John Michell

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John Michell
In repose, 2008
Born	9 February 1933 London
Died	24 April 2009 Stoke Abbott, Dorset
Nationality	English
Citizenship	UK
Education	Eton College
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Genres	Forteana
Notable work(s)	The Flying Saucer Vision, The View Over Atlantis, The Measure of Albion, Who Wrote Shakespeare?
www.johnmichell.com

John Frederick Carden Michell (9 February 1933 – 24 April 2009)^[1][2] was an English writer whose key sources of inspiration were Plato and Charles Fort. His 1969 volume The View Over Atlantis has been described as probably the most influential book in the history of the hippy/underground movement and one that had far-reaching effects on the study of strange phenomena: it "put ley lines on the map, re-enchanted the British landscape and made Glastonbury the capital of the New Age." ^[3]
In some 40-odd titles over five decades he examined, often in pioneering style, such topics as sacred geometry, earth mysteries, geomancy, gematria, archaeoastronomy, metrology, euphonics, simulacra and sacred sites, as well as Fortean phenomena. An abiding preoccupation was the Shakespeare authorship question. His Who Wrote Shakespeare? (1996) was reckoned by The Washington Post "the best overview yet of the authorship question." ^[4]

Contents  [hide]  1 Biography 2 Books 2.1 Metrology, numerology & cosmology 2.2 City of Revelation 2.3 Who Wrote Shakespeare? 3 Further Reading 4 Bibliography 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

Biography

Michell was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He did national service in the Royal Navy, during which time he qualified as a Russian translator at the Joint Services School for Linguists.^[5] He then worked for a while as an estate agent in London.^[6] In 1966 one of his properties, the basement of his own residence, became the base of the London Free School. The Black Power activist Michael X, having previously run a gambling club in the basement, had now become active in the organisation of the LFS and brought Michell into counter-culture activities. Michell began to offer courses in UFOs and ley lines.^[7]
His first book, The Flying Saucer Vision, was published in 1967. At this time Michell took the view that "an imminent revelation of literally inconceivable scope" was at hand, and that the appearance of UFOs was linked to "the start of a new phase in our history".^[8] In 1969 he published The View Over Atlantis, a book which explored Alfred Watkins's concept that an ancient system of ley lines linked together megaliths and monuments from the distant past. Gary Lachman states that the book "put Glastonbury on the countercultural map." Ronald Hutton describes it as "almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement".^[9] By the late 1960s Michell was closely associated with members of the Rolling Stones.^[6]
In the 1980s Michell was a member of the Lindisfarne Association and a teacher at its School of Sacred Architecture. He lectured at the Kairos Foundation, an "educational charity specifically founded to promote the recovery of traditional values in the Arts and Sciences".^[10] He was for some years a visiting lecturer at the Prince of Wales' School of Traditional Arts.^[11]
From 1997 he wrote a monthly column of humour, philosophy and social commentary in The Oldie magazine, an anthology of which was published in 2005 as Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist.
In 1964 Michell fathered a son, Jason Goodwin, who also became a writer. The relationship with Goodwin's mother did not last. His son did not meet his father until 1992, at the age of 28.^[12] In 2007 Michell was married to Denise Price, the Archdruidess of the Glastonbury Order of Druids. The marriage was brief.^[13]

Books

Cover of the revised edition of The View Over Atlantis, 1983

John Michell was the author of over forty books, numerous (sometimes humorous) short treatises, and articles in publications as diverse as International Times,^[14] The Temenos Academy Review,^[15][16] the Daily Mirror ^[17] and The Spectator.^[18]
His better known works include The Flying Saucer Vision: the Holy Grail Restored (1967), The View Over Atlantis (1969), later revised as The New View Over Atlantis, (1983), which stimulated renewed interest in ley lines, City of Revelation (1972), which concerns sacred geometry, A Little History of Astro-Archaeology (1977), Phenomena: A Book of Wonders (1977 with R. J. M. Rickard), Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions (1984) and The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth: Discovering the Sacred Geometry of the Ancients (2006) with Robin Heath.
Michell's books received a broadly positive reception amongst the "New Age" and "Earth mysteries" movements and he is credited as perhaps being "the most articulate and influential writer on the subject of leys and alternative studies of the past".^[19] Ronald Hutton describes his research as part of an alternative archaeology "quite unacceptable to orthodox scholarship." ^[20]
Bob Rickard, founding editor of Fortean Times, has written that Michell's first three works "provided a synthesis of and a context for all the other weirdness of the era. It’s fair to say that it played a big part in the foundation of Fortean Times itself by helping create a readership that wanted more things to think about and a place to discuss them. The overall effect was to help the burgeoning interest in strange phenomena spread out into mainstream culture." ^[3] His 1984 volume Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions covered such figures as Comyns Beaumont, Edward Hine and flat-earth advocate Lady Elizabeth Blount, as well as eccentric, not to say egregious, behaviour such as self-administered trepanning.

Metrology, numerology & cosmology

Michell's "New Jerusalem" sacred geometry diagram

A recurring theme in Michell's work, from Living Wonders to Twelve Tribe Nations and The Measure of Albion, is of universal truths codified in nature and continually, if intermittently, rediscovered from ancient times up to the present day.
Ioan Culianu, a specialist in gnosticism and Renaissance esoteric studies, in a review in 1991 of The Dimensions of Paradise: The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers in Ancient Cosmology, expressed the view that, "After some deliberation the reader of this book will oscillate between two hypotheses: either that many mysteries of the universe are based on numbers, or that the book's author is a fairly learned crank obsessed with numbers." ^[21]
Michell, like Fort, maintained a thoroughgoing scepticism towards most of the theoretical tenets of contemporary science. "How did the world begin?" he enquired of the Daily Mirror's readers on one occasion. "The correct answer is . . . it is a total mystery. That is also the proper answer to the other big questions about our existence—the ones that children ask but adults hate to answer. Questions like: 'How did life begin?' or 'Where does human intelligence come from?' or 'How did language develop?' Everyone has ideas about these things, but no one really knows. If they did know there would not be all those different theories.
"We have all, for example, heard of the 'Big Bang.' According to this explanation, everything in the cosmos developed from a tiny package of incredibly dense matter that exploded. One day, somehow, it exploded and our world began. Adults are quite happy to accept this idea but it does not satisfy children. The next thing they ask, quite rightly, is: How did that suspicious package get there in the first place?"
He went on: "Most writers have their thing or main theme that runs throughout all their work. My thing for over 35 years, in books, articles, and lectures, has been the mystery of existence. Within this unexplained universe is an infinity of mysteries. Wherever you look, in archaeology and ancient history or in the modern records of parapsychology and strange phenomena, you find evidence to contradict every theory and 'certainty' of official science. The real world is quite different from the way our teachers describe it, and it is a great deal more interesting." ^[22]

City of Revelation

Michell claimed that the Biblical miracle of the catch of 153 fish is based on geometry. David Fideler noted that "John Michell was the first to show how this story was intentionally constructed upon an underlying geometry." ^[23] He also noted in this book the relationship between the Egyptian Cubit, Remen and Megalithic Yard, stating that geometrically, if a square has a side that is the Remen then the diagonal will be the Royal Cubit. Furthermore he noted that if a rectangle measures two by one Remens then the diagonal will be the Megalithic Yard.^[24][25]

Who Wrote Shakespeare?

In 1996 Michell published on the question of Shakespeare authorship. In surveying the arguments for and against the various candidates, he did not expressly favour any single one of the surprisingly many, but judged certain hypotheses more plausible than others, particularly the Oxfordian theory. Who Wrote Shakespeare? received mixed reviews: Publishers Weekly was critical,^[26] while The Washington Post and The Independent praised his treatment of the subject.^[27]

Further Reading

• Paul Screeton, John Michell: From Atlantis To Avalon (Heart of Albion Press, 2010). ISBN 1-905646-16-X

Bibliography

• 1967 The Flying Saucer Vision: the Holy Grail Restored, Sidgwick & Jackson, Abacus Books, Ace ISBN 978-0-349-12319-6
• 1969 The View Over Atlantis, HarperCollins, ISBN 9780902006003; first published by Sago Press in Great Britain in 1969; new edition published in Great Britain by Garnstone Press in 1972 and Abacus in 1973, and in the United States by Ballantine Books in 1972.
• 1972 City of Revelation: On the Proportions and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple, Garnstone Press ISBN 978-0-85511-040-6, ISBN 0-85511-040-6
• 1974 The Old Stones of Land's End, Garnstone Press, ISBN 978-0-85511-370-4
• 1975 The Earth Spirit: Its Ways, Shrines, and Mysteries, Avon ISBN 0-380-26880-9
• 1977 with R. J. M. Rickard, Phenomena: A Book of Wonders Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-01182-6
• 1977 A Little History of Astro-Archaeology: Stages In The Transformation Of A Heresy , Thames and Hudson, SBN-10: 0500275572 SBN-10: 0500275572 ISBN 978-0-500-27557-3 (reprinted 2001)
• 1979 Natural Likeness: Faces and Figures in Nature Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-525-47584-2
• 1979 Plinius Scundus C., Inventorum Natura, Harper Collins, English Latin, D. MacSweeney (translator) ISBN 0-06-014726-1
• 1981 Ancient Metrology: the Dimensions of Stonehenge and of the Whole World as Therein Symbolized, Pentacle Books ISBN 0-906850-05-3
• 1982 Megalithomania: Artists, Antiquarians & Archaeologists at the Old Stone Monuments, Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-27235-2, Cornell University Press ISBN 0-8014-1479-2
• 1983 The New View Over Atlantis, Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-01302-0, ISBN 0-500-27312-X ISBN 978-0-500-27312-8 (Much revised edition of The View Over Atlantis.)
• 1984 Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions Thames and Hudson, reissued Harcourt Brace Jovanovich ISBN 0-15-127358-8
• 1985 Stonehenge - Its Druids, Custodians, Festival and Future , Richard Adams Associates (June 1985) ISBN 0-948508-00-0 ISBN 978-0-948508-00-4
• 1988 Geosophy - An Overview of Earth Mysteries Paul Devereux, John Steele, John Michell, Nigel Pennick, Martin Brennan, Harry Oldfield and more, a Mystic Fire Video from Trigon Communications, Inc, New York, 1988 (reissued 1990), also by EMPRESS, Wales, UK, 95 minutes, VHS.
• 1986 commentary, Feng-Shui: The Science of Sacred Landscape in Old China, Ernest J. Eitel, Syngergetic Press ISBN 0-907791-09-3
• 1988 The Dimensions of Paradise: The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers of Ancient Cosmology, London : Thames and Hudson, 1988. ISBN 0-500-01386-1
• 1989 The Traveller's Key to Sacred England , reissued 2006, Gothic Image ISBN 0-906362-63-6
• 1989 Secrets of the Stones: New Revelations of Astro-Archaeology and the Mystical Sciences of Antiquity, Destiny Books ISBN 0-89281-337-7
• 1989 Earth Spirit: Its Ways, Shrines and Mysteries , Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-81011-7
• 1990 New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury, Gothic Image Publications ISBN 0-906362-15-6 (p/b), ISBN 0-906362-14-8 (h/b)
• 1991 Dowsing the Crop Circles (Editor/Contributor), Gothic Image Publications ISBN 0-906362-17-2
• 1991 Twelve Tribe Nations and the Science of Enchanting the Landscape, with Christine Rhone, Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-933999-49-6
• 1994 At the Center of the World: Polar Symbolism Discovered in Celtic, Norse and Other Ritualized Landscapes, Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-01607-0
• 1996 Who Wrote Shakespeare?, Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-01700-X
• 2000, with Bob Rickard, Unexplained Phenomena: Mysteries and Curiosities of Science, Folklore and Superstition, Rough Guides ISBN 1-85828-589-5
• 2000 The Temple at Jerusalem: A Revelation, Samuel Weiser. ISBN 1-57863-199-8, ISBN 978-1-57863-199-5
• 2001 The Dimensions of Paradise: The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers of Ancient Cosmology Adventures Unlimited ISBN 0-932813-89-5
• 2002 The Face and the Message: What Do They Mean and Where Are They From?, Gothic Image ISBN 0-906362
• 2003 The Traveller's Guide to Sacred England: A Guide to the Legends, Lore and Landscapes of England's Sacred Places, Gothic Image Publications ISBN 978-0-906362-63-1
• 2003 Prehistoric Sacred Sites of Cornwall, Wessex Books ISBN 978-1-903035-18-4
• 2005 Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist, Dominion Press ISBN 0-9712044-4-6
• 2006 "Prehistoric Sacred Sites of Cornwall", Wessex Books ISBN 978-1-903035-18-4
• 2006 Euphonics: A Poet's Dictionary of Sounds, Wooden Books ISBN 978-1-904263-43-2
• 2006 The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth: Discovering the Sacred Geometry of the Ancients, with Robin Heath, Adventures Unlimited Press ISBN 1-931882-50-9
• 2007 The Star Temple of Avalon, with Nicholas Mann, Philippa Glasson, Robin Heath, The Temple Publications ISBN 0-9555970-5-6
• 2008 Dimensions of Paradise, The Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science and the Heavenly Order on Earth, (revised edition of City of Revelation) Inner Traditions, Bear & Company.
• 2009 How The World Is Made: The Story Of Creation According To Sacred Geometry (with Allan Brown), Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-51510-7
• 2009 Sacred Center: The Ancient Art of Locating Sanctuaries, Inner Traditions ISBN 1-59477-284-3
• 2010 Michellany, A John Michell Reader, ed. Jonangus Mackay, Michellany Editions, London ISBN 978-0-9566428-0-6

Notes

1. ^ Martin, Douglas (May 2, 2009). "John Michell, Counterculture Author Who Cherished Idiosyncrasy, Dies at 76". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/books/03michell.html. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
2. ^ Fortean Times, retrieved 25Apr2009
3. ^ ^{a b} Rickard, Bob. The Man from Atlantis, Fortean Times, April 2009
4. ^ Who Wrote Shakespeare?, Thames and Hudson, London, 1996 ISBN 0-500-01700-X, dust jacket front
5. ^ New York Times obituary, 2May2009
6. ^ ^{a b} Lachman, p 371
7. ^ Barry Miles (2010) - London Calling: A Countercultural History of London since 1945. p 187
8. ^ Lachman, p 370
9. ^ Hutton, p 121
10. ^ Karios Foundation
11. ^ Prince's School past & present staff list
12. ^ "John Michell, Counterculture Author Who Cherished Idiosyncrasy, Dies at 76", New York Times, May 2, 2009.
13. ^ Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 08 May 2009.
14. ^ http://www.international-times.org.uk/ITarchivePart1.htm
15. ^ "Publications catalogue". Temenos Academy. http://www.temenosacademy.org/temenos_list_publications.html. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
16. ^ Brittania.com Earth Mysteries
17. ^ Articles in the Daily Mirror
18. ^ http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/703891/the-robots-are-coming.thtml
19. ^ Sullivan, Danny, Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery Green Magic, 2005 ISBN 978-0-9542963-4-6 p, 11 [1]
20. ^ Hutton, p 127
21. ^ Culianu, 1991
22. ^ Daily Mirror, 22Mar2001
23. ^ David Fideler (1993) Jesus Christ, Sun of God, Quest Books ISBN 0-8356-0696-1
24. ^ John Michell (1973). City of Revelation: On the Proportion and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple. Sphere. ISBN 0-349-12320-9. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4ZlzAAAACAAJ&dq=isbn:0349123209&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MFiBT9eFEYLB0QWNs6CBBw&redir_esc=y. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
25. ^ Campbell, Robert., Ancient Egypt’s Theory of Everything, Part 3 - Mathematics & Measurement, 2009.
26. ^ Publishers Weekly, July 22, 1996 v243 n30 p223
27. ^ Shakespeare in doubt, The Independent, April 1999

References

• Lachman, Gary (2003). Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius. The Disinformation Company. ISBN 978-0-9713942-3-0. http://books.google.com/?id=8jfptmqzTzkC.

• Hutton, Ronald (1995). Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: their nature and legacy. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-18946-7.

• Culianu, Ioan P. (1991). "review of The Dimensions of Paradise: The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers in Ancient Cosmology". Church History (Church History, Vol. 60, No. 1) 60 (1): 86. doi:10.2307/3168525. JSTOR 3168525.

• Fideler, David (1993). "Appendix 1, The Miraculous Catch of 153 Fishes in the Unbroken Net.". Jesus Christ, Sun of God. Quest Books. ISBN 978-0-8356-0696-7. http://books.google.com/?id=hAB2s6-xeoQC.

• "The Prince's School of Traditional Arts: Staff list". http://www.psta.org.uk/index.php?n=About.TrusteesAndStaff. Retrieved 2008-08-27.

D Fideler, "Jesus Christ, Sun of God", Page 291, Appendix 1, The Miraculous Catch of 153 Fishes in the Unbroken Net

• "Earth Mysteries". http://www.britannia.com/wonder/wonder.html. Retrieved 2008-08-27.

• Rance, Polly. "Review of Who Wrote Shakespeare ". The Richmond Review. http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/whowrote.html. Retrieved 2008-08-27.

• Bear/Inner Traditions. "review of The Dimensions of Paradise". http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-177830362.html. Retrieved 2008-08-27.

• Michell, John et al. (1998). Shakespearean Criticism: Excerpts from the Criticism of William Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry, from the First Published Appraisals to Current Evaluations, 68 vols. Vol. 41. Gale Research.

External links

• Official website
• The John Michell Network
• Michell and the 1971 Glastonbury Festival
• John Michell's wedding to Denise Price, Glastonbury, 2007
• Michell addresses the 1998 FortFest
• International Fortean Organisation

Authority control VIAF: 37037818

Notes from a Highlander: David Cowan’s work

Posts Tagged ‘telluric’

January 9th, 2009 | Author: Gwas

When I first read a book by David Cowan called “Ley Lines and Earth Energies” the title seemed to match my desire – to learn as much as possible about ley lines. I wasn’t quite so sure about whether I was really interested in earth energies at that stage, or even what they were, in truth. So, I made an attempt to read it, but fell short of completing it. I was too new to the subject to grasp what Cowan’s ideas were, or how they had been achieved. I parked the book until a later date.

As fate would have it I recently purchased a copy of another book he’d done, and this book was kinder. Or maybe I was more prepared for it. For the first half of “Ancient Energies of the Earth” I was simply nodding in agreement – “Yep – we’ve found that too.” Then Cowan began to come out with a stream of properties about the energies – how they worked, what they were powered by, what they linked to, how they circulated, what forces attracted and repelled them. I was overwhelmed with information so I started to make notes.

 

In the following section you can read some of those notes I took which I think encapsulate a number of pieces of information, some coherent, some random, and they are classified by us as either confirmatory (confirmed), or speculative if undesignated. That is, his ideas either correlate exactly to our own findings, or we have not yet shown them to be true enough for us to convince us yet. We aim to try the speculative ideas out this year.

Cowan makes reference to two terms that I will mention: cup-marked stones and telluric energies. Cup-marked stones are large stones ranging from small boulders up to huge megaliths that have man-made carved depressions, hollows and gouges. Cowan links these stones intrinsically to the functioning of ancient sites. Telluric energies are simply Cowan’s term for the male and female earth energies that we have discussed many times on this blog.

Animals, plants and energy lines

• There are many tales of cows and insect swarms being attracted to geomagnetic areas.
• Cows sit on tumuli, barrows, etc.
• Church stonemasons had a tradition of sleeping where cows had been stood or had lain, as this ensured a good night’s sleep.
• Evil water spirits in the form of a horse,bull or cow are often associated with tales about lochs, lakes and tarns.
• Hares make their burrows on hills that have blind springs running beneath them.
• Mole nests and badger sets are also associated with the location of blind springs.
• Some plants grow better in areas where earth energy columns arise.

We have found an abundance of faerie rings with unusually lush grass growth forming circles around hilltops and sacred sites. At Arbor Low stone circle we found a column of energy arcing out of one faerie ring and joining to another some thirty feet away.

Energy Formations

• Quoting Guy Underwood, Cowan says that blind springs (crossing points of underground water) send vertical spirals of energy arcing into the air.
• The book shows an illustration of The Staff of Aesculapius symbol of entwined light and dark serpents (similar to the Caduceus symbol). A similar double-helix energy formation is shown emerging from a standing stone. (Confirmed)
• There are at least two types of straight leys: containment leys and national leys. National leys follow geological fault lines, whereas containment leys can be constructed with a stone and a mound.
• Underground energies are shaped like an inverted tree with the trunk being a spiral at the surface.
• Cup marks carved in a stone produce an energy beam. One ray per mark (although it could be two as the line may come back into the stone ).
• To make an energised stone carve a cup mark in sunlight. Once carved the stone can be moved, and the beam of energy directed by turning the stone.

Energy Properties

• Cup marked stones are the SOURCE powering circuits of energy linking several ancient sites into a circuit of energy on both a local and national geographical scale.
• Straight alignment leys differ from the earthy telluric energies (male and female lines). Alignment leys are neither male nor female, he says. Neutral, we say. (Confirmed)
• Telluric energy follows the path of least obstruction, e.g. animal trails, tramlines in cornfields, or through forests. (Confirmed)
• He equates the telluric energies to the Yin/Yang properties discussed by Chinese geomancers. The male energies come from edges, whereas the female energies emerge from hollows. These energies are also attracted to features of a similar type: i.e. male energies seek edges, whereas female energies seek hollows. (Confirmed)
• This energy tunes into resonant cavities – holes or hollows, skulls and bones. These cavities are resonated by wind passing through them, causing vibrational resonance.
• Qualities of the energies:

1. takes the easiest path,
2. attracted to bodies of water,
3. attracted to recent death sites.

• The wavelengths of telluric energies are phased, and seems to be based on a two-minute cycle. Dowsing the same wave twice within that two minute cycle ought to yield variations on the position of the wave.
• Straight leys do not cycle their phase and are STATIC. (Confirmed)
• SOLAR ENERGY produces the shape wave around objects on the earth (trees, stones, tumuli). This means that the size of the “aura” of that feature is linked to the extent of its shadow in the sun. The extent is mirrored not only on the shadow side, but on its opposite side too, like an anti-shadow.
• In derelict houses the energy will enter the door and leave by another “hole” such as a chimney, or window.
• The energy will often pass across bridges.
• Male lines spiral clockwise, female lines spiral anti-clockwise. (Confirmed)
• Streams, rivers, roads, paths, railway lines and electricity pylons all act as carriers for telluric energies. Straight leys are not re-directed by the presence of obstacles, but travel in straight lines naturally. (Confirmed)
• The width of the holes in standing stones or cup marks in stones denotes the breadth of the telluric line that emerges from it (or travels through it). Narrow holes or slits concentrate energies into thin lines, whereas wide or gaping holes emit a broad encircling line of energy.

Winter Hill cup-marked stone

Ancient Site Construction

• Two standing stones side by side form a portal that focuses energy lines along a particular direction. (Confirmed)
• Standing stones are situated on the crossing points of two or more underground streams.
• Some piles of stones (cairns) attract the paths of energies, and may even be sources of energies themselves. If one stone is moved away from the pile then an energy path will come with it. (Confirmed)
• The gaps in piles of boulders attracts telluric energies, as do man-made gaps between hills and split stones (like The Praying Hands of Mary in Perthshire).
• Telluric energies avoid Forestry Commission Plantations. The trees being so close together form an impenetrable barrier.
• Four-stone circles work differently from other types of stone circle. They are called “four posters”. These circles transmit energy out to circular burial grounds.
• Dolmens or cromlechs seem designed as parabolas for the purpose of concentrating energy. (Confirmed)
• Suggests that Arbor Low is a hub for many radial alignment leys. Kal found 12. (Confirmed)
• Confirms that energies come out of the FLAT side of a stone in a circle (like at Druid’s Circle, Penmaenmawr), circles around, then comes back into the stone. (Confirmed)
• Sites tend to be built upon geological fault lines, and lines cross at nodes where activity is strongest.
• Lakes, tarns, lochs and just about any standing water body acts as an attractor pulling energy currents towards them, even uphill.
• Sacred sites usually have some element of PARABOLA involved in their design. These concentrate the energies coming in to a single point.

Consider the position of power centres in stone circles, which are always off-centre and closer to the edge of a site. There is also an interesting story (upcoming blog post) about some Tibetan monks being observed and photographed by a German scientist demonstrating their powers of levitating a megalith by using sound energy. This was achieved whilst stood in a semi-circle a precise distance away from the stone and chanting whilst drumming.

 

Death Energies

• A ram’s head skull found int he path of a ley line had a set of concentric rings around it in the shape of the skull. These got narrower apart at the outer edge. The spread of these concentric waves supposedly can vary according to how recent the death of the animal was.
• The burial sites of ancient warriors is a likely place to find telluric energy flowing through (cf. Hawarden – the Gladstone tomb). (Confirmed)
• Healthy lines turn to unhealthy lines when they pass through a graveyard.
• The more recent the death, the stronger the attraction for energy lines.
• The paths of the dead were always straight, and many straight leys run through ancient burial sites. It seems as though the dead were transported along these straight trackways (or “doodwegen” - ’dead ways’ in Dutch). Many cultures believe that the recent dead travel in straight lines.

Scientific and Paranormal properties of energy

• The dowsing brain is sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Passing through these fields with increasing speed increases the voltage in the brain from around 4microvolts @ 1m/sec to 400microvolts @8m/sec.
• Rotating the head also causes a similar increase in voltages. Are increases in voltages associated with altered states of consciousness?
• Welsh folklore has it that cup marks and petroglyphs hold the key to all knowledge of the arts and sciences of the ancient world. See also the book “Lost Arts and Sciences of the Stone Age”
• Apollonius Rhodius (Greek poet) said: “Stones placed at the apex of a tumulus are so sensitive as to be movable by the mind.”
• Telluric energy may be capable of splitting stones, or causing weaknesses in stone to be exposed to weathering, thus creating unusual gaps along the paths of straight leys.
• Up until the 1950s it was common for Glasgow women to draw “step charms” in chalk on their doorsteps. These were intricate patterns of sacred gemoetrical shapes. The idea was to give whoever stopped over them the benefits of their benevolent energies. In India they are called “kolams“.
• Kiva, or magnetic chambers, used by the Native Americans for the purpose of transformation of consciousness. Souterrains like Bryn Celli Ddu, or Lligwy chamber, serve this purpose too. (Confirmed)
• Chladni patterns produced by sound vibrations shaping sand on a smooth surface – are these designs the format of crop circle designs? Does that mean that crop circles are produced by energy at differing frequencies?
• Crop circles could form ever more complex patterns through the input of ever stronger electromagnetic forces, producing a pattern much like when sand on a flat plate is vibrated at higher and higher frequencies.
• Margaret Watts-Hughes used her voice to create patterns (lycopodium grains, sand, powder and a ‘singing tube’) – they are called Eidophone Voice Figures. This was simply done using a pipe with some rubber stretched across the ‘trumpet’ or bowl section. The power and sand are mixed with some water and spread across the membrane. Gentle tonal singing through the tube then produces patterns.

Healing with Energy

• There is an ancient tradition of burying silver bells to ward off malignant energies. As the bell shape is concave it deflects bad earth energies.
• Lines from a stone can pick up healthy negative IONS by following a stream or river (especially a lively one).
• Energy lines that follow a stream or river can be attracted and directed around houses to form a shield against unhealthy energies in the area.
• Drilling a hole in a stone (The Cheesewring, Cornwall, for example) causes it to emit a form of energy that is traditionally associated with healing.
• Healthy energy waves can pass through glass, but unhealthy waves cannot, and avoid or go around the glass obstacle.
• Confirms that electricity pylons attract and act as a conduit or carrier for both healthy and unhealthy energies.
• Putting a mirror or glass (glass is the key) beneath a bed will deflect harmful energy lines (‘black lines’) and aid a restful sleep.
• T.C.Lethbridge believed that waterfalls, spring and streams were places where humans could interact best with the natural force field, as they generate negative (good) ions. They certainly have the power to enervate the human spirit.

The Geology and Geography of Ley Lines

• There is a long straight ley running from Glastonbury Tor to Edinburgh Castle
• Cowan speculates that highest telluric currents originate from volcanic activity (volcanies, volcanic plugs). These volcanic plugs often have large castles situated on them that housed rulers and kings.
• Magnetic anomalies of Croy Brae, Ranmore Common (Surrey), Isle of Mull, Mt Cavo in Italy, and Long Mynd in Shropshire all have unusual effects. Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire has an extremely high geomagnetic field.
• The Isle of Staffa (near Mull, site of Fingal’s Cave) and the Giant’s Causeway – both originators of straight energy leys, and made from volcanic basalt rock. The cave is huge, and combined with the volcanic source material, projects a powerful ley across to Iona.

Tiamat: The Chromatic Dragon

Miscellaneous

• Names for the energy dragon around the world:

1. KUEI (China) – travels in straight lines, dislikes iron & steel.
2. ECHIDNA (Greece) – lives in caves, moves at night, shuns the daylight.
3. ORME (Gaelic) – worm that suns the daylight.
4. TIAMAT – lives below water, is evil.
5. OMNIONT (N.America) – giant snake, when angry makes thunder, lightening, hail and rain.
6. WHOWIES (Australia) – lives in caves, travels only at night.
7. BUNYIP (Australia) – lives in damp sand.
8. UROO (Australia) – water serpent that twists and turns below the earth’s surface.

Conclusion

Many assertions that need testing, wonderful description of layering up over energy systems over a wide area. Describes how to build a ley system. Second half of book is by Anne Silk and is attempt to scientifically (specif. geologically) explain paranormal phenomena via earth energy qualities. Similar to work done by Paul Devereux.

It is clear there is a link made by Cowan (as by many other researchers, archaeologists and dowsers) between the siting of ancient burial sites and their energetic potential. It seems as though death, or the extinction of life in particular, attracts telluric energies. A connection we were not keen to explore after our Norton Priory experience last year (see blog post), but may have to revisit.

I heartily recommend the “Ancient Energies..” book as a useful insight into how David Cowan deconstructed then reconstructed the makings and working of a large-scale energy ley system and its associated local telluric energy systems. When you see the scale of the work done by ancient cultures it only further impresses you with its ingenuity and sensitivity. We know little of its actual power potential, however.

References

1. David Cowan & Anne Silk : “Ancient Energies of the Earth“ (buy)
2. David Cowan & Chris Arnold : “Ley Lines and Earth Energies“ (buy)
3. If you want to see what kind of subjects David is drawn to research then you should visit his website: http://www.leyman.demon.co.uk

http://www.hedgedruid.com/tag/telluric/

Gwas,