Just as the body has veins and flowing life-force, so has any land. Through the north-east flow subtle currents of energy in five dimensions - length, height, width, past/present/future, and multi-dimensionality. The current is the dragon pulse, the serpent power reflected in the legends of the Lambton Worm, Sockburn Worm and Roxburghshire's Linton Dragon.

The vision of Albion as being criss-crossed by a subtle web came to a Herefordshire man, Alfred Watkins, in 1921. He did sterling work by cataloguing the validity of prehistoric sites, and early Christian ones taking their place, lying on exactly straight alignments. He postulated the notion that these marked prehistoric tracks - the old straight track. However, he also noted that the alignments often marked special sunrise days, such as midsummer, and subsequent researchers linked the lines with a theory of subtle earth energies known and utilised in ages not so dark.

By the 1960s, evidence was accumulating to establish connections between ancient sites and the alignments with electromagnetic energy flow, and also, it was found that the pattern of leys - as the lines became known - uncannily reflected the aerial routes of flying saucers. There is now a basis for claiming that not only is the energy a reality, but is an amalgam of the electromagnetism of our earthly plane and the spiritual power of cosmic consciousness.

Man has his base physical form, and most would agree that in some form he has a spiritual reality. There exists across Britain a web of subtle energy which has resulted in influencing the population, especially in the sphere of the siting of religious establishments.

Before moving to specific examples of magical centres, there is another angle to the present interest in speculative 'live' archaeology. Perhaps the reader will have heard of the claim that great zodiacal figures lie in Somerset around Glastonbury. However, County Durham has three such zodiacs at least: one centred upon Stanley, another centred upon Fleet Shot Hill near Hart, another on Teesside, with Eaglescliffe, Egglescliffe and Yarm in the Aquarius sector.

Yarm has, in fact, the north-east's greatest focus of leys (six in all) and is full of interest. The ancient town has played a major role in Northumbria's past and has no doubt a greater destiny as we embrace the Age of Aquarius. The gypsies do not congregate for their annual fair there for nought.

Other sites of great significance include Kelloe Church, where two leys meet at 23½ degrees, the angle of the earth's tilt; inevitably Durham City; Hart with a large stone which at times is strongly active, and many will vouch with me that it creates a pins and needles sensation; Castle Hill, Bishopton, where three leys cross; and nearby Redmarshall Church and West Newbiggin moat, both having three leys crossing; and of course the zodiacs. The presence of an integrated system of marking the passageways of ley power during prehistoric times, along with the astronomical function of stone circles, is a pointer to the obvious conclusion that our ancestors were not skin clad, warring, woad-painted savages, but were civilised folk with a technological expertise equal to today's scientific hierarchy.

The complete meaning to the ley system still eludes researchers, though it is now realised that it is very much a vital force in mankind's universe. Leys act as a matrix for the physical plane, and the power functions largely in another dimension. The leys are the fairy paths of folk lore, where if one's perception is changed one may glimpse at the edge of higher consciousness a gnome or other elemental, existing on the etheric plane.

Leys are also referred to as lines of inspiration, where the spirit transcends the physical to glimpse greater realities of life and existence. The pagan rituals are still performed on the lines and the holy ghost manifests yet in the death watch beetle parish churches when the solar spark is invoked through the spire to solid Earth.

The axis of Britain is pivoted at Arbor Low in Derbyshire; with Stonehenge being its southern power centre and Lindisfarne its northern polarity. Traditionally, the north-east is the most important compass bearing with regard to sun worship, and Scotland's Aberdeenshire corresponds in its fertile psychism with England's Northumbria.

Paul Screeton