Francais 

GRENOBLE: La forêt de Vallin in the Isère, western France, is an ancient Druid and Templar site which attracts pilgrims from great distances, who come to seek the benefits of this "healing forest" of hazel, birch and oaks.

More visitors are coming than ever before - "you sometimes see coaches arriving" according to Jean Daujas, mayor of Saint-Victor-de-Cessieu (Isère, France) where the forest is situated. He remembers that his grand parents often spoke of this forest as a place "where you feel well".

"I know people who go there regularly and come back feeling better. It must be magnetism" he hazards. When asked about possible healings he replies "One never knows, and you have be careful not to turn the place into a kind of Lourdes".

In the meantime walkers and the curious as well as the sick come to seek respite here, in this pretty forest of beech, oak and hazel.

"A kind of tradition has arisen over time" explains Louis Chavreau, 70:

Walkers stop the first time, arms stretched out in front of them, their fingers in two streams - one charged with green clay, the other with iron oxide - calming themselves and feeling the distinctly different energies of the two streams.

Visitors then climb to the 2m wide megalithic stone seat known as 'the lord's chair". Louis Chavreau believes that this seat may have been a druid altar. Some pilgrims, especially women, sit a while on the stone. Some report a sensation of warmth in the back and neck, along with a feeling of wellbeing.

Higher up visitors pass in front of the (now dry) "fontaine des lépreux" (= Leper Spring) before reaching a tumulus known as "la thébaïde". Here a woman hugs the trunk of a tree and cries. "I feel very emotional" she explains.

Having completed the ritual, walkers speak of beneficial telluric rays, exchanging stories of surprising healings "by polarity inversion" of eczema, cancer, skin troubles, fertility, aches and pains.

"I have come here because I have not been able to have a second child. During the past ten years we have tried everything, including artificial insemination, but without success. Arriving at the top of 'la thébaïde' I fell backwards, something powerful happened, as if something became unblocked" says Isabelle Rabatel who is now pregnant.

A youngster from Marseilles, a lover of these places, comes bearfoot to feel the vibrations and explains: "I am here to de-stress myself beside the water, then I will go up to recharge my energy at the chair".

"Everyone had forgotten this place except the elderly and the huntsmen who remarked that there are never any birds in this forest" remembers Louis Chavreau. It was "overtaken by brambles. While it was being cleared, around 1975, the former owner showed me the lord's chair and I noticed that there was a special energy here".

The owner of the wood, Thierry Rostaing - a farmer interested in celtic culture - explains these phenomena by the presence of magnetic waves. According to him "the site is a real berttery".

Régor R. Mougeot