Review Detail

This beautiful book is a magic carpet ride for the intellect and the soul. Throughout millennia, the sacred sites so exquisitely photographed by Martin Gray have been imbued by human devotion as places of power and spiritual connection. He not only captures their essence with his camera, but his commentary illuminates the holiness of each site with an extraordinary combination of scholarship and mysticism.

Gray set out to record the great spiritual art of the ages before it was lost through decay or destruction, and to reawaken a sense of reverence and connection to the living earth. He hoped that readers would share his sense of “a larger involvement in the growing community of conscious, life-serving people of the world.” He invites us to recognize in the art and architecture of these “places of peace and power” a universal yearning for mystical union that unites humanity around the world and across the ages.

In the preface, Gray describes an early revelation that his mission in life was to be “a paintbrush in the hand of God.” What a fine one he has become; if I hadn't received a review copy of this lavish coffee table book, I would definitely have to go out and buy it.