Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Leys, Alignments, Energy leys, ley lines... what do you call them?
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Grahame
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Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

A pet project at the moment is trying to track down the origin of the term 'ley line'. Now before you call chorus 'Alfred Watkins', let me inform you that Watkins himself never used the term to describe the alignments of ancient sites that he found; he only ever referred to them as 'leys', so-called because he found a preponderance of place names along the alignments containing the word. Later, Watkins even stopped using the term 'ley', preferring the term 'archaic track' instead.

'Ley' is an archaic English word meaning a cleared strip of land, so to use the term 'ley line' is really a bit of a tautology as you are basically saying 'straight straight'. It's also confusing in dowsing terms, as not all visual 'Watkinsian' leys have much dowsable energy, and then there are dowsable energy leys that don't have a visual component.

So when did the term 'ley line' come in to common usage? The earliest reference I've found to date is from a 1974 article in the ASD digest by former ASD president Terry Ross, who talks about dowsing ‘ley lines’ in Vermont. He says that they are lines of energy 4.5 – 6.5 feet in width, that they are marked in similar fashion to European leys, come from a depth of 265 feet, flow at great speed, and water domes appear along the paths. This sounds very similar to the 'energy leys' that Sig Lonegren describes. I spoke to Sig about this, as he was (to my knowledge) the first person to start using the term 'energy ley' - this at the advice of John Michell (who also AFAIK only ever talked about 'leys'), to distinguish the dowsable straight lines of energy that he was finding from Watkinsian visual leys. Sig says that he was working with Terry Ross at that time, but that he himself has never called them 'ley lines'.

So is it possible the the term originated in the US? It is still commonly used in ASD circles - certainly more so than we do over this side of the pond.

The earliest example I can find of it being used in the UK comes from Colin Bloy and the Fountain International group. Colin talks about 'ley lines' in a 1981 Fountain article that I came across in their archive. Was this the first? Or can anyone recollect anything earlier?

The term is so ubiquitous these days that it may be impossible to definitively say who first used it. But if you have any insights, I'd love to hear them.
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

I have just found an earlier UK reference for use of the term 'ley-line' in 'The Occult Diaries of R. Ogilvie Crombie' by Gordon Lindsay (which is highly recommended if you are interested in Findhorn lore and the world of nature spirits).

In a diary entry dated 2 November 1972, ROC (as he was known) relates a 'conversation' that he had with the Great God Pan the day before in Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, where Pan says, "...at that time, you knew nothing about power points and what some people call ley lines".

I'm sure there will probably be an earlier reference still to be found, but wouldn't it be delightful if this is the first use of the term, and it came from Pan himself?
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Geoff Stuttaford »

If you enter “”Ley Line origin” on Goggle ,it gives Alfred Watkins as the originator of the term.
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

Geoff Stuttaford wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:02 pm If you enter “”Ley Line origin” on Goggle ,it gives Alfred Watkins as the originator of the term.
Which only goes to demonstrate how reliable Wikipedia is as a source. Watkins never used the term 'ley line' - he only ever referred to them as 'leys', as I pointed out in the first post.
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by SparkTalker »

I found a slightly earlier mention of the term ley-line by the artist Richard Long from 1971.
The Watkins revival occurred at the beginnings of the ‘land art’ movement in Britain. Richard Long (fig.3) first found out about about ley-lines at the time of his solo exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery in 1971:

"Someone came up; he saw my lines of walking across Exmoor, the line made by walking and said, have you heard of this man, an eccentric geographer who had a strange theory about invisible lines that connected prehistoric sites across England. That was the first time I had heard of these ley-lines."
The entire paper about Alfred Watkins can be found here >>> https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-p ... ry-britain

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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

Great find Mark, thanks for posting. I think we are getting closer here.

After a quick bit of searching, I found out that Richard Long's exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery ran from 9-21 November 1971.

Yet I've since found a 1971 reference from Andrew Kerr, who talks about the pyramid stage at the 1971 Glastonbury Festival (or Faire as it was then called) being constructed 'over the ley lines' (Scroll down to the second peachy/pink scanned page).

It's not clear when Kerr made that statement, but as the Festival took place 22-26 June 1971, we have to assume that it was around that time or earlier, giving this precedence.

Unless someone knows better? 8-)
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by SparkTalker »

I keep finding references to a much earlier use of the term ley-line by the occultist Dion Fortune, in a book called "The Goat-Foot God" (1936).

Here's one example:
However, not everyone who believes in the supernatural believes that ley lines are an actual thing. According to Belanger's book, Paul Devereux, author and editor of the Ley Hunter Journal from 1976-1996 has discredited the existence of ley lines. According to Devereux, ley lines — an offshoot of Watkins' term leys — were first introduced in the 1936 novel The Goat-Foot God, by occultist Dion Fortune, and the idea caught on with people interested in the supernatural.
The above quote was taken from here >>> https://www.bustle.com/articles/172703- ... of-history

I've been trying to find a pdf or text copy on the web to check this out, but so far all links result in a request for bank account details of credit card numbers!

I'll keep looking. ;)

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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by SparkTalker »

Another false lead! :evil:

I found the book here >>> https://b-ok.cc/g/Dion%20Fortune but after downloading the book and searching it (electronically), I found only one single reference to leys which reads as follows:
And do you know the meaning of the name of the village - Thorley? It’s Thor’s ley, or field.
That was on page 152.

Back to the drawing board!

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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

Thanks for the due diligence, Mark. That saves me digging out my copy of The Goat-Foot God (if I can find it) and reading it again! :lol:
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by SparkTalker »

In her book "Psychic Self Defence" (1930) there is a single reference, but only as the word "lines" and not "ley lines".

On page 85 of her book she states:
Powerful holy centres, like Glastonbury or Lourdes, have a bigger magnetic field than this, extending possibly to a couple of miles; they are also inter-connected among themselves by lines of force.
It could be though that in this instance she is referring to magnetic lines of force rather than any other energy.

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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

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From the site: https://medium.com/writers-blokke/the-t ... ce22270588
Watkins died in 1935, war intervened and much of the enthusiasm for this new hobby passed with the end of that Edwardian golden age. For nearly 30 years leys were forgotten until a little booklet Skyways and Landmarks by ex-RAF pilot, Tony Wedd, made ripples in 1962 by claiming ley lines were navigational aids for UFOs.
As with a lot of other references, there are lots of mentions of Tony Wedd's booklet, but no actual direct quotes.

I've found that a lot of modern references to early publications change "leys" to "ley lines" apparently without realizing their 'corruption' of the original phrasing. Even the BBC said that Alfred Watkins coined the term Ley Line:
Watkins called these tracks “leys” or “ley lines” after noticing that the Anglo-Saxon word “ley”, which meant “a clearing in the woods”
You can read the full article here >>> https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/2019 ... ks-britain

Going back to Tony Wedd, it would seem that after his booklet was published in 1961 he went on to found (in 1962) the "Ley Hunter Club". Whether "ley" as opposed to "ley line" in the title of the club was done for brevity I'm not sure about. I would still like to see an original copy or scan of Tony's booklet using the term "ley line", or at least perhaps in the early journals of the Ley Hunter Club.

There seems to be an awful lot of copying going on between the various websites, many having EXACTLY the same texts as each other, even though they appear to be by very different web authors.

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Last edited by SparkTalker on Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

I don't have as much time as I would like to research this in depth at the moment, but I have found a couple of articles in 'The Ley Hunter' magazine archives (Incidentally, @SparkTalker, you can find links to these here).

Here's one by Tony Wedd from May 1970 (scroll to p. 5) where he uses the term; "Watkins indicated how a ley line might be said to pass through a hill..."

And here's an earlier one from December 1969 (top of page 2) where editor Paul Screeton quotes a letter from avowed sceptic J. Cleary Baker PhD of BUFORA - The British UFO Research Association, who writes; "...To my way of thinking, one could construct equally convincing ley lines by the use of public houses, telephone booths or branches of F.W.Woolworth's." (my emphasis)

What's more intriguing is that Baker seems to be referring to a earlier, more in depth article of his, published in the Summer 1967 'BUFORA Journal', which could push the date back another couple of years if he used the term in his article. (Does BUFORA have an online archive, I wonder?)

Could this be our culprit? That the term could have been coined by a sceptic feels oddly right. I haven't found any subsequent references until the May 1970 issue, where the term is revived by Tony Wedd.

So there we have it. Definitely 1969, possibly 1967. Any advances on that?
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by SparkTalker »

Grahame wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:34 pm...What's more intriguing is that Baker seems to be referring to a earlier, more in depth article of his, published in the Summer 1967 'BUFORA Journal', which could push the date back another couple of years if he used the term in his article. (Does BUFORA have an online archive, I wonder?)
https://ia803103.us.archive.org/3/items ... er1967.pdf

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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

Post by Grahame »

Hmmm... only one mention of 'ley' as in 'Ley Hunters'. So it would seem that the reference in his letter of Dec 1969 is currently the earliest candidate for use.
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Re: Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

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I decided to see if I could find any more references to Dr John Cleary-Baker from other sources, looking at his connection with UFOs.

Apparently, 1964 saw the start of the "Warminster phenomena", wherein multiple, witnessed, UFO sightings occurred. This carried on for some time, and in August of 1965 a public meeting was called at the Warminster Town Hall Assembly Room.
On Friday 27 August 1965, just before the Bank Holiday, two hundred residents squeezed into the Town Hall Assembly Room. Hundreds more gathered outside. Inside, John Cleary-Baker, the Chairman of the British UFO Research Association, the UK’s premier UFO society, reassured townsfolk they had nothing to fear from their visitors. They should ‘welcome their arrival in the sky’. He went on to link UFOs with fashionable New Age ideas about ley lines and suggested aliens could be using an ancient earthwork nearby as a ‘homing beacon’.
It seems though that a local journalist for the Warminster Journal, Arthur Shuttlewood, kept stories going in to 1966 and maybe longer. He also published a book called, "The Warminster Mystery, Astounding UFO Sightings". Whether Shuttlewood's journal articles or book contained any references to ley lines I have not yet discovered, but it is possible that Dr Cleary-Baker may have been using the term while chairing(?) the public meeting.

The above references can be found here >>> https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2015/08/29/ ... -syndrome/

And incredibly, the original footage from interviews the BBC(?) conducted can be viewed on YouTube!


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