Thin places

Huh?!!

(probably not!)

What?

I think you've over written half your post. Maybe more like all.

There's certainly a Celtic/Gaelic feeling about "thin" places - where the boundaries between corporeal reality and some spiritual afterlife feel vague. These are often associated with standing stones and other ancient places of worship.

Did you hear shouts of "Crivens" in a thick accent?

A while back we had a holiday in Stockholm with our teenage son. He commented on the lack of overweight/obese people (compared with home in Scotland).

So I quess in that respect I've been in a Thin Place 😊

Anyone else felt they’ve been in a Thin Place whilst on earth.

Sober or after several days hard partying?

Has ChatGPT had a stroke?

https://dougiemaclean.com/index.php/f/41-feel-so-near

The old man looks out to the island he says this place is endless thin
There's no real distance here to mention we might all fall in all fall in
No distance to the spirits of the living no distance to the spirits of the dead
And as he turned his eyes were shining and he proudly said proudly said

Has ChatGPT had a stroke?

I think it's trying it's hand at poetry

Maybe it wants to be a bard?

I went to Papa Westray recently. That's a fairly thin place.

Did you hear shouts of “Crivens” in a thick accent?

Nice!

I went to Papa Westray recently.

Whereas we looked at Westray from Rousay and I have to say I was pretty taken by it - and so were ancient people who had built various brochs and more there...

I went to Papa Westray recently. That’s a fairly thin place.

Theres a point on Shetland where you can go coast to coast - from the Atlantic to the North Sea - in just 50 meters

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shetland+Islands/ @60.3977817,-1.3853807,219m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x489c14686803c3cf:0xd3639a2515cb557f!8m2!3d60.5296507!4d-1.2659409!16zL20vMDc1M24?entry=ttu

There’s certainly a Celtic/Gaelic feeling about “thin” places – where the boundaries between corporeal reality and some spiritual afterlife feel vague. These are often associated with standing stones and other ancient places of worship.

This is mainly people that want to feel connected to some imagined mysticism, imo, seeing as we have barely got a clue what went on in those ancient places. We are literally putting our best guess that they are places of worship. (Imagine when archaeologists dig up football pitches in 2000 years time and find dog bones, coins, the odd urn full of ashes of a veteran player and oddly placed posts...)  And, of course, those ancient places have as much to do with Celtic/Gaelic culture as Roman culture has to do with ours. I do love the mythology of liminal places though.

I was talking to a colleague about Crete a few days ago, and he was saying about visiting the leper colony on Spinalonga, and how it felt such an eerie place. I replied that I'd had that same feeling at Mametz Wood on the Somme, a place of death for so many people, but was it simply that we knew what happened in those places so expected to feel something? By the same token, I didn't get the same feeling at other tourist attractions like Alcatraz, Robben Island or any of the numerous stone circles I've visited. (Although Long Meg and her Daughters was a bit spooky, but that's because it was almost dark, midwinter, and I had 10 miles to ride alone back to my hotel... 😀 )

Still no idea what a Thin Place is.

Maybe it's like the cheese press in alum pot?

Still no idea what a Thin Place is.

Thin places are places of energy. A place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one.

It's a pretty common idea in fiction and mythology - accessing the underworld in old British mythology; entering the faerie world in a Neil Gaiman novel (iirc?); even perhaps Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter.

If I don't understand something I don't understand it.

I could I suppose just invent some utter bollox to appear to have great understanding rather than a deep ignorance. I believe it's a popular choice and you can I notice take a lot of people along for the ride.😊

It’s a pretty common idea in fiction and mythology – accessing the underworld in old British mythology; entering the faerie world in a Neil Gaiman novel (iirc?); even perhaps Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter.

And as scotroutes says, there is some strong evidence that historically ancient peoples held special regard for places that they felt were this way.
It is hard to explain, but I get why people would feel this way. I understand why they chose some of the places - near the wild elements, open to distant places, and centred in their understanding of nature and the universe.
Go and spend time in wild & remote places, without modern interruptions or resources....that may be the best way of understanding.

Failing that, do a Billy Connolly.
https://twitter.com/sandracoleen00/status/1166849872575815680?s=20

I may be miss understanding so apologies but stay with me. Perhaps not a thin place in terms of a physical location but during deep thoughts where You try to let go of all preconceptions (so a meditation of sorts) I have felt like I am tripping and as if there is a element of someone I can't really describe but perhaps transcendens of some sort. Only achieved it once. No drugs.

Yep I get the stone circle idea and have visited lots but only thought interesting nice place and have spent months at a time in isolated remote places but again thoroughly enjoyed it but it was  no spiritual experience.

The Brick, sort of but no. Just the idea of a place being closer to the next step after death or another reality. Quite a common concept. No meditation or drugs required just the general feel of a place as a whole.

I went to Papa Westray recently. That’s a fairly thin place.

I think you'll find Papa John's is thinner.

And possibly crispier

Thin places are places of energy. A place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one.

Ah! Gotcha, LSD

about visiting the leper colony on Spinalonga, and how it felt such an eerie place

On our honeymoon we went to Aphrodite's grotto in Cyprus.
I hopefully asked my missus if she felt anything. Cold and hungry. Not the response I was hoping for to be honest.

In some places the myth is much better than the reality.

I hopefully asked my missus if she felt anything.

Not a question to ask on your honeymoon.

I know the OP in real life and at first I thought WTF has he been partaking of!!

But having read a bit deeper I sort of get what he's saying?

Never experienced anything, but find it interesting. (I've been listening to a lot of Blindboy and Manchan Magan recently...)

There's some stuff the ancients had figured out, which we've largely lost these days. Some would say it's progress, a move away from superstitious mumbo jumbo. I'm not so sure...

There's an old settlement on the hill not far from me, a quiet, seldom visited place. The old meadows are still green and heather free, little mushrooms grow plentifully on parts of the green come the end of this month.
It's a place I like to ride up to and sit next to the old walls from time to time.
Perhaps I should partake of more than a microdose next time I'm up, see if the veil thins. Im a big feartie though.

Cleared villages all over the Highlands have an energy to them, but I wouldn't say it was thinness, just an echo of the tragedy which happened there.
Equally horrible things were happening in every city in the land at the same time no doubt, but it's not the same there.
I think stillness is a major component, space to think and imagine times of old.

<p style="text-align: left;">There's a couple of "old places" near the town where my Mum's side of the family are from in Ireland like that. An old hill fort is the one that stays with me - I remember my great aunt being really disturbed by it and warned not to go there.</p>

I’ve been for a short hike today to explore a patch of ancient woodland near me, an absolute gem of a place which must have been a pre Roman settlement given its views across three valleys and across to the Pennines, I didn’t feel much in my bones about it the way I have other places, some close by, like where Old Street (called that because the Romans came along and built their new road half a mile east) goes by the old woods at Hampole, that feels eerily ancient in the sunken lanes.

Last year on the Wolds inland of Filey I got really emotional in a deep green dale near Hunmanby. Doing a bit of research afterwards the area is a huge concentration of Neolithic sites and we were at the site the Folkton Drums were excavated.

I’ve jumped into this rabbit hole a bit, and I really recommend Julian Cope’s The Modern Antiquarian and The Old Stones edited by Andy Burnham. You don’t have to believe any of the spiritual guff, but great for putting the landscape in historical context when often our first glance is dominated by modern features and use. If we holiday in UK I take them along and it gives a nice focus for planning hikes and rides.

Did some microdosing of shrooms a while back, twas not a thin place nor a thick place.

I've walked to Compostelle four times, been to all sorts of neolithic and earlier sites, visited more cathedrals and churches than is healthy, and searched quite hard for something spiritual - zilch. The nearest I got was an "hopital",  a pilgrim stopover, on the top of a Galician mountain. In my mind I could see the thousands of pilgrims who'd tramped that way before me and felt part of it, and very peaceful. But that's all quite logical and based on too much interest in history and too much tramping along pilgrim routes.

The schrooms experience is existential rather than spiritual IME.

Are you guys talking about the Backrooms?

I often feel like I've crossed over into a parallel universe, everything seems normal but then I notice that Ben Fogle is still on broadcast media and I know something just isn't right...

I understand what is meant by ‘thin places’, and I’ve been to a fair number of places which have connections with Neolithic cultures, but I’ve never felt any significant connection with anything ancient, other than peace and quiet at some of them; once the tourists have pissed off!
Various bits of plastic tat, like ribbons and other crap tied to branches and candles left in nooks and crannies, along with ‘offerings’ tend to remove any real sense of mystery that such places ought to possess. Bloody hippies! 🤬

I remember an article a number of years ago about a chap who was convinced ley lines were part of a doorway between this world and the next. So deep was his conviction that he was found dead lying on what was considered to be a ley line, or a junction of them(I forget the actual details)

I cant remember if he committed suicide or died naturally. Possibly the former.

Did some microdosing of shrooms a while back, twas not a thin place nor a thick place.

Microdosing 😕  You want to have half a kilo of them for some idea of what they really do to you.

Half a kilo is maybe a tad excessive. :-O

I'm not sure you'd ever come back, mentally, from that kind of dose.

The micro-dosing thing is interesting and has merit for more research I think...the problem is it's such a taboo subject, and of course in the vaccum of fact, we have all the pseudo hippies on instagram or whatever banging on about it talking all sorts of crap.

Things like Psilocybin and also LSD are increadibly powerful drugs when taken at over threshold levels. Trust me, I know!

By threshold, I mean that you can take 'x' amount and not realy feel much, but if you take enough just over the threshold.. boom... your'e not in Kansas anymore for about 12-18 hours, or what I would call a 'real trip'.

Mushrooms are interesting, as you dont really 'peak' in a liniar way like you do on LSD, the high comes in waves, one second you feel totally straight, and the next second your in cloud cookoo land, and it keeps happening, it can be very traumatic for someone who's not used to it.

There’s some stuff the ancients had figured out, which we’ve largely lost these days.

Really? Is that a specific theory or just sentiment?

Nothing to do with psychedelics I'd say, been there done that, great fun but not connected.

It was Ben Fogles Sacred Islands talking about it after a conversation with a friend that got me thinking.

Not a religious experience or any need for it to be a place of worship though if such places have been recognised why not pray to your God of choice there.

It's the tangible feeling a doorway or alternate place is virtually within touch, I've only experienced it once but find it an interesting concept.

Mr Overshoot this must be fairly normal compared to previous chats!

I had read, and heard, so much about how special Iona is. About people connecting with some spiritual feeling. On a cycle tour I made a specific trip there, with the intention of camping on the island. I was severely disappointed. It had no "feel" for me at all and I found it hard to look past the fact that every building seemed to be selling something. I got the ferry back to Mull and camped at Fidden Farm instead.

well there's

or alternatively

britain's narrowest street, apparently.

Or alternatively again, if thin means "a bit spooky" which is how I'd summarise the OP, then loads of places qualify. Graveyards after dark, spooky old buildings, etc etc.

Various bits of plastic tat, like ribbons and other crap tied to branches and candles left in nooks and crannies, along with ‘offerings’ tend to remove any real sense of mystery that such places ought to possess. Bloody hippies!

Agreed - and can we include flippin' prayer flags from the Buddhists. The flags seem to be popping up all over the place. Just spoils a nice natural place.

Finding thin places in the natural world.

scotroutes agree on Iona I've been as used to live close by and it's a very pretty island but that's it.

"Thin" places and spooky are not the same. Graveyards are just dead people so not spooky unless you believe in zombies or vampires. You've kind of missed the point but never mind.

I do like prayer flags on mountain passes but that's just a reminder of fun climbing trips.

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