LETTERS

FROM Mary Caine, Kingston:

Congratulations on making your 5th anniversary! One or two comments on Ancient Mysteries articles. Jim Kimmis leapt from the root-word Rig, Reg, Rex etc. (King) defined in some dictionaries as “he who moves in a straight line” to ley lines. Doubtless this etymology is reasonably right, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the first function of an ancient king was dowsing – or even laying down straight roads.

Kimmis has somehow ignored the obvious meaning, which is surely that only one who has supreme power can move in a straight <line> towards his aim. Only such a one can remove all obstacles in his path. By beheading, garotting, or simply terrifying all opposition. The movements of the king and queen in the ancient game of chess do not surely symbolize the rulers’ preoccupation with geomancy. It is a diplomatic truth of wider significance than that of ley-lines. Even knights and bishops must take devious paths to attain their ends, but kings can – or could – move straight through, if they were what kings were once thought to be.

By this I am not trying to say that ley-lines are nonsense. If a king could go straight towards his goal (and a king who vacillated or temporized was not a ‘king’ in fact or in the eyes of his subjects) then it follows that kings’ highways must do the same.

But I do feel that Feng-shui and kings’ highways are more probably an extension of the royal power – not the cause of it. I think Jim Kimmis’s reasoning is putting the cart before the horse (as we’re talking of highways), and that such incomplete, not to say, literal, thinking will lay him and your magazine open to criticism: from those who are less sympathetic to the whole ley-line bit than me.

Thanks to Philip Heselton for his broad and reasoned survey of the terrestrial zodiac problem. Narrow-minded as I am with my strict conditions for zodiac-finders, I do nevertheless appreciate his broad and thoughtful approach. It should bear fruit.
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FROM Robert Forrest, Manchester:

I’m not sure what significance Nigel Pennick expects statistically-minded ley sceptics to derive from the fact that the US servicemen’s chapel at Madingley lies on a pseudo-ley published by Watkins. (AM 17 p. 18–19). Statisticians have been claiming for years that any relaxation in the rules of ley hunting can literally flood an area with spurious lines, and the Cambridgeshire Ley Project seems to be confirming this view in many respects. Watkins seems to have relaxed the rules on two counts: by allowing greater ley tolerances than one would normally allow, and by allowing the use of categories of sites not normally granted primary status in ley hunting. Watkins might have been an ageing man at the time of writing Archaic Tracks, but that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that any relaxation in the rules of ley hunting can lead to disaster rather than insight. (Even under ‘tight security’ ley hunting remains a dubious business, and it is by no means true that leys have now been statistically ‘proved’!) Secondly, the fact that the odd modern church or chapel falls on a ley or even a pseudo-ley, doesn’t surprise the statisticians either. On the contrary, the only people who find this sort of thing surprising are the non-statisticians, some of whom have been {8} led to talk of ‘subconscious siting’. I have yet to see a case of so-called ‘subconscious siting’ that is statistically surprising, and that includes Nigel’s Madingley Chapel, I’m afraid. That modern chapels, war memorials, farms, post offices or UFOs have mysterious affinities for leys (or pseudo-leys) has never been demonstrated at a statistically significant level.

Changing the subject now, on p. 17 of issue 17, Nigel adds an editorial comment to Philip Heselton’s terrestrial zodiac piece to the effect that “No-one has ever produced a Rorschach ink-blot of a whole zodiac yet”. On the contrary, I would maintain that the happy band of TZ hunters are doing it all the time! After all, a 1:50 000 O.S. map is, when all is said and done, nothing but a very intricate, multi-coloured, highly entertaining ink-blot that is ideal for ‘interpretation’. The ever-growing number of TZs, for my money, testifies to the ease of the Rorschach sport, rather than the fondness of our ancestors for zodiacal landscape engineering.
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Editor’s oar in:

The testimony of tradition and observation (eg. see Wilhelm Brockpaehler’s work in this issue) is that constructions such as war-memorials are placed in prominent parts of villages and towns, often at traditional sites of meeting-stones, crosses etc. These sites, three-way junctions of roads, more often than not, are, according to the ley ‘hypothesis’ significant points on leys or even intersections. The connexion of ancient straight roads and the post office is well known, for the longumpa runners of Tibet, the Quipu carriers of Peru and the messengers of Xerxes’ Persia all used vast systems of roads with staging-points at fixed distances (see, for example, Heinsch, or von Hagen). If post offices are at traditional post-house sites (and I agree they may not be) and they are on leys (which I do not necessarily believe them to be), then the case will be proven.
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From Graham Wilson, Mind & Body ’81:

Dear Friends, I wrote to you on 7 November 1980 for the purpose of notifying you that we are not connected with the “Northern Festival of Mind Body & Spirit”. Since then there have been developments, and I feel that it is right that I should keep you informed. My immediate concern then, as now, was that the “Northern Festival” organizers were proposing to arrange an event, which is to be very similar in presentation to our own under a title which is virtually the same as ours, with the description “Northern” added. I felt that the implications for our own festival were even more serious, because the dates chosen are so close to our own dates, announced last June.

From telephone calls received, I have evidence that a number of our exhibitors thought that we were organizing the Northern event, and such misconception is even more likely with the general public, who are normally unaware of the organizing body behind the name “Festival for Mind-Body-Spirit”.

In order to protect our valuable reputation, and the resources and prestige which we have built up over the past four years, and on the advice of Counsel, we have instructed our solicitors to issue a writ to obtain a Court injunction to prevent the “Northern Festival” from taking place under the proposed name or indeed any other name which is too similar to our own name.

It has been suggested by the organizers of the “Northern Festival” that my letter inferred that their ideals are in some way suspect. I am only too pleased to make it clear in case there was, contrary to my belief or intention, any possibility of misunderstanding, that {9} I did not intend any such inference.

You are no doubt familiar with the New Age Festivals Network through which we and the organizers of nine other similar Festivals in Britain, under different names, have co-operated.

We are, as I said in my earlier letter, more than willing to co-operate with similar endeavours and shall continue to do so. Meanwhile, we must protect our own position, and that is why I have written to you and why we are taking the action mentioned above.