More than four thousand years ago, when the earliest Maltese people were building their megalithic temples, they put much ingenuity into the design, and a lot of muscle power, into the construction of the temples – structures whose ruins are still massively imposing today. Without metal, they cut the stone with bone and stone implements. But why they built them, and what they used the temples for, are hard questions to answer.

A conference entitled Metageum ’07, to be held in Vittoriosa in November, will provide a chance to survey the different theories, which may lead to answers to these enigmatic questions.

One clue to these prehistoric people’s thoughts comes from astronomy. We know that at least some of the temples were carefully aligned with the sun, moon, and stars. The temple at Mnajdra, on the south coast of Malta is especially known for its spectacular alignments with the rising sun on the four cardinal dates of the year (the spring and autumn equinoxes, and the mid-summer and mid-winter solstices).

We will be able to see the alignment at the spring equinox for ourselves on 21 March, when Heritage Malta will permit a special opening of the Mnajdra temple at sunrise.

At the equinox, the beams of the rising sun penetrate straight through the outer and inner doorways and discharge red light in the womb-like inner chamber. The effect would have been more spectacular when the temple still had its roof: it would have been completely dark inside the temple until the rays of light slid in. It is truly marvellous to stand in Mnajdra at sunrise and see the same precise line-up of light and stone that was designed millennia ago.

We know little about the Neolithic people, but we can see that they were master masons. In the conference, Mario Vassallo will describe the astronomical alignments of the Maltese megalithic temples, and the practical ways in which these could have been constructed by Neolithic people.

There are other clues to the thinking of the Neolithic temple builders. The importance they gave to certain abstract forms, such as spirals, is common to megalithic temples in Malta and throughout the world. These are known as “form constants” and they recur in visions induced by hallucinogenic plants. Such plants are widely used in religions in non-industrialised cultures and the use of ayahuasca is still a vital part of the Santo Daime religion in South America. It is plausible that the Neolithic people might have used them too.

A speaker at the conference, Professor Benny Shanon, will address this issue and report on his recent research on the influence of these vision-inducing plants on the origins of early cults. Are these plants genuinely “entheogenic”? That is, do they induce a spiritual presence, or do they simply disrupt the normal function of the brain? Do the megalithic spirals represent visions of a spiritual reality, or are they side effects of how the brain works?

Even if we accept that the Neolithic people used trance states in their temples, those states may not have been induced by the use of hallucinogenic plants. There are other ways of entering into a trance. Rhythmic sound can also induce “altered states of consciousness”. Another speaker at the conference, Paul Devereux, will report on his innovative research on the acoustics of megalithic chambers. He has discovered that chambers often resonate at the specific frequency of 110 Hz, which is within the male vocal range, and that in some chambers there is rock art at the nodal points of that resonating sound. Again, we are led into plausible speculation: that the Neolithic people designed and used the megalithic temples with acoustics in mind.

Trance states can, in fact, be induced by speech alone. Hypnotherapist Deborah Marshall-Warren will be speaking at the conference about the hypnotic state and parallels between hypnotherapy and shamanism.

One peculiar aspect of the Neolithic heritage of Malta is the large number of megalithic temples compared to the small community that could have lived on the island at the time. The idea that the island used to be much larger, and that parts of it have become submerged, has been in circulation for some time. Researchers such as Dr Anton Mifsud have assembled much evidence for a sunken civilisation on Malta, perhaps even linked with the legend of Atlantis. Needless to say, this is a highly contentious thesis. The conference will be covering this debate and one of the speakers will be Dr Hubert Zeitlmair, who has reported evidence of underwater temples off the shore of Malta.

The temples have been an inspiration for artistic creativity. Jeni Caruana and Anna Grima are two highly respected Maltese painters who have been inspired by the megalithic temples and have included them in their works. Both will be exhibiting their paintings in the reception area during the week-long conference in the Caraffa Stores, Vittoriosa. They will be joined by eminent Paris-based Maltese artist L.Caruana, whose visionary art draws inspiration from the megalithic temples of Malta. Also exhibiting will be Francis Aloisio, with his series of illustrations of the temples both in their present ruined state and as reconstructions.