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  are alleged alignments of a number of places of geographical interest, such as ancient
monuments and megaliths that are thought by certain adherents to dowsing and New Age beliefs
to have spiritual power. Their existence was suggested in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist
Alfred Watkins, in his book 3
3
. The believers in ley lines think that the lines
and their intersection points resonate a special psychic or mystical energy.[1] Ascribing such
characteristics to ley lines has led to the term being classified by skeptics as pseudoscience.


 can be the product of ancient surveying, property markings, or commonly traveled
pathways. Many cultures use straight lines across the landscape. In South America, such lines
often are directed towards mountain peaks; the Nazca lines are a famous example of lengthy
lines made by ancient cultures. Straight lines connect ancient pyramids in Mexico; today,
modern roads built on the ancient roads deviate around the huge pyramids. The Chaco culture of
Northwestern New Mexico cut stairs into sandstone cliffs to facilitate keeping roads straight.
Additionally, chance alignments and coincidence are often cited as explanations that cannot be
ruled out.

^  
[hide]

Ê 1 Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track

Ê 2 Spiritual Significance of Ley Lines: Magical and Holy lines
Ê º Chance alignments
mÊ º.1 Characterizing alignments
Ê è Ley lines in fiction
Ê ÿ See also
Ê  References
Ê D Further reading
Ê [ External links

Ô  
  3

 3  
The concept of ley lines was first proposed by Alfred Watkins. On º June 1921, Watkins visited
Blackwardine in Herefordshire, and went riding a horse near some hills in the vicinity of
Bredwardine, when he noted that many of the footpaths there seemed to connect one hilltop to
another in a straight line. He was studying a map when he noticed places in alignment. "The
whole thing came to me in a flash", he later told his son.[ ]

However, in September 1[D , William Henry Black gave to the British Archaeological
Association, in Hereford, a talk titled  
 
, in which he speculated that
"Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe".
It is possible that Watkins's experience stemmed from faint memories of an account of that
presentation.[ ]

Watkins believed that, in ancient times, when Britain was far more densely forested, the country
was crisscrossed by a network of straight-line travel routes, with prominent features of the
landscape being used as navigation points. This observation was made public at a meeting of the
Woolhope Club of Hereford in September 1921. His work referred to G. H. Piper's paper
presented to the Woolhope Club in 1[[2, which noted that:

A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and
southern most point of Hatterall Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles." The
ancient surveyors who supposedly made the lines were given the name "dodmen". [ ]

Watkins published his ideas in the books 



3

 and 3
3
.
They generally met with skepticism from archaeologists, one of whom, O. G. S. Crawford,
refused to accept advertisements for the latter book in the journal 
. Most archaeologists
since then have continued to reject Watkins's ideas.[ ]

In 2 è, John Bruno Hare wrote:

Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply
pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back
to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in
landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an
active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines
today".[2]

Despite the mostly negative reception to his ideas, some experts have made observations similar
to Watkins's. Megalithic researcher Alexander Thom offered a detailed analysis of megalithic
alignments, proposing a standardization of measure by those who built megaliths, but avoided
the term 
. The discovery by Europeans of the Nazca lines, man-made lines on desert
pavement in southern Peru, prompted study of their astronomical alignments.[ ]

Ô    c
c  


 
Watkins's theories have been adapted by later writers. Some of his ideas were taken up by the
occultist Dion Fortune who featured them in her 19º novel 3  !  . Since then,
ley lines have become the subject of a few magical and mystical theories.[ ]
Two British dowsers, Captain Robert Boothby and Reginald A. Smith of the British Museum,
have linked the appearance of ley lines with underground streams and magnetic currents. Guy
Underwood conducted various investigations and claimed that crossings of 'negative' water lines
and positive aquastats explain why certain sites were chosen as holy. He found so many of these
'double lines' on sacred sites that he named them 'holy lines.'[ ]

Separate from other spiritual theories of ley lines (and likely used for propaganda purposes), two
German Nazi researchers Wilhelm Teudt and Josef Heinsch have claimed that ancient Teutonic
peoples contributed to the construction of a network of astronomical lines, called ³Holy lines´
(Heilige Linien), which could be mapped onto the geographical layout of ancient or sacred sites.
Teudt located the Teutoburger Wald district in Lower Saxony, centered around the dramatic rock
formation called Die Externsteine as the centre of Germany. Nazism often employed ideation of
superiority and associated Aryan descent with ancient higher cultures, often without regard for
archaeological or historic fact. See religious aspects of Nazism.[ ]

Ô  ^
  

Watkins's discovery happened at a time when Ordnance Survey maps were being marketed for
the leisure market, making them reasonably easy and cheap to obtain; this may have been a
contributing factor to the popularity of ley line theories.[ ]

[ è-point alignments of 1ºD random points

Given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe,
finding straight lines that "connect" sites (usually selected to make them "fit") is trivial, and
ascribable to coincidence. The diagram to the right shows an example of lines that pass very near
to a set of random points: for all practical purposes, they can be regarded as nearly "exact"
alignments. For a mathematical treatment of this topic, see alignments of random points.
Since the existence of alignments themselves are not controversial, analysis can proceed by an
attempted rejection of the null hypothesis that ley-line-like alignments are due to random chance.
Statistical analysis by skeptics of this hyptohesis shows that random chance is consistent with the
evidence.[º][è] Some Chaos Magicians claim such results to be in accord with their generative
view of chance, though such alternative 
"  explanations are usually deprecated on
philosophical grounds in hypothesis testing due to considerations of falsifiability and Occam's
razor.

One study by David George Kendall used the techniques of shape analysis to examine the
triangles formed by standing stones to deduce if these were often arranged in straight lines. The
shape of a triangle can be represented as a point on the sphere, and the distribution of all shapes
can be thought of as a distribution over the sphere. The sample distribution from the standing
stones was compared with the theoretical distribution to show that the occurrence of straight
lines was no more than average.[è]

Archaeologist Richard Atkinson once demonstrated this by taking the positions of telephone
boxes and pointing out the existence of "telephone box leys". This, he thus argued, showed that
the mere existence of such lines in a set of points does not prove that the lines are deliberate
artifacts, especially since it is known that telephone boxes were   laid out in any such manner,
and without any such intention.[º]

Straight lines also do not make ideal roads in many circumstances, particularly where they ignore
topography and require users to march up and down hills or mountains, or to cross rivers at
points where there is no portage or bridge.

Ô  ^
  

One precise definition that expresses the generally accepted meaning of Watkins's ley lines
defines an alignment as:

a set of points, chosen from a given set of landmark points, all of which lie within at least
an arc of 1/è degree.

Watkins remarked that if this is accepted as the degree of error, then:

"if only three accidentally placed points are on the sheet, the chance of a three point
alignment is 1 in D2 ."
"But this chance by accidental coincidence increases so rapidly in geometric progression
with each point added that if ten mark-points are distributed haphazard on a sheet of
paper, there is an average probability that there will be one three-point alignment, while if
only two more points are added to make twelve points, there is a probability of two three-
point alignments."
"It is clear that a three-point alignment must not be accepted as proof of a ley by itself, as
a fair number of other eligible points are usually present."
 "A ley should not be taken as proved with less than four good mark-points. Three good
points with several others of less value like cross roads and coinciding tracks may be
sufficient."
3 

#$ (page [[), 192D

Lines and points on a map cover wide areas on the ground. With 1:ºº (1-inch-to-the-mile)
maps a 1/1 -inch (1/è mm) wide line represents a path over ÿ feet (1ÿ m) across. And in
travelling across a sheet, an angle of 1/è degree encompasses something like an additional 
feet (2 m).

Ô  c
  

Ê In the Thomas Pynchon novel $ %&' , the historical-fictional character Dixon
claims to have "flown" along ley-lines in his youth, though he may well have only been
putting Mason on.[ÿ]
Ê In the &
 series by Harry Turtledove, leylines are used for transportation by ships
and trains that harness the planet's magical force. They also allow mages to cast more
powerful magic.[]

Ô    
Ê Earth radiation
Ê Pattern recognition
Ê Confirmation bias
Ê Geoglyphs
Ê Archaeoastronomy
Ê Cursus monument
Ê Glastonbury
Ê Telluric currents
Ê Songlines
Ê Psychogeography
Ê Earth mysteries

Ô      
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but   
       Please improve this article by
introducing more precise citations where appropriate. ?


())*

1.Ê M Cowan, David (2 º). 

 

+'



, 

 

#-



. Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 19º1[[21ÿ .
2.Ê M Early British Trackways Index
º.Ê ^  Clive L. N. Ruggles (2 ÿ). "Ley lines". 
 
+
 ". ABC-CLIO.
pp. 22ÿ. ISBN 1[ÿ1 9èDD.
 è.Ê ^  "A Survey of the Statistical Theory of Shape", by David G. Kendall, Statistical Science, Vol.
è, No. 2 (May, 19[9), pp. [D-99
ÿ.Ê M Pynchon, Thomas (199D). $ %&' . Picador. ISBN -º12-è2º2 -9.
.Ê M Turtledove, Harry (1999).  &
. New York, NY: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN [12ÿDèD29.

Ô  
 

Ê Alfred Watkins, 


3

 (1922)
Ê Alfred Watkins, 3
3
+$  $ $

  (192ÿ); reprinted as ISBN -ºè9-1ºD D-2
Ê Alfred Watkins, 3 
.
#$ (192D)
Ê Tony Wedd, 

 
 (191)
Ê Williamson, T. and Bellamy, L., 
 / . World's Work Ltd.(19[º) ISBN
-èºD-192 ÿ-9
Ê Tom Graves, - !  (19D[) -- mixes ley lines and acupuncture; online edition
at [1]
Ê Paul Broadhurst & Hamish Miller 33
" (19[9, 199 (paperback),
1991, 199è, 2 º (paperback)), Pendragon Press, Launceston, Cornwall
Ê Bruce L. Cathie, "The Energy Grid"
Ê Lucy R Lippard: Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. New York 19[º
ISBN -º9è-ÿè[12-[
Ê John Michell,  .

 !

  
, rev. ed. 19[9, Thames & Hudson,
New York.
Ê Alignments connecting London's sacred sites in a significant pattern of sacred geometry
are to be found in the books of chris street - Earthstars (199 ) and Earthstars The
Visionary Landscape (2 )

Ô   

Ê Early British Trackways, at sacred-texts.com
Ê The Society of Ley Hunters
Ê Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Ley Lines
Ê An excerpt from 3- 
.
# by Paul Devereux
Ê Moonraking: What does it all mean?
Ê Ley Lines and Vortices of the American West
Ê Finding Places of Power: Dowsing Earth Energies

Data sources:

Ê The Megalithic Map (which does not take a position on this issue, but does illustrate the
distribution of major megaliths in the UK)
Ê $, a similar website with grid references for over 1,è sites
Ê GENUKI Parish Database, including grid references for over 1è, UK churches and
register offices
Ê The Gazetteer of British Place Names with over ÿ , entries
 Ê Aliens with a taste for pick 'n' mix: Woolworths stores follow uncanny geometrical
patterns

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line"

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