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Anybody into dousing ley lines?

John J at home 21 Mar 01 - 06:54 PM
katlaughing 21 Mar 01 - 08:27 PM
Uncle_DaveO 21 Mar 01 - 09:13 PM
katlaughing 21 Mar 01 - 11:39 PM
John J 22 Mar 01 - 04:14 AM
Linda Kelly 22 Mar 01 - 05:43 AM
wdyat12 22 Mar 01 - 05:47 AM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 05:48 AM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 05:59 AM
Grab 22 Mar 01 - 09:30 AM
Maryrrf 22 Mar 01 - 09:59 AM
katlaughing 22 Mar 01 - 10:01 AM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 10:30 AM
katlaughing 22 Mar 01 - 10:40 AM
mousethief 22 Mar 01 - 11:01 AM
katlaughing 22 Mar 01 - 11:09 AM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 12:06 PM
Hollowfox 22 Mar 01 - 12:24 PM
Ringer 22 Mar 01 - 12:50 PM
mousethief 22 Mar 01 - 01:18 PM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 01:28 PM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 01:29 PM
mousethief 22 Mar 01 - 01:36 PM
Scotsbard 22 Mar 01 - 01:40 PM
Wolfgang 22 Mar 01 - 01:42 PM
Bert 22 Mar 01 - 01:44 PM
mousethief 22 Mar 01 - 01:47 PM
Mountain Dog 22 Mar 01 - 04:12 PM
mousethief 22 Mar 01 - 04:26 PM
Penny S. 22 Mar 01 - 04:42 PM
Penny S. 22 Mar 01 - 04:47 PM
MarkS 22 Mar 01 - 07:33 PM
GUEST,peg in florida 22 Mar 01 - 08:37 PM
Mountain Dog 22 Mar 01 - 08:49 PM
Bearheart 22 Mar 01 - 08:49 PM
katlaughing 22 Mar 01 - 09:53 PM
Wolfgang 23 Mar 01 - 07:08 AM
GUEST,Fibula Mattock 23 Mar 01 - 07:59 AM
GUEST,Fibula Mattock 23 Mar 01 - 08:01 AM
Grab 23 Mar 01 - 09:15 AM
Bert 23 Mar 01 - 11:44 AM
Penny S. 23 Mar 01 - 03:40 PM
Bert 23 Mar 01 - 03:50 PM
katlaughing 23 Mar 01 - 05:01 PM
John J at home 24 Mar 01 - 05:43 AM
Penny S. 24 Mar 01 - 06:03 AM
Mountain Dog 24 Mar 01 - 02:22 PM
wildlone 24 Mar 01 - 04:12 PM
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Subject: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: John J at home
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 06:54 PM

Is there anybody out there in mudcatland experienced in dousing (dowsing?) ley lines?...preferably in NW England. I've doused water & stuff like that, but fance going further. John


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 08:27 PM

This will be an interesting one to read, John J. I have a friend here in Wyoming who gets paid to find water and such. I will ask him about leylines. I have *felt* them, unexpectedly, but never doused for them.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 09:13 PM

Okay, I'll be the one to bite: What are ley lines (or leylines)?

Dave Oesterreich


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 11:39 PM

Lots of info out there on them, Dave. Here are a couple of the more interesting and less "trippy" stuff:

"The term "ley lines" was coined by Alfred Watkins when explaining his theory that ancient sites around Britain had actually been constructed or formed giving alignments between and across the inhabited landscape of Britain. The sites mentioned include Stone Circles, Standing Stones, Long Barrows, Cairns, Burial Mounds and Churches. In 1921 Watkins had an idea about alignments and set about noting and measuring these sites to help support his theory. His first book entitled, "Early British Trackways" was published in 1922 and was the result of a lecture he had given the previous year. After this he continued to pursue his study of the alignment theory. In 1925 he published what is said to be his main book entitled, "The Old Straight Track", later books were "The Ley Hunters Manual" (1927) and the "Archaic Tracks Around Cambridge" (1932). Shortly after the publishing of the Old Straight Track, The Straight Track Postal Portfolio club was formed enable people to exchange and circulate information, including viewpoints and photographs, with each other. Major F.C. Taylor in the 1930's was the secretary, but the deaths of Alfred Watkins and Major Taylor and the advent of the Second World War meant that the club closed. Luckily a handful of people kept the interest alive right through to the 1960's when a new cycle of theories emerged.

It is said that the word "Ley" comes from the Saxon word for cleared glade. Paul Devereux and Ian Thompson, in their book, The Ley Guide, quote from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary that the word "ley" can be linked to "lea" meaning a "tracked of open ground." Watkins believed that the image of the actual ley surveyors/designers can be seen by looking at the chalk figure known as "The Long Man of Wilmington," located in Sussex. In 1974 these types of design in the Southern parts of Britain have been linked to the markings on the pampa/ground close to Nasca, Peru, by Maria Reiche a German expert."

AND:

Ley Lines

"Ley lines, or Leys, are alignments of ancient sites stretching across the landscape. Ancient sites or holy places may be situated in a straight line ranging from one or two to several miles in length. A ley may be identified simply by an aligned placing of marker sites, or it might be visible on the ground for all or part of its length by the remnants of an old straight track.

Ley Lines were 're-discovered' on 30 June 1921 by Alfred Watkins (1855-1935), a locally well-known and respected Herefordshire businessman, who while looking at a map for features of interest noticed a straight line that passed over hill tops through various points of interest, all of which were ancient. At the time of his discovery, Watkins had no theory about alignments but on that June afternoon saw "in a flash" a whole pattern of lines stretching across the landscape. Four years later, in 1925, he described his vision in a book he titled The Old Straight Track:

"Imagine a fairy chain stretched from mountain peak to mountain peak, as far as the eye could reach, and paid out until it reached the 'high places' of the earth at a number of ridges, banks, and knowls. Then visualise a mound, circular earthwork, or clump of trees, planted on these high points, and in low points in the valley other mounds ringed around with water to be seen from a distance. Then great standing stones brought to mark the way at intervals, and on a bank leading up to a mountain ridge or down to a ford the track cut deep so as to form a guiding notch on the skyline as you come up.... Here and there, at two ends of the way, a beacon fire used to lay out the track. With ponds dug on the line, or streams banked up into 'flashes' to form reflecting points on the beacon track so that it might be checked when at least once a year the beacon was fired on the traditional day. All these works exactly on the sighting line."

Watkins surmised that these straight tracks, or ley lines as he called them at first, were the remnants of prehistoric trading routes. He went on to associate ley lines with the Greek god Hermes (the Roman Mercury, the Norse Woden) who was the god of communication and of boundaries, the winged messenger, and the guide to travellers on unknown paths. Watkins identified Hermes-Mercury with the chief god of the Druids and argued that:

"A Celtic god, Tout, or in its Romanised form Toutates, is supposed to be what Caesar referred to, and this name has been found on a Romano-British altar. It is a fact that sighting mounds called Tot, Toot, Tout, Tute and Twt abound all over the Kingdom, and the root is probably Celtic... The fact that such mounds are mark-points on trackways strengthen the link..."

The identification of leys as ancient traders' routes was as far as Watkins was prepared to go, despite the fact that numerous ley lines travelled up prohibitively steep hillsides. Speculation as to their meaning and purpose continued after Watkins' death in 1935.

According to Paul Devereux, it was the occultist Dion Fortune in her 1936 novel The Goat-Foot God (republished in 1971 by S. Weiser, New York, and in 1989 by Aquarian Press, Northamptonshire) who invented the idea that ley lines were "lines of power" linking prehistoric sites. A few years later, it was suggested that ley lines followed lines cosmic energy in the Earth and could be detected using dowsing rods. In the 1960s, ley lines, or "leys" as they were now called, became linked with UFO sightings.

In 1969, ley lines were taken up by John Michell, in his seminal book The View Over Atlantis, who discussed them within the context of geomancy. By 1974, ley lines and geomancy, plus other esoteric subjects having to do with the Earth, were collected under the umbrella term of "Earth Mysteries." "


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: John J
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 04:14 AM

Bloody hell Kat! That's more than I knew before, thanks loads for that. Catch you all later, I'm at work at the moment and rather tied up (???!!!) John


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 05:43 AM

I have done this although not recently. Went to Avebury in SW and you do get remarkable results with the dowsing rods spinning around frantically on certan spots. Used a couple of empty biro cases and inserted a bent coathanger into each. Hold them about a foot apart and keep them level. Haven't tried it anywhere else but it can bring fascinating results .


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: wdyat12
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 05:47 AM

WOW!!! Kat you never cease to amaze me. You are just a fountain of knowledge. Ben and I thank you for the formula for windchill factor last week. Ben has already installed it in his weatherstation program and it is working fine.

John J,

You may also want to checkout NEARA since it's close to home. I have had many exciting dowsing experiences with folks in this organization. The New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA) is a research organization dedicated to the study and preservation of sites comprising lithic features in their cultural context.

To contact NEARA call or write:

Roslyn Strong RR 1, Box 3630 Edgecomb, Maine 04556 Tel. 207-882-9425

wdyat12


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 05:48 AM

John,
you'll find like minded people in the Society of ley hunters.
If you can stomach a skeptical view go to the Skeptic's Refuge and you'll find an article with links under 'L' in the Skeptic's Dictionary.
If you find by dowsing what you are looking for consistently you should try it under controlled conditions and collect the one million dollar price from James Randi.

A folk song about ley lines (from the singing of the Watersons):

I like to rise when the sun she rises
Early in the morning
I like to hear them small birds singing
Merrily upon the ley lines.
(but my recollection of the lyrics might be faulty , grin).

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 05:59 AM

When shall I ever learn not to mix up 'price' and 'prize'?

W.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Grab
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 09:30 AM

As much as I dislike Randi for his cocky attitude on this, I do have to admire him for putting his money where his mouth is.

Grab.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 09:59 AM

That is one of the reasons I will be going to Glastonbury which is supposed to be one of the ancient places of power. I won't be carrying dowsing rods, but I will be meditating. I'll let you know what impressions come to me!


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 10:01 AM

LOL, Wolfgang, at that last line in the song...very funny...also prize/price...closely related and as many typos as the rest of us make, not to worry..the meaning is implied, anyway:-) May I also say your restraint on this subject, which I know must drive you nuts, is appreciated?:-)

Wdyat12 - that's good to hear that it is working well for Benjamin. I just have a knack for finding things on the net, that's all. Something I really enjoy doing.

John J - I pulled those off a search on google. There's tons of info out there. Ya did make me smile, though, and you're welcome. Those kinds of subjects have been of interest to me for a long time.

Ley, lady, ley...
Ley across my grassy bed...

heeheehee...

kat


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 10:30 AM

Restraint? Wait for my 2MB sermon.

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 10:40 AM

LOL!! Oh sure!


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 11:01 AM

Why douse ley lines? I didn't know they were on fire.

Oh, you meant doWsing. Hahaha. Silly me.

I'm skeptical about stuff like this, but open to being convinced, after having felt chi energy between the palms of my hands in tai chi class (I expected to feel absolutely nothing, skeptic that I am, and to say I was a little surprised is like saying that Lake Michigan is a little water).

I went to your skeptical dictionary, Wolfgang, and I'm afraid it doesn't get high marks for cold, detached reason. Boiled down to a single sentence, it said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "They're not real, dammit!" Seemed awfully shrill. Skepticism can be a kind of obsession too, I'm thinking.

The Ley Hunters' site was long on narrative and romance and short on anything that might be considered results of scientific investigation. Tellingly, they gave links to sites on Feng Shui, Crop Circles, and other pseudoscientific interests. The one thing I didn't get from their site was any firm feeling that any of them had a shred of evidence for ley lines.

So it's plaintiff, 0, defendant, 0. But since the burden of proof in this case is on the defendant, I shall have to remain skeptical. Sorry, y'all.

Didn't Glen Campbell sing about ley lines:

And I need you more than want you
And I want you for all time
And the Wichita lineman
Is still on ley line

Alex


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 11:09 AM

JohnJ, more very interesting information is available at GEO Group.

Also, I know nothing about any of these but this offers 100 Ley Lines Links.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 12:06 PM

Alex,
I see you want another friendly exchange? I am sure you have tried to read that link with cold, detached reason.

You're paraphrasing what is said with: They're not real, dammit!

What is actually said (BTW, about special energy at those places and not about ley lines as such) is that there is 'no evidence' and it hasn't been 'scientifically verified'. If there is no difference for you between 'not real' and 'no evidence' I can't help it. For me, the one statement would be irresponsible and the other is a correct summary of the state of the art. Both should never been mixed up.

If you had really tried to give a correct summary in so few words, it should have read: 'There's no evidence'. Next time, try to be a tiny bit more fair.

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 12:24 PM

Years ago, they had dowsing demonstrations/workshops at the (notoriously rainy) Fox Hollow folk festival. Sure enough, the man found the water pipe in the food/crafts area, and one day during a rainshower, his dowsing rod pointed straight up. Yes, really.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Ringer
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 12:50 PM

Earlier Thread


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:18 PM

Wolfie, perhaps you don't understand what "paraphrase" means. Or perhaps you don't get the very loud silent implication of "there is no evidence." Or perhaps you're just baiting me.

Maybe you didn't catch the shrillness of the article on the skeptical dictionary website. Some people are less attuned to such subtleties, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Alex


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:28 PM

Mousie,
if I summarise another position I try to give it a fair hearing and leave any inferendes to others. But that seems to be not your agenda.

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:29 PM

inferences


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:36 PM

No it was not my agenda. My agenda was to give my impressions of the two sites. Surely I am allowed to select my own agenda? You may be self-righteous about the superiority of yours all you like, however.

Alex


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Scotsbard
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:40 PM

I've always preferred the minimalist explanation for leylines; that they were simply cleared paths for signalling. By using signal fires at night or mirrors during the day, fairly complex communication could be relayed much more quickly and clearly than by traveling messengers. That the routes connect sites once important should be no big surprise.

~S~


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:42 PM

Alex,
my general impression is that you see in others traits you yourself have too much of. This is from my side the end of this exchange.

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:44 PM

How can you discuss ley lines without mentioning Roman Roads?


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 01:47 PM

Thanks, Wolfgang, for the psychological analysis. Do you have a license for this, or are you risking lawsuit here? Keep it to yourself.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 04:12 PM

For those interested in reading more about Leylines, and specifically about the St. Michael/St. Mary line - the longest in the UK - check out "The Sun and the Serpent: An Investigation into Earth Energies" by Paul Broadhusrt and Hamish Miller (Pendragon Press, Launceston, Cornwall). Paul is a writer living in Cornwall and has written extensively on earth mysteries and the Arthurian mythos. Hamish is a master dowser and a blacksmith/artist who also resides in Cornwall. They've spent the better part of the last dozen years tracing major leylines across the UK and, most recently, across Europe. "The Sun and the Serpent" is a fascinating and well-written account of their work.

And for the record, maintaining an open mind is not prima facie evidence of having a hole in one's head...


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 04:26 PM

My head has at least 7 holes. But keeping one's mouth shut removes one hole (at least temporarily), and allows one to learn much (if one has an open mind).


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Penny S.
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 04:42 PM

After reading the Old Straight Track, I investigated the probabilities of straight lines between, as near as I could make them, random points. I counted out the number of rice grains (round) that Watkins had sites in his argument, and dropped them from standing on a large piece of paper, plotted the positions carefully, and started hunting. I exceeded the numbers of three and four point lines that he had found before I got bored. The problem with Britain is that the landscape is very busy, full of features which might be significant. If there is anything natural in leylines they should be as common in less inhabited regions. Has anyone looked?

On dowsing for water, I found very interesting a book which gave a method for finding the depth that seemed to relate to the relationship between depth and the distances at which geophysical anomalies can be detected. This seemed to suggest that there same, or similar, phenomena were concerned.

I know that it is possible for the brain (mine, at least) to produce micro-muscular movements in an arm holding a pendulum by bypassing the conscious "I will move my arm" method and going for the "this pendulum will move anticlockwise" thought - or any other movement, to and fro in any direction, to and fro rotating, so I would expect dowsing to work, if it does, by influence on the brain. I don't have a problem with dowsing for water or any other physical feature, on site. Water diviners wouldn't be employed if they didn't have a better than random success rate - even if it is due to a better than average ability to read the landscape. I've actually had reactions myself. Once outside a megalithic barrow in Kent, where the owner of the site said there was a stream outside the entrance, and where I didn't want it to happen! It wasn't a very good test, not being blind. The other was at the Pennine Mining Museum in Matlock, Derbyshire, where they had stuff under the floor.

I'm not happy with remote dowsing. There seems no physical reason for it to work. In the same way, there seems no reason for dowsing non-physical features as leylines seem to be to work.

As for leylines being ancient, and natural, they would have to be very odd indeed to survive as straight lines. We may not be California, but Britain is not seismically dead. We are affected by small scale tectonic effects, uplift and subsidence, and there is evidence of changes in river direction caused by such effects on recent, post glacial, land surfaces. What would keep a leyline straight on an active surface? Or above a still active deeper layer? Geology is not a thing of straight lines - there are straightish features, true, but the Earth is irregular and in motion.

The suggestion that they were part of an ancient semaphore/heliograph system is attractive. One that had occurred to me in the past, but has the problem that many of the sites are not on hilltops.

Penny


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Penny S.
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 04:47 PM

And, in my studies of old yew trees in churchyards, I found the interesting fact that there are far more church deications to St Mary and to St Michael than any other saints, so it may well be much easier to find lines joining them than other dedications. And I've never seen any information about corrections for the Earth's curvature in the very long lines, which should be great circles, which would not be straight on the usual maps.

Penny


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: MarkS
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 07:33 PM

For a modern take on Ley Lines, read two books by Harry Turtledove, Into the Darkness and Darkness Decending. He incorporates working Ley Lines into a plot consisiting of a thinly veiled allegory about WWII, in a society in which magic still works.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: GUEST,peg in florida
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 08:37 PM

great stuff Kat!!!! You rule.

I have always been interested in ley lines since first learning of them long ago. I am so glad Watkins' book is in print again!

I attended the Ancient Sacred Landscapes Network conference last year and there was some discussion of ley lines by a couple of speakers on the first day of talks. The second day of the conference was field trips to the Rollright Stones, White Horse Hill and Waylands' Smithy.

One man who was attending had dowsing rods with him, spoke cryptically of "dragons" and rather bulldozed the discussion at one point. People had to finally tell him to shut up because he kept going on and on about how the "dragons will rise" and said some kinda insulting things about the Rollrights Trust (members of which had helped organize the conference). Ah well, there's one in every crowd...

The second conference is July 7-8 in Yorkshire this summer; that is, of course, if hoof and mouth is over by then and travelling in the countryside can recur...I imagine they could still hold the lectures but not having the field trips would be a drag...

I highly recommend this conference!!! If anyone wants more info let me know and I can post what little I have...Fascinating speakers, great books and wares for sale, very cool people attending! Sir Aubrey Burl (one of the earliest experts on stone circles in Britain) is one of the key lecturers this year...I shall attend if the gods are with us all...

Peg

"But the May Day is the great day, sung along the Old Straight Track;
and those who ancient lines did ley will heed the signs that call them back..."

"Cup of Wonder," by Ian Anderson
Songs From the Wood


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 08:49 PM

For those interested, in addition to Watkins, it's worth hunting up the work of John Michell on the subject of ley lines. A query to google.com, amazon.com or powells.com (used books) would probably turn up his canon in short order.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Bearheart
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 08:49 PM

Thanks to everyone, especially Katlaughing and Mountain Dog for interesting info and references. A subject I am very interested in.

In this area (northern reach of the Appalachians-- very southern OH) a couple of local folks make their living dowsing for water. If you don't hit water at the depth/at the site they indicate, you don't pay them. Needless to say only the good ones stay in business.

Why is it so popular? Three reasons: 1)It's a very old tradition, since the time of the first European settlers, and has been passed down through the generations. 2) Many people around here can't afford to pay to have wells drilled unless it's a sure thing. It's worth it to them to have a dowser find water and to find it as close to the surface as possible (that's part of what they are paying him/her for.) 3)If you get a good dowser, it works. Even my uncle (biggest skeptic in the world) was convinced after seeing a local man dowse for water on his own property.

In 1980 my husband and I met through a mutual friend. He and his 8 year old daughter were taking her ESP class. Maia, the 8-year old , correctly dowsed all the water mains on the Ohio University south Green (where a large number of dorms and other buildings are situated). (She has also always been able to beat anyone at Clue, in less than 6 plays of the cards.)

But no first hand knowledge of ley lines.

Bekki


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 01 - 09:53 PM

Kewl, Bekki!

Peg, I am insanely jealous of your frequent jaunts! Glad to know I Rule, though!**BG**

Thanks, JohnJ, for starting this wonderfully interesting thread.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:08 AM

Ley lines and dowsing are two very different topics with a very large difference in number of studies made.

Ley lines:
(1) I don't think Bert's idea (Roman roads) is viable except for very local patterns. Reason: Roads follow the principle of minimum energy and that only locally and in rare cases leads to straight lines. Possible objection: When did the military ever care about minimal energy when building a structure?
(2) I like more Scotsbard's idea (cleared paths for signalling), for that better explains the straight lines. Is there any evidence for that?
(3) An alternative explanation is that there are no more straight lines than can be expected by chance alone. Humans tend to see patterns in randomness, so that would explain why they were postulated in the first place. I know of no study that has tried to compare the number of ley lines to chance occurence (please tell me if there has been one). Perhaps this has not been done because it is difficult to find a chance baseline. You could do something like trying to draw straight lines in maps with all slate quarries in Germany, all coal mines in Poland, railway stations in Italy, pubs with folk music in England and so on. And if the percentage of straight lines in the ley line maps is significantly higher than in the other maps you'd say there is a case awaiting explanation. With the information I have so far it still is a case of 'no evidence yet'.

Dowsing:
List of links conveniently separated into Pro and Contra in case you'd prefer only to read from one side.
There have been many studies of dowsing, more or less well controlled, so this is a case where there is no need to say 'no evidence' from a scientific point of view.
The subjective and objective effects are strong and real and extremely convincing. The main dispute is about the interpretation. Penny has pointed out what the explanation most scientists agree with is: ideomotor movements (Carpenter effect).
The only possibility to test this interpretation against the interpretation that the movement comes from a force outside of the dowser are double blind experiments. All experiments of this type I know of have failed to find better than chance performance with one notable exception. A study by a physics professor in Munich claims to have shown extrachance hits. This study however has serious statistical problems that invalidates it in the eyes of most experts.
So the evidence at this point is that if dowsers do not know where to look, they are not better than chance. That of course doesn't at all exclude Penny's explanation: better than average ability to read the landscape, but it excludes the usual reasons dowsers give for their performance. The many field studies in a real environment have a lot of problems: what is the chance baseline? what are the controls? In too many cases there is no control group at all whichmore or less invalidates the results.

Wolfgang


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:59 AM

This is just further to Penny's point that the problem with Britain is that the landscape is very busy, full of features which might be significant, bearing in mind kat's comment on Watkin's theory that ancient sites around Britain had actually been constructed or formed giving alignments between and across the inhabited landscape of Britain. The sites mentioned include Stone Circles, Standing Stones, Long Barrows, Cairns, Burial Mounds and Churches.
That's a heck of a lot of archaeological sites, as Penny indicates. I'd like to know which sites get included and which don't. Why do some sit on these "ley lines" and others don't? Or do they all - and there are thousands and thousands - and that's only the ones we can see above ground. What factors include one site and exclude the next? How thick are these lines - a couple of metres wide, a couple of miles wide? How exact are the points fitted to these lines? How discrimating do you have to be to get the results you want?

If we're referring to landmarks above ground - in particular elevated structures (e.g. church with spire, mounds etc) the eye is likely to connect these, as Wolfgang talks about when he mentions pattern recognition. Picking out ley lines seems as difficult as picking out lines of postholes and trying to find structures on a post-excavation plan of an archaeological dig. Bloody tricky - and open to interpretation unless you have a wide range of supporting evidence.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 08:01 AM

(And how discriminating am I when I can't spell discriminating...oops!)


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Grab
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 09:15 AM

Problem is that ley line theory seem to arbitrarily decide what's useful. If a feature (eg. a pond or old house) happens to be on a line between 2 points, it's evidence. And as Penny says, you get a lot of features per unit area in the typical English landscape!

Does anyone have any details on content for less populated areas - the mountainous parts of Wales and Scotland, for instance? These are areas with high "mythic content" (count the number of New Age books about Celtic and Pictish legends), whose ppl stayed with their traditions for longer than those in England due to their inaccessibility. Me, I've been walking up in Scotland, and it seems pretty short of features like that.

Nice experiment, Penny - I like that!

Grab.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Bert
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:44 AM

The Romans built their roads straight whenever possible. They would follow prehistoric routes whenever these were suitable but would straighten them out as much as they could as they did with the "Fosse Way". The surveyors built fires at stations along the roads to use for alignment. Should local conditions force them from the direct route they would return to the original plan as soon as possible instead of choosing a new straight line from the point of diversion.
Conditions had to be really bad for a diversion. You see examples of Roman roads continuing straight over the most impossible hills, which even modern road builders have seen fit to go around.

When you look at a map of England the Roman roads are easy to spot. Watling Street, Ermine Street, the A11, the A12, and hundreds of minor roads.

With the rebuilding of the country after the Dark Ages, many buildings used old disused Roman roads as foundations. Churches in particular used the roads as foundations for the church tower or steeple. Very often when driving towards a town in England you'll find that you are heading directly towards a shurch steeple and when you get into town the road does a quick loop around the church before resuming it's course.

Alignments of forgotten and disused Roman roads can still be seen in the alignment of existing farm tracks and hedgerows. When you are following a road in England and come to a sudden turn, look ahead and see if there's a track or path or hedgerow continuing straight ahead.

When you're looking for Ley lines, make sure that you plot all of the Roman roads on your map first so that they don't confuse your search.

Also is there any documented evidence of ley lines in England from before the Roman Occupation?

Bert.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:40 PM

I've thought of an extension to the idea of landscape reading in water dowsing. Someone who has worked with an older dowser (OK, there would have to be a beginning somewhere) would have a knowledge of successful wells. Someone with a good three-dimensional model of the land in their head could have built up, consciously or not, a model of the local aquifers, and be able to predict the hydrology by interpolating between known points. This would not help so much with hard rock areas where water may be flowing in fissures. It would mean that a dowser away from his area of practice would be less effective.

Penny


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Bert
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 03:50 PM

If you study the history of tunnelling you will find that you can pretty much hit water just about anywhere you like to drill.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 01 - 05:01 PM

My apologies if this has already been added as a link. Here is a very interesting synopsis of a paper presented at a conference in Germany, by Paul Devereux.

Fibula, not trying to be picky, but that wasn't my comment, just one I had copied and pasted.:-)

Thanks,

kat


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: John J at home
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 05:43 AM

Thanks to Kat and everybody who has contributed to this thread; ley theory is a subject I have been mildly interested in for some time. The contributions to this thread have really fired me up, and foot and mouth disease restrictions permitting, I'll off out to see what I can dowse. Please keep the contributions coming. I'm off to find my dowsing rods! John


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Penny S.
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 06:03 AM

John J, I hope you don't mind if a sceptic makes a suggestion. I think that your brain may do the job better if you have a clear idea of what you are dowsing for. Water and minerals are quite easy to form a mental model for, and to recognise previous experience of - you might find different results if you hold in your mind different interpretations of what leylines are - in the ground or overground, for example. Make sure you aren't picking up water, power lines (National GRid, I mean) and underground structures such as gas pipes.

And get someone else to verify your results without telling them or indicating in any way what your results were. There was an item way back on Tomorrow's World, not on April 1st, in which someone demonstrated setting up a leyline. I followed the instructions and had positive results, but they were not repeatable. Even by me.

Whatever happens, you will have a good time seeing the past. If you spot any ancient yew trees, do let me know!

Penny


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 02:22 PM

Penny,

Begging your pardon for a bit of thread drift, but are you familiar with the "bleeding yew" in the churchyard at Nevern, Wales? Quite remarkable. You can PM me if you're interested in more specifics.


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Subject: RE: Anybody into dousing ley lines?
From: wildlone
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 04:12 PM

I have never tried dowsing but I have felt and followed "lines of power" for the want of a better phrase.
Maryrrf, Glastonbury has still got some feeling left but I think it has changed for the worse since the 60s when I first started going there, The Tor has a spiral line clockwise but I have seen bands of "mist" one morning early as I was going home on the road past the tor. It was at about 4:30 in the week after the summer equinox.
dave


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