The idea behind Earth energy lines, often referred to as ley lines, is that if you play a global game of connect the dots between the world’s most prominent monuments and sacred sites, you will discover they all fall along a recognizable network of straight lines.

 

The Great Pyramid, the Great Wall of China, and Angkor Wat are said to be part of this network, as are lesser known but equally mysterious places like, for example, Florida’s Coral Castle and the Bighorn Medicine Wheel.  It has been pointed out that the Great Pyramid, Machu Picchu, the Nazca lines, and Easter Island all fall along a straight line around the center of the Earth, within a margin of error of less than one tenth of one degree of latitude.  This and other lines are in effect high-energy veins that flow across the planet and nourish it.  Ancient builders knew of these lines and used them to determine where they would construct their great monuments.

 

Or so the theory goes.

 

Certainly, there is no shortage of Earth energy – wind, tides, seismic energy, geothermal energy, and of course the magnetic fields and their association with electrical energy.  But the question is whether a disproportionate amount of that energy is somehow concentrated into specific hidden lines and serves some kind of purpose.

 

Alfred Watkins, a British landscape photographer, coined the term ley lines in 1921.  He noticed that the ancient sites he visited seemed to be aligned with others nearby.  That is actually not surprising, because, other things being equal, it makes sense to build pathways and roads in straight lines – and once those lines are established, it makes sense to build things alongside them.  But imaginative New Agers, psychics, and dowsers have seized upon the idea that the locations of the lines are based not just on practicality but spiritual forces.

 

Apart from the fact that scientists have detected no unusual electromagnetic energy along so-called Earth energy lines, the concept faces a more fundamental challenge – who gets to decide which places qualify as prominent monuments and sacred sites for purposes of plotting the lines?  The sky is filled with stars, and if you play connect the dots you can create constellations representing animals and mythical beings.  Someone else can choose either the same stars or different stars and create a completely different set of constellations.