Welcome to Quicksilver 4. In this issue we begin a new regular feature; Quicksilver Heroes. To commemorate 60 year: of ley hunting we interviewed Edgerton Sykes, the last surviving member of the Straight Track Club : that pioneering group of men and women who laid the foundations for the modern Earth Mysteries movement.

We celebrate our first birthday issue with five pages of letters from maniacs and philosophers alike. Yes, now it can truely be said that one of the functions of the magazine is to act as a platform for discussion. And to encourage this we're giving a £3 book token for the most interesting and origina1 letter (Nothing smutty published).

NEXT ISSUE : QsM is now a magazine of international status - in fact part of the English speaking community in Amsterdam were circulating a photocopy of John Michelle's 'Myth of Darwinism' from Quicksilver 2 - we wish they'd a11 buy a copy! Next issue we will have Chris Holls on 1ey names, the completed Tony Roberts article on sacred sites and microwaves (research has been delayed somewhat, Martin Brennan on an aspect of megalithic culture, Pau1 Devereaux on the Dragon Project and Quicksilver Hero No.2 is John Michelle.

Quicksilver Messenger: What are your chief memories of the Straight Track Club?

Edgerton Sykes: My memories of the Straight Track Club date back to the time when Watkins wrote his book. I can't remember now but I think it must have been in the 1920's, between 1923 and 1926. And in 1926 I had my first revolution which was quite interesting. I was living in Poland at the time and I was arrested by both sides who accused me of spying for the other and as I couldn't speak a word of the language it was a bit inconvenient! But, anyhow, for relaxation between revolutions I turned to the S.T.C. which, as you know, was formed by CARR GOMM on the basis of Watkins' book to exploit the ideas. I remained a member of it until it expired, I think in 1948 or '49: simply because CARR GOMM, who had been the secretary and guiding spirit, no longer had the energy necessary to carry on with it. I found that the S.T.C. brought together a whole group of enthusiasts. It's a trifling detail but practically none of them agreed with each other. But it didn't matter very much as they all had very good ideas. The problem we were up against wa this: Watkins considered that leys radiated out from a given spot. Subsequent investigation has shown it is more likely that they radiate towards a certain point. In other wcrds, the proverb says all roads lead to London but not all roads lead from London. You are more likely to want to get to a centre than you are to want to leave it once you've got there. I have a feeling that the straight tracks may well have been considered neutral territory by the local tribes. The reason was that as long as you stayed on the track they knew you were not affecting their interests. The really interesting thing was that when 2 tracks crossed which they did occassionally you would find that at the crossroads there was usually a stream or a small hill. And because it was at the junction of 2 tracks you would find a priest or a priestess. They would set themselves up there to advise people which way to go. And in due course, hundreds of years later we would have a Saxon church. Most of these are situated on crossroads because it was the one place you were sure of traffic. As far as I can tell the Roman roads in Britain followed the straight tracks. And to show how important they were there is a straight track known as Watling Street which goes from somewhere in Cheshire down to London. Alfred the Great was having a terrific war with the Danes, I think in 856, and suddenly there was an eclipse of the sun. It was a very rare thing to be seen in Britain. The path of the eclipse followed Watling Street and both Alfred and the Danes were so shaken by this that they declared peace immediately and they made Watling Street the frontier between the Daneland and the Anglia. I think these straight roads have been of great importance always. When I was in France during the First World War and you had to walk (instead of being taken by a lorry or helicopter or something) one noticed that you'd get 20 or 30 miles of straight roads and I often wondered whether there were ley people also in France at the time. They seem to have been part of the Neolithic civilization. Now whether these leys and neolithic people were the same or merely contemporary we have no idea. And I may say that we in the S.T.C. suffered from the great disadvantage that we shut up shop just at the time when the threshold of new discoveries was making it possible for us to ascertain what had really happened. Everybody was too old. I must have been about the youngest member.

QsM: What were the personalities of the Straight Track Club like?

Sykes: Well look here! I have a card index filed away upstairs giving the names of all the 25 members and I'll be delighted to let you have it in the course of a couple days. I am the only survivor and everybody else is dead. But most of the people concerned with this type of investigation were tied up with the S.T.C. and from it stemmed the zodiac cult, as you might call it. It started off with my friend Mrs. Maltwood.

QsM: Was she a member of the Club?

Sykes: Oh, yes, although she moved eventually to British Columbia where she died. But she was still a member of the club. From that club we intiated about 20 or 30 of the theories which are now going around and keeping the fringe archeological activities of Western Europe going. I feel rather proud of that, only I do wish that some of the enthusiasts working today would go in for it as seriously as we did and put in really hard work.

QsM: How do you think the modern movement compares with your day?

Sykes: The modern interest is not backed up by the knowledge and research which the S.T.C. people put in. You see the average member of the S.T.C. in England probably walked thirty miles every weekend exploring possible straight tracks and taking photos of them and making reports on them. Nowadays, people use cars and therefore you don't notice quite as much, and a lot of the material has become obscured: knocked down by building operations or buildings have been put around it. And lastly I don't think they're willing to to give it the serious study that the other people gave it. But, here I may be prejudiced, we've got to see how the results come out. I was very happy to to be a member of it. Actually, I was at the final meeting when we presented Carr Gomm with a model cromlech as a souvenir- I wonder what's happened to it now he's dead... We wound up very ceremoniously and I wish now, looking back at it, that we hadn't. Had we not wound up, quite a lot of the newly formed organisations would have been part of the S.T.C. and would have been able to benefit from the knowledge which the club had accumulated during its existence.

QsM: A record of that knowledge is now Hereford Library, isn't it?

Sykes: Well, you see the records are in public library, as you know, and I don't know if anybody has thought of having it microfilmed. It would be worthwhile because some of the reports are extremely good and valuable. And what's more, they contain material which it is now impossible to obtain for the reasons which I've already mentioned. My own contributions I may say, were nothing spectacular. I was much more concerned with reading up because I was living abroad the whole time I was a member. And looking into my own local conditions to see if there was any possible relationship between the Straight track Clubs of England and France and those of Eastern Europe.

QsM: Did you ever meet Watkins?

Sykes: Oh yes, I met everybody concerned with the S.T.C. I met the lot at one time or another. As a matter of fact I'll tell you this: there are very few people in this field who I haven't met. They range from Margaret Murray to Lady Flinders-Petri. Most of the authorities on this type of exploration, I've met or known. Of course, don't forget the period between 1930-1939 was about the most fruitful one for exploration and the propogation of new ideas that we've had for hundreds of years. It was a very fruitful one.

QsM: If you were to make a statement to modern ley hunters, what would you say?

Sykes: I'd say this: Please remember that leys were strictly a business proposition, in other words they were there for use. And all the mystical theories that have been built around them are hindsight rather than foresight. In other words it is possible for me to see that Montpellier Villas leads from Victoria Road to Upper North Street, right? Well now, as soon as something is discovered in Montpellier Villas it doesn't imply Montpellier Villas were built for that purpose. But merely that by coincidence something was discovered there. I don't think that leys were built with any mystical purpose in view, but, it so happens that the tracks have crossed quite a lot of mystical sources of energy (I'd be surprised if they didn't), but these were not the reasons for doing it. The reasons for doing it were to get from A to B and nothing else at all. Everything else had been thrown in as a luxury, as give away. And don't forget that in the leys we have the foundations of the Roman road system which covered the whole of the area of Roman civilisation which was about that of the area of the Western World today. They were very, very important elements in our history. But don't misjudge them and try to attribute them to factors which had nothing at all to do with them.

QsM: It's been a pleasure talking to you, thank ycu.

Sykes: And thank you.

It's possible that what has become known as the Wolstonbury Enigma might just be layer upon layer of coincidence. It a11 began with the discovery of a circular alignment of ancient sites around Wolstonbury Hill. It was then found that two leys cross at the exact centre of the circle. Dowsers have picked up what seems to be a terrestrial energy relating to these sites and alignments. Several paranormal occurrences have been reported at some of the sites and local folklore also ascribes an importance and colour. The Knights Templars, that austere order of warrior monks, little known but well respected, also fit into the picture. It's difficult to say what it a11 adds up to, and one can easily be lost in a sea of speculation. So, armed with the sword of critical thought, I invite you to step into this maze of information and decide for yourself....

THE DISCOVERY

Wolstonbury Hill protrudes from the South Downs into the Weald just a few miles north of Brighton. It's topped by a circular earthen bank. The land around the hill is interlaced by ancient trackways on record as being used by the Romans. Into the side of the hill near the top there's an area that's been cut out and flattened. It's quite large and seems strangely out of place. When I first visited this place someone had been there before me and had marked out in white stones an image of The Long Man of Wilmington almost life size and on the green grass. My curiosity had been aroused: one of the lunatic fringe had been here linking ancient sites with an image of Watkin's 'ley surveyor'! Maybe a brother or even a sister!

At home I began to fool around with a 2½ Inch map and a pair of compasses. Finally I came up with a point where a footpath hits the circular bank at the top which was the centre of a circle whose circumference linked three Anglo Saxon Churches at the base of the hill and a farm. The Wolstonbury enigma began to emerge.

Some time later I got on my bike and went out to the farm and introducing myself as "an amateur archaeologist" asked how old the place was. It turned out that the farm was Elizabethan, but at the turn of the century, a Roman villa had been excavated in the garden. It's now been filled in because the visitors became overwhelming. Ley points falling on to circles have been noticed before.

Taking the dead centre of the circle as a reference point I then found that there are two leys running smack through it and intersecting on exactly the same centre point. Alignment 1 cuts the 'Devil Dyke', "an early Iron Age fortified town of considerable size". There's a siting legend for the Dyke. The story has it that the Devil was attempting to cut a channel through the Downs to the sea so as to flood the Weald. His dastardly purpose was to punish the Sussex Saxons for their conversion to Christianity in the Seventh Century. However he was disturbed before he could finish the job, the result being a very steep and deep escarpment which almost makes an island of the hill fort. The second ley point is the small and beautiful North Hill tumulus. The line then passes through a hill pond and on to Wolstonbury Hill and through the site of a now ploughed up tumulus. Then, after passing through the centre point of the circle on the banks of the earth works it goes through the site of a Roman crossroads and continues north running parallel to the modern road the course of the Roman road. The crossroads is an important site. About 80 yards to the west is Buttinghill where the Hundred Courts were held in Saxon times. The crossroads have the name 'Stone Pound' and have been used as a place of burial for at least three different periods in history. Remains have been found there of Bronze Age burials, the Romans used the place for cremations and later the Anglo Saxon Christians buried on the same spot. Crossroads were considered places of sacred significance in ancient times and Alfred Watkins records a custom still in practice when he was alive of funeral processions stopping and laying the coffin down at a crossroads in Herefordshire. Suicides were buried at crossroads. A crossing of the ways, a parting of the ways. From the Devil's Dyke to the Stone Pound Crossroads is a distance of 3½ miles. There are five sites on the leg within the distance. Anyone want to do a statistical check on it?

Alignment 2 runs from the Anglo Saxon New Timber Church through the exact point of the circular pattern and into a house called 'Halfway' and onto the Anglo Saxon St. Margarets in Ditchling. 'Halfway' is not a country mansion and yet it's named on the 2½ inch O.S. map. It stands at the cross way of several footpaths. I contacted the owner who told me that it was called 'Halfway' because it was built at the site of some old cottages and that's what they had been called. The funny thing about it though is that this 'Halfway' stands exactly halfway between the centre point of the circle and the ley point St. Margaret's in Ditchling. St. Margaret's itself is built on a mound at a crossroads and has a lovely stained glass window of the saint witn a dragon.

TERRESTRIAL ENERGIES

Working independantly from me and quite unknown to eachother, dowser Colin Bloy had already been to Wolstonbury Hill and had picked up a strong overground energy line running in what turned out to be the direction of Shipley church. Shipley was part of a large Knights Templars estate. After intensive dowsing of that land around the church Bloy came up with a dowsed map showing regular spiral patterns and rams horns as manifestations of some kind of energy at play there. Interestingly enough, alignment 1 glances Saddlescombe (between the Dyke and North Hill tumulus) and alignment 2 goes through New Timber - both belonged to the Knights Templar. Furthermore the Hove dowser Patrick Lofting had picked up a dowsable reaction on the cirele and found a dowsable overground running from its centre to New Timber Church. The overground split at the church and one line ran across the moat at New Timber Place and went towards the octagonal dovecot. What this adds up to I do not know but it draws the Knights Templar into the picture linking them to the Wolstonbury pattern through a) site pattern and alignment and b) by dowsable terrestial energy.

SUPERNATURAL OCCURRENCES

It has often been observed that hauntings and UFO sightings often occur on leys. One explanation given to account for this is that these manifestations are a result of the disturbance of the flow of terrestrial energy. In the case of hauntings, a strong place memory may become magnified to the extent that it will take on an image. And an explanation for the appearance of UFO's on leys is that the UFO (whatever it may be) is using the terrestial energy for its propulsion. However this explanation is waning in popularity at present and there are others which take its place. In the light of the connection between these occurrences and terrestial energy, I will now list several pieces of hot and not so hot information relevant to our subject. Pyecombe: an apparition of a girl in a white coat has been recorded as being seen there.. (BRIGHTON & HOVE GAZETTE: Ghosts Feature, 22/12/1978) New Timber Place: an apparition of a gypsy carrying a silver kettle who "just vanished into thin air" upsetting the witness considerably (Told to me by SARAH SAUNDERS of Heredfordshire, April 1980) Wolstonbury Hill: Eve Lawley of Patcham phoned Radio Brighton to relate that she had a "strange experience" there, but did not enter into details. (If you are reading this E.L. I would like to know more.) Clayton Hill: legend has it that a knight in a silver coffin is buried there just above the church. And members of the local BUFORA group informed me that it was a "very good place for UFO's." I do not know if there is any value in making the obvious eonnection between a silver coffin and a silver ship. Devil's Dyke: there are tales of apparitions having being seen here also.

Now, it is possible that all the occurrences may be phony. But even if they are it would be worth asking why these places should have this kind of effect upon man's imagination. It is also worth remembering that this is not just a modern trend: the legend of the knight in the silver coffin and the Devil digging the Dyke attest to the similar effect that was made in the past.

CONCLUSION

What we have simply is this: three alignments of ancient sites, one circular and two straight, all of which intersect at the same point. Within this setting overground energy lines have been dowsed which compound a connection to the Knights Templar. There is very little documentary evidence on the practices of the Templars, however they are popularly thought to have been involved in esoteric religious practices. It is known that they were speedily destroyed in a concerted attack by the political rulers of Europe but the real motive for the attack is not known. Were they really Satanists as statements given by some of them while under torture are to make us believe? Were they attacked for their wealth? The idea that they had esoteric knowledge through which they understood the function and use of terrestrial energy has been around for some time. And it could just be an explanation of what was going on at Wolstonbury. What we have found is a fragment of a system of geomancy developed by the Templars from a system of terrestial geometry of greater antiquity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEVEREAUX & THOMPSON THE LEY HUNTER'S COMPANION
WATKINS, ALFRED THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK
THE NEW VICTORIAN COUNTY HISTORIES
GLOVER, JUDITH THE PLACE NAMES OF SUSSEX
SIMPSON, J. THE FOLKLORE OF SUSSEX

AFTERWORD Students of conspiracy theory might find the following information of interest. The 'Danny' is a stately Elizabethan home standing to the north of Wolstonbury Hill and within the circular pattern. The site is older than the 17th century though - a Roman pavement has been unearthed there. On October 13, 1918 it was the scene of a meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet, including such luminaries as Lloyd George and Churchill, and it was from here that the decision was made to negotiate the armistice with Germany. An important decision. The village of Ditchling with its church dedicated to the dragon St. Margaret (the dragon symbolising, among other things, earth energy) always had its yearly fair on the festival of St. Margaret - July 20. In 1940 the lord of the Manor at Ditchling was one Guy-Larnach-Nevill, 5th Marquess of Abergavenny whose coat of arms was the rose in the cross. This emblem is remarkably similar to that of the esoteric order of the Rosicrucians who, in a recent T.V. programme and a book soon to be published (and reviewed in QsM), have been implicated in the construction of a large terrestial pentacle in France.

A PROJECT TO MAKE BRIGHTON A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE

A group of people are coming together in Brighton to put into practice and to measure the power of positive thought. The idea is simple enough: if you think and act positive what happens to you generally takes a turn for the better. If you find this hard to believe do not take my word for it - give it a try.

The aim is simple enough: to produce enough positive thought so as to have a calming effect upon the community. It is hoped that the actual result will be a reduction in diseases related to tension. This will be measured by collecting statistical information from hospitals and the police over the period of the operation. Sounds crazy? Sounds naive? Of course it does! 8ut the funny thing is that it just might work.

Think of the revolutionary ideas that were considered completely screwball when they first surfaced. Copernicus is an example. When he first came up with the idea that the earth and the planets revolved around the sun he was considered so dangerously wacko that they locked him up, poor man. New ideas always meet with heavy resistance at first, simply because they make us feel insecure - they challenge the comfort of our concept of reality. The defence mechenism that we often use to try to hang on to our comfortable reality is ridicule. "They're going to make Brighton better by thinking! Ha Ha Ha!"

The operation is not a matter of people walking around telling themselves everything is OK - when they know damn well it isn't. It's more subtle than that, it's more clever and dig this, there's plenty of evidence to show that this sort of thing works. Psychics, dowsers and magiciians have been hip to the fact that thoughts are not just things that fly around within each individual head only to escape through words or actions. Healers can heal using controlled thoughts. Dowsers have found that they can make dowsable lines just by thinking them into existence. The power of thought stops a pain in a patient's gut when a doctor gives him a dummy pill. The operation involves the projection of positive thought in a positive way.

On the northern slope of the South Downs in Sussex, on Windover Hill over-looking the village of Wilmington with its ruined Priory and old church, is the 226 feet high Long Man, who is thought to be the largest representation in the world of a human being. Very little is actually known about him, but he is reputed to be pre-Christian, although he was not of course, outlined in his present permanent form by white bricks until 1874. Before that he was sometimes known locally as the Green Man because of his overgrown state, but it is more than likely that that name indicates a connection with fertility. It is worth noting that the figure had practically disappeared and wass not always easily visible.

What is not so well known as it most definitely should be, is that he is one of the several figures that have now totally disappeared. T.C. Lethbridge when a boy was told by a shepherd that the Long Man once had a companion and that they were known as Adam and Eve. J.P. Emslie in 1905 set down that there were memories of a figure representing a man thrown from a horse on a hill above nearby Alfriston. Other writers have mentioned a figure on the slopes of Hindover Hill, Hadrian Allcroft saying of it that 'Men who were schoolboys in the 1860's recollect it well enough, though it is so vanished that learned folks refused to believe them'.

There was also a popular belief that to the right of the figure there was a cock and as late as 1870 locals thought that they could see it from time to time. Now this gives us a very wide range of possibilities as a cock could possibly be associated with with St. Paul, Abraxas, Mahomet, or Apollo although it is probably unlikely in this case. The outline of what must have been the bird can still be seen. It is worth noting that the nearby River Cuckmere was once known as the Coq River.

Regarding the sun, the figure is so ploced upon the hill-side that it is in shadow at sunrise and sundown for ten consecutive months. Flinders Petrie saw here a possible connection with the gestation period, which in turn is associated with Varuna. Another local belief was that one either side of the figure was an upright line (presumably a trench or a bank) that ran from the bottom to the summit of the slope. In 1923 an 80 year old inhabitant stated that when he was a boy his parents told that on June 2lst each year there was visible for ahout an hour at midday, a straight line running from the top to bottom of the hill on the left of the figure.

He does not appear in written record until 1766, when a contemporary sketch shows a rake and scythe added to the top of the poles, with eyes, nose and mouth. There is some doubt as to the accuracy of this sketch but the facial features were noted by Flinders Petrie when he published 'The Hill Figures of England' (1926). He had this to say about a possible link with the East :

"If then, the figures may be the deities of the Bronze Age, to what source can we look? The idea of the maypole associated with the Cerne Giant is widely spread through Germany and Eastward. To grant a pole to a community in Egypt (6th dynasty) was to establish an independent religious centre not assesable to any other temple. In India "All Kings plant a pole for the celebration of Indra's worship" (Mahabharata Chandra Roi, p.173). That the ßronze workers came from the the Rhine district seems accepted, and all along the line of the Rhine and the Danube to the Euxine the worship of Mithra is found. On the other side of the Euxine the worship of Mithra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatya twins was already known by 1200BC. If these had come westward with the Bronze migration, Varuna might be the origin of the Wilmington figure, which has already been supposed to be opening the gates of heaven; it looks to the North, the region of Varuna; the figure was in shadow at sunrise and setting during 10 months of the year and Varuna was god of the 10 months of gestation. Lehman strongly holds the pre-Roman introduction of Eastern deities along the Rhine.

A modern Indian parallel to such large earthworks I owe to Mr.Krishniengar. He states that a figure about 60 feet high is drawn on the ground, with white outline, and filled in with red: the attitude is 1ike that of the Cerne Giant, but it bears sword and shield. This represents a demon of darkness, Andhaka, who is destroyed by Siva in a moonlight festival. As the Indian demons are the Persian gods and vice versa this would accord with Western Aryans representing deities on a large scale in this manner.

All that we can say at present is the way lies open historically to a connection between the Aryan gods and the West during the Bronze Age and there would be no impossibility in such gods being the origin of the hillfigures. The importance of the horse in the Aryan worships would also accord with such a possibility. This view may help in the recognition of other pieces of evidence, which may substantiate it or refute it. Half the difficulty of research is to know what to recognise, and how it can be applied."

The very interesting point about this is that a mile in front of him is the 3½x3 miles outline of an Asian elephant the tips of the trunk being at Berwick crossrosds. ('The Sussex Elephant' is to be published by the Institute of Geomantic Reaearch.) Considerable skill went into the outline of the figure, for the proportions are so adjusted that though he is unduly elongated when seen from a point directly in front (that is, from above) this excess just counteracts the effect of foreshortening when seen from the lower level of the Weald. Thus he would seem to be meant to be seen from the ground. It should be mentioned that when he was established in his more permanent form, the feet were turned sideways; before that he looked more as if he were striding downhill. Another fact is that the height of the staves is just twice their distance apart representing the 2:1 measurement.

There are several giant legends associated with him of which the one of most interest to ley hunters concerns two giants, The Long Man on Windover Hill and the other who lived in the large round barrow on top of Firle Beacon three miles away. (Those interested in nursery tales and where they may just possibly fit in with our subject will be interested to know that Firle has a Bo-Peep Hill and a Beanstalk Farm). The two quarreled and hurled boulders at one another; the Firle Giant eventually killing the Long Man, who now lies dead on the hillside or else in a long barrow called Hunter's Burgh on the top of the hill.

There is a theory that the Man had Roman associations as there could have been coins of the period found that show a man holding two poles and of course Alfred Watkins described him as a Doddy Man. It should perhaps be mentioned that the figure on the gate of the sun-god at Tiahuanaco holds two 'staves', in this case with slight broadenings at the base of them, Now Hadrian Allcroft has this to say of the Long Man: "His next of kin appears to be a small and rude rock carving near Lake Onega in Northern Russia, which might be flippantly maintained to represent the giant when a boy. It stands in the same attitude and leans upon the same two staves, with no other difference than that the Russian staves end in a semi-circulr something which forcibly recalls the ski-stick affected by Winter sport." H.J.hlassingham refers to him as probably being a derivative of Horus-Re.

Guy Underwood in his wonderful book 'The Pattern of the Past' (Abacus) shows that in hill figures such as the White Horse of Uffington and the Cerne Abbas Giant there are dowsable geodetic lines that outline the figure. I was puzzled by the omission from his book of the Long Man until I saw a copy of his work; in this there do not seem to be a great deal of lines associated with the figure. There is some dowsable connection with the curious little quarry to the right, quite clearly seen in the 1850 illustration. Why take out the chalk and rearrange it in neat terrces in front?

If the 'Powers that be', whoever they are, are really interested in learning more about this figure, then there is a reasonable course to follow, although after the disgraceful treatment of T.C. Lethbridge's discoveries of the Gog and Magog figures in Cambridge, I have my doubts. It should not be too difficult to dowse and find the 1ost figures with a little effort and then have more of a picture.

As for myself, when I read of the 'man falling off a horse', I thought of the Sagittarius figure in the Glastonbury Terrestial Zodiac which is represented by just that. So, I looked for a T.Z. proximity to the Long Man, and there is one, twenty miles in diameter and reaching Tunbridge Wells at its northern aspect. Perhaps then our figure could just be associated with this; could 'Adam and Eve' that the old man remembered have been sentative of Gemini? At the moment, who knows? But perhaps it is worth a thought in passing as no answer to this enigmatic figure has so far emerged after many years. If and when the other figures are also to emerge again, then, maybe, the real answer will be fairly obvious: perhaps!

Ever since the exposure of the Piltdown Man as a complete hoax in 1953, the name of Charles Dawson, the Uckfield solicitor who brought the British Missing Link to the attention of the scientific community, has been held in low esteem. Dawson was revealed as either a fraud or a credulous fool. As evidence of this it was said he had even claimed to have seen a sea serpent! And as everyone knows such things do not exist ...

Dawson's own account of this incident, mentioned in passing by Prof. J.S. Weiner in his book about the hoax in 1955, has remained unpublished until today. A journal devoted to the mysteries of Sussex seems an appropriate place to put it on record.

In a privats letter, dated 7th October 1907 tfl his old friend Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, of the British Museum (Natural History), who was later to work with him at Piltdown, Dawson relates his adventure:

"My dear Woodward, We were sorry you did not turn up yesterday although we scarcely expected you. However a large motor party arrived and consumed the tea and buns we had spread for you!

I wanted to see you about a sea-serpent. What is the duty of a man who thinks he has seen a sea-serpent and is supported by 3 other eye-witnesses?

Should he discreetly hold his tongue or is there some person who is pigeon-holing records on the subject? Well, I watched one from a steamboat in the Channel for about 4 minutes with a pair of rather strong opera glasses. Here is the story for what it is worth and I tell it to you because you are a fish-man!

On Good Friday (1906) I was crossing the Channel from Newhaven to Dieppe: It was perfect calm there being no wind except the rush of air caused by the steam boat (S.S. Manche). Between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon I judged we might be in sight of land and went forward on the prow deck to look for it with my opera glasses.

I was scanning the horizon when I eaught sight of what seemed like a large cable-like object struggling about. It was some two miles away right ahead of the ship. While trying to focus the object as sharp as possible I heard two men (passengers) talking about it. One said "Hallo! What's that coming, the Sea-serpent or what is it?" The object had then shifted its course and instead of coming at us had turned in a side track of about 45 degrees from our port side, but offered a more extended and less complicated view. I could not see any head or tail but a series of very rounded arched loops like the most conventional old sea-serpent you could imagine and the progressive motion was very smart and serpantine for when one loop was up it's neighbour was down. I could see no detail except the long black arched line, dipping into the water at either end.

There was no means of comparison regarding size but I judged that the loops were fully 8 feet high out of the water and the length 60 to 70 feet at the smallest computation. The body was bold and black and I could see no traces of fins or other detail. Hearing two men talking behind me I lent them my glasses hoping that they would be able to trace some detail but they could only see what I described. I went and fetched my wife and asked her what she saw out there. She said "Do you mean the thing wriggling out there like a large piece of rope?" I watched it receding from the vessel in an obligue direction until it entered the path of the sun's rays upon the water until I finally lost it seeing at last only the sparkle of the spray caused I suppose, by its wake. I took a snapshot with my Kodak (5x4) but I had a wide angle lens on and on developing no detail of the sea or sky appears beyond a few yards. However the distance was too great with almost any lens except possibly a telescopic one, and if I send you the photograph the serpent appearing there, you will understand is a memento artificially produced!

My two fellow passengers and I discussed the matter and exchanged cards but none of us seemed to be able to advance any theory beyond that we had seen what apparently many others had seen and call the "sea-serpent" of the most conventional form.

As you know I am accustomed to view many large and curious fossil reptiles but this was unlike anything I had ever seen before or since. It was too bold and large to be anything like a school of porpoises, sporting after one another, and I suppose I must resign further Comment until someone manages to bring back one or a portion of one to you folk at S. Kensington. In the meantime I am profoundly puzzled but have considerable sympathy with the people who ask for more than a quiet pigeon-hole for such observations."

Needless to say, nothing more was heard of this report until 1955. Woodward, like many British scientists, was sceptical of reports of sea serpents, despite the fact that during the 19th century British sailors had made many sightings.

In Holland and France at that date there were zoologists taking an active interest in the question. The great pioneer Dr. A.C. Oudemans was still collecting reports and his large work The Great Sea Serpent (1892) was an accepted authority on the whole question. Woodward, if he knew of Oudemans' work, chose not to refer Dawson to him for his expert opinion. The matter was swept under the carpet, as so many reports have been ever since.

THE ONLY WAY TO DELIVERANCE by R.L. Soni
Prajna Press, 1980
Paperback, 106 pages

One of the reasons Buddhism has spread so dramatically in the West in the last few years is its seductive appeal to the intellect. Although it is not empirically verifiable by scientific standards, and although it may appear to many to bristle with contradicitions, it has a logic about it which it unimpeachable, which plods inevitably from premise to conclusion, and then, by inference, back to premise. Many Westerners have found this a refreshing change from Christianity, which, at least until very recently, has been a less rational religion, with its articles of faith - the divinity of Christ, the Immaculate Conception - its former treatment of heretics, and its metaphysical theologies. To a great extent this ideological conformism has been imposed by the established religion upon the material of the New Testament - the scholasts and the politicians of the Church.

The orthodoxy of the various sects of the Christian church, combined with the irrationality of some of its precepts, have driven many who were brought up in this religion away from it, and the logic of science has taken its place. Science, however, is specialised, lacks a "world view", and is expressed in all kinds of jargon totally incomprehensible to the majority. Buddhism has spread in the West, together with brown rice and herb tea, among those who are well enough educated to see its intellectual appeal and have an appropriately religious background or inclination.

As this process of dissemination from East to West continues, however, it is possible to observe the surreptitious re-establishment of orthodoxy and dogma, and this book is a symptom of this process.

The immediate indication of this, of course, is the title. Anyone who advertises his way as "the only way", whether he is a Christian or a Hare Krishna devotee, demonstrates a lack of open-mindedness which has been, and still is, the cause of numerous historical conflicts. "Nirvana...is only attained through Buddhist discipline." (p.3) is the kind of statement which, however firmly it may be believed, can be rejected because of its implied derogation of the experience of most of the people who have lived on this planet. Besides, it is questionable whether the Buddha himself would have assented to this distortion of his words: "Come and see for yourself," he says, inviting others to repeat for themselves his own experience in whatever terms they may find apt.

This book contains some of the most basic Buddhist doctrines (the Four Noble Truths, Dependant Origination, etc.) but presents them in a rather dry scholastic style. There are a new translation of the Satipatthana-sutta and some diagrammatic representations of Buddhist doctrines. The overuse of technical Pali terms would completely baffle the beginner, and one familiar with Buddhist teachings would find some English phrases off-putting, such as "the ethico-spiritual path" (p.7), besides which there is nothing in this book which has not been better expressed elsewhere.

The dreary descent of Eastern thought into dogma, orthodoxy and sectarianism, after a long and exciting honeymoon in the West, seems to echo the more conventional style of the Christianity which people have increasingly rebelled against. Recommended for anyone on the Open University Comparative Religion module.

Tony Ridgeway


THE DARK GODS by Anthony Roberts and Geoff Gilbertson
Rider/Hutchinson, 1980
260pages

The central thesis of this book is that for centuries man has been plagued by the unwelcome and unwholesome attention of the Dark Gods, whose ultimate aim it is to take over the whole world for their own use. Who are they and from whence do they come? It seems that they inhabit the same world space as humans but in another dimension and thus are referred to as ultra-terrestrials rather than extra-terrestrials. This is not a mere academic distinction as the authors point out that most UFO related "intrusions" are by ultra-terrestrials, the motives of which should be treated with a large slice of scepticism (sometimes they pass themselves off as spiritual masters imparting wisdom mixed with nonsense the end product of which can be some of the more bizarre contactee cults). Whereas the extra-terrestrials could well be explorers from far stars. In a religious context the U.T.'s would be known as the legions and demons of hell.

The scope of this book is vast. The foreward, by Colin Wilson, supports the basic thrust of the book which presents many situations and occurrences which contradict most of the basic assumptions of normal life. The reader is taken through a review of UFO phenomena first of all. After this an overview of the occult/New Age scene is laid out and the two are shown to have many connections. The final connection in the thesis is the Great Conspiracy. The conspiracy theory of history is that over the centuries esoteric groups such as the Templars, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Satanists and Bavarian Illuminati have used magic, religion, high finance and racial and social conflict to bring about a situation in which the world can be dominated by Luciferic inspiration. They work in a clandestine way to manipulate economies and the Bilderberg Group is mentioned as one such party.

Materialists and people whose world view is completely dominated by a five sense reality will find all this a little difficult to take. But because of the amount of evidence of a very unconventional nature one is stimulated to question one's own belief system. It is made quite clear that one's belief system is quite subjective. How would you feel if a "Martian" landed in your garden and gave you a couple of pancakes? (You don't believe it happened? Why not?)

What is actually meant by "Lucifer" here is not made all that clear. The authors attempt to distinguish between Luciferic illumination and true spiritual enlightenment but not all that successfully. One is left with a suspicion of any kind of spiritual vision and a troubled mind concerning people like St. Paul. Was it really God who blinded him? The sum of this is to prepare the reader for what I see as the pivotal point of the book: wo/man has the power of free will and is responsible for his own actions as an individual. And that to give up this free will and sense of individual responsibility and to follow the dictates of some guru figure is to commit partial suicide and deny one's status as being a human. For man to cease being an automaton driven inwardly by impulses and emotion and driven outwardly by in-group pressure and leaders he must go down the path of self-knowledge. Flashing lights, visions of paradise and space-ships do not take you there. The spiritual vision so prized by people on the New Age occult scene is really no more spiritual than going to see a good film in technicolour. What it represents is the development of a new sensory channel. It must very nice but let's keep things in perspective and realize that it is not the ultimate goal.

This is a fascinating and thought-provoking book. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in alternative explanations of reality. It is compulsory reading for anyone who is or has been involved in occult/New Age groups who get their inspiration from "the Masters". It should make you question some basic assumptions and, it will probably make you paranoid. Ultimately it throws you back yourself: Reality as a Rohrschach ink blot and your potential to cut through it.

Chris Ashton


MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION by Jacques Vallee
AND/OR PRESS
243 pages

The number of people in the new age movement who claim to be inspired, motivated or even direeted by what are often referred to as 'higher beings', higher intelligences, or plain old extra-terrestrials is quite startling. Who are these hoardes of cosmic do-gooders who are so interested in getting mankind off a sticky wicket? What are their credentials and why do they so often in an elusive manner ask for so much to be taken on trust? It always struck me that the real cosmic big boys were the ones who were big enough to take the trouble to incarnate themselves, suffer the human condition and then give out the advice. They worked for their credibility and they deserve it. Look at it this way: if you are digging a hole in the road are you really going to listen to what some city slicker says about how to do the job if he has never lifted a shovel in his life? I wouldn't.

Dr. Jacques Vallee ( that's a doctorate in computer science with a masters degree in astrophysics ) has used his investigative and analytical abilities to research one aspect of these phenomena - UFO contactees and cults. And his focus in this book is the sociological and cultural implications of the UFO phenomena. Whether or not you dismiss the existence of UFO's out of hand is immaterial here. The fact that so many people are being influenced by the belief that we are being visited by beings from other planets deserves a study in itself. 'Messengers of Deception is probably the first book to do so. The chief danger of this movement, as Vallee sees it, is that it is creating a new myth - a myth in which the belief in the value of the rational acquisition of knowledge is replaced by a belief in the value of extra-terrestial revelation. Part of the power of the contactee groups lies in the fact that the scientific establishment has refused to look at the phenomena seriously. The regularity of reported sightings has made it difficult for the public to be fobbed off with excuses like "flocks of wild geese." Consequently a gap in understanding has been created by the UFO's and ignored by science (often willfully and for fear of being ridiculed).

One of the effects of the contactee propaganda is to undermine the idea that man is the master of his own destiny. Are we really to believe that all the great advances of our civilization were not made by man's diligence and efforts but by extra-terrestial inspiration? To believe that is to believe that man is no more than a worthless puppet in the hands of some cosmic master. Vallee extends his discussion into the effect of the wide attention that is given to UFO's has in nudging the planet towards political unification. He also identifies a widespread underlying theme within contactee groups and it is a theme of superior races and hard-line dogma. The sum of these ideas working together would be to prepare mankind for a single world government operating on racist and totalitarian lines.

This is a timely book that asks a lot of quetions and makes some good suggestions. It goes so far as to say that maybe some group of human beings could be responsible for the whole UFO phenomenon and could be using it to manipulate human conciousness for their own ends. Well researched and well thought out, it makes fascinating reading and a good companion to "The Dark Gods".

Chris Ashton


THE ILLUMINATI PAPERS by Robert Anton Wilson
AND/OR PRESS 1980


Robert Anton Wilson is the Alan Watts of the post-Watergate/post-psychadelic era. His mind is everywhere. Walking a tightrope between sanity and madness, juggling with mysticism and the modern physics and his glorious clowning keeps the whole metaphysical show well-balanced, well lubricated and well and truely on the road. He has the ability to mix the profound with the comic. And what a potent mixture it is; witness this interview extraxt:

"Do you concur that Satanism has played a major role in European history and was the core doctrine of both the Illuminati and the Knights Templars? And the power behind Masonry?"

R.A. Wilson: "No. I will undertake, if anyone will pay for the job, to prove that the Hidden God of all the secret societies in European history was actually Bugs Bunny. With the documentary evidence as sparse and contradictory as it is for the presecuted heresies of Europe, one can 'prove' anything by selective editing."

The "illuminati papers" consists of a series of short essays, interviews and observations covering many and varied subjects including Beethoven, Women's Liberation, Joyce's 'Finnegan Wake', Ezra Pound, conspiracy interviews and Ten Good Reasons to Get Out of Bed in the Morning... etc... some of which have already been published in small and big magazines.

I laughed out loud in public places several times while reading this book. My enthusiasm for the writing of R.A. Wilson increases everytime I read him. His vision is one of practical and positive optimism for the future of man. He is a libertarian who realises that mankind has the choice between utopia or oblivion. He extols the power of positive thought and has a vibrant sense of humour. I think he ought to run for President of the United States with Timothy Leary as his running mate.

Chris Ashton


MYSTICISM AND THE NEW PHYSICS by Michael Talbot
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981


To what extent are our perceptions a reflection of the 'real' world, or our own consciousness? Is there a 'you' and 'the world' that can be taken as independent and separate entities? The mystics have long answered 'no' to this lost question, and in answer to the first have held that the outside world is an illusion or 'maya'; that there is no 'in here' and 'out there' and that man's purpose is to break down the apparent dichotomy.

In this book Michael Talbot examines the way that the classical scientific method has worked itself penetratingly into our Western patterns of thought. The methodology of classical science has affected the way we see the world - as neutral observers we see the 'outside' world as permanent, solid, real and governed by causal laws. The author indicates how we have come to trust these concepts so implicitly that we have to assume them before we can ever talk about what we see. The boggling ideas of space being curved, an effect preceding a cause and a cat being dead and alive at the same time are not only illogical within our thought systems, but inconceivable. Yes, as this book so succinctly explains, these and other non-sensities are precisely where modern physics leads to.

The concise and entertaining descriptions of the findings of modern science may leave you wondering exactly how these came about, but such mathematical science is well beyond the scope of this book. If you can make this leap, however, and can keenly refer to the glossary for definitions of scientific terms, you should be able to make as much sense of the ideas as anyone else.

The most poignant link between mysticism and the new physics is well elucidated. According to modern physics, our consciousness actually affects experimental results. At the sub-atomic level things don't happen 'normally' - it is impossible to accurately measure a particle's position and speed at the same time, our observation affects things such that the information simply is not there. By observing phenomena we participate in its interaction, thus rendering the notion of neutral observation non-viable. We determine which realities we perceive out of all possible realities, by rejecting certain realities as intuitively unaceeptable. The apparition of everyday causality, for example, is merely a statistical quirk. It is at this meeting point between 'mind' and 'matter' that the physicists and mystics stand face to face, aghast, in realisation of their agreement.

First working through the physics, in the second half of the book, Talbot takes us through visions of the Virgin, the creation of Don Juan, hatha yoga, the timelessness of Zen, the fire-walkers of Sri-Lanka and other 'unfathomables', relating the knowledge of their practitioners to that of the physicists.

The implications of this book are as difficult to grasp as the ideas it contains. Personally I found the links between mysticism and the new physics powerful stuff, and am convinced that the potential union of the rational and intuitive mind processes holds within it radically new perspectives for people and their relationship with their environment. I can recommend this book to anyone interested in such a union who is either already fairly well acquainted with scientific terminology, or is willing to give the more scientific parts of the book their determined study. The book is written in colloquial language and with humour. Each chapter contains a thought-provoking post-script exemplifying the ideas of the chapter, and helping to 'joggle' the mind a little into new frames of reference.

Our sanity/insanity? is at stake. The materialistic goals of Western science have taken us far towarda the Dis-Utopia that man has thought he was hell-bent on avoiding. Couldn't it be that the realisation that "the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine" (Sir James Jeans) could redirect us towards the spiritual aspirations of the mystics?

Jenny Teare

I got hold of your 'magazine' through a cranky bookshop in Trafalgar Street and what a load of pie-in-the-sky nonsense it is. That article or King Arthur in Hove was no more than a bundle of loosely connected pseudo facts and pieces of myth and legend from all over the place. It was edited and bent to try to make some kind of impression upon the unsuspecting citizens of Brighton and Hove. We could do without it thank you very much!

And as for the discs moving across the land and going over the cliffs at Newhaven - are you serious? Werewolves in Sussex!! What kind of world are you living in, sir, to publish nonsense like this?

B. Johnstone-Smith. Worthing.

This letter recieves a £3 book token from Quicksilver Messenger. It came through the letter box round about the time of the last full1 moon l7th June), and was one of the few things that made any sense at that time! Keep writing in B.J-S.!

Thank you for your interesting letter and enclosed magazine with its articles arguing that King Arthur might have been buried in Hove. You also suggest the possibility of a plaque on the site of the mound which was sited between Palmeira Avenue and Salisbury Road.

I shall deal with the possibility of a plaque first. A few years ago the Council set aside a limited amount of money, which was to be the start of an annual programme of providing at least one plaque a year on buildings or sites in the Borough, mainly to commemorate famous individuals connected with Hove. After one year the scheme had to be cut because of the deepening economic crisis. There are now no public funds available. However, if a private person or group of persons were to be prepared to pay the cost of a plaque and its installation, then I would be prepared to help try to persuade the landowners (from whom they would need permission) to allow the plaque to be erected.

I now turn to your article. I am a layman but I am bound to say that it seems to me to provide no evidence of an Arthurian connection. You yourself give a date for the burial in the mound as 1600 B.C. and Judy Middleton quotes Brighton Museum as giving a radio-carbon date of around 1239. (This is now thought to be 1500 B.C.). I know of no Arthurian folk tradition in this area. (It sometimes seems as if it is one of the few areas in England or Wales, or even Scotland, without one). Indeed, between Winchester in Hampshire and Richborough in Kent I know of no references to him and you do not give any. Your article is also incorrect. It refers to the "discovery" of Arthur's grave at Glastonbury and states that it was politically opportune because it coincided with the close of the War of Roses. But you yourself state that it was discovered in 1190 in the reign of Henry II. (Incidently, Henry died in 1189). Indeed, Edward I visited the tomb at Glastonbury during his reign, and he died well over a century before the Wars began. Finally, if a plaque were to be erected I would suggest that the wording be briefer. I know ho difficult it is to design plaque so that wording is legible and the plaque not too big.

Michael Ray
Borough Planning Officer, Hove


Reply:
Thank you for your letter of 9.4.81. Apologies for the delay in replying. Of course you are right about the date of the Wars of the Roses - well done for having spotted the deliberate mistake! But this makes not one iota of difference to the main thrust of the hypothesis.

Let me first review the political motive for the possible faking of the Glastonbury burial. And for the accuracy of the academic historian I quote Leslie Alcock from 'Arthur's Britain' (a11 page numbers are from this book): "Two possible motives have been suggested for it. The first is political, and stems essentially from the statement by Giraldus that the exhumation had beeen suggested by Henry II himself. Henry's empire contained many diverse peoples. Late in his reign some unrest among the Celtic peoples may have been inspired by the suggestion that the great King Arthur had risen again in the person of Arthur, son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Constance of Brittany, and grandson of Henry. It was politically expedient to demonstrate that King Arthur had not risen and could never rise, by producing his body." (p.75). So the motive is the same as that given in the article even though the circumstances are different.

As for the dates let's get one thing perfectly clear. I am not claiming that the historical Arthur, "the one most authorities feel existed at the opening of the Dark Ages", was buried in Hove.

This is stated quite clearly in my article. There are two main strands to the Arthur tradition as we have it today: one historical and one mythical. During the Medieval period the romances worked with these two strands and embellished upon them freely. The result being a group of stories which embodied the chivalric ideals. And the Arthur of these stories is farther away from the historical Arthur than the Hove sun-hero.

Furthermore, there is a tradition that links Arthur to the same period as the Hove burial and it is the naming of ancient sites after Arthur. There are several chambered tombs of the Neolithic period known as Arthur's Stone. And this I take as evidence in part for the existence in part for the existence of mythical Arthur prior to the historical Arthur Dux. A review of the article in one of the local papers said, "Mr. Ashton becomes a little difficult to follow when he claims that there were two Arthurs.". I do not know why this should be difficult to follow. During the generation of 600 A.D. at least four royal families called one of their sons Arthur. These men fought battles under their name Arthur and were recorded as having done so. So there we have it - not one historical Arthur, not two, but five! (p.73)

The King Arthur story is popularly known on two levels. It is known in its chivalric romance/Holywood spectacular guise and it is known in its T.V. historical documentary form. The one has become exclusive of the other. What historians and some archeologists were doing in the 60's was looking at the historical basis of the story. What has been started is a radical new interpretation of the myth which sees the Celtic sun-hero-chief, of whom there would have been many, as a prototype for the Arthur figure as we have him today, spun, woven and dyed multicolour.

In fact King Arthur is like Jesus Christ - a11 things to a11 men. This new interpretation does not exclude the others, it adds to them. The fullest interpretation of Arthur, Christ - you name it - will not be a dogmatic, monistic, authoritarian approach but a relativistic, pluralistic, libertarian one.

Finally the plaque. Thanks for your offer of help. Could you give me an idea of how much it would cost and the number of words suitable. What I propose to do is set up a fund and publicise it, beginning in the next issue of QsM - due out in June.

Thanks again for your letter - it's good to get an astringent response now and then!

Editor


Still being in the midst of enjoying Q-M No. 3, I thought that a short note of appreciation would be in order. Despite all the difficulties of printing, etc. that you have suffered, the magazine seems to get better with each issue.

Amongst all the other interesting material (some still unread at present, I like to savour the good things), I really felt that Colin Bloy's Ley Dowsing Part 3 was something rather special. It seemed to encapsulate all the thoughts and ideas I have about dowsing- for anything- but have been unable to put into words. A gem of a piece, complete in itself.

Regarding the artwork? on page 17, I suppose it is the thought that counts but...

RON A. BISHOP
KEYWORTH, NOTTS.


I have found your magazine to be very interesting and thought-provoking and look forward to receiving the Summer 81 edition, especially the article about Wolstonbury Hill. I feel quite strange when I'm out in the Downs, but especially on Wolstonbury. I haven't dowsed it mainly because I'm not yet good enough at it, but I do "feel" something. I hope your mag runs forever.

TOM COSTICK
BURGESS HILL, WEST SUSSEX


I have been reading with great interest issue 3 of Quicksilver Messenger (Spring 81) picked up in Atlantis Bookship on a recent visit to London. My interest was raised to excitement when I came to the piece on unknown Sussex by J. Foster Forbes. I am currently engaged an the research for a new book, hopefully definitive, on the Piltdown Hoax. I am enclosing a note on a sea serpent sighting by Charles Dawson. This account has not been published before, and is one of a large number of sightings I have been collecting for a sequel to my early book In Search of Lake Monsters. Dawson and the Piltdown Man were a topic which Sussex antiquarians fought shy of. You might note in the same issue that I would be very grateful to any of your readers with Piltdown information if they send note of it.

With best wishes for your venture,

PETER COSTELLO


Many thanks for QSM 3, and for publishing my werewolves piece. Since writing it I've made enquiries among local country people and a naturalist friend. The consensus is that the common red fox can, on occasion, grow to the size of a labrador which might solve some puma mysteries. I've not seen one that large myself (or a puma!).

My own ideas lean towards ancient mysteries being explained in terms of perction, nature and a totally different way of thinking to our modern ideas trapped in a mechanistic world view. I don't favour theories of ancient astronauts and lost technologies, so my theories tend to seek out natural explanations. I have tried watching a snail, looking at it simply with awareness, without experience or knowledge, and asking 'what is this?'. It's not easy to unlearn knowledge, but I suspect we must do that to understand ancient mysteries, and see the world as neolithic or Bronze Age man did. This is part of a wider theory which seeks to explain leys in terms of how the 'primitive' mind perceives nature. John Glover's pathways of light are the sort of thing I mean.

CHRIS HALL
FLEET, HAMPSHIRE.

Many thanks for the issue No. 3, also for the courtesy of the s.a.e.

I have read the issue through carefully, and I hope thoughtfully. As I'm 64, somewhat naturally my viewpoint and general approach to your selected subject matter will be very different from your own. Thus it will ill become me to be a critic of your work, as I can see it is a very meritorious effort.

Had you not asked me about aiding the finding of an outlet in this area, I would simply have passed the issue on to the most appropriate hands I could, and then would have forgotten about QsM. (Incidently, I had most of my schooling in Hove). However, I find the contents too much of a hotch-potch for my taste, and the too numerous compositing and spelling errors render the 'package' inadvisable for me to recommend to any 'agent' I know.

When you've had the chance to refine the production and material, perhaps you'd care to send me another issue, maybe no. 6? Ordinarily, when taking some fresh publication, I subscribe for at least a year. So, with my best wishes in the work.

J. A. CHRISTENSEN
VENTNOR, I.O.W.

Thank you for your letter of 13.5.81 and your comments on QsM. However, I must disagree with your criticisms.

Firstly, you refer the the mag as 'too much of a hotch-potch'. In the editorial to No. 3 I made an attempt to indicate how the subjects included are connected. I stand by this and suggest you read page 2 again.

Secondly, your statement 'the too numerous spelling and compositing errors render the package inadvisable for me to recommend to any agent I know'. I find this somewhat strange. A glance at the columns of any national daily papers sold at respectable agents throughout the land would uncover more spelling and compositing errors than appear in QsM.

QsM is a non-profit making publication (the day we break even we'11 be happy!) put together by enthusiasts in their spare time and so you can't expect perfection of production. Furthermore, if you look at the list of shops retailing QsM you'11 see the names of some of the most successful and highly respected shops who are interested in the dissemination of new ideas in southern England. They don't quibble about spelling mistakes. Their emphasis is on ideas, and so is ours. The function of words is to act as a vehicle for ideas and so long as words are intelligible (even if they are spelt wrong), I can't see that it's worth making a fuss. Let's not put the cart before the horse! This is reality, not G.C.E. O level!

Your suggestion that we might be able to refine the material to a suitable standard surprises me. As you've read the mag through carefully, you will have noticed that John Michell was a contributor in No. 2. I've yet to find a writer of more eloquence, more vision, and of greater creative intellect than John Michell in these subjects. He is a world-famous writer as is Ward Rutherford who contributed to Nos. 1 and 3. Perhaps you could explain in more detail what you mean by this.

I'11 gladly send you No. 6 on receipt of 80p.

Editor

I am grateful for Chris Hall's gentle but probing comment on my articles (Letters Q.M.3.) He has, of course, raised a point of fundamental importance, and rightly guessed that within the context of an "Introduction to Ley-Dowsing", I would wish to avoid this form of discussion as to ultimate reality - but it is nonetheless highly relevant to the interpretation of the reality of ley-lines.

To the extent I suggested you can only dowse what you can conceive, this certainly does appear to be true and I believe accounts for the fact that ley-lines were unknown to country water-dowsers. They first had no concept of their existence: thus their consciousness would not take them into account and they would be undowseable.

It does not, however, necessarily follow as Chris implies, that therefore leys only exist because we have conceived of them - at least not at the immediate level of reality: in the sense that other dowsers are now finding them and identifying, they may be held to have an independent and objective reality. Newton first identified gravity: thus others became aware of the phenomenon and studied it. He did not "invent" it.

That, however, is the facile answer. On a less immediate level Chris has opened up an area of discussion which is of huge importance, and I must repeat three of his propositions in order that the following argument may be perceived, if I put it well.

1. "There is nothing in the world except that which our own beliefs have put there."

2. "The only reality we see is the reality we seek: leys exist because we are looking for them."

3. "By imposing laws on the universe, man must acknowledge his own non-existence." Phew!

In attempting a response to these propositions, I would first set out three propositions of my own.

1. In atomic physics, where the theoretical existence of a sub-atomic particle is posited, it is usually shown to exist, albeit in ephemeral form.

2. The world is Platonic - the ultimate reality of the material is idea.

3. Ley-energy and human consciousness appear to be aspects of the same phenomenon. May I deal with the last first.

If you fly over the great forests of the Amazon there are very, very few leylines, and you can feel them from aircraft. Similarily the Bay of Biscay is empty. The Mediterranean isn't. Although I am aware of certain lines that cross the Atlantic, but you can dowse for half-an-hour in a transatlantic jet and not find one. But if you fly over populated areas they are all over the place.

Tentative conclusion - ley-lines and the haunts of man share common ground and ley-lines and man are connected. Which reflects which is another matter. Ley-lines react and change according to man's activities such as genuine (not empty ritualistic) worship in churches and sacred sites, and the acts of prayer. Temporary lines appear and connect individuals in the act of transcendental doings, such as healing or mediumship. Banal acts have no effect. Tentative conclusion - ley energies and the higher states of conciousness of man are connected.

In order to not beat around the bush, may I state categorically and without equivocation, that entities not belonging to our dimension, such as spirits, elementals, angels, archangels, etc. manifest on ley-lines, permanent or temporary. They may be evoked or they may manifest of their own volition. They appear to function when a specific act by a human being opens a channel. Thus humans influence the nature of extra-dimensional manifestation.

I have recently had the chance to observe paranormal metal bending at close quarters and perceive that temporary ley-lines have appeared connecting the operator into the "permanent" system. As the metal-bending is a positive decision by the operator, thus one may conclude that the act of will creates ley-lines. Healers do the same and often reverse negative evolutionary processes in their patients.

I have sought to make the point elsewhere that what is common to all ley "node points", sacred sites, altars, political H.Q., microwave towers, T.V. masts, nuclear stations, etc. is that they are foci of human consciousness - that the modern altars loom so large for various reasons in our lives that the group consciousness focuses upon them, connects them into the system; thus the collective consciousness embraces all significant places and points, and the ley system may thus be held to be the nervous system of humanity collectively, as that part of the whole earth organism which has the most highly-developed ego-consciousness, but which is nonetheless still a part of the greater organism- Gea, or the Jehovah Elohim to be Cabbalistic.

Whereas it may be held that in the sense that there is some sort of evolutionary plan - at the level of consciousness - of which the ley-system may be the marionettes strings - particular acts in higher states of consciousnesa by groups or individuals, may either, apparently, put this plan into reverse or accelerate it. These are huge theological issues here, space would not permit me to develop.

Which brings me to my proposition no. 2. The ultimate reality is idea. If one may cause evolutionary forces to evolve faster or reverse, that is a result of an act of conscious will - one supposes. Of course, there are subtleties in this argument which may be adduced to the idea that all of life is rigged anyway - there's no free will, etc., etc. In which case, why the hell are we bothering with this discussion?

However, on the assumption that individual acts of will are significantly independent within our limited context, let us proceed. Whereas ley-lines may be held in an immediate sense, to be objectively real, ultimate reality, as Chris Hall has suggested, may perhaps in fact be the way we would ultimately wish it to be. It all depends who is in control of the groups collective consciousness and the archetypes that dominate it. Thus we may call into being certain sub-atomic particles simply because we have conceived of them and they fit, and when you run the experiments, there they are, but they may only exist because we have willed them to exist.

Now, there is some evidence to suggest that the Hitlerian phenomenon was in fact a huge attempt to change the evolutionary nature of man, not just at the sociological and genetic level, but at the level of idea, whereby seizing upon Nietsche, a wholly new concept and dynamic was to be implanted by an act of will operating at the super-conscious level, which was to have changed the nature of ultimate reality. A magical act at a cosmic level. At least it was conceived that way, and alternative systems of physics were being prepared.

All of which may sound fanciful at first, but if we can now conceive of an act of will intervening in the established laws of physics to bend spoons, then there is some sort of basis to say that the real powers behind the Nazi movement were not necessarily totally mad.

Of course, there was a choice in favour of light or darkness, for want of a better expression.

Now within the cosmic scheme of things, had it succeeded, it would have been nevertheless puny - but a beginning. A great blow in the Manichaean struggle. A blow for light, to give an example, was the mystery of Golgotha, which changed ultimate reality in a particular way.

I hope I have given some sort of response to Chris's brief but pregnant comments.

When he posits the idea that there is nothing in the world except that which our own beliefs have put there, there is an implication that this is a form of nihilism, I don't know whether he meant that or not.

However, I would argue that in the sense that man as a receptacle of evolving consciousness, which brings him closer, albeit leagues away, to the great idea, the Platonic vision, the relationship between ultimate reality and his belief systems is real, but not by definition nihilistic. Within the material prison in which we have thus far been obliged to live, evolving consciousness may ultimately make the material world as unsubstantial as other dimensions are to us now, but that form of reality will change as a result of belief.

As an example, in the event that the Marxist view of man triumphed (which for various reasons, I now no longer believe to be possible), if the collective consciousness of man became totally and exelusively locked in to a belief system of man as purely materialist, mechanistic, socially engineerable creature, then I would suggest that that would indeed be his ultimate reality, and the prospect of the spiritual remnants of the products of such systems of ever developing further remote.

The relationship between reality and idea, at a certain level, would thus be shown to exist.

Chris's last proposition that by imposing laws on the universe, man must acknowledge his own non-existence ought to rank as one of the great paradoxes of a11 time. I say paradox and not non-sequitur.

Rather than reply in detail, which would require a tome rather an article, I would offer the following brief comment. We are told that god made man in his own image. It may be that man has to make god in his image. Within the world of idea, consciousness and will, this is not the apparent blasphemy it may seem at first glance.

In conclsion, may I refer to an article that appeared recently in a French revue, Nouvelle Acropole, No. 54 1979, entitled "The Other Einstein: the Universe, the Field, and Consciousness."

May I offer an observation that emerges from this article. Einstein referred to the unified field, a way of saying "the world of idea". It concludes with the following statement, "The unified field, ultimate sub-structure of physical reality, with its inseperable corollary, pure consciousness, is precisely what is meant in the Bhagavad-Gita as the supreme knowledge. It is the recognition of the knowledge of the field and the simultaneous understanding of the knower of the knowledge, that is the true illumination".

Finally, I plead the sixth amendment as written by Ludwig Wittgenstein, one-time holder of the Chair of Philosophy at Cambrudge in the 30's, with one of whose descendants I have the privilege of friendship, who deplored the unprecise nature of language to the extent that it might make all metaphysical and philosophical discussion impossible, and conscious of that fact more than somewhat here, I repeat what he once said: "Unsayable things do indeed exist".

C. H. BLOY,
CRAWLEY, WEST SUSSEX.