Sacred Earth is a large book - what is called a ‘coffee table book’ in the United States - and it weighs five pounds, or a bit more than two kilograms. It has lovely color photographs of a couple hundred sacred sites, short essays about each of the sites, five maps made by National Geographic, a bibliography and a listing of five hundred additional pilgrimage sites around the world. The book is arranged by the major regions of the world, with chapters for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. The book’s preface was written by Graham Hancock, a close friend of mine. Graham is one of the world’s leading scholars on ancient civilizations, Egypt and archaeoastronomy. He is the author of numerous international bestsellers including Fingerprints of the Gods, The Sign and the Seal, and Underworld. Sacred Earth is a hardback book too, which makes it easier to hold, to sit with it on one’s lap while looking at the photographs. The price of the book is great too. In a bookstore it costs $35 but you can order it from Amazon.com, the Internet bookseller, for only $25. If you would like to support our work, you can order an autographed copy of Sacred Earth along with a Sacred Sites video on DVD for $45. Order the book and DVD.

A preview below:

From Mount Olympus in Greece to Peru's Machu Picchu, some of the world's most sacred places still draw thousands of visitors each year. Here is a selection of some of the world's most sacred sites.

he Men-An-Tol Stones in Cornwall are famous in local folklore for their supposed healing properties. Located near Penzance, pilgrims should crawl through the centre stone in the direction of the sun to cure such ailments as rheumatism and spinal problems. Many people who have made the trip tell of feelings of euphoria after passing through the stone.

Mount Olympus is the traditional home of the Greek gods. The spiritual powers that are said to emanate from Greece's tallest mountain have, for hundreds of years, drawn hermits and hippies to live in the nearby caves and forests.

The remote Greek Orthodox Monastery of Roussanou sits perched atop spires of ancient sandstone rock. Paleolithic remains suggest the presence of settlements as far back as 100,000 BC, though the 24 monastries - only six remain today - were not built until the 16th century.

The mysterious mountaintop shrine of Nemrut Dagi, in south-central Turkey, was known only to local herders until it was 'discovered' in 1881. Believed to be the burial site of Antiochus, a king from the first century BC, it is a mixture of temples, sculptures and terraces built at an altitude of over 7,000 feet.

The Holy City in Jerusalem has existed as a place of spirituality for thousands of years, and remains one of the world's most important holy sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The mountain of Nantai-San in Japan is a favoured site for Buddhist meditation and has been a place of pilgrimage since the fourth century.

At 22,000 feet Mount Kailash is one of the world's most venerated, but also least visited sacred sites. The few thousand pilgrims each year who do make the trek include Hindus, who believe Kailash to be the home of Shiva.

The hundreds of carved heads that adorn Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were in use as early as 500 BC. They are said to represent an ideology of male, lineage-based authority.

In a remarkable setting in the Andean mountains, Machu Picchu is undoubtably one of the world's most beautiful sacred sites. The Inca retreat, rediscovered in 1911, is believed to have existed as both a ceremonial and astronomical site.

The Swayambhunath Stupa in Nepal is the oldest holy shrine in the Kathmandu Valley, existing as a pilgrimage destination for Buddhists since the fifth century. The large eyes on each side of the temple are symbolic of God's all-seeing perspective. Also called Monkey Temple, the site is crowded with simians after dark.