Thin Places: The Ancient Idea That Some Locations Are Closer to the Other Side
Celtic tradition holds that certain places on Earth are separated from the spirit world by only the thinnest of veils. Mystics, physicists, and a surprising number of ordinary people believe they've found them.
There is a concept in Celtic spirituality called a 'thin place' — a location where the boundary between the physical world and whatever lies beyond it is unusually permeable. The idea is ancient, but it has found a surprisingly receptive audience in the modern world, including among people who would not normally describe themselves as spiritual.
The experience of a thin place is described with remarkable consistency across cultures and centuries: a sudden sense of presence, a feeling of being watched or accompanied, an alteration in the quality of light or sound, and — most commonly — an overwhelming sense that the ordinary rules of time and space do not quite apply.
The locations most frequently described as thin places share certain physical characteristics. They tend to be geologically unusual — sites of volcanic activity, fault lines, or unusual mineral concentrations. They tend to be old — places where human activity has been continuous for thousands of years. And they tend to be liminal — coastlines, mountain passes, the edges of forests, the boundaries between land and water.
Iona, the small island off the west coast of Scotland, is perhaps the most famous thin place in the British Isles. St Columba established his monastery there in 563 CE, reportedly because he could feel the spiritual intensity of the place. Visitors today — religious and secular alike — consistently report experiences that they struggle to explain in ordinary terms.
The physicist's response to thin places is usually to invoke geomagnetic anomalies, infrasound, or the psychological effects of isolation and expectation. These are legitimate explanations for some of what people experience. They are not complete explanations.
What is interesting is that the thin place concept maps surprisingly well onto locations that have independently been identified as anomalous by scientific instruments. The Hessdalen valley in Norway — where unexplained lights have been documented for forty years — sits on a geological fault line with unusual electromagnetic properties. The South Bridge Vaults in Edinburgh have measurable magnetic field variations. Glastonbury Tor has been the subject of multiple geophysical surveys that have found nothing to explain its reputation — and several things that might.
Tonight is Samhain. If the old traditions are right, the veil is at its thinnest. I'm not sure I believe that. But I'm not sure I don't.