Haunted Landscapes: Ghosts and Ley Lines

Banner image by cottonbro studio from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ghosts-outdoors-5435304/

Ley lines have been the subject of growing fascination in recent years. Originally conceived by Alfred Watkins as an ancient system of way-making, they have quickly become surrounded by mysticism as they have been adopted and transformed by various spiritual movements, particularly the Earth Mysteries movement. 

However, ley lines had very little supernatural content when they were first created. Alfred Watkins (1855–1955), a businessman and photographic innovator, first proposed the idea that landmarks like prehistoric sites, churches, mounds, and wayside crosses could be traced into alignments. Watkins makes the case in his first book on the topic, The Old Straight Track (1925), that prehistoric humans used 'sighting/ed lines' or 'leys,' straight lines between two high points to navigate. These lines were afterwards further marked with stones, ponds, mounds, and sacred sites. (1) Leys thus constituted an old system of knowledge and route-making.

It was only in the 1960s that the concept of ley lines as a form of earth energy began to develop with the rise of the New Age and Earth Mysteries movements. In 1958, Aimé Michel published Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery, in which he argued that UFO sightings fell in alignments, a theory that Tony Wedd later merged with Watkins’ ley theory. (2)

John Michell was a central figure in this period, linking Watkins’ ley lines with the Chinese concept of feng shui, and arguing for dowsing as a method of identifying ley lines. (3) Around the same time, Guy Underwood was studying what he termed ’geodetic lines’, a network of currents from within the earth. (4) What is significant in these developments is the transformation of leys from man-made way-making to a non-human power or energy.

Encountering Ley Lines Online

Along with the New Age movement, modern ‘pagan’ movements such as Wicca, Druidry and the Goddess movement have integrated ley lines into their beliefs. Wallis and Blain highlight the generic and wide- encompassing nature of the term ‘paganism’, arguing that what unites various movements is ‘focus on direct engagements with “nature” as deified, “sacred,” or otherwise animated and containing “spirits.”’ (5)

In order to explore understanding of ley lines in these modern communities, I turned to social media specifically the Reddit groups r/wicca and r/witchcraft, as well as the Facebook group ’Earth Healing, Ley Lines and Earth Energy’. I have also included posts from r/conspiracy, a Reddit group which sets out to ’challenge issues which have captured the public’s imagination, from JFK and UFOs to 9/11.’ (6) All four groups are diverse in their content, and there is no defined set of beliefs, thus they make fascinating sites of study. My examples focus on personal encounters along ley lines, thus in order to preserve members’ anonymity I will refer to examples in generalised terms, although all the groups were public.

Mapping Hauntings

Higgypop, a website focusing on paranormal news, features an interactive map of ‘paranormal hotspots’, mapped against the major ley lines believed to run through the UK. At first glance, there appears to be little correlation between the two phenomena; the map is saturated with haunting hotspots, contributed by members of the public, which are distributed throughout the country, including in areas away from a ley line, such as the southern-most tip of South-East England. Nevertheless, the map does reflect the widespread belief that ghosts can be experienced in conjunction with ley lines. (7)

Lingering Ghosts

It is notoriously difficult to define what a ’ghost’ is. Ghosts are generally understood as remnants of the dead, an aspect of a person which lingers on in a supernatural form, and yet even this is a broad concept. To Thurgill, ghosts are ‘both an idea and an occurrence', and it is the latter aspect which is most relevant to ley lines. (8) The ghost occurrence, or haunting, is often specifically localised; Michael Mayerfeld Bell notes 

Ghosts have good reasons to haunt the specific places they do. (9)

A ghost may haunt a specific building or landscape feature, often recalling a specific time period, for example a ghostly monk may recall the medieval monastic background of a place. In this sense, Thurgill argues that all places are haunted, as ’history cannot be erased’ and will always linger in the landscape in one form or another. (10)

Ghostly Sensations

Places along ley lines, however, are often presented as more haunted than most. Most of the accounts of ley line hauntings I discovered came from official or semi-official websites for historical sites, for example, the pamphlet titled ‘Ley Lines and Rosslyn Chapel’ linked on the website for Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland. According to the pamphlet, a ley line is said to run through the site, which has attracted paranormal investigators to Rosslyn. Visitors reported tingling or vibrating sensations, or sudden warmth or cold, and a mounted knight and multiple grey lady ghosts have been spotted. It is notable that all these experiences are non-specific; there are no claims on Rosslyn Chapel’s website of specific people haunting the site, despite the long history of the building. (11)

Generic Ghosts

A similar pattern can be identified in article ’The Mysterious Ley Lines/Dragon Lines’ on the tourism website cotswolds.info, which traces three ley lines believed to run through the Cotswolds. No specific historic ghosts are identified, even when discussing places where there have been sightings of named ghosts, such as the ghost of Katherine Parr at Sudeley Castle. Instead, vague language is used to describe hauntings: Sudeley Castle ’has a reputation of being visited by supernatural spirits’ and Winchcombe ’has been described as being a very haunted place’. When specific ghosts are identified, they remain generic and unnamed, and are presented without backstories or legends, for example ’a child said to have drowned in the mill pond’, or ’a man dressed in breeches and a felt hat’. (12) Many stories feature popular haunting motifs such as the ’grey lady’ or ghostly knights, or changes in temperature, with little accompanying speculation or stories. (13)  This may seem counterintuitive from a tourism perspective: legends and stories surrounding the identity of ghosts can lead to what Holloway terms ’legend-tripping’, or visiting a specific place in order to experience an aspect of its associated legend. (14)

Haunted Landscapes

Nevertheless, I would argue that this kind of specificity is at odds with the general concept of ley lines. Ley lines, although bound to the landscape, are not specific, or tied down to a particular concept or time. Ley lines are not a static concept; they shift and adapt to new ideas, integrating them into a connective understanding of place. Ghosts, then, in the context of ley lines, do not represent specific people or narratives, but rather a general haunting of the landscape. Tina Paphitis argues that hauntings ‘are about experiences of, and active engagements with, places in a given time’, (15) and this can be just as powerful when the haunting cannot be clearly defined. 

This may go some way to explaining the recurrence of popular ghost motifs in these stories. Ley line hauntings draw on traditional folk motifs which are often specifically localised in order to place the wider concept of ley lines within a folkloric perception of the landscape.

Orbs 

This is particularly evident through experiences of ’orbs’ in conjunction with ley lines. Orbs have grown in popularity with the internet, as they usually appear solely in photographs, unlike other spirits or ghosts who may shun technology. To some, they are manifestations of ghosts, for others evidence of UFOs, while many dismiss them as photographic glitches or lens flares. Often, they are interpreted as simply supernatural; Benjamin Radford notes that orbs ’are a good all-around ”unexplained” phenomenon that can be adapted to fit many paranormal scenarios’. (16)

It is not surprising, then, that orb sightings are often connected to ley lines. The Earth Healing, Ley Lines and Earth Energy Facebook group features many orb sightings, often accompanied by photographic support. One member posted a picture of themselves atop a mountain following the performance of a pagan ceremony which features a large semi-transparent circle near her feet, accompanied by a caption asking if anyone can identify it. They suggest it could be a vortex, a centre of energy along a ley line, an idea which is supported by a commenter, while other suggestions ranged from ’friendly spirits’ to ’fairies’. (17)

 In response to another similar post asking for the identification of an apparent orb in a photo taken on a Civil War battlefield, a commenter suggests that the photograph portrays several incorporeal battlefield ghosts. Frequently, however, photographs of orbs are presented with little explanation or questioning. One member posted a picture of orbs during a summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge, concluding their post by stating ’I love orbs and the energy’.

The intention behind most of these posts appears to be to share a powerful experience, rather than seek a definitive explanation of their encounter. Frequently, the orbs are only spotted after the photograph is taken, which Radford suggests could add to their otherworldliness. However, while Radford argues that orbs often ’spook’ those who encounter them, the experiences shared on the Facebook group are overwhelmingly positive, celebrated by commenters as ’spectacular’ and ’incredible’. (18)

Significantly, all of the examples above include some kind of engagement with nature. One photograph was taken after ’a pagan handfasting ceremony’, another following ley line healing. Interestingly, one poster claims to have seen an orb after meditating with the specific intention of manifesting their energy into a visible orb. These are not random encounters, nor are they in any way human; instead, they are framed as the products of communing with the landscape, rendering them more similar to genius locorum, or spirits of place, than traditional anthropomorphic ghosts, a subject I will explore in more detail in my next blog post.

References

1. Alfred Watkins, The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites, and Mark Stones, 4th ed. (London: Methuen & Co., 1948).

2. See Danny Sullivan, Leys, (Walkmill, Wales: Wooden Books, 2000).

3. Joe Nickell, ‘Ley Lines: Investigating on Site‘, Skeptical Inquirer, 40:5.

4. James Thurgill, ‘A Strange Cartography: Leylines, Landscape and “Deep Mapping” in the Works of Alfred Watkins’, Humanities, 4:4, (2015).

5. Robert J. Wallis and Jenny Blain, ’Sites, Sacredness, and Stories: Interactions of Archaeology and Contemporary Paganism’, Folklore, 114:3, (2003).

6.  https://www.reddit.com/r/Wicca/, https://www.reddit.com/r/witchcraft/,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/188797651631663/, https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/.

7.  https://www.higgypop.com/hauntings/

8. James Thurgill, ‘Enchanted Geographies: Experiences of place in contemporary British Landscape Mysticism’, PhD thesis, (2014).

9. Michael Mayerfeld Bell, ’The Ghosts of Place‘, Theory and Society, 26:6, (1997).

10. James Thurgill, ‘Enchanted Geographies'.

11. Joe Walker and Fiona Rogan, ’Ley Lines and Rosslyn Chapel’, https://www.rosslynchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/256_Rosslyn_Article_Ley_Lines_and_Rosslyn_Chapel.pdf. 

12. Anonymous, ’The Mysterious Ley Lines/Dragon Lines’, https://www.cotswolds.info/strange-things/ley-dragon-lines.shtml.

13. cf https://www.spookyisles.com/grey-lady-ghosts/ and Jamie McLeod ‘Ghost Spots: A Weather Folklore‘, Farmer‘s Almanac, (2022) https://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather-ology-special-ghost-spots-16390.

14. J. Holloway, ’Legend-Tripping in Spooky Spaces: Ghost Tourism and Infrastructures of Enchantment’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28:4, (2010).

15. Tina Paphitis, ’Haunted landscapes: place, past and presence’, Time and Mind, 13:4, (2020).

16. Benjamin Radford, ’The (non)mysterious orbs‘, Skeptical Inquirer, 31:5, (2007).

17. See https://www.facebook.com/groups/188797651631663/

18. Benjamin Radford, ’The (non)mysterious orbs‘.

Further Reading

Map of UK Ley Lines - https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/uk-ley-lines/UKleylines

John Hill, 'Ley Hunters: Were Bronze Age Britons Really Following Ley Lines?', Ancient Origins, (2022), https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/prehistoric-ley-lines-0017118