The answers of archaeologists, dowsers, psychics and Earth Mysteries researchers are still well-informed guesses and speculation. It’s still a mystery! However many believe that the Neolithic builders had learned how to work with the Earth Energies that flow through power spots, to be able to amplify the energies at the site and direct them across the landscape, and to create a country-wide web of interconnectivity. Researchers from the British and American Society of Dowsers and the Dragon Project, the pre-eminent multi-disciplinary research group that was active from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, at least recorded much data about the types of Earth Energies commonly found at the sites, and their effects on human consciousness.

They discovered, studied and documented dozens of different kinds of anomalous energies at power spots, ancient monuments and Medieval churches. These include bio-magnetic Earth Energies, electromagnetic currents and fields, strange light phenomena, and even ultrasound emissions. Researchers have agreed upon specific names for these, so that they can understand what they’re talking about when they share information among themselves.

I have summarized below the terms the field researchers developed to describe just the primary and most-commonly found energies and other phenomena. You may notice that these researchers give very different definitions to some of these terms than what floats around the internet and in channeled writings. I provide these descriptions as a service to anyone who would like to follow the discussion among the Earth Mysteries researchers, who have been working in the field and are steeped in the history of the last several hundred years of scientific research. This will provide a common language and avoid confusion or misunderstanding.

Energy Ley

An “Energy Ley” is a six to eight-foot wide beam of energy that flows in a straight line along and slightly below the surface of the Earth. It has a yang quality and comes down into the Earth from the sun, turns ninety degrees to flow horizontally, and eventually turns downward into the earth. In Europe and the British Isles, “Energy Leys” are usually found running down the central aisle of Gothic Cathedrals and the main axis of Neolithic passage mounds and megalithic stone rings.

Leys vs. Energy Leys

The term “Energy Ley” was devised to distinguish the Earth Energy artery from the term “Ley,” which was originally coined in the late nineteenth century to apply only to purely visual, straight alignments of structures built by humans. As Alfred Watkins and others traveled through the landscape, they noticed that certain church steeples, clock towers, crossroads, bridges, gates in hedge walls, ancient walking paths and old Roman roads were situated in a way that they formed a dead-straight line across the landscape. Watkins called them leys because many of the town names had “ley” as a prefix or suffix, like Locksley or Leyton. But they made no suggestion that these ley alignments were earth energy lines. Leys were created by humans; Energy Leys were created by the Earth. They are not the same thing.

In the late twentieth century, Earth Mysteries researchers and “ley hunters” investigated further and found that most of the ley alignments had NO Earth Energy running along them. But some of them did; and that is probably where the confusion began. Those outside the loop started assuming, or wishfully hoping, that all leys were part of a grand network of Earth Energy lines. Now the term ley is unfortunately used by the general public to refer to any kind of Earth Energy line, some of them not straight line paths at all. Since there are actually many kinds of Earth Energies, the use of one term to refer to myriad patterns makes it impossible to know what is being talked about. Therefore if you haven’t had the opportunity to learn how to differentiate them through dowsing or sensing directly with your body, I suggest it would be less confusing and misleading to describe what you sense by some generic phrase, like “Earth Energy currents,” rather than calling them ley lines.

Veins and Domes of Primary Water

“Primary Water” originates from deep in the Earth as a by-product of various chemical reactions, and surges upward under great pressure until it reaches an impervious layer, like clay or rock. Unable to rise farther, it spreads out horizontally through cracks and fissures in the Earth. The uprising column of primary water is called a “blind spring” because it does not usually break through to the surface. Many dowsers detect a hemispheric energy field above ground at the top of the pressurized column of water; thus its other name, “water dome.” “Primary Water” has a yin quality, follows a curved or spiraling course, is usually very pure and glacially cold, unaffected by drought, and feels more viscous than ground water. There are usually an odd number of veins flowing away from a dome.

Power Spots

Dowsers have discovered that most recognized sacred sites or power spots around the world possess a crossing of veins of “Primary Water” and one or more “Energy Leys.” Researchers have observed that when people stand at a crossing of Primary Water and an Energy Ley, their auras expand — to many times their usual diameter. These energies can have beneficial effects on humans, but only when exposed to them for short periods of time. Power spots are not appropriate places for day-to-day dwelling for most people.

Standing above a vein of Primary Water or a water dome that is not accompanied by an Energy Ley has been found to decrease the size of the human aura and drain people of their vitality. However many species of trees thrive when growing over water domes. In fact one of the ways for non-dowsers to identify water dome locations is to know that they are often marked by exceptional trees, whose size, age, diameter and vitality is greater than usual for their species. The cloister of Salisbury Cathedral in England, just south of Stonehenge, contains two ancient conifers whose branches reach out for almost a hundred feet to the edge of a blind spring. In semi-arid regions, like on the inland ridges of the California Coast Range, the only trees that manage to survive quite often happen to be growing above blind springs. The trees are being fed by the energy and water available at that spot.

“Vortexes”

Energy Vortex is a more recent term that also causes a lot of confusion between Earth Mysteries researchers and the public. The term means something different to each person I’ve heard use it. It seems to refer to any kind of strong or concentrated energy. Unfortunately that’s too non-specific to be useful. In physics, the term vortex describes a very specific pattern, and most Earth Mysteries researchers only use it when the energy they find actually moves in that pattern.

So what is a true vortex? If you imagine you’re holding a donut, and you put your index finger in the hole, and then spiral your finger up out of the hole, along the top surface, down the outer sides and back up through the bottom of the hole — you have just traced the spiraling vortex pattern. Every time you watch a whirlpool or the funnel of water going down the drain, or movies of tornadoes and hurricanes, you are witnessing a vortex. Any other movement pattern or shape is not a vortex.

None of the so-called “Sedona vortexes” I or my colleagues have dowsed, or sensed in our bodies, were flowing according to that specific vortex pattern when we investigated them over the last three decades. I actually felt a radically different pattern and quality of energy at each spot. Several of those vortex spots radiate an energy that I and my colleagues found to be enervating and debilitating, rather than energizing and rejuvenating, like the energies at other recognized power spots and sacred sites around the world. Many people report getting tremendously ill with headaches or nausea from even short visits. That is not a typical reaction from visiting a power spot; it sounds more like exposure to geopathic stress zones.

So until we have more understanding of the nature of the various disparate energetic phenomena in Sedona, perhaps based on the kind of multi-disciplinary investigation that the Dragon Project used in the British Isles, I recommend we refer to the energies in more generic terms, so as not to mislead people into thinking that there are any actual vortex patterns there. I suggest we just refer to the energies by their geographical names, like “Airport Mesa energies.” Hopefully in the future we will have more accurately descriptive terms for the energies. And if you feel strong energies at a spot you visit or live near, I encourage you to also describe them by some generic term, like “strong energy spot,” rather than calling them vortexes. (By the way, the plural of vortex is vortices.

If this essay has piqued your interest in learning more about the field of Earth Mysteries and the intriguing discoveries of what is going on at power spots and ancient temples, check out my video recording entitled, “Earth Energies, Power Spots, and Human Consciousness” in the Store.

How I Use Dowsing to Expand my Consciousness

(originally posted on the website of the West Coast Conference of the Am. Soc. of Dowsers, westcoastdowsers.org)

Dowsing is a wonderful way to reach beyond what we consciously know - to get answers to questions that best serve everyone concerned. I can’t imagine doing what I do professionally without the help of dowsing. I use it in every feng shui consultation, geomantic site planning job, labyrinth design project, space clearing, and earth acupuncture treatment. Dowsing gives me deep insights more quickly than I could ever get just using my rational, logical, analytical faculties. Let me give you some examples from my every-day professional uses.

In my thirty years of designing and laying out labyrinths for people to use for walking meditations and consciousness-raising processes, I have always dowsed for the spot that will “best support” these activities, and then dowse for where the entrance and main axis should go. One of the first years I brought labyrinths to the West Coast Conference, 1986 or 87, my dowsing directed me to orient a seven-circuit ancient style labyrinth so that the entry path was directly aimed at a three-story blank concrete wall on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. I could not figure out why my higher intuitive self thought this was a good idea. My architect’s mind told me this gave meditators the ugliest possible view as they started their walk and arrived at the center. I had noticed that labyrinth walkers spend most of their time looking down at the ground to stay on the path, and only look up as they enter, and again when they arrive at the center. So I knew it’ was important to orient a labyrinth so you see something inspirational or peaceful at those moments when you look up and take in the surroundings.

Even though I couldn’t explain why it made sense, I followed my dowsing results. On the last night of the conference I went out to have one last labyrinth walk. It was the first clear fog-less night, and as I stood at the mouth of the labyrinth and looked along the path to the center, I saw to my amazement that the path was pointing directly due north to the North Star. “Oh, my goodness!” I exclaimed, “so that’s why I was directed to orient it this way.”

I learned that night to never question my labyrinth dowsing results again. The next year it happened again with the orientation of a Chartres labyrinth. I thought I was being told to orient the labyrinth toward the beautiful redwood grove on campus, but when I took a compass reading I discovered it was also replicating the orientation of the original labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral in France, which points at the summer solstice sunrise. I just love how dowsing nudges me to do things that are only later revealed to be so perfect for the desired intention or goal.

The same thing happens with my geomantic site planning work. When I’m looking for the best spot for a new home, dowsing enables me to become aware of subtle Earth Energies or underground water that would not create the healthiest conditions. So often my clients have picked a spot based on the views or sense of privacy, but missed the turbulent energies that they will probably not like after they’ve moved in. I don’t know any other way to detect them in advance, except by dowsing.

In my feng shui practice, dowsing gives me a way to quickly discover the deeper hidden source of the disharmony or dysfunction in an environment. When visiting a client’s home or office, I don’t have the luxury of spending enough time with them to get to know them intimately, to understand what makes them tick, or what childhood trauma is still playing out and getting in the way of creating the kind of life they really want. The questionnaire they fill out only gives me the concerns and problems that they are aware of. I find that the aspect of the environment that really needs shifting is often not on their list. But with map dowsing I can just ask for the areas that are most critical to investigate, go there, and allow the mystery to be revealed.

And even after I’ve used my feng shui, architectural, and environmental psychology knowledge to figure out what the design or psychological issues are, and the general approach for how to improve the environment, I still need to uncover what specific type of design change or energetic transformation will be the most effective in this situation, for these people, with their particular aesthetics. So I just dowse my list of possible remedies, asking for the most appropriate ones for these clients. When their faces light up into a big smile, I know that dowsing has once again helped me get quickly to the best solution. And I know they are more likely to follow through and make the changes when they get excited and say they can imagine hanging that kind of picture, or adding that plant, or moving everything around in the room like I sketched.

But the dowsing I’m most excited about right now involves my work with trees that are struggling or in decline, because of climate change or new diseases. I’m experimenting with the “French Coil” technique, in which you place spirals of copper wire around a tree, supported on wooden stakes so the wire doesn’t touch the trunk. One end goes into the soil as a “grounding rod” and the other end is turned upward to form an “antenna” that draws in cosmic chi to give the tree an energetic booster shot.

To apply these copper coils I need to find where the tree naturally draws in etheric energy. Every tree draws water and nutrients up through its roots, and sunlight and carbon dioxide in through its leaves, but it also has a “front door” through which it draws in cosmic chi, and a “back door” where it discharges waste. If the back door is larger than the front door, more energy is going out than coming in, so the tree is getting depleted of life force. The grounding rod and antenna need to be placed at the front door. Dowsing is essential for figuring all that out.

I’ve been supplementing my dowsing processes with techniques for communicating with tree spirits. I ask each tree if it would benefit from a French Coil, and then dowse for all the dimensions: the length of the grounding rod and antenna, and the number and diameter of the coils. In the last year, working in one orchard, some very interesting developments have occurred, totally because of my letting the dowsing and the tree spirits lead the way. The trees started asking for an alternate kind of French Coil that I also learned about decades ago. They requested small helix coils to be placed to the left and right of the front door. After dowsing the dimensions for several of these, I realized they were asking for antenna lengths that embodied musical harmonic ratios, like the octave, perfect Fifth, and Musical Fourth. Each tree asked for a specific harmonic for its coils. Are the tree spirits asking for sound healing treatments? Am I being guided to create resonant harmonic fields around the trees, to shift their energy so that insect pests don’t like the taste? I’m curious what will happen this spring as I watch for the results of last year’s treatments, and let my dowsing lead the way into more new discoveries.

I will be sharing more stories from this unfolding journey at the West Coast Conference this summer, and passing on these and other techniques during the Specialized Dowsing School. My goal is to greatly expand the number of dowsers excited about helping trees and plants thrive, and co-creating sustainable Edens in their own homes and gardens. I hope you’ll join this cadre of earth healers.