Journal of Geomancy vol. 3 no. 1, October 1978
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This is a very good book, both well-researched and polemical. Its title refers to Graves’s theory that megalithic sites in Britain are part of a macrocosmic system of acupuncture, whose body is the earth, whose meridians are ley-lines of energy flow, and whose therapeutic needles of bone are in fact the megaliths themselves, “needles of stone”.
The theory is built up with evidence from dowsing, the analogy of electromagnetic behaviour, and the systems of Chinese Feng-Shui and of Christian exorcism. A clever one, that, to refer to Christian evidence for what is openly and explicitly a pagan cosmology. Monotheism is an alien overlay of hierarchical exploitation on our landscape, it has abandoned co-operation with the earth for the dream of dominion over her, and has created pockets of imbalance, analogous to the “sha” of Feng-Shui, which will take a catastrophic effort to put right if the earth is left to do it alone. Message: co-operate or perish.
The evidence from dowsing and from theoretical (mathematical) geomancy both make sense if interpreted in terms of a “flow” of “current” between two complementary “poles”, such as the Yin and Yang of Feng-Shui. The model here is an electrical one, and evidence is brought to show that electricity does in fact play a part in the dowsable reactions, but that it is not the only “current” that is flowing here. Graves’s next model is of the theory and practice of magic. Magicians will of course be nodding sagely and remarking that it’s about time that someone came out with this model; but the more materialist reader is prevented, one hopes, from abandoning the book out of hand by the bridging reference to the Bishop of Exeter’s findings on exorcism, dated 1972! A further explanation of some hauntings via physics, the “stone tape” theory, and out comes the burning phrase (quite!): “In some sense we are all magicians, whether we like it or not.” Read the book for the argument leading up to that one.
Now, in good pagan fashion, an ethic of expediency, of skill in living rather than of some abstract morality, is
deduced. We must co-operate with the earth, we must preserve our balance with her, both within ourselves and within the
landscape, or we will surely perish. (Read the book for examples). Since we are all, willy-nilly, magicians, we’d
better be good ones, for our own sakes. And one particular blot on our ecoscape is the network of sites built by
“organizations devoted to greed or domination”, in the words of the Church commission: the microwave towers,
the road and rail links and the offensive military installations that create dowsably imbalanced pools of
“sha” on the face of Britain. Hot stuff, perhaps, but there is evidence that the “powers that
be” are becoming aware of it. What can we do about our national “sha”? I quote from Graves’s
last paragraph: “We need to learn to know ourselves; we need to learn to feel for the needs of the earth, so that
we can learn not just to subdue it, but to replenish it as we do so.” And we can look to our surviving megalithic
structures, our “needles of stone”, for both means and inspiration.
PRUDENCE JONES
Victorian reverends have much to be blamed for: the extermination of ancient cultures and the importation of pernicious
superstitions to foreign lands, but they also deserve a vote of thanks for meticulous observation of the places and
peoples they visited. The revs. Sibree, Edkins and Eitel preserved the lore of geomancy from Madagascar and China, and
much British folklore also dripped from the pens of revs. Cienfuegos Press have just reprinted an entertaining and
informative account of the Rev. Goodfellow’s visit to the remote Orcadian isle of Sanday in 1903, which describes
the ancient monuments, customs and traditions of the period. Illustrated with a map and numerous well-chosen
contemporary illustrations, the booklet is a model of its genre, and thoroughly recommended.
N.P.