Breathtaking.
Brilliant.
Blessed.

I know many other people saw it too, all across the UK - while many more were disappointed. But whether you saw it or not, you should feel its influence soon. Later this week, I'll explain. I'll also say more about those mystical standing stones.

I have been burning to visit them for years so I felt disappointed to realise, when I got there, that it would not be possible to view Saturday morning's epic eclipse from within them. The surrounding hills though, are just a bit too high. This particular Sunrise needed to be viewed as low on the horizon as possible for the eclipse was happening at the moment of first dawn. Would the ancients have known about this event, so long in advance? Quite conceivably. Their understanding of astronomy was clearly sophisticated. But, as the kids and I soon saw once we looked around the site, they had other things on their mind when they chose this location.

If you gaze at the outline shape of the surrounding hills, you can easily envisage a pregnant woman, lying on the ground. There, in all her glory, is Gaia; the traditional earth-mother goddess of ancient Britain. She has though, grown more voluptuous over the years. We spent some time trying to decide how much the landscape has altered in the last few thousand years. I tried to play 'clever daddy' by pointing out that the thick layers of peat, which are everywhere on this island, would not have existed when they first put up those stones.

My children then pulled rank by informing me that mountains never stop growing. �It's the pressure of the tectonic plates,� said 11-year-old Izaak, helpfully.

The 'arms' of the central stone circle don't quite align with the points of the compass we use today. But then, a simple pole shift, at some point since the place was made, would account for that. To me as an astrologer, it is just obvious that this was an observatory as well as a temple. What were they watching? Precisely what we watch now. The Sun, the Moon and the planets, moving through the 12 signs of the zodiac.

What particular magic they were working? That's not so easy to say. But it must have been pretty powerful stuff. Rolling those enormous stones into such precise positions would be tricky, even today, with all the technology at our disposal.

As I stood there, still dazed by my earlier vision of the Sun obscured by the Moon in a glorious double ring, I began to formulate a theory. It sounds a bit outlandish but if you really want to know, I'll tell you tomorrow.

Why DID they make those circles at Callanish? What can we learn from them? Did the ancients really know far more than we do today? I feel sure they did.

I have great respect for their knowledge because Astrology is part of it. The Chaldean Priests of ancient Babylon prepared their charts in much the same way as I cast mine. Wars have been fought, libraries have been burned and civilisations have crumbled but the basic principles of my art have been passed down through the generations in an unbroken line, stretching back at least 5,000 years. That makes me feel deeply connected to the past.

Today, we dismiss as lore and legend, the notion of giants, dragons or unicorns. We are similarly doubtful about magi, geomancers and shamanic shape-shifters. Could the highest and holiest of our people ever truly travel through space and time? Did they have powers that today, for all our supposed sophistication, we can only dream of?

Physicists now think that a lot of 'magic' may actually be possible, With science based on 'wormholes' in space, we may well yet travel through time. Experiments in photon manipulation have recently made teleportation seem very feasible. And Heisenberg's famous Uncertainty Principle could yet help us to explain how the power of the mind can shape the behaviour of matter. If the ancients really did know something about all this, surely scientists need to know it too. But in the absence of written proof, with gaping holes in the oral tradition and with archaeological finds raising just as many questions as they answer, how are we ever going to find out? As I watched that epic dawn on Saturday, something odd began to dawn on me. Maybe there's a clue in the world of 'ghosts'!

�Dad� said my kids, later that day. �Why have you dragged us to this boring hillside full of old stones?� I couldn't really answer. I just kept gazing at the monoliths of Callanish and wondering, could those stones be holding memories of their long-forgotten creators?... in the same way that some old buildings seem to retain echoing images of the people who once lived in them? Might tiny crystals in the fabric of those stones carry information just as magnetic particles store pictures on video tape? Might we pick up more detail if we could only channel our psychic ability and really tune in? And, most crucially of all, might subtle gravitational influences, during rare alignments of the Sun and the Moon, prove essential to this process?

I now feel sure that we are nearer than we think to the day when we can coax the true story from those rocks of yesteryear. What do you think?

• I have had a great response to my series about the eclipse and the stones. Below, today, you can see a fascinating comment from a top scientist.

Dear Jonathan,
I am a scientist but I believe in Magic. This, for a long time, created a conflict between �the personal me� and �the professional me�. But recently I realised that magic is just science yet to be explained.

Electricity, for example, would have seemed magical to a person 150 years ago. Microwave ovens, even in the 1940s would have seemed miraculous. Einstein said time was curved. I have long considered the implications of this. At one point my theory on ghosts (I do know they exist because I have experienced them) explained time as a spiral. At points where time-lines get close, especially at specific locations where perhaps the electromagnetic energy is high, we may get �time slips�. I now suspect though, that there is more than one explanation. This may be why some �ghosts� just seem to replay one little scene while others interact with us.

Your article about the standing stones gave me pause for thought. Places like Dartmoor and locations in Australia where granite is prevalent on the earth's surface seem to be charged with a special energy. Stones there may very well have memories. It's not such a strange idea. After all, I am writing this letter to you on a computer which uses the fabric of rocks to write and record data. If silicon chips can do this, the silicon crystals in rocks must also have the same capacity to store and release information. What some scientists today call a �load of superstitious rot�, may well be tomorrow's next quantum leap in our knowledge.
Dr J.F.

I was fascinated by your thoughts about memories being stored in granite. As an avid mountaineer I have always felt this to be true. The presence of previous climbers can be felt in the mountains.
However, I am also a computer technologist and was less impressed by the comments of Dr J.F., yesterday. Microchips are man made. You can't say silicon has inherent storage properties any more than you can say sand has the ability to correct vision just because we make glass lenses out of it. I don't think we should try to understand these forces with conventional science. Mike
PS There is a dolphin research institute on the island of Roatan off Honduras. The dolphins there live in pens with low walls that they can easily jump. Apparently they come and go as they please and fraternise with wild dolphins, but always return.

I work in Rocket Science, so I'm supposed to be 'down to earth' about science and space but I think everything you said is very feasible. I'm sure tiny crystals in the fabric of those stones at Callanish carry information, just as magnetic particles store pictures on video tape. De-ann.

Some while ago I inherited my grandmother's wedding ring. She was a difficult, manipulative woman. I thought I could overcome any bad vibes the ring might retain but from the first night I put it on, my dreams took a negative turn. After I removed the ring (which was surprisingly difficult) my dreams immediately went back to normal. Of course those stones hold thoughts and voices of times gone by. When the right people are near, transference will occur. 'Tish'.

Last year, I saw a picture of Croft Moraig stone circle near Loch Tay. I knew I just HAD to go there. The energy was so powerful in that place that I began to sing. Loud tones vibrated in a sequence and an impossible range that just came through me. There was something broken loose and liberated in that moment, whether part of myself or something stored in that circle I still don't know, but I was shaking afterward. (The other tourists were not, however, impressed.) Regards, Lois.

Rocks? Yes, most definitely. All ceramic materials are pizeoelectric and I'm certain that events are 'recorded' in them. All we have to do is 'tune in' to what's there. But then I'm a Piscean so I would think that. Best regards, Ron.

"Shakespeare said 'There are more things in heaven and earth... than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' Electricity, air travel, the Internet would have seemed magical only a short time ago. Yet Acupuncture and hypnosis, proven to work for centuries, have been utterly dismissed by many so-called experts. I predict that as the pendulum swings back into balance, we'll see a re-emergence of humanity's ancient, natural abilities, blended with the developments of science and technology. With respect, Sarah.

Happy Birthday!
Tom Jones (Gemini born June 7, 1940) Once he was just a sex-god � now he's a Living Master. This truly-gifted singer, worshipped by millions, turns 63 today. Happily he can cope with the adulation. All Geminis can. And, of course, they all deserve it. And, sooner or later� one way or another� they all get it!
Happy birthday also this week to: Today June 7; Prince (45), Anna Kournikova (22) and Liam Neeson (51), Tomorrow June 8; Nancy Sinatra (63), Monday June 9; Michael J. Fox (42), Johnny Depp (40) and Natalie Portman (22), Tuesday June 10; Elizabeth Hurley (37), Wednesday June 11; Gene Wilder (68), Thursday June 12; George Bush (79) and Chick Corea (62), Friday June 13; Malcolm McDowell (60) and Ally Sheedy (41).