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 pseudoscientific Earth mysteries movement.

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.

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.

[3] 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.

[12] 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.

The Flying Saucer Vision took the idea of Tony Wedd that ley lines – alleged trackways across the landscape whose existence was first argued by Alfred Watkins – represented markers for the flight of extraterrestrial spacecraft and built on it, arguing that early human society was aided by alien entities who were understood as gods, but that these extraterrestrials had abandoned humanity because of the latter's greed for material and technological development.

[18] According to Lachman, at this time Michell took the view that "an imminent revelation of literally inconceivable scope" was at hand, and that the appearance of UFOs was linked to "the start of a new phase in our history".

[15] In their social history of Ufology, David Clarke and Andy Roberts stated that Michell's work was "the catalyst and helmsman" for the growing interest in UFOs among the hippie sector of the counter-culture.

[18] The Pagan studies scholar Amy Hale stated that The View Over Atlantis was "a smash countercultural success",[24] while the historian Ronald Hutton described it as "almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement".

[25] Fellow ley-hunter and later biographer Paul Screeton considered it to be a "groundbreaking" work which "re-enchanted the British landscape and empowered a generation to seek out and appreciate the spiritual dimension of the countryside, not least attracting them to reawaken the sleepy town of Glastonbury".

[27] Among the most prominent works to build on Michell's ideas during this period were Janet and Colin Bord's Mysterious Britain, which used them in its presentation of a gazetteer of ancient sites, and Paul Screeton's Quicksilver Heritage, which argued that the Neolithic had been a time devoted to spiritual endeavours which had been corrupted by the emergence of metal technologies.

[29] In conjunction with the Garnstone Press, RILKO founded the Prehistory and Ancient Science Library, a book series that brought out reprints of older works, such as Watkins' The Old Straight Track and William Stirling's The Canon, both of which contained forewords by Michell.

[34] Michell then went on a visit to Woolhope in Herefordshire with Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg, Christopher Gibbs, and the filmmaker Kenneth Anger, where they hunted for ley lines and UFOs.

"[39] This work was more complex than its predecessor, including chapters on sacred geometry, numerology, gematria, and the esoteric concept of the New Jerusalem, and required an understanding of mathematics and Classics to follow its arguments.

"[41] The work of Michell and others in the ley-hunting and Earth mysteries communities were rejected by the professional archaeological establishment, with the prominent British archaeologist Glyn Daniel denouncing what he perceived as the "lunatic fringe".

[42] In turn, Michell was hostile to professional and academic archaeologists, accusing them of "treasure hunting and grave robbery" and viewing them as representations of what he interpreted as the evils of modernity.

[45] However, in 1983 his case study was analysed by two archaeologists, Tom Williamson and Liz Bellamy, as part of their work Ley Lines in Question, a critical analysis of the evidence for ley-lines.

They highlighted that Michell had erroneously included medieval crosses and natural features under his definition of late prehistoric monuments, and that arguments for ley-lines more widely could not be sustained.

[59] In 1984 he published Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions, in which he provided brief biographies of various figures whose ideas had been rejected by mainstream scholarship and society, among them Nesta Webster, Iolo Morganwg, Brinsley Trench, and Comyns Beaumont.

[80] Cainer had sought to bring together a range of esotericists to write on related topics, with Michell's fellow contributors including Mark Winter, Patty Greenall, Sarah Sirillan, and Uri Geller.

[83] A lifelong smoker, Michell contracted lung cancer,[84] and in his final days he was nursed at his son's home in Poole, Dorset, ultimately dying on 24 April 2009, at the age of 76.

[96] Accordingly, he was particularly critical of Charles Darwin and Dawkins, lambasting the latter alongside physicist Stephen Hawking as belonging with "the disappointed Marxists, pandering politicians, pettifoggers, grievance-mongers and atheistic bishops who set the tone in modern society.

[105] Generally opposed to democracy, except within small groups in which every person knew the individual being elected, Michell instead believed that communities should be led by a strong leader who personified the solar deity.

[98] He was an opponent of British membership of the European Union and also opposed the UK's transition to the metric system, instead favouring the continued use of imperial measurement, believing that the latter had links to the divine order used by ancient society.

With his revolutionary vision of prehistoric science far in advance of that accorded early civilisations by archaeologists – a modern-day Merlin of hippiedom – he greatly influenced the baby boomer generation by extolling countercultural values in the areas of earth mysteries, consciousness expansion and New Age thinking."

At over six feet in height, Michell was described by biographer and friend Paul Screeton as having "a charismatic personality and imposing presence",[9] being "placidly outgoing and the epitome of gentlemanly charm",[93] and usually appeared "cheerful and optimistic".

Quixotic in behaviour, he was an exemplary host and fastidious and single-minded when embarked upon a project",[9] although also noted that Michell was impatient with those who did not share his Traditionalist beliefs and values.

[116] Hutton for instance noted that the influence of Michell's ideas could be seen on the Druidic Order of the Pendragon, a Pagan group based in Leicestershire that arose to public attention in 2004.

[118] Michell's books received a broadly positive reception amongst the "New Age" and "Earth mysteries" movements and he is credited as perhaps being "the most articulate and influential writer on the subject of leys and alternative studies of the past".