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Ley line

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Ley lines, attributed to ancient dodmen, allegedly join geographical points resonating special psychic energy. They may relate to traditional religious sites (such as Stonehenge and other megalith structures), and/or to recognised landscape features such as high or prominent mountains.

Ley lines were discovered by Alfred Watkins, who first made his theories public at a meeting of the Woolhope Club of Hereford in September 1921. His actual discovery took place on June 30, 1921 when he visited Blackwardine, Herefordshire. He was looking at map when he noticed key places were aligned. "The whole thing came to me in a flash" he explained to his son afterwards.

His ideas were taken up by the occultist Dion Fortune who featured them in her 1936 novel The Goat-footed God.

Mapping ley lines, according to New Age geomancers, can foster harmony with the "planet" or reveal pre-historic trade routes.

Theories of magnetic interactions however, appear unproven to date, leading to suspicions that leys belong in the realms of pseudoscience or magic (or magick) .

History of British ley line hunting

Books:

By Alfred Watkins:

  • Early British Trackways (1922)
  • The Old Straight Track (1925)
  • The Ley Hunter's Manual (1927)

By Tony Wedd:

  • Skyways and Landmarks (1961)
to be written

Skeptical critiques of ley lines

Some skeptics have suggested that ley lines are a product of human fancy. It should be noted that Watkins discovery happened at a time when Ordnance Survey maps were being marketed for the leisure market, making them reasonable easy and cheap to obtain.

One suggestion is that thanks to the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, that finding straight lines that "connect" sites (usually selected to make them "fit") is trivial and nothing more than coincidence. However, others claim that the patterns of shrines and monuments in the Aymara territory of Bolivia, as shown in the photographs of Tony Morrison in his 1978 book Pathways of the Gods offer convincing evidence.

Computer simulations appear to show that pseudo-random points on a plane form alignments in similar numbers to Watkins' significant places, suggesting that Watkins' ley lines may also be generated by chance. Many Chaos magicians delight in this as scientific 'proof' not only of the existence of ley lines, but also of the generative power of chance.

Others have pointed out the disparity between the two-dimensional representation of the map with the fact that the most accurate representation of the surface of the world is the geoid, which has very different qualities, particularly in relation to the question: what is a straight line running along the ground. Whilst it may be hard to find the significance of such a nice distinction, these become of increasing importance over long distances.

It is obvious that finding ley lines on a landscape gets progressively easier as the length of ley line to be considered increases. This is because if one stops progressing along the line no more significant points can be discovered, where as if one proceeds further there is always a chance that another significant site will be discovered.


See also:

Compare with:

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