# John Michell — *The View Over Atlantis* / *The New View Over Atlantis* — chapter list and summaries

Working copies of source PDFs and plain-text extracts live in `~/dev/wget/michell/` (see `INDEX.md` there). Summaries below are from those extracts; they are **descriptive**, not endorsements of every historical or metrological claim.

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## Edition A — *The View Over Atlantis* (Ballantine Books, Nov. 1972 US printing; arrangement with Garnstone Press)

**Source file:** Internet Archive–derived PDF (`the view over atlantis -- john michell -- 1972 -- garnstone press…pdf`), **292 pages**. The imprint page in the scan reads Ballantine / first printing November 1972; copyright © Michell 1969.

**Structure:** Preface · Part One (3 chapters) · Part Two (7 chapters) · Part Three (essay, titled *Sacred Engineering* — not subdivided into numbered chapters in the body).

### Part One: The Lines

| Ch. | Title | Summary |
|-----|--------|---------|
| 1 | The Old Straight Track | Introduces Alfred Watkins and the “ley” idea: alignments of ancient sites, churches, mounds, and boundaries; aerial photography and crop marks; argument that a deliberate prehistoric **terrestrial geometry** once organized the British landscape. |
| 2 | Paths of the Dragon | Extends alignments to **Chinese geomancy** (dragon pulse / magnetic language), imperial ritual axes, and comparative “auspicious” siting; connects English place-name and hill folklore to the same class of landscape reading. |
| 3 | The Serpent Power | Broadest scale: a **worldwide pattern** of megaliths, pyramids, and tracks (cites diffusionist writers such as W.J. Perry); presents prehistory as a unified **scientific-spiritual** civil program rather than isolated local “forts.” |

### Part Two: The Instruments

| Ch. | Title | Summary |
|-----|--------|---------|
| 1 | Gematria, the Literary Science | **Number mysticism**: Pythagorean and cabalistic tradition; Greek/Hebrew letter-values; New Testament names as number codes; bridge from **literary** number to **monument** dimensions (Pyramid, Stonehenge) as “text.” |
| 2 | The Great Pyramid | Classic **pyramidology**: Piazzi Smyth, ratios, π and Earth measures, casing and sockets; monument as **indestructible coded repository** of a lost metrological science. |
| 3 | Woodhenge | Aerial discovery of post-holes; **Mercury** magic-square geometry; explicit parallel drawn to the Great Pyramid’s **planetary** numerology. |
| 4 | The Order of Art and Science Seen in a Flash | Alexander Thom’s geometry, magic squares, **alphabets as sacred number**; Druids, Greek connections, Hyperborea tropes. |
| 5 | Stonehenge and Glastonbury | Stonehenge as **solar** calculator (Hawkins etc.); geometric and alignment ties between **Stonehenge, Glastonbury Abbey, and Christian-era** continuators of landscape religion. |
| 6 | The Alchemical Fusion | **666 + 1080 → 1746** and related gematria; “fusion” of terrestrial and celestial number in gospel names and landscape diagrams. |
| 7 | The Astrological Garden | **Earth as organism** with “nerve centres” at sacred sites; formal gardens and **planned cities** as microcosmic mirrors; Vitruvius and early modern ideal city plans. |

### Part Three: Sacred Engineering

Single closing section (not numbered as a chapter in the same way). **Themes:** telluric / magnetic “favoured places” (Carnac, Tara, Chartres mound); Great Pyramid as **world magnetic centre** after a cataclysm (Atlantis trope); **Caviglia** living in the Pyramid; **Paul Brunton**’s King’s Chamber visionary account; lights and sounds at the Pyramid; **misuse of solar energy** and Atlantis destruction; long Druid training; continuity of mystery schools.

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## Edition B — *The New View Over Atlantis* (Thames & Hudson; this scan: **US 1995** printing, ISBN 0-500-27312-X)

**Source file:** `The new view over Atlantis … 1995 … pdf`, **228 pages**. Copyright page: fully revised edition first published London **1983**; US 1995.

Michell states in the preface that **Part Two was almost entirely rewritten** after *City of Revelation* and *Ancient Metrology*; Part One (leys) stayed largely as first written.

**Structure:** Preface · Part One **Landscape** (chs. 1–3) · Part Two **Number** (chs. 4–7). Old Part Three material is **folded into Chapter Seven** (*Sacred Engineering*).

| Ch. | Title | Summary |
|-----|--------|---------|
| 1 | The Old Straight Track | Same thematic core as Edition A Part One Ch.1; TOC also lists subsections (e.g. landscape “giant,” astronomers’ lines). |
| 2 | Paths of the Dragon | Parallel to Edition A Ch.2; subsections on dragons and dragon-slayers. |
| 3 | The Serpent Power | Parallel to Edition A Ch.3; adds subsections (e.g. earth spirit, Americas, “ley consciousness”). |
| 4 | Number and Measure | **Merged successor** to old Part Two opening + pyramid + woodhenge material: canonical numbers (5040, 666, etc.), McClain-style music–number, **Stonehenge** measures, **Great Pyramid** facts and “golden tip,” **magic squares** and planetary associations. |
| 5 | The Grain of Mustard Seed | **Alchemical–gospel** reading: pyramid as **fire/tetrahedron** seed; mustard-seed parable tied to Greek gematria and apex symbolism. |
| 6 | Glastonbury | Concentrated **Glastonbury–Stonehenge** sacred geography (patterns on the floor, New Jerusalem, astrological garden subthemes). |
| 7 | Sacred Engineering | Substantially the **old Part Three**: telluric centres, Chartres, Brunton, Pyramid lights, Atlantis cautionary tale, initiation. |

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## Quick cross-edition map

| Topic | Edition A (1972) | Edition B (1983/1995) |
|-------|------------------|------------------------|
| Leys / Watkins | Part One, chs. 1–3 | Part One, chs. 1–3 (lightly updated) |
| Pyramid numerology + Woodhenge | Separate chs. 2–3 in Part Two | Integrated into ch. 4 (+ mustard seed ch. 5) |
| Stonehenge + Glastonbury | Ch. 5 (+ threads elsewhere) | Ch. 6 + ch. 4 |
| Closing “sacred engineering” / Brunton / Chartres | Part Three | Ch. 7 |

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