Customer Reviews

Shamanism & the Mystery Lines

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This review is based on the copy of the book I own, first published in 1993. Ley lines are generally considered to be lines of energy in the earth by those interested in earth mysteries or geomancy (this latter term actually being a misnomer that has become entrenched in popular use). In "Shamanism and the Mystery Lines: Ley Lines, Spirit Paths, Shape-Shifting & Out-of-body Travel," Paul Devereux takes a hard look at this idea, and finds that there are major problems with this idea. Devereux has paid his dues in this field, having been involved in the "earth mysteries" field for several decades and having written many books and articles on the subject; he is no neophyte. He is not a skeptic by any means, in the Randi/CSICOP mold, but he tries to be intellectually honest about the evidence or lack thereof in these fringe subjects. Devereux has examined the idea that ley lines reflect lines of mysterious "earth energies" stretching across the landscape, and believes that the evidence does not support that idea.

"Part One: The History" covers "The Rise of a Heresy" (how the idea of ley lines were transformed in popular western thought, from a simple alignment of archaeological sites and geographic features into an elaborate grid or web of "energies" that have no empirical basis), "Other Lines of Enquiry" (various types of European sites -cursuses, reaves, stone rows- with geographic focus), and "The Amerindian Legacy" (the various kinds of "earth lines" found across the Americas, from California and the Southwest (Anasazi and Chaco etc.), to South America (the Kogi of Colombia and the Nazca lines of Peru, and Bolivia and Chile).

"Part Two: The Mystery" covers how these lines were conceived WITHIN THE CULTURES THAT ACTUALLY MADE THEM, rather than the western interpretations that came up with the idea of earth energies. Part Two's chapters include "The King and the Land," which looks at the identification of the king with the land (as in Arthurian tales, the king IS the land), shamans, Indo-European clues, king and country, and the king's power; "Spirit Lines" which shows that it is alignment of sites that matters, not some so-called energy lines, and how this idea interacts with Celtic fairy paths and the Chinese feng shui; and "Trance, Dance and Magic Plants" which focuses on how these alignments of sites relate to techniques of ecstasy in shamanic flight or OBEs (Out of the Body Experiences), the significant of location, mystery lights or earth lights, plants with hallucinogenic properties that were used to stimulate shamanic flight/OBEs, the evidence from rock art (pictographs and petroglyphs), and symbolism of form and meaning.

The last chapter in Part Two is called "The Lines of the Lone Wild Gander" really is where Devereux lays out his ideas of how archaeological alignments of various types and from different regions of the world are all reflective, physical marks made by the cultures that recognize and ritualize the shamanic flight and ritual movements between sacred sites on the landscape. In this chapter he looks at the shamanic landscape, flight of the shaman (or flight in the dream state or in the trance state), the Old and New Worlds, shamanic land markings, the evolution of the line of magical flight, and landscape or mindscape. Some of the most illuminating sources come from the Kogi Indians of Colombia, who speak of the alternate REAL world of Alunna which reflects in the world we call "real." This is where alternative philosophies kick in; our physical world is a pale reflection of reality, the reality of the source reality where consciousness is the focus of being.

As Devereux states in his Epilogue (p. 220): "Landscape lines, leys, alignments, are traces. They are variously-evolved features that had their origins in the ecsomatic experience at the heart of shamanism. They may have become, conceptually, lines of power, then energy; they may have become physical tracks, ritual pathways, avenues of the dead or whatever, but they are in essence simply traces of an effect of the human central nervous system transferred to the land. That effect, as we have discussed, is the remarkable ability of the human mind to roam experientially, if not actually, beyond the body."

There are many other works that elaborate this idea, from the contested ideas in the works of Carlos Castaneda, to more solid anthropological approaches in Timothy Knab's "War of Witches" and in "From the Heart of the World." This book is an essential piece of the puzzle that includes shamanism, dream states including lucid dreaming, etc. The particular significance of this book is in providing a link between the psychosomatic work of psychological and anthropological research that is human-centered, and the environmental work of deep ecology, archaeology, and sacred geography. There is a lot further to go in this area, but this book helps fit the pieces together.