LEY SYSTEM MEASUREMENT.

by IAN WORDEN.

Amongst the first books which I read after becoming interested in the subjects covered by Geomancy were those of John Michell. One of the many fascinating topics which he covers in these books is that of sacred metrology, especially in his defence of the imperial, as opposed to the metric, system.

It was therefore with some interest that I came across Michael Behrend’s ‘X’ and ‘Y’ units, multiples of which form a basis for an interpretation of the ley system which has been found to apply in many areas of Europe. The point is that these distances are expressed in meters, being 295·3 (X) and 464·1 (Y) meters each, in length. Now, these figures are not only rather inconvenient for multiplication and the like, but also ‘feel’ wrong to someone like myself who prefers to use the metric system. I therefore decided to see whether they could be more conveniently expressed in other units of measure.

Now clearly this cannot be done by reference to other metric units, since this is merely a matter of moving a decimal point about. I thus converted them into feet; here the X unit is 968·83 feet and the Y 1522·635 feet. I then divided by 2·72 to convert to megalithic yards, and came up with the figures of 355 and 560 MY respectively. These were calculated as accurate to about a quarter of a percent. I would imagine that this is about the same level of accuracy as the original figure in meters, especially in view of the difficulties of obtaining an absolutely exact ley measurement on the ground.

The figure of 560 for the Y unit seems to be, to me, rather more practical, and historically more acceptable, than 464·1m. However, the figure for the X unit of 355 MY does not, for me, share these characteristics, and therefore I decided to try and find a more convenient figure.

I attempted to fit various measures into this, including the Roman foot (11·5″) and the Northern Cubit, but none of these came out to a round figure. However, I was reading an American publication called “Stonehenge Viewpoint” in which was an article discussing the “Cow Yard” which the author claimed to have discovered near the Priddy Stone Circles in the Mendips. The length of this unit is given as 2·43′, which makes it equal to the Roman Pace. Whilst the evidence for the Cow Yard is rather scanty, being based on measurements taken in a single field, that for the Roman Pace, is not. I therefore divided the number of feet in the X unit by 2·43, and the result came out to be 400, with a slightly smaller degree of error than for the calculations involving the megalithic yard.

It would thus appear that the X unit can be rendered as 400 Roman Paces and the Y unit as 560 megalithic yards, which seem to be easier figures to work with than the metric equivalents. This is not, of course, to suggest that the ley system is partly megalithic and partly Roman, since the Pace is twice the length of a Egyptian Remen. What is implied by this is another piece of evidence to suggest a strong connection between megalithic Britain and Old Egypt, a connection which I feel merits a lot more investigation.

This latter is strengthened by further conversions which I investigated. The Y unit in remen is 1251·6, which isn’t much of an advance, but in the Egyptian Royal Cubits (each 1·728 feet) is 880 cubits – more of a round figure than.464·1, but not presenting too much of an advantage in ease of usage. However, it is interesting in that 880 is also the number of yards in half a mile (statute). It suggests that there could be some connection here which causes the figure 880 to appear in both instances. {16}

I also tried the X unit in cubits – with the result of 560·54, significant since the Y comes to 560 MY. Now the cubit and the megalithic yard can be related to each other through the remen; a cubit is the length of a diagonal on a square with sides of 1 remen each, and the megalithic yard the diagonal of a rectangle consisting of two of these squares. The number 560 would thus seem to be a significant one, although I have not come across anything further about this value. It is also interesting to note that some of the angles found important in prehistoric geomancy by Dr. Heinsch are those of the diagonals on a square and on a double square. This points to a connection between the angular relationships of alignments and the units used to measure them – something which could perhaps be worth following up further.

This hasn’t exhausted the possibilities of these figures yet, however. The X units come out as 800 remens when converted – a very convenient figure. If we take both X and Y in megalithic miles (each 2·72 statute miles) they come out as 0·4991 and 0·7848 respectively – very near to 0·5 and 0·8. Working this through further, we get the result of 8X = 5Y (this is accurate to within about 1·5% when converted back into meters). The X:Y ratio is thus 8:5, which is known as the Golden Mean, a proportion found extensively in the Great Pyramid and suggesting more evidence for the postulated Egyptian connection. The level of accuracy here would suggest that we are dealing with a sacred measure relating to the ideal measurements of the earth, rather than a geodetic measure which is for use in more practical situations – the difference of the two is explained far better than I would manage by John Michell in his book “The View Over Atlantis”. One thing which arises from this is that it would seem better to use 800 remen for the X rather than 400 Paces.

The implications of the above are not hard to see; in fact I feel that it reflects the basic difference between two ways of looking at dimensions. The metric system is essentially manipulative – it’s a lot easier moving decimal points around.than having to deal with multiplication and division by 12s and 3s and 16s. The imperial system, on the other hand, is essentially measureative, having many relations to both the actual and the ideal measurements of the earth. Which of the two we use will depend on what we want to use it for.

In a world which is motivated essentially by considerations expressable on a balance sheet, it is clearly easier to use a system of dimensions that is easy to manipulate. However, when our values are other than commercial, we will want a different approach. In this respect it is perhaps useful to recall the words of the Bible: “Rise and measure the Temple of God” (Revelation 11.1); “Show the house of the Lord, and let them measure the pattern.” (Ezekiel 43.10). In these cases certain mysteries are revealed by an examination of the patterns of numerical relationships, and here it is clearly more important to have a system of dimensions which makes measurement easy rather than one which can be manipulated easily – but the figures we are handling are difficult to deal with. The substitution of, for example, 295·3 for 800 in this case would be a retrogressive step.

I would think that a lot of needless controversy is caused by applying a polarised “either–or” attitude to the imperial–metric controversy. Work on the ancient origin of the meter indicated that it coexisted with the foot and a great deal more (although it must be pointed out that the existence of the meter does not imply that of the centimeter, kilometer, or whatever, without specific evidence of their use). The units which we use should be decided by convenience of use rather than desires for standardisation and drab uniformity. 800 is easier to handle than 295·3, but 32 pence is still easier than 6s 5d – depending, of course, on whatever our needs may be.