Did Christ Visit The British IslesThe English visionary poet and mystic, William Blake, believed that Albion, the most ancient name for the British Isles, was the original and true Holy Land of Christ. In my well documented book “Vision of Albion: The Key to the Holy Grail” I show there may be some substance to such an intriguing notion. Drawing on historical source material I have investigated Blake’s mystical vision of Albion as the Holy Land of Christ, which is inextricably linked with the English poet’s intuitive feeling expressed in his famous lines – And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God, on England’s pleasant pastures seen?
As a result of deciphering clues from gaelic placenames, together with well established traditions and legends, my research supports the Blakean thesis of Christ’s presence in the British Isles. Furthermore, it appears that other members of the Holy Family, including the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea, may have visited the British Isles. If this was the case, then what might have been the reason for their coming from the Middle East to the Blessed Isles of the West?
My many years of research show that the Holy Family were very likely related to the contemporary royal lineages of Britain, in particular the Silurian royal household whose kingdom, at that time, appears to have stretched from present day south Wales to as far north as the south west of Scotland. Moreover, there may have been a common gaelic ancestry between the old British royalty and the Jesus family from Galilee in the Middle East.
According to Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms, writing in 1834: “It has escaped all observation, as far as I have discovered, that the country about Tyre and Sidon, as far as Acre anciently bore the name of Galilee, or country of the Gael on the sea coast; the very name, Gael, the Phoenician colonies in Europe called themselves, and gave to their settlement in Europe….I feel unwilling to go beyond the bounds of just criticism, or to strain a point in favour of any hypothesis, but can I refuse to claim the Phoenicians as the ancestors of the Gael, and Galilee for their original country?” (The Gael and the Cymbri)
Geographically, Galilee was originally part of southern Phoenicia. It is generally accepted that the seafaring Phoenician traders visited Britain, in particular Cornwall, where there is also an old tradition about the visit there of both Jesus and His great uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. The tribes of the Gael, part of the greater Celtic racial streaming, are thought to have migrated westwards from Galatia in Asia Minor (now modern Turkey), via Galicia in northern Spain, eventually reaching the British Isles where we find, for example, such gaelic placenames as Galoway in Scotland, and Galway in Ireland. The retention of the ‘gal’ prefix suggests the presence of the Gael in these areas.
However, what seems to have escaped general notice, as Sir William Betham observed, is the gaelic significance of the placename Galilee in Palestine. Could this suggest the presence of the Celtic Gael there, bearing in mind that Jesus and His family were Galileans. This possible common racial background would suggest a basis for the Galilean royal family of Jesus, descended from the Biblical King David, being related to the gaelic royalty of ancient Britain.
I further record that the entire cycle of legends which has the Holy Grail for its centre is concerned with Britain and Britain alone. I also quote sources which identify the Holy Grail corpus with the tradition of the hidden Shambhala. Incredibly, perhaps, my investigations suggest that the famed Shambhala, the abode of spiritual master beings said to be overseeing the evolution of the human race, is not located in the region of the Asian Himalayas, as is traditionally believed, but rather is located within the sacred Isles of Britain, William Blake’s Holy Land of the West.
