Journal of Geomancy vol. 2 no. 4, July 1978
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Mary Caine is perhaps one of the best-known researchers into the enigmatic secrets of the Glastonbury Zodiac. Her tireless efforts to perpetuate the good name of Katherine Maltwood’s research and liberate her moneys from the iron grip of the Royal Society of Arts have culminated in a masterpiece, a synthesis of history, astrology, geomancy, and artistry. The massive tome from Grael Communications is testimony to Mrs.Caine’s thoroughness – not the smallest item is missed, and the figures’ positions in both space, time and mythology are made clear with considerable erudition. Illustrated throughout with aerial photographs of the figures, this book is surely a major contribution to geomantic research and must hammer yet another nail into the coffin of those orthodox disbelievers who occasionally rail against the concept, let alone the reality, of terrestrial zodiacs.
One can only be full of praise for such a bold venture as this book, which even sports a coloured frontispiece painted by Mr. Caine. A minor quibble is the low contrast with which the aerial photographs have been reproduced, presumably from K.E. Maltwood’s own Air View Supplement. However, this book is the only place we will ever see any aerial photographs of the Glastonbury Zodiac, so their production is more than welcome. The Institute cannot but thoroughly recommend this excellent book to all people who are interested in geomancy of any kind – and also to the orthodox, who, if they would but read it, might concede that ‘there is something in it, after all’. Unfortunately, the latter entrenched pundits, like their scientific brethren who condemned Velikovsky without ever reading his books, will likewise shun an educative read and retreat to the library to read back numbers of Antiquity instead. For those with open minds, and we hope that includes all our readers, Mary Caine’s book is required reading.
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The treatment accorded to Immanuel Velikovsky by the academic world paralleled to some extent and then exceeded the treatment meted out to pioneers in the field of geomantic research like Alfred Watkins and Ludovic McLellan Mann. Like these geomants, Velikovsky made two cardinal errors; he produced unorthodox views not readily countered by rational argument; and he was not a professional in the field which he chose to shake up. Immanuel Velikovsky is probably the best exponent of the history of ancient catastrophes which shattered this planet. His arguments, expounded with phenomenal erudition in Worlds in Collision, Earth in Upheaval, Ages in Chaos etc. are direct challenges to the authority of the experts. This book charts the fate of Velikovsky’s work, his shunning and character-assassination by the authorities, the attempted suppression of his books, and the refusal to give his ideas a fair hearing even when his predictions (totally unexpected by the experts) were vindicated by space research. It is rounded off by learned articles from non-aligned experts who evaluate Velikovsky’s ideas from a scientific, i.e. unbiased viewpoint. The treatment accorded to Velikovsky (and Watkins, Heinsch, Lethbridge etc.) is unfortunately only too typical of the authoritarian way in which Science as an entrenched power-group is organized. This book is important in that it exposes the appalling way that those with power and prestige to defend use the dirtiest of underhand tricks to smash their ‘opponents’, whilst protesting fairness and impartiality.
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The Peak District of England is fortunate in still possessing many of the stone circles which were erected there by Megalithic society. John Barnatt here provides the most comprehensive guide and description of these circles available. Illustrated throughout with maps and diagrams, it is of great use both for the armchair geomancer (of which I hope there are very few) and the actual fieldworker (tourists, even). The author analyzes the circles geometrically {95} especial geomantic interest being generated by the overall relationship of the sites, one to another. Of course, Arbor Low features large as southernmost apex of what Barnatt terms ‘The Great Triangle’, a geomantic figure based upon Arbor Low itself, The Bull Ring, and Wet Withers with various other features completing the geometry. The angle at Arbor Low is 52° 1′, which may perhaps have some connexion with the 52nd parallel–zodiac connexion. The book has 3 appendices, a list of all sites with dimensions, map references, number of entrances etc.; the symbolism of numbers; and ‘The Zodiac’, the relation of the Great Triangle and its appurtenances with the local geological phenomena.
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The bizarre is always interesting; and to those who study the geomantic design of the world, the bizarre is often a clue to something ‘other’ than the everyday world of orthodox observation. In this book, Peter Ratazzi collates amazing facts about various places in Europe which seemingly just ought not to be there. Crammed with photographs of bizarre carvings, monstrous chimeras, teratogenic gardens, follies of the first order, lost graveyards and runestones, we are presented with a tour of the places tourists don’t (or can’t) go. The house of Franeker the Woolcomber, where an orrery of stupendous dimensions plots the planetary courses is found in a remote town in Friesland (part of Holland, but has the same nationalist aspirations as Wales in relation to England). A sarcophagus in Catalonia which dispenses miraculous quantities of curative water jostles cheek-by-jowl with an account of the populist uprising of peasants in mediaeval Germany. The cavern where St. John received the Revelation, tales of Gotland and the Jewish Cemetery at Worms are described. The latter is an amazing survival – Hebrew tombstones dating back to at the latest 1076 A.D. are jumbled in profusion. A tale is told that in the 1930s, two local Gauleiters advocated that the Jewish cemetery be razed for development, but the town clerk argued that the matter was pending at the highest level in Berlin. Apparently, a party of tourists had been shown over the cemetery by special request. One of the party, a pale, meddlesome character in pince-nez, was extremely interested to learn every detail. He even asked for a drawing of the precise measurements and layout of the cemetery. It was only the next day that the guide realized who he had met – Heinrich Himmler, whose interest in matters both Jewish and geomantic are well known.
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Dowsing, being one of the most useful and yet one of the most misunderstood of human endeavours, is always a good subject for a book. The bock in question is another of the practical dowsing books which periodically roll off the press. A very useful book, it is written in the straightforward style one expects from a dowser of the British Army school. Major General Scott-Elliot describes various types of dowsing, the pitfalls and problems encountered, and finally illustrates the matter with some actual instances. Very straightforward, and no doubt very useful to beginners, though it covers much the same ground as Tom Graves’s Dowsing, though in less detail.
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Occasional Papers have become very popular since the I.G.R. first did one back in ’75. First RILKO and now ESNA have produced them. This aside, The Standing Stones of Norfolk and Suffolk is a fine study of a neglected topic. It is often assumed by those with little knowledge that Norfolk and Suffolk are totally devoid of ancient mark-stones, yet Michael Burgess’s expert account shows otherwise. Many stones are listed, and his researches will be of great use to ley enthusiast and folklorist alike. Each stone is listed in alphabetical order, with grid references and salient notes. Recommended reading for all students of the geomantic arts.
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Patricia Villiers-Stuart’s geometrical researches must be well known to IGR members – she exhibited at the Festival for Mind and Body at Olympia earlier this year. Her latest work on the division of space continues the themes covered in her earlier publication – the eightfold division of space and its derivatives analyzed within the framework of a 1440-fold division. Of great interest to geometricians, Rosicrucians and geomants is Dr. Dee’s methodology of making a pentacle from the diagonals of rectangles with mystic numerological connotations.
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We have seen issue No. 23 of this publication (‘Fortean’ number again!). The lead article is about the Mysteries of the façades of the Grand Place, the main square of Brussels, a mystic city built on the principle of 7, based upon megalithic numerology. Built on 7 hills (like Rome and Cambridge), Brussels had 7 gates, 7 bridges, was governed by 7 families etc. The Grand Place is at the meeting of 7 streets, possesses 7 façades with alchemical allusions etc. Brussels celebrates its millennium next year, so we should see some esoterism in action then.
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This book, originally published in 1957, has much to commend it to the geomancer. Ancient pre-conquest Peru was a socialist empire, a welfare state where no poverty was tolerated, where government storehouses provided food in time of famine and where a god–emperor ruled from a central city – Cuzco. Recent TV interest in Peru and Bolivia has publicized the ley-lines or wacas upon which sacred sites were laid, but it is important to note that until the recent interest the following had lain unnoticed in this book since 1957: “The wacas of the Cuzco region were thought of as lying on lines radiating from the Temple of the Sun. Three of the quarters each had nine such radiating lines; the fourth, Contisuyu, had fifteen. In the first three, the lines were arranged in three groups of three each, and there were four to fifteen wacas on each line. Naturally, the lines were not perfectly straight …” Students of Heinsch’s Principles of Prehistoric Sacred Geography will immediately notice the occurrence in attested landscape geometry of his number 42. “The wacas in the neighbourhood of Cuzco were classed according to their location in one of the four quarters into which the region was divided. …” Gems of information for the geomantic researcher. Just as Chinese Feng-Shui can give us clues to the ancient practices of geomancy in Europe, so can the Peruvian system of laying out wacas in straight lines give us a key to landscape geometry as exemplified in the works of Black, Watkins and Heinsch.