Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, November 2022
Creating Places of Power:
Geomancy, Builders’ Rites, and Electional Astrology
In the Hermetic Tradition
By Nigel Pennick
Inner Traditions
Bear & Company
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
1999, 2022, 336 pages, 6 x 9, U.S. $24.99
91 b&w illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-64411-584-8
Also available as an ebook
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
Nigel Pennick is regarded as an authority on ancient beliefs, folk traditions, spiritual art, runes and various other ancient alphabets, labyrinths, and geomancy. The founder of the Institute of Geomantic Research and the Library of the European Tradition, whose artwork has been exhibited in England and the U.S., has authored and illustrated over 60 books, including such titles as Magic in the Landscape, The Book of Primal Signs, and The Ancestral Power of Amulets, Talismans and Mascots. He organized six geomantic conferences in Cambridge and Royston.
In Creating Places of Power, Pennick brings to bear what he does best. His knowledge runs deep in all of this, from his many years of in-depth research. He illustrates and illuminates a sweeping array of historical and multicultural examples from ancient Egypt, Iran, India, and across Europe, delving also into secret societies like the Rosicrucian’s and Freemasons, the creation and alignments of sacred buildings and places of power, Feng Shui, Hermetic meanings, and ancient principles of divination, chronomancy, and electional astrology.
Pennick covers a vast multitude of aspects. He further details the geomantic principles relating to the structure of the world as well as cosmic patterns of time and space, declaring that this knowledge remains as meaningful for us today as it was for our ancient forefathers.
