RE:ACTION #7 FALL 1997
Neither Wittgenstein nor Watkins!

PSYCHIC WAR AT THE ROLLRIGHT STONES! THE NEOIST ALLIANCE BATTLES FOLLOWERS OF PAUL DEVEREUX, IAN THOMSON, NIGEL PENNICK, DANNY SULLIVAN & PAUL SCREETON IN RURAL OXFORDSHIRE

"Terror alone cannot destroy a revolutionary current." Ian H. Birchall Workers Against The Monolith.

It was inevitable that the avant-bard would cross swords with the 'earth mysteries' establishment. The mere fact that we advocate the dissolution of both ancient ideas and ancient conditions of existence angers various New Age nutters involved with Paul Devereux's geomantic Dragon Project. However, it was our psychogeographical investigations at ancient sites which finally drove the loony ley spotters into an uncontrolled rage. Unable to understand that humour is the most powerful weapon of the avant-bard, these bozos misread our investigations as sacrilegious rites. Explaining our activities, then, should be all that's needed to bring blisters to the cheeks of these reactionaries.

The avant-bard technique of engaging in sexual acts at 'sacred' sites as a means of facilitating our psychogeographical investigations was inspired by a passage in Alastair Service and Jean Bradbery's The Standing Stones Of Europe: A Guide to the Great Megalithic Monuments:(revised paperback edition Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1996, p. 44-5): "We see the form of the chambered mounds and dolmens as sacred to their builders (and as still sacred today) because it was a microcosm of the primal mound described in the most widespread ancient myths of creation. In the varied forms of that story, the female earth mound is always pierced by something representing the male sky, perhaps a shaft of light, a spear or a thunderbolt. Briefly, uniting sky and earth, the dark chamber of the mound interior gives birth to living beings... life, fertility and hope came from the dark in there as the rising sun pierced it with the sky's light reborn. In imagination, we can still share the power of such moments with the people then, with people who built these chambered mounds almost all over western Europe, such was their need to mark the key days of the year with ceremonial gatherings at a sacred place. There they could balance darkness with the sun's splendour, the cave or womb of the past with the light of hope for the future; the inner life with that of the world we must deal with. Dolmens are for the living."

We have explained elsewhere that primitivism is the worst product of civilisation and that the 'return at a higher level' we seek must necessarily be anti-traditional in order to transcend the material limitations of archaic tradition. There is a folk legend that having sex in the Callanish stone circle on 24 June unchains all sorts of fertile magic and ensures an enduring monogamous relationship between heterosexual couples. Therefore the Silent Bards refrained from copulating at this site during a recent research trip to Lewis. Likewise, since we reject all forms of modernist pseudo-universalism, we despise those who seek the so called navel of the world. In fact, our research shows that everyone has their own omphalos which often turns out to be the neolithic or iron age site at which they experience the best orgasm.

It should go without saying that Historic Scotland are doing their best to discourage sex at the monuments they run by installing obtrusive information boards. This has been done in a particularly aggressive fashion at Balnuaran Of Clava, where the signs intrude into the outer ring of the stone circles surrounding two of the three cairns, rendering the site worthless from a psychogeographical perspective. Fortunately the bureaucrats haven't yet succeeded in destroying the ambience of the Corrimony chambered cairn and stone circle at the west end of Glen Urquhart.

During the course of several field trips to Scotland, Neoist Alliance researchers experienced strong orgasms in a good number of ancient structures. We were very pleasantly surprised by the potency of orgasm achieved at Carn Liath, Strathsteven, which is in the 'Guardianship' of the Secretary of State for Scotland and very easily accessible - being located on the coastal side of the A9, or the 'great road north' as it is known locally. During our visit, the nearby car parking area was full of holiday-makers enjoying picnics. One elderly Yorkshire woman asked us if we'd been to Dunrobin Castle but showed no interest in the well signed broch and we were lucky enough to have it to ourselves. While we were in the structure, a twenty-something couple ran across the A9 towards the broch, but then swerved around it and made their way to the beach. The walls of this defensive structure shielded us from view and a blow job resulted in a swift but intense orgasm.

More oral led to a slower but equally potent ejaculation screened from observation by the round wall of the Cairn O' Get. Although this tomb at Garrywhin is well signed from the main road, there is barely space for three small cars in the parking area. It is then a bit of a walk to the cairn. Chattering from the path alerted us to a couple approaching and mission accomplished, we adjusted our clothing - leaving the site free for the pleasurable enjoyment of others. The Grey Cairns of Camster number among the most famous attractions of the Caithness region but we found them disappointing. The restored roofing in the chambers of Camster Long is obtrusive and very poorly done. It didn't surprise us to discover that both the cairns and the large house that stands in the eight acres of boggy ground surrounding them were up for sale at £150,000. Results were more mixed at the Hill O' Many Stanes, with female researchers tending to find the ambience created by the rows of about 200 small stones more erotically charged than males.

Although busy during the day, one can enjoy the ruins of the five thousand year old village of Skara Brae for free after closing time under the light of the Orkney simmer dim. Neoist Alliance researchers arrived at the famous tourist attraction late one bright June evening to discover a crusty couple shagging in the otherwise deserted complex. Skara Brae was delightful but we preferred the ambience of the Pictish and Norse remains at the Brough of Birsay, where sex would have been possible if we'd been up for staying in the ruined village during the hours it is cut off from the Orkney mainland by the sea. The Brough of Deerness was quite deserted when we visited - and provided an excellent site for penetrative sex on a bright summer's day. Maes Howe is locked up at night, so possibilities for sex inside the tomb are limited - hit and run blow jobs might be possible if your timing is good, we didn't manage anything at all.

While both the Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar on Orkney attract prodigious numbers of visitors, nearly all of them arrive by car, coach or motorcycle, so rampant sex is possible if your timing is good. The warning sound of engines provides ample opportunities for the adjustment of clothing should you consider this necessary. The best times for sex are later on in the evening. We found the Stones of Stenness the more ambient site, although the sheep shit which surrounds them was somewhat hazardous. The reconstructed Barnhouse village nearby was even more erotically charged than Skara Brae. Likewise, the field which is the former site of the Ring of Bookan - unsigned and largely ignored by tourists - is nevertheless very sexually potent. This site is overlooked by a farmhouse, so caution is advised, although full penetrative sex  is easy to perform here without being disturbed once it gets dark.

We found sex in the recumbent stone circles of the Grampian Region produced particularly intense orgasms. One of the best preserved recumbent circles is Easter Aquorthies and although the site is relatively exposed, we managed a quick blow job before another couple arrived to contemplate the ancient site. Loanhead Of Daviot stone circle and cremation cemetery is screened by trees to the south and east making daylight sex easier. However, the local scout hut is situated beneath some of these trees and so psychogeographers should check to make sure no children are playing in the woods before engaging in sex. More remote, better shielded and currently unsigned is the Nine Stanes of Mulloch stone circle in Forestry Commission woodland three-and-a-half miles south-east of Banchory. Our investigations revealed that female orgasms were particularly strong at this site. We also enjoyed particularly good sex at the Achavanich megalithic horseshoe by Lock Stemster in Caithness, and the nearby Guidebest stone circle situated at the edge of the Latheron Wheel Burn. Even more extraordinary were our orgasms at the Sunhoney and Tyrebagger recumbent stone circles.

One of the most puissant sites we visited was the Learable Hill complex at the Strath of Kildonan. It will surprise no one that archaeologists such as Aubrey Burl in his A Guide To The Stone Circles Of Britain, Ireland and Brittany (Yale University Press, New Haven & London 1995) and Robert Gourlay in his Sutherland: An Archaeological Guide (Birlinn, Edinburgh 1996) show themselves considerably more sensitive to this site than 'earth mysteries' morons such as Paul Devereux and Danny Sullivan. We approached the Learable Hill from Helmsdale village by the single track A897. The road runs alongside the River Helmsdale, which according to Scotland: The Rough Guide by Dave Abram et al (Rough Guides Ltd, revised edition London 1996) is 'a strictly controlled and extremely exclusive salmon river frequented by the royals.' There are no signs directing the curious to the stone circles, stone rows, standing stones or cairns. Indeed, the rickety footbridge across the river to the strip of land allowing public access to the site is often closed on the grounds that it is unsafe! The Helmsdale Tourist Information Office told Neoist Alliance researchers that it was impossible to get to the Learable Hill because the footbridge across to it had been dismantled after being declared unsafe. When we replied that we would wade across the river to access the site, a phone call was made to the local gillie who gave detailed instructions on how to get across safely.

Helmsdale village was founded in the nineteenth-century to house the inhabitants of the Strath of Kildonan who were evicted during the 'necessary' clearances before the area could be transformed into a royal holiday resort. One of the village attractions is La Mirage, a kitsch cafe owned by a Barbara Cartland lookalike called Nancy Sinclair. Cartland is one of the many upper class vampires with royal connections who owns a hunting lodge in the area. Royal arse-licker Paul Devereux has nothing to say about any of this, instead this loony ley spotter endorses the current heir to the throne's totalitarian rants 'against the modern world'. For example, in Earth Memory: The Holistic Earth Mysteries Approach to Decoding Ancient Sacred Sites (Quantum, Slough 1991, p.224-5) Devereux froths: "We need to rediscover principles that could be used in a revival of geomantic sensibility for the twenty-first century. HRH the Prince of Wales has effectively put his finger on this, in his wide-ranging criticism of modern architecture... A traditional image of paradise is a walled garden, so it is not surprising that the Prince selected enclosure as another principle..." Of course, the English equivalent of the clearances were the enclosures but a right-wing arsehole like Devereux couldn't give a damn about the plight of ordinary men and women.

Devereux's idiocy is equally evident in a booklet he co-authored with Ian Thomson, The Ley Guide: The Mystery of Aligned Ancient Sites (Empress, Brecon 1987, p. 34): "A ley may be observed or suspected in the field and later confirmed on maps but usually a map-ley is plotted and then visited in the field... All ley definitions are bound to be arbitrary to some extent as so little is really known about them. The side of a 1:50,000 sheet represents 25 miles. We think this should be considered the maximum length for a ley, unless a very large number of aligned sites is being dealt with. Obviously, a ley may go on to more than one 1:50,000 sheet, but 25 miles seems a reasonable maximum length in our experience. Five points should be ideally the minimum number of markers on any ley, but in a short distance, four markers may be just about acceptable, depending on the number of possible markers in the immediate vicinity. Where possible, try to keep leys on a single 1:50,000 sheet..."

Stupidity of the type quoted above led the LPA and Archaeogeodetic Association to jibe in their jointly authored pamphlet The Great Conjunction: The Symbols of a College, the Death of a King and the Maze on the Hill (Unpopular Books, London 1992, p. 6-7): "Our techniques are a bit different from those generally used by Ley Hunters. Using computers, we analyse the alignment of points from their latitude and longitude as much as possible, only using grid references at the last stages. We prefer this technique to using grid co-ordinates after the fashion of Ley Hunters. Their techniques seemed to be more centred on cartomancy - not that we reject this entirely. We still see as useful some of the psychogeographical practices of the Situationiste Internationale, such as finding your way about an unfamiliar area, using a map of a different place..."

Several years on, the earth mysteries establishment is still attempting to strike back at the LPA for making these acerbic comments, Devereux's chum Paul Screeton used an article entitled 'Crackpots Get The Ley Of The Land' in Fortean Times (#94, January 1997, p. 47) as a vehicle to vent his rage against psychogeography: "In the seventies ley hunters were accused by anti-fascists of indulging in a politically incorrect study. Now a bulletin from the London Psychogeographical Society (sic) has appeared on the Internet, claiming that a ley-line goes through the front room of the home of Derek Beackon, formerly a British National Party councillor for a ward on the Isle of Dogs in London's Docklands... It gets even more sinister when we learn that every time the ley-line is used a human sacrifice must take place, explaining Marlowe's death in a brawl and the 'accidents' that befell workers during the building of Canary Wharf."

Screeton's unhealthy interest in the swastika, a fixation he shares with other members of the 'earth mysteries' establishment such as Nigel Pennick, makes his attack on the LPA's satiric prose doubly dubious. In his book Quicksilver Heritage: The Mystic Leys - Their Legacy of Ancient Wisdom (Abacus, London 1977, p.100-1), Screeton rants: "Symbols on stones are also worth looking for and attempting to interpret. One of the most significant is the swastika... Many writers have considered the symbolism of the swastika. George Hunt Williamson's is probably the most extraordinary. He postulated that the four points of the swastika represent 'the Four Great Primary Forces', which are static magnetic field, electro-static field, electro-magnetic wave and resonating electro-magnetic field. He believes that the symbol was brought to earth by extra-terrestrials."

Having visited both Avebury and Stonehenge during the 1997 summer solstice, the following weekend Neoist Alliance researchers headed for the Rollright Stones two and a half miles NNW of Chipping Norton, which were the focal point of Paul Devereux's Dragon Project. Information on the Dragon Project can be found in Devereux's books Places Of Power: Secret Energies at Ancient Sites: A Guide to Observed or Measured Phenomena (Blandford, London 1990)and Earth Memory (op. cit. p. 173-4): "Dragon Project attempts to work with sensitives in the 1980s proved problematical...  psychics felt their sensitivities were too great to work at the Rollright Stones, and complained of headaches and sinister feelings... Nevertheless, some psychics were most helpful and sessions were conducted. Healer John Gordon, for instance, went into trance at Rollright and saw entities within the ring of stones. He was able to describe these beings in detail. They told him that they possessed great knowledge, but would cease to exist if they left the circle of stones..."

Devereux's Places Of Power (op. cit. p. 86) supposedly concentrates on the more 'scientific' aspects of the Dragon Project's research: "biologist Harry Oldfield brought some brine shrimp to Rollright in the August of 1981. These creatures are very sensitive to changes in the geomagnetic field, and Oldfield decided to use them as biosensors within the circle to see if they would pick up any field variations around the stones. In the series of tests the shrimp did clearly cluster towards the stones and led Oldfield to comment: 'Conclusions should not be drawn as yet, but the shrimps do seem to be aligning themselves over lines of force'." Elsewhere in the same book, Devereux provides further insights into the mentality of those conducting the Rollright investigations. For example (p. 72-3): "On one occasion a Dragon Project monitor, working in the misty pre-dawn hours at the King Stone, got the fright of his life when he saw shadowy figures passing near the monolith. Summoning up his courage, he approached the beings to find they were in fact soldiers on a training exercise making for the Royal Observer Corps bunker in the King Stone field!"

In many ways it is amazing that the Dragon Project chose Rollright as a field base, since Devereux was seriously spooked the first time he visited the place. He recounts the experience in Places Of Power (op. cit. p. 75-6): "As my colleagues and I drove up to the circle... we could see a man and woman dancing within it. One of the people in our car was a practising cabbalist, and he led the way from the vehicle to the circle. As he entered the ring of stones he turned on his heel with such suddenness I stopped dead in my tracks... the cabbalist fixed his eyes on a third person sitting crossed-legged against the tallest stone in the ring. The two men locked into what I can only describe as a battle of wills - the sense of energy within the circle was almost palpable. Eventually, the seated man rose and backed out of the circle... When we returned to our rental car after exploring the site, the key would not turn in the ignition, though the vehicle had been working perfectly all day. The cabbalist advised leaving it for 20 minutes or so. We did, and the key then turned with ease."

When the Neoist Alliance arrived at Rollright, a group of hippies were scattering votive offerings of flowers, barley and chocolate on various stones. However, it wasn't long before the twenty-somethings retired from the scene, leaving the Neoist Alliance free to enjoy the stones alone. A couple of Japanese girls entered the ring after we'd been there for ten minutes, their cheerful curiosity demonstrating that tourism can on occasion transcend its economic foundations. Next came a coach full of self-styled 'psychics'. Mimicking the antics of twerps like John Gordon, the 'sensitives' fanned out around the circle - taking it in turns to place both hands on each and every stone - so that they could 'feel' the 'energies'. Not only was this intrusive, it showed a fundamental insensitivity to the principles of occultism. The Neoist Alliance's reluctance to engage in sex at ancient sites when other people are around stems not from moral qualms about exhibitionism - it merely reflects the fact that occult means hidden. We confronted the self-styled 'psychics' from the centre of the circle and it wasn't long before they felt the power of our magick.

After taunting the New Agers with aggressive eye contact, we announced that they were spiritually bankrupt and knew nothing of the primal relationship between communism and shamanism. We then left to inspect the outlying King Stone. Having spat on this symbolic representation of aspiring royalty, we returned to the circle shouting "Nothing is sacred before the flashing blades of the Knights of the Negative!" This was a reference to the British pro-situ group of the seventies who produced The Oxford Companion To Absolute Freedom. Screeton had, of course, published his attack on our comrades at the LPA in Paul Seiveking's Fortean Times and the latter edited the Cambridge pro-situ publication Omphalos during his student days. Devereux's particularist followers found our revalorisation of Oxford radicalism, combined as it was with a simultaneous denigration of the area's royalism, particularly insulting.

Having again occupied the centre of the circle, the Neoist Alliance proceeded to stare out the 'psychics' until they slunk back to their bus. After scratching a few sigils into the ground, symbols that would give the 'sensitives' quite a fright if they decided to return, we made our way to the nearby remains of a megalithic tomb known as the Whispering Knights - stones which anybody familiar with Oxfordshire folklore can justly view as a potent symbol of opposition to monarchism. THE WORKING CLASS HAS NO COUNTRY. WE ARE UNGOVERNABLE.  FORWARD TO A WORLD WITHOUT FRONTIERS!

This page reproduces the main article from the seventh Neoist Alliance newsletter, to see the pictures it contained view the pdf reproduced on this website. Please note that due to difficulties with accessing the original fonts, the pdfs on this site are not identical to the original publications but only approximate them; if you wish to assess this publication from a design point of view you should view the original documents and not rely on the material available here. The jpeg on this page is scanned from an original.

Re:Action 7 pdf

Re:Action 6 html

Re:Action 8 html

Re:Action index

Occulture