John Frederick Carden Michell (9 February 1933 – 24 April 2009) was an English author and esotericist who was a prominent figure in the development of the Earth mysteries movement. Over the course of his life he published over forty books on an array of different subjects, being a proponent of the Traditionalist school of esoteric thought. Born in London to a wealthy family, Michell was educated at Cheam School and Eton College before serving as a Russian translator in the Royal Navy for two years. After failing a degree in Russian and German at Trinity College, Cambridge, he qualified as a chartered surveyor then returned to London and worked for his father's property business, there developing his interest in Ufology. Embracing the counter-cultural ideas of the Earth mysteries movement during the 1960s, in The Flying Saucer Vision he built on Alfred Watkins' ideas of ley lines by arguing that they represented linear marks created in prehistory to guide extraterrestrial spacecraft. He followed this with his most influential work, The View Over Atlantis, in 1969. His ideas were at odds with those of academic archaeologists, for whom he expressed contempt. Michell believed in the existence of an ancient spiritual tradition that connected humanity to divinity, but which had been lost as a result of modernity. He believed however that this tradition would be revived and that humanity would enter a Golden Age, with Britain as the centre of this transformation. Michell's other publications covered an eclectic range of topics, and included an overview on the Shakespeare authorship question, a tract condemning Salman Rushdie during The Satanic Verses controversy, and a book of Adolf Hitler's quotations. Keenly interested in the crop circle phenomenon, he co-founded a magazine devoted to the subject, The Cereologist, in 1990, and served as its initial editor. From 1992 until his death he wrote a column for The Oldie magazine, which was largely devoted to his anti-modernist opinions. He accompanied this with a column on esoteric topics for the Daily Mirror tabloid. A lifelong marijuana smoker, Michell died of lung cancer in 2009. Michell's impact in the Earth mysteries movement was considerable, and through it he also influenced the British Pagan movement. During the 2000s, his ideas also influenced the "Radical Traditionalist" sector of the far right, epitomized by the journal Tyr.
Biography
Early life
John Frederick Carden Michell was born in London on 9 February 1933. His father, Alfred Henry Michell, was of Cornish & Welsh descent and worked as a property dealer in the capital, while his mother Enid Evelyn (née Carden) was the daughter of Major Sir Frederick Carden, 3rd Baronet, great-granddaughter of Sir Robert Carden, 1st Baronet, who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1857, and 3x great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times. The eldest of three children, Michell's siblings were named Charles and Clare. Michell was raised at Stargroves, his maternal grandfather's Victorian-era estate on the Berkshire Downs near to Newbury, and it was here that he developed a love of the countryside, learning about the local flora and fauna from a neighbouring naturalist. He was raised into the Anglican denomination of Christianity, although in later life rejected the religion. Michell was initially educated as a boarder at the preparatory Cheam School, where he was Head Boy and excelled at the high jump. From there he went to study at Eton College, where he was a contemporary of Lord Moyne and Ian Cameron, the father of future Prime Minister David Cameron. He spent his two years of national service in the Royal Navy, during which time he qualified as a Russian translator at the School of Slavonic Studies. He then went on to study Russian and German at Trinity College, Cambridge, although was unable to secure a third-class degree. He then qualified as a chartered surveyor at a firm in Gloucestershire, before moving back to London to work for his father's property business. Commenting on this job, he later stated that it was "quite amusing, but of course I wasn't any good at it", with property speculators eroding much of his fortune. In 1966 one of his properties, the basement of his own residence, became the base of the London Free School. The Black Power activist Michael X, having previously run a gambling club in the basement, had now become active in the organisation of the LFS and brought Michell into counter-culture activities. Michell began to offer courses in UFOs and ley lines. In 1964, with Jocasta Innes, Michell fathered a son, Jason Goodwin, who also became a writer. The relationship with Innes did not last. Jason Goodwin did not meet his natural father until 1992, at the age of 28, at which point they became quite close.
Embracing the Earth Mysteries movement Michell developed an interest in Ufology and Earth mysteries after attending a talk given by Jimmy Goddard at Kensington Central Library on the subject of "Leys and Orthonies" in November 1965. Michell's first publication on the subject of Ufology was the article "Flying Saucers", which appeared in the 30 January 1967 edition of the counter-cultural newspaper International Times. He proceeded to write a book on the subject, but lost the original manuscript after accidentally leaving it in a North London café, at which he had to rewrite it. The book eventually saw publication as The Flying Saucer Vision, published in 1967, when Michell was 35 years old.
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