The ancient sacred landscape of Perillos

 

Three aligned chapels

To find that all three chapels/churches of Perillos (St Michael, St Barbara & St Theresa) are situated on one line is a major and unexpected find. To find that this line also incorporates the highest hill in the area – and that this hill marked the border between the Roussillon and France – is another major component. It shows that the sites on which the chapels were built is not a coincidence, but clearly the result of a design.

“Leylines”

The concept of “leylines” was introduced after Alfred Watkins noticed that churches and other chapels were aligned. Since his discovery in the early 20th century, a lot of ink has been used in trying to determine what these leylines mean. In the 1960s, it became popular to explain the lines as “energy lines”. However, all experts on the subject now agree that leylines originate from the idea that souls could only travel in straight lines, a belief that existed both in ancient until recent times. As a result, many religious monuments were aligned, resulting in the so-called leylines.
The Perillos line qualifies as a leyline and given that some of the chapels date back hundreds of years argues for the notion that it at some point was constructed with the notion of spirit travel.

High places of worship

On any leyline, certain points are more important than others. The main components of this line are:

- Montaillou de Perillou, the highest peak in the area and thus a likely choice.
- St Michael, sitting on top of the conical hill, surrounded by the actual village of Perillos

From the steps of St Michael’s church (but not lower down in the village), the chapel of St Barbara in the valley below becomes visible. This chapel itself sits on a noteworthy mound in the otherwise rather flat valley, through which the modern road now runs.
So far, three noteworthy sites have been identified. All three are natural features – designed by Nature – hence God, and hence probably identified as being of religious significance. These sites were therefore many centuries if not millennia ago identified by special markers: standing stones, dolmen, etc.

The chapel of St Barbara does not sit on a noteworthy mound. It could have been placed at some other location inside the hamlet of Vall Oriole. That it sits in its precise location strongly suggests that its siting is not a coincidence, but carefully engineered so that it would fit within the “natural leyline”; as such, the hamlet of Vall Oriole sits within the sacred design of Perillos – and belongs to it, as it did.

A second line of sight

This leyline is not the only one. A secondary one is present within the Perillos landscape. Once again it is centred on Montaillou de Perillou. The second line incorporates the following sites:
- the Caune cave, an underground cavity that is known to be a site of religious significance from prehistoric times onwards. It may actually be the oldest religious sanctuary of the area.
- “Siege de la Mort”, a building with the intriguing name of the “Seat of Death”. Its importance is underlined in that it sits on the crossroads of two old roads, including the original main road that connected the plateau of Opoul with the village of Perillos. Furthermore, it sits inside a valley that is known as the “Valley of Dead”. However, nothing in the landscape indicates the special importance of this site. As there is line of sight towards the Caune and Montaillou de Perillou, it suggests that human observation was responsible for incorporating this site in the alignment.

Further south is the fourth point, which is once again a totally natural location: the enigmatic Roc Redon, that juts out of the surrounding landscape, just to the west of the plateau of Opoul. It is the enigmatic formation that is largely unique in the Roussillon and that was used by Saunière as a point of recognition on his model. Its unique status – and enigmatic appearance – must have set it apart for our distant forefathers, to mark it out as a “special place”.

Correspondences

Each line has thus four points, with both lines ending – converging – at the highest point of the area. Each line also has clearly defined points that coincide with the other: both Vall Oriole and Roc Redon sit in the valley west of Perillos; both the chapel of St Barbara and La Caune sit in the valley east of Perillos, in the shadow of Montaillou de Perillou. Both St Michael’s Church and the Seat of Death sit on the hills that separate the two valleys.
Finally, each line has one “moveable” point. For the first line, it is the chapel of Vall Oriole, which is situated in the extension of the other three points. For the second line, it is the Seat of Death, which is placed in between the Roc Redon and the Caune.

Northern alignments

The three chapels are aligned north-south, contrary to Catholic tradition which stipulates a more traditional east-west alignment. Digressions from the norm normally indicate that the site on which the church was built is either too cramped to allow for a normal alignment, or was the site of a pre-Christian sanctuary. However, digressions from the east-west alignment are normally small. Often, it was to coincide with the original alignment of the pre-Christian monument; sometimes this might be aligned to the winter or summer solstice sunrise or sunset. A north-south alignment is very rare, specifically for the time period in which the Perillos churches were erected. In Protestant countries, some churches were aligned north-south, in defiance of Catholic doctrine, but even then, this practice was limited in scope, and the timeframe in which it occurred.

Why north-south ?

The leyline might suggest that the churches are aligned along the length of this line, but this is clearly not the case; the leyline does not run north-south. The north-south alignment could be interpreted as a meridian marker, but once again, this does not compute as the leyline does not run north-south.
It suggests that a study of the north-south alignment does needs to be seen on an individual basis. Whereas the northern sky would align the churches to the north pole and polar stars (such as the Great Bear), it might be the southern alignment that might be the key to unlock the mystery. However, only time and repeated on site inspections will reveal whether or not this is the case.
The south is often connected with the “sun at noon” phenomenon, which in itself was often linked with the shadow conical hills threw on the surrounding landscape. In Celtic countries, it is known that e.g. the point where the shadow of the top of a conical hill fell on the surrounding landscape on such dates as the winter or summer solstice, was marked by a “holy tree” or another “sacred marker”. This would work both for the shadows of Perillos and the rock outcrop of St Barbara, which would be to the North of both sites. However, the above “play of shadows” is only a possibility and the actual reason for the north-south alignment of these chapels may have other reasons – which remain to be identified.

Pagan origins

It is likely that we are confronted with a pagan landscape, which became “Christianised”. Throughout Western Europe, Perillos does follow the tradition in which hills – and conical hills in particular – were normally dedicated to the pagan god Wotan. The Christian faith, throughout Europe, normally rededicated these sites to St Michael.
Wotan was the God of Thunder and Lightning, and is equivalent to the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter. This identification further aides us to analyse the leyline of Perillos. We note that St Barbara was a non-existent saint, but that her presence in Perillos is specifically bizarre. Even though Perillos was rich in mines, the history of Perillos does suggest that Perillos was never primarily known for its mining activity. If anything, the mining activity in Perillos seems to have been for a specific purpose – and limited audience. However, we know that St Barbara is specifically connected with lightning (her father was struck down by lightning), as well as people working with dangerous materials, such as miners – which cause explosions, similar to thunder. Furthermore, we note that the rocky outcrop on which her chapel sits is also conical, suggesting that it also might originally have been dedicated to Wotan. The church, I suggest, hesitated to dedicate two sites so close to each other to St Michael, and hence opted for St Barbara, whose attributes of lightning overlap with those of Wotan.
The natural alignment thus suggests that two conical outcrops were dedicated to Wotan/Zeus/Jupiter… leaving the question what the Montaillou de Perillou signified.

The Mount of Olives

Montaillou de Perillou is also known as the “Mount of Olives”, even though olive trees never grew on its side – or anything else. The name does suggest a biblical connection, which we need to explore briefly.
Though the Mount is best known as a key location in the New Testament, the site’s location in Jerusalem has meant that many other biblical figures have used it, from King David via Solomon and Josiah to Ezekiel, who had the vision of The Lord and the flying cherubim (Ezekiel 11:22-23) above it. Less known is that in the Bible, Jesus appeared to his disciples on the mount after his Resurrection and that he actually ascended into heaven from there (Acts 1:1-12).

As the highest mountain, pagan tradition would have identified it as the domain of the gods – the Mount Olympus from which Zeus – the Greek Wotan – ruled. One would normally not expect to find human settlements; the mountain after all was the domain of the Gods, not Mankind. Zeus reigned from Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, just like Montaillou de Perillou is the highest peak in the region. This is not the only correspondence: Mount Olympus lies on the border of Macedonia and Thessaly, just like Montaillou de Perillou was situated on the border of the Roussillon and France. With so many “coincidences”, we need to suggest a design.

In many Mediterranean cultures, some altars or other religious site was sometimes placed on the lower to middle slopes of the hill. If this ever did occur in Perillos, we should expect to find that on the “leyline”.
Right now, the crown of the mountain is built up by the radar station of Météo France, but the local population remembers that the top of the hill once had a cave. We should note that in Greece, Zeus was often identified with caves on the slopes of mountains, specifically on Crete, where one cave was the legendary site of his birth, the other of his death. In both cases, both mountains on which the caves were situated were sacred mountains – and were aligned with Minoan palaces-temples in the valleys far below. A similar set-up seems to be present in Perillos.

In summary, it suggests that we are in the presence of three ancient sites dedicated to Wotan/Zeus/Jupiter, whereby the origin of the site in Vall Oriole is less known. No doubt the first settlers there either settled because of the presence of a religious monument there, or immediately incorporated their settlement into the sacred alignment of Perillos by erecting the chapel.

A line of churches

A final note on the line of churches in Perillos takes us beyond actual observations and into the land of “what ifs”. The mystery of Rennes-le-Château has been specifically focussed on the church of Saunière. Specifically Henry Lincoln then continued with the design of a “circle of churches”, as well as the infamous “pentagram”. Let us note that the only three forms of sacred landscape design that are known are: a alignment like a leyline; a series of “leylines” radiating out from one point, and an oval – not a circle. As such, the Perillos line sits firmly within the known and accepted designs of sacred landscape design – the constructions drawn on the landscape of Rennes-le-Château can at best be described as incidental, but largely void of all the features accepted designs carry with them (such as the inclusion of the highest mountains, conical peaks, etc.)
“What if” de Sède and Plantard were made aware that the mystery of Saunière involved a specific alignment of churches that had been linked with his secret? Intriguingly, this works for Perillos, where Saunière may have realised the ancient alignment of churches also, but where we know that he used at least one site of the sacred landscape – Roc Redon – as part of the codification of his secret on the model – a model which we know was destined to give his knowledge to a group of people that were waiting for it – but which they never received.
Had this group of people been told that Saunière had worked his secret into a model of a sacred landscape, in which alignments of churches played an important part? If not, then this can only be classified as a major coincidence.

Filip Coppens