These are remarkable times we are living in. I am constantly amazed by the revelations they are bringing forth and by the signs and wonders that come with them. But I have never been more amazed and awed that I was when Allan Brown sent me his drawings and analysis of the crop circle at Crooked Soley near Hungerford, Berkshire.

This short-lived masterpiece (it lasted only a few hours before the harvesters moved in) was not only beautiful and finely crafted - as well as utterly mysterious - but it gave information, precise and numerically expressed, on a subject that I have been studying and writing about throughout my active life, the subject of ancient cosmology and the code of number on which every past civilization was founded. At the heart of this traditional code or canon are two basic components, the numbers 5040 and 7920, along with their common factor 720. These numbers were plainly emphasized in the Crooked Soley crop circle.

The circle appeared at night on 27 August 2002. It was the last major formation of the season and I was unaware of it until a year later when Allan Brown brought it to my attention. He had observed its numerical composition and recognized the significance of 5040 and 7920 through my writings about these numbers. He then waited for a year to see if anyone else would recognize them. No one did, so he wrote to me and, as said above, filled me with awe and amazement. We both agreed that a record should be made of this phenomenon, and this is it.

Here is why I am so enraptured by the apparition at Crooked Soley. Many years ago I was drawn to the study and practice of geometry. A major influence was Keith Critchlow, who founded the school of symbolic, cosmological or sacred geometry that has since flourished universally.

His pupils, directly or through his writings and lectures, include just about everybody with a practical, artistic or philosophical interest in the subject. Some of them are crop circle enthusiasts and, not surprisingly, they have been suspected of creating the phenomenon themselves.

But I know these people - Martineau, Kollerstrom, Glickman, Brown, Schindler among them - and we all agree that none of us has the skill and originality to have designed - let alone executed - many of the magnificent, subtle, witty and highly cultured artworks that appear every summer around Avebury, Stonehenge and other ancient sanctuaries.

There is a mind, and therefore a purpose, behind the crop circle phenomenon. It is an elevated mind and its purpose can be inferred from what it actually does. Crop circles bring beauty and mystery, friendships and new interests to a generation that needs them. At the same time, quietly, inoffensively, they are teaching us something. They are preparing us for something, for an event which, according to ancient records, occurs from time to time when the situation demands it - the return of the gods - the grail of knowledge and wisdom restored to earth.

That is one way of looking at it. There are many angles and approaches to the crop circle mystery, and researchers have covered most of them, but with no success at all in solving the puzzle. There seems to be no literal solution. So we are impelled towards a psychic or spiritual acceptance.

Crooked Soley, it seems, represents a new stage in a process which has been going on for many years. This process was observed as early as 1959, by Carl Jung in his last and most prophetic book, Flying Saucers. He characterized the UFO phenomenon as a portent of radical changes in thoughts and perceptions, culminating in a renewal of divine influence - the return of the ancient gods. In crop circles, says Patrick Harpur in the afterword, Mercurius is the dominant power - the god of inspiration and learning. He is the traditional source of the revealed code of knowledge symbolized by 5040 and 7920, the numbers so beautifully encoded in the Crooked Soley formation.

John Michell

Roundhill Press