died 1930 under bizarre circumstances. She was found naked on a mountain full of scratches close to the Scottish Island Iona. There were reports about blue lights on the island, which were seen not far away from the place where Fornario was found.
Fortune speculates if her friend Fornario was victim of a psychic attack or if she left her body for too long during an astral journey.
There are no further investigations reported about this case, however the two possibilities Fortune mentioned are often mentioned in connection with incidents at certain places. The third possibility is often a mystic experience, which leave the visitor changed. These places can become holy places like Glastonbury, which is for some the legendary Avalon.
David Lynch used the mythological duality of mysterious places in his unforgettable Twin Peaks Series. The magic place in the series “Glastonbury grove”, which is a circle of birch trees in the woods, is a gateway to the Otherworld. But it leads to two different lodges, the white lodge and the black lodge, where the finale of the series happens. This is a place where demons live.
Is everything only fiction?
Recently I found an interesting lead towards Bedford near Halifax in Canada, Nova Scotia. The real “Glastonbury Grove” is a holy place of the Micmac Indians also with a circle of birch trees and with interesting petroglyph.
One of the petroglyph represents an eight-pointed star, which says something about the great mystery these Indians have knowledge about: in their mythology it s said that the Number Four is doubled to reflect the understanding that all that one sees is not necessarily all that is perceptible.
The Micmac tribe believed in a gateway to the Otherworld like the Celts and there are some more very interesting aspects about the Canadian Micmac: some of their alphabet is similar to ancient Egypt hieroglyph.
We should take their knowledge about places very serious. We do not know the truth about the endless number of legends but we might suspect that places could work as reality transformers for their visitors. They could do something with you, particularly with those who are seeking for transpersonal experience. If you open up too much to the raw unmediated energies of the Otherworld it might be the dark side, which takes advantage.
