#dowsing — Public Fediverse posts

To celebrate International Dowsing Day, each year, my Canadian colleague Susan Collins Dowser and my good self host a panel of international experts to share their knowledge. Here's the recording of yesterday's chat:
https://youtu.be/tawrUwAwoyI?si=Kzu-I0iEEoSkVefZ

#InternationalDowsingDay2026 #Dowsing #SusanCollinsDowser #GrahameGardner #JoeyKorn #MariaWheatley #AlexRussellStoneham #NobuoKato

To celebrate International Dowsing Day, each year, my Canadian colleague Susan Collins Dowser and my good self host a panel of international experts to share their knowledge. Here's the recording of yesterday's chat:
https://youtu.be/tawrUwAwoyI?si=Kzu-I0iEEoSkVefZ

#InternationalDowsingDay2026 #Dowsing #SusanCollinsDowser #GrahameGardner #JoeyKorn #MariaWheatley #AlexRussellStoneham #NobuoKato

To celebrate International Dowsing Day, each year, my Canadian colleague Susan Collins Dowser and my good self host a panel of international experts to share their knowledge. Here's the recording of yesterday's chat:
https://youtu.be/tawrUwAwoyI?si=Kzu-I0iEEoSkVefZ

#InternationalDowsingDay2026 #Dowsing #SusanCollinsDowser #GrahameGardner #JoeyKorn #MariaWheatley #AlexRussellStoneham #NobuoKato

To celebrate International Dowsing Day, each year, my Canadian colleague Susan Collins Dowser and my good self host a panel of international experts to share their knowledge. Here's the recording of yesterday's chat:
https://youtu.be/tawrUwAwoyI?si=Kzu-I0iEEoSkVefZ

#InternationalDowsingDay2026 #Dowsing #SusanCollinsDowser #GrahameGardner #JoeyKorn #MariaWheatley #AlexRussellStoneham #NobuoKato

Take your dowsing skills up a level with this intermediate course on house healing work. This is not a beginners course - you'll need to have mastered the basic skills.

#Dowsing #GeopathicStress #Scotland

A nice clip from 'The Water Diviner' film showing Russell Crowe in action dowsing for a well. Crowe was actually taught to dowse by his father, and has an interesting 'deviceless' technique of rubbing his thumb on the palm of his opposite hand, which he demonstrates here.
I like this film a lot, I think it's very underrated.
https://mabumbe.com/movies/watch/1595814

#TheWaterDiviner #Dowsing #RussellCrowe #movies

Interested in learning to dowse? I still have places available on my beginners course on 11/12 April in Central Scotland.
Early Bird booking extended to Friday 27 March. #Dowsing #LearnToDowse #Geomancy #GeomancyTraining
https://westerngeomancy.org/product/ee1/

@vga256 For work, use similar rods to locate subterranean utilities. Surprisingly works better than one might think.

We refer to it as “witching”, which is fun for me because when someone is wondering where our locator is at (and he’s out witching), I say he’s “out performing a séance”.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

#dowsing #witching #utilities

A group called 'Earth Energy Xplorers' (sic) dowsing paired energy lines in an Indian temple:
#Dowsing #EarthEnergies #India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge05DtdYnc0

A group called 'Earth Energy Xplorers' (sic) dowsing paired energy lines in an Indian temple:
#Dowsing #EarthEnergies #India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge05DtdYnc0

A group called 'Earth Energy Xplorers' (sic) dowsing paired energy lines in an Indian temple:
#Dowsing #EarthEnergies #India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge05DtdYnc0

A group called 'Earth Energy Xplorers' (sic) dowsing paired energy lines in an Indian temple:
#Dowsing #EarthEnergies #India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge05DtdYnc0

Happy St Andrew's Day to all. This statue of him in his little-known dragon slayer mode is in the war memorial garden next to Kelso Abbey. It is actually on the male dragon current of the Holy Axis, which runs between the Farne Islands and Iona. #StAndrew #Dragons #HolyAxis #Dowsing

#RollrightStones
After taking this, I did some dowsing in the middle and found each stone connected to the centre by it's own individual "spoke" like a giant wheel.
#dowsing

Thanks to all my students for a great weekend learning house healing techniques. Here they were testing the efficacy of the 'magic blue tape' method (much favoured by North American dowsers) for ameliorating geopathic stress. The energy flow is right to left in the picture, and testing the GS levels on a percentage chart showed a dramatic reduction in the area between the tape and the building.
#Dowsing #GeopathicStress #Geomancy #HouseHealing

I've rescheduled my House Healing courses; Understanding Geopathic Stress will now be on 10-11 June, Dealing with Psycho-Spiritual issues will now be 16-17 September. Existing bookings will be transferred. #dowsing #geomancy #HouseHealing #EMFprotection Details: https://westerngeomancy.org/product/ee2-3/

Further introduction (having learned how hashtags and search work around here) :
#Sustainability
#Adaptation
#TransformativeAdaptation
#TransitionTowns
#CentreForAlternativeTechnology (NOT hashtag-cat!) cat.org.uk
#SystemsDynamics
#Kotlin
#WebApp
#Buddhist
#Nyingma
#Harvington
#Evesham
#Wychavon
#CommunityActivism
#BellRinging
#Dowsing

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

Published February 2017

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that       were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

I'm looking forward to delivering the keynote address at the virtual Canadian Society of Dowsers annual conference on Nov. 15. #Dowsing #CanadianSocietyofDowsers
https://canadiandowsers.org/

@fionaorkneynews Fiona, I know the BA Dowsing Team from Aberdeenshire did some archaeological dowsing work up there and discovered a buried (I think) wing from a Spitfire. Is there any acknowledgement of that? #Dowsing

Minnesota dowser Jim Kuebelbeck, 86 years old and still one of the best water dowsers around with over 3,300 wells to his credit. #dowsing #WaterDivining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1IK2l72W4s

We made the cover of Dowsing Today with my feature article, 'Dowsing in Antarctica'. In the picture I'm using my walking poles to create a number '7' to represent the 7th continent, the last one I had to set foot on.
#Dowsing #Antarctica #7thContinent

Learn the secrets of House Healing on these forthcoming advanced dowsing courses.
Visit https://westerngeomancy.org/#events for more details and booking.
#Dowsing #DowsingCourse #HouseHealing #GeopathicStress #GeopsychicStress #BritishSocietyofDowsers

Dowsing the central node point of the amazing Kerdroya labyrinth in Cornwall today. The walls of the labyrinth are made from traditional Cornish hedges, which are stone walls with turf tops.
A fantastic site to visit on a sunny day like today. #Kerdroya #Labyrinth #Kernow #Dowsing

Some happy students on Day 1 of my dowsing course soaking up the amazing energies inside the chamber at Cairnpapple this afternoon. (The fact that it was raining outside was purely coincidental, I'm sure!😀)
#Dowsing #DowsingCourse #CairnpappleHill #Scotland

#840 Thomas Fiddick - Dowsing: With an Account of Some Original Experiments. The Cornovia Press, Sheffield, 2011, Enlarged reprint of 1st edition of 1913. #ThomasFiddick #TheCornoviaPress #Dowsing #Cornwall #Mining #BookOfTheDay

The homeopathic dowser always submits a full bill, having found an immeasurably small speck of moisture that no one untrained in the homeopathic tradition could detect.
#homeopathy #dowsing

#640 Bob Rickard and Paul Sieveking (eds) - Fortean Times: The Journal of Strange Phenomena, No 133. John Brown Publishing Ltd, London, April 2000. #ForteanTimes #BobRickard #PaulSieveking #Waco #Dowsing #Cryptozoology #BookOfTheDay

From the archives: A dowsing-dedicated day in the country

From the archives in 1988, Denys Parsons attends a rather disappointing display of dowsing, alongside BBC Oxford

https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/06/from-the-archives-a-dowsing-dedicated-day-in-the-country/

#Archive #Dowsing

I called Scottish Water to solve my supply issue – I never expected them to bring dowsing rods

Scottish Water's engineers should throw away their dowsing rods, and simply trust in their own knowledge and expertise, without resorting to the paranormal

https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/09/i-called-scottish-water-to-solve-my-supply-issue-i-never-expected-them-to-bring-dowsing-rods/

#Dowsing

From the archives: Twitching sticks – the (pseudo)science of dowsing | Anthony Garrett

From the archives in 1989, Anthony Garrett takes a look at the science - or otherwise - of dowsing and water divination

https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/09/from-the-archives-twitching-sticks-the-pseudoscience-of-dowsing/

#Dowsing #Psuedoscience #Divination #Skeptic

#229 Cheryl Straffon (ed) - Meyn Mamvro: Ancient Stones and Sacred Sites of West Penwith, No 12, Summer 1990. Meyn Mamvro, St Just. #CherylStraffon #MeynMamvro #EarthMysteries #Archaeology #StoneCircles #BoscawenÛn #Cornwall #Kernow #Dowsing #TheLizard #Megaliths #BookOfTheDay

Off to dowse for a broken septic tank pipe in Haddington today. Oh, the glamour! #dowsing

The British Society of Dowsers are offering paid live streams of day one of their forthcoming Symposium on Saturday 29 April, viewable on the day or after the event, and at the very reasonable price of £25. #dowsing #events #online
Check it out: https://britishdowsers.org/symposium2023live/

After a busy week, I'm looking forward to introducing some new people to the wonders of earth energy #dowsing over the weekend. But, it's Friday night and the question is - should I have a wee G & T with dinner?

Further introduction (having learned how hashtags and search work around here) :
#Sustainability
#Adaptation
#TransformativeAdaptation
#TransitionTowns
#CentreForAlternativeTechnology (NOT hashtag-cat!) cat.org.uk
#SystemsDynamics
#Kotlin
#WebApp
#Buddhist
#Nyingma
#Harvington
#Evesham
#Wychavon
#CommunityActivism
#BellRinging
#Dowsing

Further introduction (having learned how hashtags and search work around here) :
#Sustainability
#Adaptation
#TransformativeAdaptation
#TransitionTowns
#CentreForAlternativeTechnology (NOT hashtag-cat!) cat.org.uk
#SystemsDynamics
#Kotlin
#WebApp
#Buddhist
#Nyingma
#Harvington
#Evesham
#Wychavon
#CommunityActivism
#BellRinging
#Dowsing

Further introduction (having learned how hashtags and search work around here) :
#Sustainability
#Adaptation
#TransformativeAdaptation
#TransitionTowns
#CentreForAlternativeTechnology (NOT hashtag-cat!) cat.org.uk
#SystemsDynamics
#Kotlin
#WebApp
#Buddhist
#Nyingma
#Harvington
#Evesham
#Wychavon
#CommunityActivism
#BellRinging
#Dowsing

Further introduction (having learned how hashtags and search work around here) :
#Sustainability
#Adaptation
#TransformativeAdaptation
#TransitionTowns
#CentreForAlternativeTechnology (NOT hashtag-cat!) cat.org.uk
#SystemsDynamics
#Kotlin
#WebApp
#Buddhist
#Nyingma
#Harvington
#Evesham
#Wychavon
#CommunityActivism
#BellRinging
#Dowsing

The Great American Eclipse - my article about last April's total solar eclipse (rather late as I had to wait for the journal publication): #dowsing #eclipse2024 #Burlington #StoneCircle
https://westerngeomancy.org/the-great-american-eclipse-2024/

Learn the secrets of House Healing on these forthcoming advanced dowsing courses.
Visit https://westerngeomancy.org/#events for more details and booking.
#Dowsing #DowsingCourse #HouseHealing #GeopathicStress #GeopsychicStress #BritishSocietyofDowsers

Learn the secrets of House Healing on these forthcoming advanced dowsing courses.
Visit https://westerngeomancy.org/#events for more details and booking.
#Dowsing #DowsingCourse #HouseHealing #GeopathicStress #GeopsychicStress #BritishSocietyofDowsers

Learn the secrets of House Healing on these forthcoming advanced dowsing courses.
Visit https://westerngeomancy.org/#events for more details and booking.
#Dowsing #DowsingCourse #HouseHealing #GeopathicStress #GeopsychicStress #BritishSocietyofDowsers

Obligatory #hashtag #introduction
Some of my interests:
#dowsing #geomancy #labyrinths #archaeology #astronomy #folklore #megaliths #GlasgowsSecretGeometry #ScottishIndependence
#EuropeanCitizen #StandWithUkraine
#FuckBrexit #SciFi #TheExpanse #NorthernExposure #Writing #Affinity #theatre #dance #LightingDesign #podcasting #MSFS
#GNUTerryPratchett

Some of my websites:
https://westerngeomancy.org
https://glasgowsecretgeometry.uk
https://britishdowsing.net
https://scottishdowsers.org
https://adventuresindowsing.com

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that       were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

UPDATED: 18-Sept 2021

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

Published February 2017

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

~Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

Published February 2017

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

~Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

Published February 2017

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

~Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

Leylines: From the old straight track to Ghostbusters

Published February 2017

A few years ago, a paranormal investigator acquaintance who knew I was a geologist asked me what I thought about leylines related to paranormal phenomena. I wasn’t familiar with this association or the history of leylines then. After consulting several references and poking around the Web, I am now! Take a trip with me traveling down some spooky paths to make sense of leylines.

Ghostbusters 2016

I finally got around to watching the new Ghostbusters movie (with the all-female team). There they were: leylines at the crux of all the paranormal trouble in town! It is indeed past time to deal with these pesky leylines (or ley lines, leys)- a larger-than-life, distorted, misrepresented concept that manifested like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in paranormal circles.

“What do those look like to you?”
“Leylines”
“What’s ‘leylines’?”
“It’s a hidden network of energy lines that run across the earth; it’s a current of supernatural energy.”
“Supposedly if you look at sacred sites and weird events all over the world and connect them with lines, where they intersect, it’s an unusually powerful spot.”
“He’s using the devices to charge the leylines. He’s creating a vortex.”

~Ghostbusters (2016)

Leylines as first proposed had NOTHING to do with energy or ghostly activity. How did we get to this?

As usually occurs with people and ideas, mix real bits with some imagination, blend it all into a confusing mess, then jazz it up Hollywood style, and you have the very convoluted answer. How about a walk down the fairy path? Or maybe it’s a UFO runway…

Watkins’ Old Straight Track lead to leylines

There are several books written on leylines but the term was coined in books by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins –  Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925). Watkins observed that places of pre-historic and historic significance were aligned across long distances in the British countryside. Ancient henges, barrows, cursuses, building sites, monuments, tors, ponds, holy wells, etc., could be mapped as points along a straight line regardless of the terrain. He wasn’t the first to notice the connection to other sites that some thought were akin to “beacon hills” (think Lord of the Rings call for aid) where you could see the next journey point from your current point, but he was the first to say that they were ubiquitous. Astronomical alignments had also previously been noted.

Watkins encouraged people to take a map and a camera and do their own exploration for “leys”. It became a hobby for some in the 1930s when there was a strong national sentiment for the romance, lore, and legend of British ancient heritage.

Watkins’s idea was purely utilitarian. The Old Straight Track is tedious reading – wordy, dry, and full of speculation (and suspected leylines). But his hypothesis was rejected by academia and his work was discredited and ignored. Connecting four points to make a line was not difficult in a country where there were thousands of prehistoric and historic monuments. The width of the lines varied to allow inclusion of other points alongside. And, there certainly were straight segments of some significance used as travel ways or for ceremonial processions (such as funeral paths or “corpse ways”), perhaps later to become Roman roads.

At some point, “leys” shifted from being a guide to where special places were located to being forces of nature that dictated where these special places would be located and why that made them special, even magical. Watkins’s ideas were adopted by more imaginative types.

Earth Energy via leylines

Straight lines already had some supernatural significance. For example, the paths where bodies were carried from the town to a burial site were called “corpse roads” and associated with routes of the spirits, which became spirit paths that you were encouraged to avoid. Spirits were said to have a preference for straight lines. Or the paths were said to be used by fairies so you surely had better steer clear of those!

Ceremonial paths, visible from the air and ground, are obvious in many cultures. In 1958, French author Aimé Michel in Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery said that UFO sightings in France had occurred along invisible lines across great distances that formed a grid. He called this idea orthoteny and suspected the lines might be associated with the terrain.

Leylines and orthotenic lines were joined in concept by John Michell. Michell wrote The View Over Atlantis which heralded the “earth mysteries” idea in 1969. Kate Shrewsday writes:

Enter John Mitchell (sic), Eton-educated member of the hippy hierarchy, author of The View Over Atlantis and so many other books which re-ignited our passion for the old places. It was Mitchell who resurrected Watkins’ lines and used them to mystify a landscape which had become mundane.

His premises were so engrossing, so seductive, that a whole counter-culture grew green and vigorous around it.

Leylines were also seen as “arteries” of the earth, “veins” of energy flow, and equivalent to chi (qi) pathways said to be utilized in acupuncture of the human body. Standing stones, for example, marked the leys like sign posts but were also acting like acupuncture needles for the earth (I wish I was kidding with that) to channel astronomical energy into the leys.  Also borrowed from Asian culture was the idea that monuments were placed in balance and harmony along the leylines as a sort of geographical feng shui. Conductive minerals like iron, gold, and silver were said to be associated with leylines. (Hmm, a testable claim.)

It was a small jump to connect genuine scientific concepts of magnetic anomalies and telluric current to sciencey-sounding “earth energy lines”. The notion of telluric currents was co-opted by dowsers, but that is a completely different discussion I’m not prepared to have in this post. Some suggested that the power in leylines drew from the telluric current and that such power could be manipulated or used for societal advantages (what Michell called “spiritual engineering”). Watkins did not think leylines could be found with dowsing rods, but this creative subversion of his ideas occurred rather smoothly. Author and dowser Guy Underwood pushed the dowsing craze associated with leylines in the 1970s in the midst of the New Age wave of magical earth ideas. Underwood also espoused the idea of lines related to water-bearing zones or “blind springs“. I’ll return to this concept shortly.

So, in the 1970s, leylines were seen as channels of mystical “energy”. We can measure energy, yet no one was successful in measuring this particular energy scientifically. Ley proponents said the energy was too subtle or that research on the lines should be funded because of the potential to humankind. Locations associated with leylines became more magical as New Age popularity increased – places like Glastonbury (St. Michael’s ley and many others; see map above) and Stonehenge. Giants were said to be buried in the barrows as they were associated with incredible leyline power. This power was said to even cause the stones to come alive and move. (Another testable claim where evidence was never provided.)

When the leylines cross

Crossed lines have always been associated with magic. Crossroads are particularly notable as supernatural areas. Where leylines supposedly crossed, a strong “power spot” was created. These nodes could produce an energy “vortex”. Vortexes (vortices) are handy devices to explain an area as particularly prone to strange phenomena. No evidence for such energy vortexes exists, either.

Leylines as plot devices or explanations in fantasy fiction media began in the 1960s with authors like Thomas Pynchon and continued with concepts of conspiracy ideas of secret knowledge about sacred geometry of the earth. And, of course, we have leylines and the vortex as key plot devices in the new Ghostbusters, which brings us to the paranormal community connection – the intersection where supernatural ideas and vague scientific concepts crash and merge.

Paranormal connections

I liked this opening for an article about leylines in Fortean Times of June 2007:

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss­crossing the British countryside, the history of leys has been less of an old straight track and more of a long and winding road, one that has taken detours into everything from ufology to dowsing.

Poor Watkins! He was only trying to put some sort of order system into mapping remarkable places and things really spiraled out of control. This happens quite often as concepts sort of related to factual or scientific ideas lose their original meaning and clarity, or the terms get conflated. The above quote is the intro to a piece by Paul Devereux, a leading authority on leylines from the 1970s to the present. I found a 2003 interview with Devereux by paranormal personality Jeff Belanger on the Ghost Village site signaling that the American paranormal community was keying in on the concept of leylines around that time. Devereux’s opinion is that leys are not what Watkins thought or what the New Agers believed but something else related to sacred paths and possibly the supernatural.

Amateur paranormal research ramped up big time in the 2000s with the popularity of DIY spirit-seeking TV shows. But even before that, there were paranormalists who connected various geological features to reports of hauntings and poltergeists. A popular concept was taken from the Tectonic Strain idea of Dr. Michael Persinger who suggested that geological circumstances in fault zones might be responsible for anomalous luminous phenomena (also known as ghost lights) or related to earthquake lights. He thought these might be misconstrued as UFOs. (Ghost lights and Tectonic strain theory are future topics to explore here.) Leylines as sources of some undefined kind of energy were picked up as potential explanations for the manifestation of psychic energy that ghost researchers assumed was real. Genuine magnetic anomalies were turned into magical areas and connected to paranormal reports. Often, the researchers never actually checked for historic leylines or geological anomalies, they just assumed they were there because it was a very sciencey conclusion to make that sounded plausible (and the public accepted it). Use of dowsing rods to find this psychic energy is also common for paranormalists.

Ley nodes were commonly attributed to areas of “high strangeness” – a higher than normal occurrence of weird things like anomalous lights, poltergeist activity, bizarre creature encounters, and UFO sightings.

That paranormal investigator who asked me about leylines years ago was certainly hearing it from the buzz in his community. Again, we see the short jump to connect spooky feelings and unusual occurrences to the idea that there is a mysterious energy in the earth affecting humans on the surface. Their house, the moon phase, and solar activity were presumed to be amplifying the effect. Here is an example from Supernatural magazine of what paranormalists can believe about leylines (unedited):

Well most of the Earths leys are positive but when two of these leys cross or intersect a vortex of negative energy is then created. It is like a powerful magnet attracting all kinds of lower vibrational spirit, energy or entity and even sometimes people. These entities can then draw off the energy, feed on it and use it to manifest. Bodmin Jail (Cornwall) is a place where two such energy lines cross and therefore they form lower energy vortexes and this, in turn, will also affect the way people behave in such places. They will be prone or influenced to lower vibrational thoughts, paranoia, anger, ego and fear etc………it can be a source of food to an entity to recharge their essence.

Leylines appear to be an (at least moderately) accepted speculative explanation for ghosts and hauntings. Because of the emphasis on other geological aspects (like minerals, fault lines, and water-bearing zones), I wondered if some paranormal investigators could be mistaking energy lines with lineaments. Geologic lineaments are any linear feature that contrasts with the surrounding ground identified via maps (stereoviews being most helpful) and are associated mostly with carbonate terrain and groundwater well productivity. It was not unreasonable to think that natural lineaments might be features obvious enough to have been noticed by prehistoric societies who might have constructed wells into these fracture zones with great success. True lineaments are usually areas of structural weakness (not “power”) that have weathered more than surrounding rocks. Drilling into a fracture trace can result in a kick-ass well yield. I was not able to find any examples of leylines that really were geologic lineaments, though it’s hard to imagine some enthusiastic person hasn’t done so a few times.

Paranormalists have misunderstood and mixed up ideas of mineral veins, fault lines, contacts between rock formations, and fracture zones. They have widely attributed a nebulous idea of “energy” and “flow” to seismic, structural, mineralogical, and hydrogeologic characteristics to reach a conclusion that leylines are real and are associated with hauntings and the other weird events people experience.

Conclusion

In no way does this foray into leyline history come close to sharing all the information, creative notions, and opinions about them. Anyone interested can get lost for years in all the literature (some first decent choices are in the references). But, most of the current popular perceptions about leylines are based on presumption and are suitable only for entertainment.

Leylines have become a very messy melange of ideas about energy, electromagnetic fields, geologic fault lines, telluric current, voltage, and frequency conjured by paranormalists. It’s a concept that sounds just sciencey enough for non-scientists to think it might have some merit. But it doesn’t.

Leylines have not been objectively shown to have any measurable energy differential. Studies have not conclusively shown that independent reports of odd phenomena are concentrated along discrete lines. Dowsing for leylines (or for anything else) has also never been reliably demonstrated. No tests, as far as I know, have shown that leylines can even be independently mapped by two different people. Even Watkins’ lines were never fully substantiated as a theory, though many proponents insist they were. It’s very easy to draw lines to connect a few things; the thickness of the line can determine if you include features or not. And, after a substantive distance, a line drawn on a map will no longer correlate to the earth’s surface due to the curvature. 

Evolution of Ley Lines1. Long, straight alignments [Watkins]   ... connecting sacred spaces2. "Energy" paths of spiritual significance   ...that ancients could detect and so deliberately built on the lines    ...adopted by paranormalists3. Energy could be used or manipulated    ...negative or positive, earth and sky powers could combine    ...New Age mysticism, magic, geomancy4. This earth energy is vital to our survival; we must rediscover the old ways that were lost.    ...wisdom of the ancients, Gaia

In examining leylines we’ve seen them associated throughout the past few decades with an array of occult and paranormal ideas. Their ambiguous reality and flexible definition allow for seamless application from one strange phenomenon to another. The modern mystical concept of leylines that conduct earth energies, which can be harnessed for supernatural chaos, is fiction derived from subjective observations and perhaps even genuine earth processes. Going back to Alfred Watkins, even his old straight tracks may just be us pattern-seeking — connecting points because it feels satisfying — as people want to find connections and so will see them when they simply aren’t there. This has happened with leylines. Layers of lore and imagination have made leylines a useful trope to connect to spooky things.

References

A. Watkins (1925) The Old Straight Track. [Available in reprint from many publishers.]

D. Sullivan (2004) Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery. Amazon Kindle edition.

T. Williamson and L. Bellamy (1983) Ley Lines in Question. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

J. Michell (1983) The New View Over Atlantis. Harper & Row.

#AlfredWatkins #dowsing #earthEnergy #energyLines #Ghosts #haunting #leyLines #lights #Paranormal #poltergeists #tectonicStrain #UFOs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=372

UK survey respondents love earth mysteries

New poll results about paranormal belief in the UK show that “earth mysteries” are really popular across the pond. US surveys don’t ask about these beliefs, so we can’t compare. That is just one of many complications that make it difficult to make sense out of poll numbers reflecting levels of paranormal beliefs over time.

Over the years, I’ve tracked belief in paranormal concepts, mostly in the US. It’s been interesting to see people claim that belief has increased, because it’s very much more complicated than that. Factors that increase or decrease not only belief, but social acceptance of those beliefs, are many and various. Media certainly has something to do with it, as well as a rejection of traditional religious practices. Several studies have found a correlation with between religion and the paranormal.

Yearly surveys are common, but not all are good. You can read about difficulties with belief surveys here:

https://sharonahill.com/ghost-belief-in-the-us-varies-widely-by-year-and-source/

I have updated my tracking table regarding ghost belief to include the one report I found for 2024. It’s fun to look at and ponder but is it really useful? I don’t know.

A new paper came out measuring belief in paranormal concepts in the UK.[1] It’s not surprising that there would be a difference in popularity of certain beliefs between the US and UK. For example, I would guess that the US population has a higher percentage of belief in UFOs and Bigfoot, but I should not assume because these polls are always tricky to interpret and not reliable. From the abstract:

The study makes four contributions to research on the paranormal by a) reiterating the continuing popularity of paranormal beliefs, even in highly secularized locations, with over 70% of people in the United Kingdom believing in something paranormal; b) demonstrating that these beliefs are differentiated across contexts where they might otherwise be assumed to be similar; c) demonstrating the applicability of social control and bounded affinity theories for explaining belief in the paranormal;
and, d) documenting how conventional religiosity relates to paranormalism in a relatively secular cultural context. These findings highlight the need for further research on diffuse forms of supernaturalism
and the potential for such studies to contribute to important questions about theory and research in sociology.

The 70% may be surprising at first, however, it is similar to the U.S. When you give an array of people a list of many choices, they likely will favor at least a few.

You can read the entire paper here. Let’s look at the top beliefs that showed up in this survey.

The highest levels of belief were reported for issues related to earth mysteries, with belief in dowsing (45.6%) and ley lines (41.5%) registering the highest affirmative responses. Beyond this, the highest levels of belief were reported for black magic (36.3%), hauntings (35.9%), mysterious creatures (32.9%), and curses (30.0%). The lowest levels of belief were reported for belief in Bigfoot (14.8%), the U.K. Wildman (14.8%), and fairies (15.4%).

Dowsing and ley lines! I have thoughts. Obviously, earth mysteries relates to my interest in spooky geology. I have first-hand experience in seeing how attached people are to their belief in dowsing. I have also seen the increased mention of ley lines in paranormal contexts. Currently, reports of spook lights or encounters with mysterious balls of light (BOL) are increasing, particularly related to cryptids. The association with “window areas” and, in turn, a connection to earth energies, is a given.

Belief in dowsing and ley lines might be less in the US because, at least for leys, the concept began in the UK and is more tied to their history and heritage. However, I don’t recall either of these being an option in US surveys. That is unsurprising as you have to limit your choices and such surveys already include a pretty long list related to cryptids, ghosts, aliens, Atlantis, psi, etc. So I do wonder what the comparison would really be regarding dowsing and leys in the US vs UK, especially considering the rising media inclusion of BOL and high strangeness areas.

I’m unclear why this these two options were included in this recent UK survey. I haven’t seen their inclusion before. In the past surveys (done by Baker and Bader) the focus was more on fears, but included paranormal beliefs such as ancient civilizations and telekinesis. “Black magic” was framed as demons or the devil. It’s similar but may not be interpreted the same way by respondents. As always, the phrasing of questions is always a problem. Notice the phrasing in this survey (with the percentage of “belief” shown):

• Dowsing can be used to detect water, minerals and other elements 46.5
• Lines of energy, sometimes called “ley lines,” connect ancient structures 41.5
• Black Magic exists 36.3
• Places can be haunted by spirits 35.9
• Mysterious creatures, previously thought extinct, still inhabit this world 32.9
• Curses can be used to inflict harm or punishment on someone 30.0
• The ancient, advanced civilization of Atlantis, once existed 26.3
• Aliens have visited the Earth in our ancient past 25.6
• Some crop circles are created by non-human forces or energies 25.4
• Alien Big Cats (ABCs) roam the British countryside 21.6
• Aliens have come to Earth in modern times 21.6
• Some people can move objects with their minds (telekinesis) 19.5
• The Loch Ness Monster exists 19.5
• Fortune tellers and psychics can foresee the future 18.9
• The Abominable Snowman exists 15.9
• Fairies have the power to influence the human world 15.4
• Bigfoot is a real creature 14.8
• The U.K. Wildman, sometimes known as “the British Bigfoot,” exists 14.8
• Believe in at least one item above 78.3
• Believe in at least one item above (excluding earth mysteries) 71.5

I could critique the phrasing on almost all of them for some reason. Just a one word change may prompt a different answer. Example: “Mysterious creatures, previously thought extinct, still inhabit this world”. What does that even mean? Ivory billed woodpeckers? Dinosaurs? It’s a terrible phrasing structure, but you have to do some lumping to be as comprehensive as possible. The ley lines question puts them in context of connecting ancient structures but also loops in “lines of energy”. This conflates multiple ideas about leys.

Similarly, those who respond to these questions may not have a full understanding of what is being described. Many people mistakenly think that dowsing has some strange, but scientific, basis. As with ley lines, the idea of “energy” from the earth may suggest that there is some natural component at work that we haven’t yet discovered. Those kinds of belief may seem less paranormal than aliens, curses, or magic. Typically, higher education is correlated with lower levels of belief, but not in all concepts. This complexity shows how difficult it is to parse out why people believe weird things.

In conclusion, while I find these surveys interesting, there is a lot going on in the background and interpretations are context-dependent, which renders the percentages suspect. I’m beginning to question if we can make any kinds of concrete assumptions from them. The latest study concludes that the researchers are hopeful that “social scientists will further explore this interesting and consequential form of culture, across a wider range of social contexts.” I agree with this – paranormal beliefs are an important part of our culture and need to be recognized as such – but I would prefer a careful approach. Reported high percentages of belief in the paranormal sure are interesting, but is not something to fret about. It has always been, and always will be present.

———-

1. Tom Clark, Joseph O. Baker & Christopher D. Bader (10 Feb 2025): Marginalized, Secularized, and Popularized? The Prevalence and Patterns of Paranormal Belief in the United Kingdom, The Sociological Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/00380253.2025.2461298

#beliefInGhosts #dowsing #earthMysteries #Ghosts #leyLines #paranormalBelief #problemWithSurveys #surveyOfParanormalBelief #UK

https://sharonahill.com/?p=9466