Mendeley

Acculturated topographical effects of shamanic trance consciousness in
archaic and medieval sacred landscapes

   by P Devereux
   Psychology > Miscellaneous Papers
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   JSE (1993)
   Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 23-37

Abstract

   Various linear enigmas exist in ancient sacred landscapes worldwide.
   These include examples of Native American landscape lines, such as the
   Chacoan "roads," New Mexico, and the Nazca "lines," Peru; Neolithic
   linear earthworks, called "cursuses," in Britain; stone rows in
   Europe, Malaysia and elsewhere; temple alignments in Indonesia. There
   is also the archaeologically heretical idea of "leys" (alignments of
   ancient sites), put forward by Englishman Alfred Watkins in 1921.
   Although the ley theory has long been derided by mainstream
   scholarship, new German and Dutch findings show that there was a
   medieval tradition of straight "Doodwegen" (death roads) or
   "Geisterwege" (ghost paths). It seemsWatkins may have unwittingly
   uncovered vestiges of these features. Certainly Watkins had no concept
   of current "New Age" notions of "energy leylines," which are modern
   fantasies. It is argued that such medieval features arise out of a
   deep-seated, universal conceptual complex associating "spirit ways"
   with straight lines: straight cords and threads in ancient traditional
   healing practices as well as straight tracks and other ceremonial
   landscape markings. It is suggested that these ideas have their roots
   in archaic shamanism, which, throughout Eurasia, influenced later,
   ceremonial aspects of monarchy. A proto-Indo- European language
   vestige is cited. Preliminary evidence is presented indicating that
   the spirit-line association derived from the ecstatic "journey"
   experienced during the shamanic trance. This gave rise to images of
   "flying shamans" in tribal societies throughout the world, and,
   ultimately, to the "magical flight of the sovereign" in proto-state
   and state societies. It is this "flight of the soul" that seems to
   have been translated onto ancient sacred landscapes as straight lines,
   which later became variously acculturated as sacred ways, spirit and
   fairy paths, roads of the dead or of ghosts, or Royal Routes. The
   neurological aspects of the so-called out-of-body state, and its
   possible association with modern psychological epidemics such as "UFO
   abductions," is alluded to.