07/06/2026
Archangel Michael and the Awakening of Glastonbury
For thousands of years, Glastonbury has been associated with awakening, pilgrimage and the meeting place between Heaven and Earth. Among the great beings connected with this landscape, none appears more consistently than Archangel Michael.
Today, the tower standing upon Glastonbury Tor remains dedicated to St Michael. To visitors this may simply appear as a surviving medieval church tower. Yet for others, it stands as something older and deeper: a marker in a sacred landscape carrying memory across ages.
There is a long tradition across Britain and Europe of high hills, Tors and sacred places being associated with Michael. Michael churches frequently appear upon elevated sites, places where sky and land seem to meet. In Glastonbury this relationship becomes especially powerful.
Some modern spiritual traditions believe that Michael is not merely a protector, but a guardian of transitions between ages.
Many believe humanity is now moving into what has become known as the Age of Aquarius: an age associated with greater unity, consciousness, collaboration and the restoration of relationship between humanity and the living Earth. Astrologically, this idea is linked to the precession of the equinoxes, the long celestial cycle through which different zodiac ages emerge over approximately 2,000 to 2,300 year periods.
Within Glastonbury spirituality there are those who feel that this transition has accelerated in recent decades and that Glastonbury has a particular role to play.
Some hold the belief that two thousand years ago a seed of consciousness was brought from Old Jerusalem to Britain by the family and followers of Christ and placed symbolically within the land to awaken at the beginning of a new age.
Whether understood literally, spiritually or symbolically, Glastonbury has become for many a living expression of New Jerusalem: not replacing ancient Jerusalem, but representing a continuation of sacred consciousness emerging in a new form.
Perhaps this is one reason why Glastonbury attracts such extraordinary diversity. Today more than eighty active spiritual paths and traditions are represented here. Rather than competing truths, many experience them as different streams flowing toward a shared remembering.
Personally, I prefer not to speak of a “New Age.”
I prefer to speak of a Golden Age.
Not because perfection arrives overnight, but because humanity slowly remembers itself.
An age centred not upon power but relationship.
Not domination but stewardship.
Not fear but love.
Many traditions associate Michael with this transition.
Yet the Michael of the sacred landscape is often different from the image that later became popularised. Rather than a warrior destroying the dragon, Michael can be understood as entering relationship with the dragon.
Across churches in the South West there are images of Michael standing above or before the dragon. To me this has always represented something more subtle.
The dragon is the Earth.
The dragon is life force.
The dragon is the ancient intelligence sleeping within the land and within ourselves.
The lance of Michael is not a weapon of destruction but a channel.
Cosmic consciousness descending into Earth.
Spirit entering matter.
Sky marrying land.
This symbolism becomes especially meaningful in places such as Glastonbury Tor.
For generations, local esoteric traditions have connected the Tor with dragon symbolism and Earth energies. The hill itself has often been described as a sleeping dragon.
Who better to guard a sleeping dragon than Michael?
Not to kill it. To awaken it wisely.
This understanding expanded in the twentieth century through the work of the writer and mystic John Michell, who observed alignments of sacred sites across southern Britain and proposed that many Michael churches and hilltops appeared connected.
Later, Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst explored what became known as the Michael and Mary currents, describing intertwining energetic pathways moving across the landscape.
Their work became highly influential within modern Glastonbury spirituality.
Some see these as literal energies.
Others understand them symbolically.
But both point toward the same mystery:
That consciousness itself may move through place.
In Glastonbury these currents are often experienced as expressions of the masculine and feminine principles.
When I stand upon the Tor, I connect with both.
The Michael current and the Mary current.
The active and the receptive.
Sky and Earth.
Within meditation these become like two serpents rising through the body, balancing opposites and awakening deeper awareness.
For me this is not about escaping the world.
It is about becoming fully present within it.
The ancient elements.
Earth.
Air.
Fire.
Water.
Meeting in the centre.
Meeting in the heart.
Perhaps this is why so many people continue to come to Glastonbury.
Not to find answers.
But to remember something.
And standing upon the Tor beneath the ancient tower of Michael, perhaps we are reminded that awakening is not something arriving from outside.
It has been waiting quietly beneath our feet all along.
If these themes speak to something ancient within you and you feel called to explore them more deeply, I invite you to continue the journey with us through the Glastonbury Mystery School.
At GlastonburyMystery.school we gather to explore the living traditions of Glastonbury, the unfolding understanding of Christ Consciousness, sacred landscape, symbolism, mysticism and the meeting place between ancient wisdom and modern life. If you feel called, you are warmly invited to join me, Tor Webster, for our workshop exploring Christ Consciousness and its relationship to Glastonbury across time and tradition.
Whether you come seeking understanding, connection, stillness or simply curiosity, you are welcome.
The mountain is ancient.
The invitation is always new.
If you’d like to hear more about the Glastonbury Mystery School, then please type “interested” in the comments below the original post thank you. 
