All this work didn't take an afternoon. In fact it took many years work and many thousands of miles of travelling across the globe.
We travelled from the beautifully romantic city of Paris, with its enigmatic buildings and wonderfully laid back atmosphere, to frantic and noisy Rome, with its carefree and yet devout attitude to life. We took in the cosmopolitan Malta - a mixture of medieval Europe's greatest minds and artistic flare - and saw for ourselves the serpentine temples of Mnadjra and the time capsule of crusader Mdina. We climbed mountains in Cyprus to discover Orthodox Greek Cypriot Churches with their incredible iconography. On to Egypt, with its ancient and sacred secrets, locked up in images that play mysterious tricks upon the mind. From there we flew across the vast oceans to America, where we met up with the North American Indians and engrossed ourselves in the culture and traditions; sweat lodges, respect for the earth and an understanding of the ancient spirits. Next we made our way to the Far East and bent our minds to the new mindset required to comprehend the Eastern ways.
We took in Portugal, Spain, Greece and many more places on our "Grail Journey" and we came away with our "truth". Now, after two years of laborious work our journey has come to an end with the launch of our book, The Serpent Grail and boy, what a journey. But in many respects this is a journey we have only just begun.
Before being a writer and researcher I had been a marketing guy and had found my life lacking in spirit and fun, especially the joy of travel. Then I discovered a secret in the depths of ancient texts and my mind raced, where my body could not go. And so a new quest had begun, a new life was sparked in that moment of discovery and I could no longer resist the desire to go see and touch the amazing history of man's past for myself. It was a unique journey of discovery, for everywhere I went I saw confirmation of my insight.
In Paris, I visited the Louvre and saw the culmination of thousands of years of the inner wisdom tradition, which surrounded the serpent cult. In Rome, I immersed myself in the feeling of the timeless city and incredibly came away with more than I had bargained for. Even in the Vatican there were thousands of images of the wise serpent. In St Peter's the very columns were topped with winged snakes. In Malta, I found the imagery of St Paul's supposed contact with the serpent cults and visited the ancient megalithic monuments erected by serpent cults. In Egypt, I saw first hand the mysterious images of snakes, which are simply everywhere and in South America I enjoyed the warm embrace of the serpent cults descendants who still live and work in the remote areas.
But this is a new life for me and my co-author, Gary Osborn, because neither of us have ever been big authors before on the world-wide stage. It is a new journey also, because we are now signed up to an American company (www.powerplaces.com) in-order to take other people on our journey too - another unique experience. We are hoping that we can re-live the excitement and joy we felt as we travelled across the globe on our voyage of discovery, and we hope that others will too. It is a wonderful world, full of mystery, awe, beauty and excitement. We may still think the world is a small place, that can be traversed in just a few hours by some modern fast jet, but in truth, getting down to the ground, we see and experience much, much more.
Philip Gardiner
www.philipgardiner.net
Best selling author, researcher and lecturer. Works through www.powerplaces.com on tours and is also a radio presenter