Ley Line
Ley lines are alleged alignments of a number of places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths, natural ridge-tops and water-fords. The phrase was coined in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins, in his books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track. He sought to identify ancient trackways in the British landscape. Watkins later developed theories that these alignments were created for ease of overland trekking by line-of-sight navigation during neolithic times, and had persisted in the landscape over millennia.
In 1969 the writer John Michell revived the term "ley lines", associating it with spiritual and mystical theories about alignments of land forms, drawing on the Chinese concept of feng shui. He believed that a mystical network of ley lines existed across Britain.
Since the publication of Michell's book, the spiritualised version of the concept has been adopted by other authors and applied to landscapes in many places around the world. Both versions of the theory have been criticised on the grounds that random distributions of points will inevitably create apparent "alignments".
Read more about Ley Line: Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track, Examples of Ley Lines in Britain, Critical Reception, Attribution of Spiritual Significance To Ley Lines, Cultural References
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