Welcome! I’m Lara Atwood and this is my website, where you’ll find all of my work. Together with my husband Mark Atwood, I’m working to restore the Religion of the Sun—an ancient religion we’ve rediscovered, which we believe was once the oldest and largest in the world. We’ve been working on this project since 2011, and I present our findings in books, videos, and interviews. Our approach is a bit different to many other researchers, in that we practice this religion ourselves.

The name Sakro Sawel means “sacred sun” in the ancient Proto-Indo European language. The Indo-European family of languages were spoken by many followers of this ancient religion.

Currently, I’ve paused making videos on my YouTube channel to work on books. Right now we’re working on a revised edition of our book Ancient Solstice. We’re also working on three new books that will present more important facets of the Religion of the Sun.

In 2011, Mark and I embarked upon a project that would potentially have huge implications. We began to research the thousands of ancient sites across the world that are aligned to the sun at a solstice or equinox. They were built by civilizations that had shared numerous beliefs and practices in common—above all, they had venerated the sun as the highest form of divinity. After years of researching their sites, myths, and texts, we realized their beliefs shared so many similarities as to be beyond coincidence. It became clear to us that the great ancient civilizations of history had once shared the same religion, which had spread across the world in prehistory and branched off into many traditions over time.

We realized the Religion of the Sun was the missing puzzle piece that connects the huge sun aligned pyramids and megaliths scattered all over the world. Its existence explains why common symbols, sacred sites, and mythologies can be found in so many disparate places, and why the sun was revered as the most prolific religious symbol in history. Thousands of years ago, the oceans had not been barriers, but highways of currents that allowed ancient seafarers to spread the arts of civilization and their religious ideas.

The Religion of the Sun preceded and gave rise to the great sun worshiping civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, before being lost to history. Its vestiges remain in surviving ancient traditions, like those of Native American and European paganism, and Eastern religions such as Hinduism, where sun worship is still practiced today.

Since this religion had never formally been identified, it had never been given any name—so we called it the Religion of the Sun. I believe its rediscovery has the potential to cause one of the biggest shifts in our understanding of history, and its restoration will allow it to be practiced as a world religion once again.