Edited by NIGEL PENNICK
The Institute of Geomantic Research: Bar Hill
The burgeoning of interest in geomancy over the last fifteen years has often tended to gloss over the achievements of the founders of geomantic research; learned men whose brilliant insights and original approaches were often, sadly, ignored or ridiculed by their contemporaries. In 1975, the Institute of Geomantic Research was incorporated to rectify this omission. Several years of investigation of archival material brought back again to the light of day various works of geomantic research which hitherto had languished, ignored and forgotten, in the pages of dusty and obscure journals. Between 1976 and 1981, the IGR republished in small editions the following papers, which are gathered together for the first time here.
The corpus of material represented shows without doubt that there has been a tradition, however erratically and fragmentarily it may have progressed, of geomantic research into straight lines across the countryside; and its siamese twin, landscape geometry. Lines across the countryside, called variously Grand Geometrical Lines, Meridional Alignments or Leys, have been an integral part of the antiquarian and archaeological tradition of Britain, a tradition that at present has broken with its tolerant past and languishes in a dogmatic refusal to contemplate the possibility of studying them, let alone their actual existence.
Here, then, we present British Geomantic Pioneers; a collection of writings that complement one another and give varying insights into the study we call geomancy; various consistent trends may be discerned, and various conclusions drawn. A single volume will enable the reader, for the first time, to appreciate the place and significance of each researcher’s contribution to the overall ethos of lanscape alignment research: from the patriotic writings of Lambarde, whose investigations revived an almost-lost system of lines in 1570, to Alfred Watkins, doyen of Ley Hunters, refuting with cogent force his detractors in 1932, we can see an intimate knowledge of the countryside of Albion: the study that transcends mere ‘field work’ and materialist investigation.
It is hoped that this collection will act as a stimulus to those working in the field of earth mysteries, and will help them to understand their place in a long and glorious tradition of independent research; for this research is almost unique in that it has never been funded out of taxation; it has attracted those who have not sought fame or glory, far from it; many have been vilified in their lifetime and ignored after their death. It is, however, its place as a refutation of materialist ‘progress’ myths that it stands most importantly; this is its reason for the brickbats flung at it by entrenched pundits of the fossilized core of archaeology, and it is the reason why its investigation is so worthwhile, for it sheds light upon the true nature of humanity and the antiquity of civilization.
Nigel Pennick, Cambridge 24.9.82