CHAPTER 12

A HISTORY OF EARTH ENERGIES AND LEYS

A Cancer Village in Austria

In 1929, Baron Gustav Freiherr von Pohl investigated the village of Vilsbiburg, Lower Bavaria (Germany), on a tributary of the Danube, in an attempt to discover why this particular village had such a high incidence of cancer. Initially, he prepared a map of all the powerful underground water veins and streams he could find by water divining methods. He then took the completed map to the local hospital, where a map of the village and 54 cancer deaths had been drawn by the local Medical Officer of Health. When they superimposed the two maps they found that all the cancer deaths had taken place over the underground streams he had located.

    Subsequently, he discovered that many cases of human illness and disease in animals, plants and trees were related to underground fissures and streams of water emitted energy vertically to the surface. He suspected that the velocity of the water was the most important factor in the strength of this disease-inducing energy. Further, he discovered that unusually high levels of natural electric currents occurred where underground water fissures crossed at different levels. These, in all probability, are very similar to the natural earth energies which cause people like Geoffrey Alien, in the previous chapter, such distress. The earth energies were not uniform in time or season. He found them to be more powerful during the night when the earth de-magnetized itself, and also at the waxing and full Moon. Other researchers have noted differences, due possibly to the changes in the velocity of the subterranean water caused by seasonal variations in rainfall.

        In an attempt to eliminate what he called an 'unhealthy' energy from an entire village, von Pohl constructed a screening station in the cellar of his home as an experiment. This was effective within a 1500 metre radius and appeared to improve the general health of the entire village. The village, mentioned only as 'D' in his book, is thought to be the village of Dachau, site of the notorious Nazi concentration camp. This unfortunate association caused other researchers, aware of the strange character of 'black streams' (see Glossary), to be cautious in their approach to the elimination of unhealthy earth energies.

        Paradoxically, to the detriment of the health of many people throughout the world, Baron von Pohl disagreed with the policies of Adolf Hitler. This prevented his research becoming more widely known. Many other discoveries could have been added to his in the half century since he wrote his book on what was later to be called geopathic or geopathogenic stress(1).

In 1939, Pierre Cody of Le Havre used an electrometer to measure ionization under the beds of cancer victims and discovered very high readings vertically above the surface of the ground. To eliminate the ionization, he used 1mm sheets of lead below the beds of a number of patients. Strangely, the lead sheets changed colour directly beneath the cancer victims, at the part of the body affected, to a peacock blue or yellow-gold. Unfortunately, the lead was not a permanent
protection, since it was soon irradiated, making the lead sheet itself dangerous.

        Radon, the naturally occurring radioactive gas, he thought, was the likely culprit, although he knew of no way that a free gas could rise through a multi-storeyed building, causing 'cancer verticals' in anyone unfortunate enough to be in its path. We shall return to that subject in chapter 15, after explaining some of the uses of natural earth energies, and how our ancestors understood and manipulated them.

        Another researcher in more recent times, Kathe Bachfer, an Austrian teacher, has worked extensively with geopathically disturbed zones, and has listed 11,000 cases of illness which she believes were initiated in these areas. She helped the sufferers to move their beds or working positions to a more suitable area, with extremely beneficial results. Her research has centred partly on the unpleasant influences of what she called 'malign earth energies' were having on children at school, not only with respect to their health, but also to their ability to learn. She found that 95% of children who were unsuccessful in school, who were slow learners, lethargic or played truant, were difficult to handle, or hyperactive, had been in areas of geopathic stress.

        Kathe believes that children in a class ought to change the position of their desks, perhaps every three to four weeks; one row of children alternating with the adjacent row, so that no child should suffer what may be a stressful environment for any long period.

        One interesting point she made was that Adolf Flachenegger, yet another Austrian dowser who had worked in the area of geopathic stress for 50 years, had noticed that 'pushing water' (that is an underground stream which flows from the feet to the head when the person is lying in bed) causes congestion of blood in the head, nightmares and depression, perhaps leading to suicide. She had also discovered that the opposite, 'pulling water' running from the head to the feet, can cause dizziness, blackouts, loss of balance and fainting(2).
 

A recent survey by Christopher McNaney of the People's Research Centre, Alston, has revealed that gypsies and travelling people have a surprisingly low level of illness. When asked about incidences of cancer in their relatives, he found that it is less than 1%, against 25-33% mortality in the rest of the population. Heart disease and other serious illnesses so prevalent in our society are also very low. Their general lifestyle can hardly be attributed to their well-being, as they smoke, drink alcohol and ignore health foods and special diets.

        He also believes that illness is primarily a disease of location, and that the travelling people's nomadic lifestyle means that they are unlikely to stay long in a highly stressed area, and if they do happen to camp in one, they are intuitive enough to leave the area after a very short time.
 

One of the major problems of using techniques like water divining and dowsing in this field is that they are so subjective and open to misinterpretation. Despite the 56 years since Cody's experiments, there has been little scientific research to substantiate the work of earth energy researchers. Occasionally, one hears of individuals like Venceslav Palnovsky of Prague who discovered that he could detect subterranean water veins by measuring the fading of ultra short wave transmission on a radio on the 5-15 cm. wavelength. Professor Herbert Konig of Munich found that a person's blood sedimentation rate changes when he sleeps or stays in a geopathically stressed zone. He felt that this could lead eventually to heart disorders, if nothing was done.

        In Switzerland, Dr.Joseph A.Kopp has claimed that scientifically measurable effects occur, such as magnetic anomalies, increase in electrical conductivity of the soil and air. Increase in the field strength of UHF waves and an intensity of infra-red radiation can also be found above subterranean water fissures. In an interesting experiment, he discovered that mice placed in wooden cages above such underground currents exhibited a variety of symptoms: restlessness, biting each other and eating their young(3).

        Recently, the electrochemical potential directly above an under¬ground stream, with sidebands (see Glossary] corresponding to the edges of the water has also been scientifically measured. Oscilloscopes have been used to verify the discoveries of researchers in France(4), while a few Americans are using scintillation counters to detect gamma ra¬diation directly above aquifers. Despite this, earth energies remain as elusive as ever since they have not yet been connected with magnetism or electricity, etc.

Paul McCartney, a geologist, has shown that all the stone circles in England and Wales occur within 1 km of geological surface faults. It is thought that these circles use the piezo-eiectric energy, emitted from the natural movements in the faults.

        Perhaps the movement of the subterranean strata intermittently feeds the energy leys from time to time in this manner, but I must admit I have never found any corroborating evidence for this theory. (This idea has been changed: see my subsequent book "Ley Lines and Earth Energies) The energies which I have been following are energy leys and energy streams. These can be easily discovered and traced to their destination (or source) by dowsing, an
ancient art similar to water divining.
 

We have to go back even earlier than Baron von Pohl and Cody, in fact, to 1921 to find the origins of research into natural earth energies. This is the beginning of the rediscovery of how our ancestors used and manipulated them to make the ley system, which is so important to an understanding of both the healthy and unhealthy energies, which surround us.

        Alfred Watkins, a business man and photographer from the Welsh borderlands (he invented the Watkins exposure meter and was an expert on local folk-lore and antiquities), was out in the countryside on horseback. The story goes that he pulled up his horse to survey the landscape below. It was then he became aware of "a network of lines, standing out like glowing wires across the country, intersecting the sites of churches, old stones and ancient sites".

        His vision of the 'Old Straight Track' was, perhaps, not quite such an accident, however, as he had spent years of study and map-work and had a wide knowledge of classical mythology and local archaeology. Indeed, it is more likely, according to his son, that the insight occurred when he was looking at a map(5).

        Alfred Watkins believed that ancient man used straight tracks for various purposes, including the transportation of flints and salt. They used staves to mark out these straight lines, constructing stone circles, standing stones, cairns, ponds, mounds, notches cut into hills, ancient tracks and other sacred sites upon which castles and churches were subsequently built. He thought that ancient homesteads should be included, but decided against this, as they were too numerous, and it was difficult to say which were old and which modern.

            He summarised the work of the builders, the early surveyors, or 'dod-men' as he called them in his book The Old Straight Track, "1 feel that ley-man, astronomer-priest, druid, bard, wizard, witch, palmer and hermit, were all more or less linked by one thread of ancient knowl¬edge and power". He did not realise at the time that his 'ley lines', at least some of them, had energy flowing down them. This was to come later.

Before Watkins, in 1845, the Rev.E.Duke had written about an alignment from Avebury, through Silbury Hill and on to Stonehenge, passing through several other minor sites. Eventually, Alfred Watkins1 idea of ley lines being lines of ancient monuments and Guy Underwood's work on subterranean energies under sacred sites were later brought together by Tom Graves. His research into energy leys (lines of ancient monuments with energy flowing down them) and his book Needles of Stone inspired others, including myself, to delve into the mysterious, subtle energies which surround us.

        Guy Underwood, a retired solicitor, taught himself the age-old art of water divining. He took a dramatic step forward when he depicted in "Patterns of the Past," the terrestrial energies of underground water as forming water lines, spirals and blind springs (water coming almost to the surface). He also referred to a range of secondary effects, which another author, P.Siochan, believes are mirrored as carvings on tombs such as those at Newgrange and Dowth in Ireland(7).

    People who study the energies at sacred sites are nowadays called earth mystery researchers. Tom Graves described what the ancients did as "acupuncture of the earth"(8), and suggested that the ley line system was set up to help balance the Earth's natural energy system, which in the raw can cause effects disturbing to man. In that sense the ley line system can be described as man-made, though many researchers feel that it has been badly damaged by man's modern activities. Many of these sites give anomalous readings to scientific equipment.

    Standing stones and circles are placed directly above flowing underground streams (and perhaps fissures or faults) which emit natural earth energies to the surface. By transmuting these, possibly through the quartz in the structure of the standing stones, streams of energy flow across the country, now above ground in a series of individual waves in an artificially controlled manner. These surface 'overgrounds' may be a straight energy ley from ordinary standing stones or a roughly circular energy stream from a cup-marked standing stone, such as the one at Kilmartin in Argyll.

    The width of an energy ley between standing stones may be several hundred metres across at its widest point, although some people, possibly reacting to a central core of energy, find that it is a very narrow band a few metres wide or less.
 

A zoologist passing a stone circle in the early hours one morning recorded unusually high ultrasonic readings. He made a chance remark to Paul Devereux, a leading figure in earth mystery studies, who was later to initiate the start of The Dragon Project1 which monitored this circle for a number of years. Another 'coincidence' occurred to researcher John Barnatt. While surveying the Derbyshire henge of Arbor Low, he was approached by a stranger, who told him that the skylarks flying over the henge appeared to be attracted to the ultrasound emitted from it.

        An inorganic chemist, Don Robins, in October 1978 discovered at the King's Stone, part of the Rollright circle in Oxfordshire, a very strange pulsing which occurred generally at two specific times: ten and thirty minutes before dawn. At these times his home-made ultrasonic detector would begin to fluctuate from 0 to 10 on its arbitrary scale. He discovered after some years that the readings were at their highest around the equinoxes and lowest at the solstices. He also used a geiger counter in an attempt to find if there were any radiation anomalies connected with this and other sites. Surprisingly, at a number of circles, the radioactivity inside the circles was actually lower than background level. As he put it, "There was an eerie impression of 'holes in the landscape' neatly marked by the stone circles"(9).

        Since then a great deal of work has been done monitoring a number of sites in the search for radiation anomalies which may give different impressions. Some of the circles give increased measurements of radiation significantly higher, or lower, than background, sometimes by as much as 35%. Individual stones in certain circles give an even greater anomaly.
        At Long Meg in Cumbria, for instance, one such stone emitted three times the counts per minute to be found at most other sites(10).

        Instrumental monitoring is becoming increasingly sensitive, though it may never become like a Geofrey Alien. It is becoming clear to researchers other than the most determined sceptic that stone-age man had a greater knowledge than modern orthodox archaeology has been prepared to accept. Even liquid-filled compasses have been used to good effect at some megalithic sites. They show that there is a magnetic field deviation around some stones.

Part of my long distance walking across the Scottish hills was with the intention of mapping out these strange energy streams. These are the raw energies our early ancestors used and modified, which gave rise to Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, the Callanish standing stones on the Isle of Lewis, and countless other ancient monuments scattered around the world. They were not built by ignorant cave-men. These constructions powerfully and intelligently focus, magnify and manipulate natural earth energies in a way and for a purpose we do not yet understand.

        Ancient towns and cities have been laid out on geometric principles, still discernible to the present day in the way churches were placed on ancient and sacred sites. London is no exception, as discussed in Earthstars by C.E.Street. David Wood's inspired book Genisis: The First Book of Revelations also reveals the mystery of the village of Rennes-le-Chateau and its links with mystical knowledge and use of geometry in the placing of sacred sites.

        My own little home town of Crieff, in the wilds of Perthshire, Scotland, has revealed a further key to the problem of ancient geomancy. This town has been laid out in accordance with an ancient and powerful symbol, a six-pointed star, the Star of David, or the Star of Bethlehem, with St.Michael's church at the centre. St.Michael and St.George were the dragon-slaying saints, who fixed the dragons (energy leys and energy streams) into place with their lances or swords.

        Using the method of following energy leys described in the next chapter, it became clear that this symbol is more than the theoretical ground plan, which C.E.Street suggests, but that energy leys flowing between outlying standing stones are superimposed on a naturally occurring star-shaped pattern on the surface of the planet. This cannot be an isolated case, and is probably the basis of geometrical patterns already discovered by researchers, and others stili to be found.

        As I discovered during my practical research, another use of natural earth energy, this time from a local and powerful cup-marked stone, a standing stone with saucer-shaped depressions carved into its surface, transmits circular energy streams the same shape as the cup-marks themselves, across a huge area of Scotland and the north of England. The burial-grounds were
built at the periphery of these, where the energy is at its most powerful. (Chapter 20 has more about cup-marked stones.)

        Unknown to me at the time, as I marched across the hills, Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst, blacksmith and author respectively, were dedicated to a similar pursuit, and were plotting the 'St. Michael Line' across the south of the country, from West Cornwall to the east coast of Norfolk. The energy streams they found were of a similar nature to those from the cup-marked stone, but meandered across the country, from one St.Michael's church to another, incorporating St. Michael's Mount, Glastonbury, Avebury, with another, the St. Mary Line, weaving across it at important sites.
 

A hint of the artificial aspect of energy leys was provided in 1935 by two French archaeologists. Merle and Diot, who found that every standing stone and circle they investigated had been placed directly above flowing underground water. In my own research, using similar water divining techniques, I have also discovered this to be true, and it appears, as mentioned earlier, that it is the natural earth energies flowing down the subterranean streams which filter to the surface. These are captured by the standing stones and circles, and transmitted artificially across the country, now above ground, as energy leys and streams.

        Unfortunately, much of the ancient knowledge has now been lost, and we are left with monoliths and stone circles, still quietly chattering away to each other in their own language. The energy system is now in decay and poisoned, radiating its own peculiar energies across entire continents, to the detriment of the health of at least some of the population of these countries.
        How to locate energy leys and streams may some day be discovered, using some type of scientific equipment. For now they can, however, be investigated by invoking the ancient art of dowsing, which we turn to next.

NOTES

  1.    Von Pohl, G.F., Earth Currents; Causative Factor of Cancer and Other Diseases:
       Fortschritt fuer alle-Verlag (1983).
  2.    Bachler, K., Earth Radiation-. Wordmasters Ltd., (1989).
  3.    Kopp, Dr.J.A., Imago MundiJournal, Austria, (1973)
  4.    Merz, B., Cosmic Points of Energy. C.W.Daniel Co.
  5.    Wiliiamson, T. S, Bellamy, E., Ley Lines in Question, Worids Work.
  6.    Watkins, A., The Old Straight Track: Methuen, (1925).
  7.    Siochan, P.A.O., Ireland: A journey into Lost Time: Foilsiuchain Eireann.
  8.    Graves, Tom, Needles of Stone Revisited: Gothic Image.
  9.    Robins, D., Circles of Silence: Souvenir Press, (1985).
10.    Devereux, P., The Ley Hunter, Nos.105 5. 106.

Click on Following Chapters to Read or Download:-

Electrostress-
Chapter 01 Disease
Chapter 02 Vibrations
Chapter 03 Facts and Figures
Chapter 04 Bedtime Story
Chapter 05 Around the House
Chapter 06 Power Lines
Chapter 07 Computers
Chapter 08 Microwaves
Chapter 09 Some Solutions
Chapter 10 The Positive Side?

Geopathic (Earth Energies) Stress
11  Earth Stress, Earthquakes, Earth Sensitives
12 History of Ley Lines, Ionization Under Cancer Beds, Scientific Measurements
13 How to Use Divining Rods, Protect Yourself, Allergies
14 Unhealthy Earth Energies, The Hartmann Net and Curry Grid
15 Black Spirals, Crop Circles, Demons, Oscilloscope Measurement
16 Crossing Leys, Ion Effect, Allergic to Microwave Ovens, Graveyards, Quarries
17 Natural and Man-made Sources of Unhealthy Energies
18 Imprinting Your Own Energy
19 Eliminating Unhealthy Earth Energy
20 Cup-marked Stones or Petroglyphs
21 Human disease and Mother Earth

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