Customer Reviews

Earth magic

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Earth Mysteries was written by Francis Hitching ([...]). My own copy is the 1977 hardback edition, with black and white illustrations and maps. The contents are as follows:

Introduction

Part I
1. World of Stone: Overview of some megalithic monuments around the world
2. The Riddle of Antiquity: Speculations people have had about the origins of megalithic societies
3. Living with Stone: development and stages of human societies, including speculation on U.S. sites like Mystery Hill
4. Unwritten Science: Calendars and archaeoastronomy at megalithic sites
5. Lines of Force: Ley lines and alignments of sites

Part II
6. Divining the Past: Dowsing, legends of stones that move, dance, heal, buried treasure
7. Supernatural, Spiritual: Effect of megalithic sites on the human psyche, with anecdotes; conflict between ancient Old Religion ways and Christianity, including churches on sacred pagan sites
8. Heavens on Earth? Spirals, earth dragons, labyrinths/mazes, landshaping, terrestrial zodiacs
9. Seers and Spirals: Summarizing speculations on connections between ancient human beings and giant stones, including how certain stones became entwined with the spiritual/religious side of the human psyche: electromagnetism, piezo-electricity; the use of such sites for healing, communication, etc. The three elements necessary for earth magic: underground (telluric) forces, influence (interconnectivity) of the cosmos, and the human mind (and action).

Appendix (formulae for likelihood of site alignments on Ordnance Survey map), Selected Bibliography, Index

Earth magic in terms of use of magalithic sites requires both the rational mind trained in astronomy, geometry, pure mathematics, and numerology, AND the "irrational" mind trained in complex ritual/ceremonial magic (prayer, chants, etc.).

But the height of megalithic culture waned long before Christianity (by 2000 B.C.), and so one cannot blame the New Religion or the Enlightenment for that. It is likely to have been a change in telluric conditions, at least in part, in this reviewer's opinion.

Hitching ends this fascinating book with this paragraph:

"But we have lost something which those people had. If we tried to create a stone circle today, we wouldn't know how to make it work. A dowser could find us a new site with the right underground forces, or a place where there had once been a circle; an archaeologist could show us where to replace them so as to take account of the changed conditions in the heavens; and a geologist could take us to the right sort of rocks. But even if a power might then be generated, it would be a different sort of power. Our knowledge of how to amplify and use it wouldn't be there, as if we were passengers getting into a bus in a strange country with the engine idling- but without a driver. So perhaps there is one basic lesson to be learned as we look into this lost age: that man achieved his advance through conditions that were puzzling, hostile and confusing by the combined use of his instinct and his intellect, his mind and his brain. It was by this blend that, for a while, he moved forward in harmony with nature." (pp. 302-303)

Hitching did a through and engrossing job on the book, although our knowledge of archaeology has improved since 1977. We now know that Stonehenge was not built by druids and that the "mystery sites" in New England are associated with colonial or Native American cultures.

This is a seminal work in the Earth Mysteries genre and should someday be reprinted, perhaps in an updated edition.