Who We Are: main contributors - Ancient Penwith | Cornwall

I live on an organic farm at the centre of West Penwith, formerly resident and doing similar work in Glastonbury, Somerset until 2008. History, geomancy and archaeology have been core part of my work throughout my adult life. This started when, as a student in 1969, I rather naively slept at the centre of the Ring of Brogar stone circle in the Orkney Isles, having a vivid dream of dancing, chanting ancients who invited me to join them - which, for better or worse, I did!  I've been smitten with our ancient past and also our future ever since, and privileged to know and work with such antiquarian luminaries as Tom Graves, Michael Green, Sig Lonegren, John Michell, Hamish Miller and Ronald Hutton.

I'm now retired and, since 2019, a cancer patient with a limited shelf-life. Formerly I was a book editor, webmaster, photographer, author, humanitarian worker (Middle East and Africa), and a counsellor, adviser and peacemaker.  I studied geography and social sciences at LSE 1968-71 and, since then, I've been absorbed in history, geopolitics, psychotherapy and alternative knowledge (such as astrology, cereology and geomancy), speaking, writing and teaching on these.

I'm known for the seminal book The Only Planet of Choice (1993). My latest is Shining Land, about Penwith's ancient sites. Before that was Possibilities 2050 (2018), about the future of the world, and before that came Power Points in Time (2014), about the astrology of cycles of time. Pictures of Palestine (2012) is the story of my exploits out there. The Kingfisher Encyclopaedia of World History, which I wrote in 1999, received a Smithsonian award. Click here to see all my books and here for more about me.

I've built and run interesting websites since 1995 - my own site and online archive is at palden.co.uk. I'm a sucker for big projects such as Ancient Penwith, for such things as the three holistic educational projects I founded in the 1980s-90s, and for tasks bordering sometimes on the impossible.

I'm the mainstay of the Ancient Penwith project, working in collaboration with Maen Mamvro and others. Also known for making a good cup of tea.

I spent my childhood in Cornwall and became interested in ancient sites and earth mysteries in the 1960s, when I knew many of the early researchers into leys and alignments, such as John Michell and Paul  Devereux. After university in London and Cambridge, I lived in the far north of Scotland for a few years before returning to the south, and working in teaching, bookselling, training and librarianship.

In 1986 I  returned to my native Cornwall, and have lived here ever since. Upon my return, I started the Cornish Earth Mysteries and alternative archaeology magazine Meyn Mamvro which has  been produced continuously since then, and is now approaching its 30th year of publication. From that came the Earth Mysteries guides to ancient sites in West Penwith, Bodmin Moor and North Cornwall, Mid-Cornwall, the Lizard and the Isles of Scilly.

I have written  extensively about the sacred and mythic landscape of the prehistoric peoples, and our relationship to it nowadays, in particular in books such as Pagan Cornwall, Fentynow Kernow: in search of Cornwall's holy wells, Megalithic Mysteries of Cornwall and Between the Realms: Cornish myth and magic. A parallel and interwoven interest has been Goddess spirituality, which I have explored in the magazine Goddess  Alive! that I edit, and in books such as The Earth Goddess: Celtic and pagan legacy of the landscape, Daughters of  the Earth, The Goddess in Crete and The Goddess in  Ireland.

Together with my partner, we run Goddess Tours International, whereby we take small groups of people to places such as Crete, Ireland and Malta, and we also have a home in Crete as well as Cornwall. I am passionate about Cornwall and her sacred sites and, although now 'retired', I continue to work for my ancestral land, and am Chair of the environmental group CASPN (Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network).

I live  with my partner (and our cat!) in West Penwith in a house overlooking the sea and close to the moors of this very special and sacred land.

Appreciation is extended to Craig Weatherhill and John Moss for their advice and expertise, to the late Hamish Miller and John Michell for the work they did locally, and to archaeologists and geomancers past and present for their input into the pool of knowledge and understanding of the ancient sites of West Penwith. And to Lynne Speight, for her company on the journey.