Archaeological Sites 

in Western Brittany

A summary of some findings 

and experiences noted 

during the visit by the 

Earth Energies Group 

of the 

British Society of Dowsers 

 May 2017

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The Alignments at Carnac

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The megalithic alignments at Carnac must be one of the seven wonders of the western archaeological world. Thousands of stones are precisely placed in gently waving lines across nearly three kilometres of the south Brittany countryside, with attendant dolmens, menhirs, tumuli – and the odd Christian chapel thrown in for good measure.

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Books abound about when exactly the megaliths arrived, and what they ‘were for’. Every archeoastronomer, leyhunter, Arthurian mythologist, scientist, para-scientist, pseudo-scientist, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, has claimed a piece of the action. With so much material spread so evenly across such a large area, almost any theory can gain some traction – and maybe that’s just the point.

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Our silver bullet society is uncomfortable with an extrapolation that a site, and especially such a prominent, impressive and apparently uniform site such as this – could be a mixed bag of functions and philosophies. But, let’s think it through.

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While there are reasonably linear sections in some parts of the matrix, the overall pattern is far too organic for a simple straight-line solution. Equally, the deliberate siting of the stones at apparently regular intervals would tend to lean against a purely earth energy approach. Anyway, earth energies wiggle and weave; these lines curve and swoop.

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From an astronomical perspective, the sheer density of stones makes almost any alignment a possibility, and clearly a few handfuls of menhirs could have sufficed to highlight the major planetary and celestial conjunctions, dates of calendrical significance – and even the occasional eclipse.

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For the dowser, the first real clue is that like any other complex of its era, Carnac rose over several centuries, and probably in distinct phases. While some of the material must have been lost to farming and road building, a surprising amount remains – enough to indicate that the larger menhirs scattered amongst the more modest liths appear to predate the complex as a whole. Taken as a group this older set makes far more reference to Hartmanns, Currys, Energy Leys and Lines of Consciousness (the straight line scenario). The comparatively smaller boulders take more note of (or maybe seek to influence) earth energy patterns.

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So far, so good. However, the dowser also has the luxury of taking various levels of approach to a complex situation such as this, so it made sense to try to tease out a reason for the construction from the perspective of the builders – the sociological scenario. Between us, we tested all the usual suspects – health, meditation, burial/death, astronomy, ritual etc. etc. – with most suggestions eliciting only a very weak positive, if anything at all. Although, we did get a bit more interest from the rods when considering information storage, retrieval and communication. Putting oneself into the sandals of the megalith builders is a surprisingly difficult feat, when it comes to considering motives and driving forces – and this is one issue which I would happily pass over to any friendly medium who might be able to help us to find a starting line.

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But maybe we are trying to be too esoteric here. Putting aside the obvious visual metaphor of hundreds of huge batteries strung together across the fields, we did also get an indication that the whole industrial conglomerate – at least in its later incarnations – was something to do with ‘energy’ ‘generation’ and usage. While we understand the benefits and dangers of energy generation right across the vibrational spectrum today, what would Carnac-person have wanted with it?

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All objects of mass interact with one another, as Sir Isaac Newton described, and Billy Gawn has shown us so clearly with the watering cans on his patio. So here, with a couple of thousand large, and very large, standing stones apparently strategically sited on dowsable earth energy flows, the potential for some kind of near-physical field of force becomes a distinct possibility.

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What they might have used such a force for (not much of a response to ‘defence’, ‘transport’, etc.) remains something of a mystery. However, it must have worked, as the communities involved committed huge amounts of labour to the project – seemingly until the reasonably available raw material ran low. The rows almost seem to literally tail-off, perhaps with either a shortage of cut and carvable rock, or a lack of available manpower, finally signalling the end of a glorious era.

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On a previous visit, our dowsing around Le Petit-Ménec in the woods towards the eastern end of the complex had showed that the earth energy patterns between and amongst the standing stones formed a complex tapestry not dissimilar to some Celtic weaving motifs. However, which might have been the chicken and which could have been the egg is yet another enigma.

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That so much of the nicely hewn and fashioned stones have survived in situ for so long is a testament not only to their embedded power, but also to the heavy psychic protection laid upon them by those who went to so much effort to erect them in the first place.

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If subsequent farmers found that this area was unexpectedly fertile (as per the Seeds of Plenty scenario), then that may have added to the tendency to leave well alone – and maybe to source the next gatepost from the local mediaeval DIY store instead.

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There are various other minor archaeological features scattered around and amongst the static tide of stone sentinals, but few of these seem to reference the alignments themselves. Most are of a different style, date and probably culture – and our view of the past should not be foreshortened by the fact that everything in sight at Carnac is old, grey and very big.

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This was an undertaking spanning many decades – quite probably several centuries.   Our own culture has changed out of all recognition over such a period, and undoubtedly theirs will have developed, and/or possibly decayed, considerably during that time, too.

 

Erdeven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few kilometres around the bay from the access-limited honeypot at Carnac stand the more modest, but far more accessible alignments close to the village of Erdeven. Despite the megaliths being huge, close to the village and perfectly well marked, it took our carful a couple of cracks, and recourse to the local tourist notice board, to find them. In hindsight, we may have been gently deflected away, in a manner that only made sense a bit later on.

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Even having been severed by a now-metalled road at some time in the past, the main grouping of stones dowses as remaining about 85% intact – and it feels that way. The components seem to be positioned so carefully and so precisely – yet the reference to Hartmann and Curry lines, and to energy leys, seems negligible. Earth energy lines abound, as you might expect with such a dense concentration of massive stonework, but finding a raison d’être for the building of this petrified grid seemed as elusive as elsewhere.

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Again, input from our Gallic colleagues threw some potential light on this conundrum. The apparent absence of a comprehensible energy pattern may in fact be a very valuable piece of evidence. The hypothesis was put forward that rather than being an arrangement of stones to concentrate energy – for whatever purpose – this matrix might have been designed to have the opposite effect. It might redirect at least one type of ‘energy’ away from the centre, leaving a quiet heart free from etheric noise (and maybe also from the interference of a carload of dowsers!). Although difficult to dowse conclusively, this idea made a lot of sense to me – and was yet another example of using our dowsing ability to ‘look through the opposite end of the telescope’.

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Whilst mulling over the implications of energy manipulation, there was also a demonstration of the use of a sound generator (using an app on a mobile phone). It indicated that tones audibly changed as the hand-held device was moved around and among the stones. I am always careful (following Tom Graves’ important presentation to the EEG a few years ago) about merging scientific and non-scientific disciplines too easily. However, there was certainly some discernable interaction between the stones and the emissions from the phone, which might well have some implications for our wider understanding of how the megalith-building communities may have viewed and used their creations.

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Leading away to the west of the alignments is a narrower series of stones that dowsed as having once been a processional path. There was much group dowsing as to how such an approach or exit might have been used, and by whom. What was less clear was whether this was the original purpose for the avenue. There was also quite a bit of interest in a lone remaining tree in the midst of this group of stones. It seemed to have had some interaction with its more rigid compatriots, but why it had been left standing when the rest of the surrounding vegetation had been so comprehensively cleared was less apparent.

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The implication of the longevity of much of this part of the Erdeven site is that it was of some practical use to those living nearby much deeper into modern times than other, more ritualistic, monuments. However, dowsing its more recent use is confounded by the sequential use of the site by other groups, with radically different outlooks – right up to the present day.

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But the real bonus of Erdeven is that it is actually two distinct archaeological locations, quite close together, but contrasting in size, style – and probably date.

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Just up a slight incline the questor is led to an older, simpler format of menhirs. But for its sheer scale, it is an alignment that would not look out of place in the far south west of England or on a Scottish island. Dowsing the underlying energy features indicates that it has considerable similarity with UK sites – in that it has a basis of ‘standard’ leys, grid lines and earth energy patterns.

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More of the original uprights have been lost here, perhaps due to the sheer usefulness of the material and their handy location. However, few if any of them seemed to have been re-used at the other Erdeven complex. Those menhirs remaining dowsed as having been quarried quite locally (within 5km) and had been erected over a comparatively short period of time, given the massive effort required for transportation and erection.

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At the summit of the low hill on which the monoliths stand, is a broadly circular rather moist area, which might once have been an elevated pond. Naturally-fed springs on the tops of hills are not uncommon, given the underlying geology, but here some group members described the damp depression as feeling like a form of energy bath. It certainly had a different ambience to the surrounding space, and especially from the area around the nearby menhirs. Whether this was due primarily to the presence of so much rising water energy was unclear – but others felt it gave rise to a more esoteric sensation, which may have led the hollow to having been used for spiritual and/or ritualistic purposes.

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It is always important when experiencing sacred and significant sites such as these to be aware of what the landscape would have looked like 4,000 – 6,000 years ago. Why would anyone, let alone a whole culture, put seemingly all of their surplus energy and resources into creating permanent edifices such as these? Our current corporate obsession with transitory individual wealth and a brief, rather trivial, existence is completely at odds with a worldview where past, present and future may have been understood in radically different terms.

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After a few days in Brittany, it is also easy to become a bit blasé about yet another site of gigantic stones, marking or utilising dowsable earth energies. However, all of the sites we visited would be of national significance in any country in the world, and it is just our astonishing good fortune that there are so many of them, and so accessible, just a few hours away from us.

 

Alley Graves and Chambered Cairns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brittany is so blessed with superb archaeological sites that many of them are scarcely recorded, and others don’t even appear on a quite detailed map. Our 2017 visit started just west of Roscoff with what we thought was just a wander along the coast near Le Dossen. My rods alighted on a natural outcrop that might once have been a place of ritual, and nearby we unexpectedly found the remains of a completely unmarked alley grave. Now often tight by the waterside, many of these locations would have basked on dry sloping land, well into historical times.

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Alley (or Passage) graves, as the names suggest, are simple straight or dog-legged passages composed of shaped upright blocks and a series of massive capstones. Some have stone-blocked ends, others internal blocking stones.

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Chambered cairns (or tombs) on the other hand, are similar in design, but have a number of side rooms or chambers, with another, often partially enclosed, space furthest from the entrance.

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Many are astronomically aligned, primarily to summer or winter solstice sunrises or sunsets, and most have had some connection with death or burial.

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However, most dowse as not having been constructed originally for funerary or inhumation purposes – and that burial appears to have been the subsequent application of an existing sacred space. Despite its fame and prominence, the vast, ornate cairn at Gavrinis appears never to have been used as a burial chamber, and gives every impression of still awaiting its destiny.

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From an earth energy perspective, the alignment of water and terrestrial energies, often together with leys and acknowledgments of the Hartmann and Curry grids implies that, almost without exception, these were well-established sacred places long before the stone structures that we see today arrived.

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Two earth energy features that are particularly prevalent are the lemniscates symbol at the entrance to the passage and, especially with the wider chambered versions, a similar, but rotating infinity symbol in the centre of the structure. This can often be sensed as a doubly rotating image, with both clockwise and anti-clockwise moving lemniscates. It is unclear if our association of this icon with infinity has anything to do with the cairn-builder’s view of life and death.

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It is the received understanding in archaeological circles that stone-built graves of these types were once completely covered with earth and/or smaller stones, but that all of this material has completely washed away – other than where they have been completely untouched or reconstructed. Dowsing tells a rather more nuanced tale of partially stone and earth-sheltered sites. Stone quarrying and grave robbing would rarely result in the complete removal of all of the infill.

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However, on occasions some embanking material has remained in place through the millennia. As ever, trust your rods without prejudice, rather than your all-too-easily-hoodwinked vision – and draw your own conclusions.

We were glad to have a suggested alternative potential use of the structures tendered by our French colleagues, who pointed out that with a modicum of calm and meditation, it was possible to sense that each ‘room’ had a significantly different feel. It was as if each space could have had its own distinct function. Add to that the feeling that you are temporarily entering the otherworld, underground, contained within a complex of natural energy flows, and you have a very different angle on the design for which constructions such as these might have originally been intended. It may be worth noting that chambered cairns are not usually found in areas where caves are abundant in the landscape.

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At some locations, members of the group debated if the stone structures visible today were actually the genuine article at all. Certainly, some of our dowsing indicated that they may have changed shape to some extent over time, and in some cases, relatively recently. There was even a discussion at one well-known site about whether it had been used as a public employment rebuilding exercise after WW1. However, my dowsing indicated all of the sites we visited were placed over appropriate footprints, even if their superstructure may have evolved somewhat through the centuries.

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There is a strong similarity between a dolmen (usually three or four upright supporting stones with a larger capstone) and the closed end of a chambered cairn. The earth energy configuration of the two is often identical, with three interlocking earth energy spirals, arranged a little like the ‘three hares’ motif.   The Manx three-legged emblem may be another echo of this pan-Celtic symbol. In Breton, this triple whirl is a Triskel (Irish: Triskele, Mycenian: Triskelion).

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Both types of cairn also sometimes exhibit a ley crossing the entrance, almost at a right angle, as if in some way shutting off energetically what a blocking boulder might do physically.

On our last afternoon, we examined the roofless, but fascinating ruined alley grave at Kernic, near Plouescat. Yet another site formerly built comfortably inland, this iconic remnant now lies between the high and low tidal reaches – a line of green moss showing the typical daily limit of the incoming water.

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Surrounded by pleasure boats and draped in seaweed, it seemed quite incongruous as a sacred site. Yet all the features mentioned above were there, and very accessible to the dowser. Unlike modern churches, places like this, which are just as precious and, arguably, even more sacred, never get deconsecrated. They are steadily reclaimed by the forces of nature, and become the silent collateral cadavers of climate change.

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Interestingly, at some point, and perhaps as the tide crept remorselessly up the beach, a surrounding ellipse of stones was added to the original design, which became the new sanctified boundary of the site. A straight reeve of larger rocks was also added to the eastern side of the grave during that period, perhaps in an unsuccessful attempt to stave off the inevitable, but time and tide wait for no man – as Geoffrey Chaucer once noted.

 

 

Le Chapelle et le Fontaine 

à St Fiacre du Faouët

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On a tip-off, we decided to stop en route from Vannes to Huelgoat at Le Faouët. We had heard that there was an old chapel and a Roman spring nearby – and anyway, it was crépes-time.

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The chapel itself, dedicated to an Irish Saint, is an odd sort of place. Even before we got the rods out, it was apparent that there was something not quite right about it. Only on closer inspection does it become apparent that at no point, and from no angle, is there complete symmetry in its architecture.

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Many religious buildings have been expanded and remodelled over the centuries, and this can skew their original form into something visually less pleasing – but here we have a structure that appears to have asymmetry built into it. Guide books and Tripadvisor comments wax lyrical about the design style, but our rods were less convinced.

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The consequence of this subversively radical approach to church layout is that the sacred geometry must be incomplete to put it mildly, and the energy in the church was certainly a bit mixed. However, although largely disused (and supported financially by the French Historic Churches organisation, replete with on-site volunteer) it still dowsed as a proper sacred site, with all the energy signatures you would expect. Indeed, house martins flying in and out to the broods in their nests in the rafters added a nice, if unexpected, touch.

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The most remarkable feature for us was the presence on a rood screen (French: jubé) of various incongruous creatures, including two dragons – one purple and one green – only partially disguised as a pair of brightly coloured swans.

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But while the chapel provided a convenient car park, the main purpose of our visit was to seek out the nearby holy spring.   As with so many of the world’s most interesting locations, this one was only casually mentioned on the map and whimsically indicated on the ground by a couple of rustic, possibly home-made, finger posts, pointing vaguely to le fontaine. This seemed a bit surprising for the type of place we were expecting, and I even took up the rods to ensure we were literally on the right track.

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The path into the woods got longer and muddier, and the rain started to pick up. We began to wonder if we might have been misdirected by unnamed subtle forces. Then, suddenly, in a clearing, there it was.

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The physical format of this holy spring is of a smaller, higher basin receiving water directly from the ground beneath, and of a lower broader pool connected to it by a stone channel. Both are block-lined with local material. While the tourist information talks about this being a ‘Roman well’, the blocks in place today date by dowsing as being more mediaeval in date (the Gauls having liberated the high quality Roman masonry after the fall of the empire).

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As ever, the site dowsed as having been known as a sacred healing location for thousands of years before the legendary legionaries crossed the Loire.

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The upper receptacle dowsed as having been where pilgrims would have drunk the water, which is reputed to be beneficial for those suffering from eczema and other skin conditions. The larger, lower pool was more of a complementary medicinal bathing zone. The practical layout of the constantly flowing stream would have minimised cross-infection by visitors.

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Despite being surrounded by modern pastureland, the perfectly clear water was still unusually good in quality – and close to 9 out of 10 using my own crude scale. I felt this was due in part to the source arising from some considerable depth in the bedrock below.

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Both basins sit directly above strong crossing earth energy lines and their associated spirals. A wide ley also runs across both pools. This is verily a sacred spring, by whatever measure you like to adopt.

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However, given the sequential, and often continuous, use of sites such as this, I asked for the last time it had been used as a local laundry – and dowsed a date of 1918. But when I asked for the last time it had served as a bathing pool, I got no response – it is still in use today.

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It was apparent that people still make their way here quietly to take the waters – but, perhaps more importantly, also to spend a little time in the soothing ambience of this woodland glade. It is a site of compelling tranquillity – even though it poured with rain during our visit – and from the odd traces of modern-day litter, it is clearly still a popular, cool picnic spot on warm summer days.

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Despite this, the site is clearly well tended, and the basins were largely free of leaves and debris, despite being overhung by beech and chestnut.

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I sounded out the site guardian, who seemed pleased enough for us to be there. A forest setting such as this is also an ideal spot mid-week, mid-day, in term time to spend a few minutes in quiet contemplation amongst the elementals and the nature spirits – whether you can actually sense them or not. Language is no barrier in the netherworld.

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By the time we were heading back to the car a couple of hours had elapsed, and yet we didn’t seem to have done very much at all.   Always a good sign.

 

 

Barnenez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The great cairn of Barnenez is reputed to be the largest mausoleum in Europe.

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It’s certainly large, used at some stage for burial, and is in France – but dowsing implies that this may not be the whole story.

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Officially dated to around 4,800 BCE in its earliest incarnation, it is regarded as one of the oldest megaliths of the western world.

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Constructed in two distinct phases, with the second clearly butting on to the western side of the first, the significance of this remarkable mound was only rediscovered in the twentieth century, when workers quarrying mounded stone from the northern side chanced upon embedded dolmens.

Catalogued as a tumulus in 1850, the cairn has now been fully documented and extensively excavated. The current layout consists of some eleven passages terminating in dolmen type structures – a couple of which have been exposed by the commercial removal of hardcore.

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All of the passages face south, indicating a solar and/or astronomical dimension to the design – and some of them have examples of ‘cave art’, albeit from an unspecified period.

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Our dowsing of the water, earth energy, ley and planetary grid lines indicated the intrinsically sacred nature of the site – and dowsing of the first use of the site for spiritual and/or religious purposes took us back well before the 6,000 year old physical remains.

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As at other sites in north western France, Barnenez dowsed as not having been constructed primarily for funerary purposes, although it became an important place of burial at some later stage in its development.

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Again, an investigation of the feel of the various passages indicated that potentially they may have been used for different purposes, although the cramped space available and presence of so many other visitors made it hard to gain a better understanding of this concept in situ. Only a few of the passages can be entered, and some are very confined spaces in which to work. Presumably the cordoning off of some of the passages is for the safety and comfort of visitors, and to protect the wall art mentioned above from damage by humans, intentionally or otherwise.

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The surprising length of the passageways, and the vast scale of the overburden, indicated a very distinct attempt to create an artificial womb-like underworld for whatever purpose. As creatures who have evolved to value air, light and space, we find it particularly difficult to appreciate the psychological, let alone the psychic, value of its antithesis.

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A further suggestion, that each of the series of passages may have been allocated, or to have acquired, a separate vibrational colour, did stand up to some serious dowsing analysis. However, the extension of the passage system from five subterranean features to eleven in the second building phase confuses the picture significantly. For the hypothesis to gain any serious traction, either the intended use of the cairn must have changed at some point and/or the manifest colour spectrum must have been extended beyond the seven recognised strands of the visible spectrum. This is an idea that needs more consideration – and probably on a wet afternoon in January!

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The understandable desire of the authorities not to have hoards of visitors clambering over such a significant and well-preserved archaeological site as this, sadly effectively prevents the serious researcher from examining its earth energies at first hand from above.

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However, another important insight was highlighted by Alison Bishop, who dowsed that there had previously been some form of underground entrance from the south.   My personal take on this fascinating piece of information was that there may have been previously a now largely removed alley grave, pointing astronomically, to the south. This appeared to have become disused, and the major stones robbed out at some point. Dowsing for the current location of the stones that had been removed did not indicate their relocation in either the original or the extended cairn.

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Given that the mausoleum has existed here for so long, and that the passage grave or lost entrance may have co-existed with it for many centuries, it was difficult to tell if the two had been constructed by the same culture or used by different cultures within the same spacetime. Again, more consideration is required here – and the assistance of para-scientific techniques may help to indicate additional lines of enquiry.

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I dowsed that about nine standing stones had been removed in historical times (for farming or commercial use nearby), although this did not appear to have caused any significant detriment to the energies of the cairn itself.

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A second cairn – smaller, but possibly of a similar type – has recently been discovered on private ground to the north, which might in due course enable us to throw some more light onto the sequence of uses at Barnenez. It may also help us to understand if the mausoleum was a ground-breaking one-off or just part of an evolving cultural meme.

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There did not seem to be much in the way of residual spiritual activity around the cairn, possibly because any such trapped entities may have been released by those who specialise in this line of work. It was also noticeable that generally etheric sensitivities seem to be somewhat reduced where the tourist footfall was greatest. This may, however, be more down to the ability of the dowser to tune out, than to the physical presence of casual and secular visitors. Dowsing is such a subjective skill.

 

 

The Menhir de Kerloas

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The grey granite giant known as the Menhir de Kerloas, near Plouarzel in Finistere, today stands almost 10 metres tall, having lost a couple of metres in height during a lightning strike in the 18th century.   This still makes it a little higher than even the tallest UK standing stone, the Rudstone monolith in East Yorkshire (at about 8 mtrs) – and it is arguably the tallest in Europe.

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My dowsing indicated that the Breton behemoth was sourced locally, which given its estimated colossal weight of around 150 tonnes, is not too surprising. The official data says it came from about 2.5 km away, so there was some correlation there. My estimated date of its erection was around 4,000 BCE, which again accorded reasonably well with nearby information board.

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The comparison of the Kerloas Menhir with other major monuments in Brittany is quite striking. Many of these locations are composed of several, and sometimes vast numbers, of individual stones, dolmens, tumuli and other features, leading to a confused tangle of energies on various levels – especially when an unspecified proportion of the original design is missing, and/or has been re-erected.

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While the Menhir once had a small entourage of outliers and marker stones (all of which have long since been cleared from the neighbouring fields and, as ever, a few have ended up in hedge banks or used as gate posts), these were never the most significant part of the site.

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The energies at Kerloas are some of the cleanest, sharpest, most positive and, above all, strongest that I have ever come across at any pre-historic site in any country. Crossing water lines and an expansive blind spring; centred crossing energy leys about 20 paces wide even before personal interaction; associated neat, wide, nested energy spirals; multiple positive Hartmann and Currie line intersections. However you approach it, sense it or measure it, this is a mega-megalith.

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Perhaps because of the lack of neighbouring features, there is a distinct lack of the typically confusing detail – without even a few lines of consciousness for distraction. It is very sparse, almost impressionist in feel, which adds to its sense of strength, and to its straightforward function.

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Two serious attempts appear to have been made to reduce the power of this Pagan powerhouse. At the foot, close to the ground, some of the granite has been chipped away.

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According to my dowsing, this was a mediaeval attempt to topple it, which only ceased when those involved with the project died – although I am not sure if the two events were actually directly connected!

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The other shows up as the best-defined pictogram in the immediate vicinity – a neat, cruciform etheric image laid down by an 11th Century Christian cleric. This attempt to dampen down the attraction of the site was entirely unsuccessful, as the churchman was unknowingly seeking to launch a spiritual attack on what is actually a largely physical phenomenon.   I had to smile at this as, of course, the scenario is usually quite the other way around.

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Perhaps the most startling and longest lasting impact of our visit was that here was the first time that I can really say that I saw (earth?) energy emanating from a supposedly inanimate object. The aura of the monolith flickered in my gaze, a little like a gigantic slow burning flame, for what seemed like quite a long time. These auric colours were pale blue to pale lilac, and they became immediately, and quite unexpectedly, apparent as soon as we entered the field before we reached the stone itself – ie about 200 metres away. My wife Ros saw it too, independently and at exactly the same point, although her interpretation of the information was more of ‘energy’ streaming out of the top of the menhir.

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There was no sunshine to enhance strange optical effects, and the background sky was mainly light grey cloud. I was in good health and of sound mind; I was just coming into a new experience with a relaxed and open mind. I only wish I could do it more often and on purpose – but I am a great believer that these things only come to you when you are ready.

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Such occasions are quite exciting, and maybe it was helpful that as we arrived at the rock itself a local chap was sitting nearby deep in meditation.   Consequently, we chose not to immediately rush around with rods and cameras, but to take in the remarkable energies gently and quietly.

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Once our silent pilgrim colleague had left, we had the time and space to dowse at our leisure, only briefly interrupted by three young women, all giggles and selfies, enjoying their own experience in a very different way, and in five minutes max. Vroom, off to the next place . .

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Kerloas, a little west of St Renan, which in turn is a few kilometres west of Brest, is a bit out of the way, which may have aided its survival. However, it’s not actually hard to find, just north of the D5 at Kerloas, and served by a useful little lay-by off a back road. Almost by definition, it’s pretty hard to miss.

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Anyone starting a personal dowsing journey around Brittany would do worse than to head for this special place as a starting point.   It is a perfect baseline against which to consider everything and anywhere else. Alternatively, you might just think you have already seen the best show in town, and you may spend the rest of your week, contentedly, in the local coffee shop.

                                                                                                                Nigel Twinn

                                                                                                                        May 2017