Preface

This book is a study in ideas, an attempt to put some of the ideas that have arisen in the ‘earth mysteries’ field into some coherent shape or form, to place them in a context that makes practical sense at the present time.

It is not a thesis: I’m not trying to prove anything conclusively. Rather, I’ve tried to show where those ideas seem to lead us now, and where some may have misled us in the past. Some of these ideas may prove to be wrong, and many will and must change as new information arises: they can only be based on the present state of research into the ‘earth mysteries’. But the underlying theme of the study - the idea that the earth itself is alive and aware - is ageless, and indeed is being reinforced rather than proved false as time goes by.

Much of the information on which this study is based comes from my own research and fieldwork: but much has necessarily come from other sources. I know that I owe a great deal to all those who’ve helped me in this study, named and unnamed, known and unknown. In most cases the detailed information on the sources is given in the notes at the end of the book; but in some cases, particularly among dowsers, information was only forthcoming on the promise that the source would not be published. This attitude is at last changing, however, as more and more modern research adds weight to what so many dowsers have been saying for years: that something beyond our current understanding is active at the standing stones, those ancient ‘needles of stone’.

In revising this book for its second edition, the main alteration was the addition of a new ‘Postscript’ chapter, discussing some of the research and other happenings of the past ten years in the context of ‘earth mysteries’ studies. For this third edition I have added a new review-chapter, ‘Looking Back’; and some thoughts on possible futures for the field, in a new final chapter, ‘Looking Forward’.

But beyond these amendments, I have left the original text largely unchanged: a few minor corrections and updates here and there, and a number of additions to the notes, but that is all. Despite its flaws and its occasional forays into the overly implausible, the text seems to have stood the test of time: it does its job. And that is what makes it all worth while!

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment is made to Oxford University Press for permission to quote from Megalithic Sites in Britain by Alexander Thom; to S.P.C.K. for permission to quote from Exorcism edited by Dom Robert Petitpierre OSB; and to Darton Longman and Todd for permission to quote from But Deliver Us From Evil by John Richards.

The ‘Dod’ cartoons were drawn and kindly provided by Ian Thomson, art editor of The Ley Hunter magazine.

Footnotes

Notes are indicated by a small number in the text. The respective footnote will be found at the end of the chapter.

Publishers and publication dates for books referred to in the footnotes and elsewhere are given in the bibliography. Journal titles in the footnotes are abbreviated as follows: JBSD, Journal of the British Society of Dowsers; TLH, The Ley Hunter magazine; JSPR, Journal of the (British) Society for Psychical Research.