BEACHY HEAD THE NEGATION OF THE SOLAR.

by Troy Southgate

LIKE an indomitable testimony to the tragedy of man’s self-destructive nature, the

chalk headland of Beachy Head in East Sussex has long been viewed as a gruesome
epitaph for those wishing to dispense with life itself. Beachy Head has acquired near-
cult status in modern times and was used for the cover of an Industrial album released
by Throbbing Gristle and for the final scene in the film Quadrophenia, but today the
Samaritans charity has even set up a special cliff-top telephone in the hope that potential
suicides will be deterred from taking the 530-foot plunge onto the rocks below. But
what is it about the area that, in many cases, still causes large numbers of people to
travel great distances in order to end it all so dramatically? The obvious answer is that
the huge descent will guarantee a swift death with little or no chance of survival. But if
this is the case, then why is it that more suicides don’t simply throw themselves off high
city buildings? What is it about the Eastbourne area that they find so inextricably
magnetic?

I use the word ‘magnetic’, not as a convenient metaphor, but simply because this is the
way it actually works. Indeed, running directly through the centre of Beachy Head is an
ancient ley line. Often known as ‘dragon lines’, these link together various geographical
sites of interest and function as a kind of magical energy grid. It was Alfred Watkin’s
The Old Straight Track (1921) which brought ley lines to the attention of the public for
the first time, although they have also been discussed in the fictional works of Alan
Garner (see The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath ). Two German
researchers, Wilhelm Teudt and Josef Heinsch, demonstrated at the famous Externsteine
rock formation close to the Teutoburger Wald in Lower Saxony, that these holy lines –
or ‘Heilige Linien’ – were indeed coursing through the natural geography of Northern
Europe like sacred markers to our primordial spiritual heritage. But whilst the purveyors
of the burgeoning New Age movement are keen to ‘prove’ that ley lines have some kind
of internationalist dimension, the significantly more astute John Michell notes that “leys
and megalithic alignments are generally confined to a limited area, reflecting the local
rather than national organisation of Neolithic farming societies.” (from At the Centre
of the World: Polar Symbolism discovered in Celtic, Norse & Other Ritualised
Landscapes, Thames & Hudson, 1994, p.109].

The ley line that runs through Beachy Head is the Andraste. This begins at the North
Downs in the Basingstoke area and carries on southwards across Old Winchester Hill
and Petersfield before arriving in East Sussex. Once it gets to the South Downs, the
Andraste goes down into the beautiful Cuck Valley and along the meandering
Cuckmere river before arriving at Beachy Head itself. Two millennia ago, of course,
most of southern England was covered by the Andraste Wald forest. Andraste is a
fertility goddess usually associated with the hare and the name of the Andraste Wald
still endures today in the modern Sussex place-names ‘Ashdown’ and ‘Weald’. In fact
the famous warrior queen, Boudicca, invoked Andraste in her struggle against the
Roman occupiers back in the First Century: "Let us, therefore, go against (the Romans),
trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to
rule over dogs and wolves." When she had finished speaking, she employed a species of
 divination, letting a hare escape from the fold of her dress; and since it ran on what
they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and
Buduica, raising her hand toward heaven, said: "I thank thee, Andraste, and call upon
thee as woman speaking to woman" [Dio Cassius, Roman History ].

It’s rather curious that Andraste is connected with the pursuit of hares and foxes,
because when people feel desperate enough to want to end their lives they are inevitably
running away from something. One can imagine the burden of life snapping at the heels
of a potential suicide all the way down to Beachy Head, before the tragic figure is
rudely discarded like a biological waste product from the proverbial bowels of our land.
But as I aim to show here, the ley line itself – based, as it is, on the cult of a goddess –
represents a spiritual inversion that still assails the beleaguered psyche of our folk. It is
precisely this negative ‘Earth’ energy that we need to counteract in order to create a
sense of balance and perspective.

The Italian philosopher, Julius Evola (1898-1974), wrote a brilliant work centred on the
divisiveness and discord that underpins the contemporary age. But his Revolt Against
the Modern World (Inner Traditions, 1995] deals not only with the chaos of the present,
it also concentrates on the Golden Age of Tradition. Evola contrasts the Heroic and
Solar qualities of our original Hyperborean existence with those of the Lunar and
Uranian age in which we currently find ourselves. The cycle of decadence and a gradual
decline of race and caste saw the Hyperboreans leaving their ancestral lands in the wake
of the Polar shift and travelling to parts of America and southern Eurasia. These
conquering races were the last pure Aryans and founded both the civilisations of the
Incas and Mayans, as well as that of Ancient Egypt. Since then, however, the rise of
Southern races and civilisations has resulted in a degeneration of the original stock.
Evola tells us that these civilisations were based on the cult of the Mother (Divine
Woman) and influenced by earthly, telluric forces that revolve around the symbolism of
water and serpents. This degeneration was the beginning of the Silver Age and the
Aryans became mixed with the Negroid, Lemurian elements who worshipped the
yellow moon (Lunar); itself a pale inversion of the golden sun (Solar). The Southerly
races essentially have primordial chthonic roots, completely at odds with our own
masculine–based Tradition.

Another Italian writer, Camille Paglia, has pointed out the vast differences that exist
between the Solar and Lunar aspects (see Sexual Personae: Art & Decadence From
Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson , Yale University Press, 1990). As far as Paglia is
concerned, the Solar is the expression of the male Apollonian who gives shape to the
formlessness of the earth. The Apollonian principle can be found in the direction of the
male ejaculation or during the process of urinating, both of which arc upwards, towards
the heavens. Meanwhile, the feminine or Dionysian principle can be seen in the way
that women give birth or urinate close to the ground. The Apollonian represents the
straight lines of geometry and architecture, whilst the Dionysian is all about the nature-
based curvaceousness and voluptuousness of the female form. In Ancient Greece
(Hellas) this was symbolised by the struggle between Apollo and the Python. The
gradual encroachment of the Cthonic is exactly why maternalistic societies came about
and why our present society has been indelibly stamped with the mark of effeminacy.
Evola includes the demise of the warrior-king and the coming of democracy as chief
factors in the attempt to make the virile, heroic male something of the past.
 But what on earth has all this got to do with Beachy Head? I believe that the Andraste
ley line is a channel of negative energy that essentially helps to bring about the demise
of our people by enticing them – like an invisible siren – towards their physical and
spiritual destruction. The vast majority of suicides, of course, are people who have no
place in the modern world. Wodenism is a Solar tradition that rejects the maternalistic
tendency. Not because it is afraid of feminine expression like the Judaic, Christian and
Islamic religions, on the contrary, the important roles of goddesses such as Frigg and
Freya are well-known. The problem is that the Lunar or Cthonic religions create an
imbalance between the male and female principles. Authors such as Helena Blavatsky
(The Secret Doctrine ) and Miguel Serrano (<Nos: Book of the Resurrection ) have
touched upon the relevance of the Cosmic Egg, a unitary and idyllic state of being at the
dawn of the universe when the masculine and feminine principles were combined and
therefore complementary to one another. The Goddess cults of the New Age movement,
on the other hand, are designed to castrate the male once and for all and to sow division
between the sexes. Not merely in a political sense, through feminism, but more
importantly by eroding the Primordial Tradition and bringing upon us the Kali Yuga or
Age of Iron.

We have already established that the energies of the Andraste ley line are Tellurian in
nature, but what does that really mean? The word ‘Tellurian’ comes from the Latin
tellus , meaning earth, and represents far more than a useful form of terminology to
describe the Southerly, Lunar and Cthonic forces. There is also such a thing as a
‘Tellurian current’ which flows underground through the sea. This takes the form of an
electrical charge emanating directly from the Earth’s crust and is caused by changes in
the Earth’s magnetic field. This is why the word ‘magnet’ was not intended as a
metaphor. Tellurian currents are a scientific phenomenon and are influenced by the way
the magnetosphere shields the Earth from solar winds. On the one hand, of course, this
could be interpreted as a positive thing, but on the other hand, the denial or suppression
of the Solar could be part of a wider cosmological strategy to facilitate the rise of the
Tellurian current itself. Wind, of course, is also connected with the power of Woden. In
the world of fiction, meanwhile, Umberto Eco’s novel, Foucault’s Pendulum , also
mentions this Tellurian current, with the Knights Templar striving to tap the hidden
properties of these secret energy flows in order to control the destiny of the world.

We certainly need to do a lot more research into these matters, but it is interesting to
note that another key ley line exists in the same area. Close to Beachy Head is the
Afriston ley line, which unites sacred sites at Alciston, Alfriston and Friston. Running
from north-west to south-east along a seven-mile intersection, the Alfriston ley takes in
a range of important burial sites, including two sarsen stones at Alciston, an ancient
cross-roads near the river Cuckmere, Hollow Hill (‘hallow’ = grave) at Alfriston where
150 Anglo-Saxon graves were found in 1912, the ‘Alfriston Stone’ set into a garden
wall beside the local post office, and a stone pillar known locally as ‘the Cross Stone’.
Another four sarsen stones can be found at nearby St. Andrew’s Church, from which a
local dowser – Colin Bloy – was able to detect eight concentric bands of flowing
energy. This went down the southern aisle of the church, over the church wall and
through the ‘Cross Stone’ mentioned above. During the Medieval period, local villagers
also saw four oxen sitting back to back on the nearby mound in the shape of a cross.
John Michell’s View Over Atlantis [Ballantine Books, 1972] also mentions an animal
mural in the church which depicts St. Catherine as a dragon. The image of the dragon,
of course, is synonymous with ley lines. The Alfriston ley continues through a long
 barrow close to the village of Litlington, through Friston Forest and on to Friston
church. The nearby Star Inn also has dragon iconography on its walls and there are
rumours of an underground passage stretching three miles to the sea. The pub also
houses a carving depicting two serpents with their tails entwined, which could be
interpreted as the symbol of Aquarius. A second carving shows two animals climbing a
caduceus, which is the ancient symbol of the Greek god of healing, Asklepios. Contrast
the healing nature of this symbol and the underground passage to the sea at Friston, with
the immediate death and destruction at Beachy Head. According to Cornelius Agrippa,
the caduceus also symbolises the transportation of Mercury “the quicksilver deity that
hovers over the straight tracks and standing stones ”. The symbolism, therefore, is
decidedly Solar, and even the pub sign, with its yellow sun-star, fulfils this trend.

To conclude, I strongly believe that Beachy Head is one of the most negative points in
the British Isles and that something quite cataclysmic is taking place beyond the gaze of
the ordinary masses. We have long known that an Occult war is taking place on this
historic island of ours and the only way that we can counteract this process is by re-
energising the more authentic points which concord with our spiritual and psychological
heritage. The Alfriston ley is perhaps our salvation in this regard and it does seem as
though this relatively unexplored centre of positive energy can provide us with an
alternative to the decay and degeneration of the Andraste line. But meanwhile, it is
time to raise the banner of the Northern Sun against the Lunar-centred darkness
that envelops our land.

Troy Southgate is a National-Anarchist who had been publishing articles and booklets
for over twenty years. He is currently Editor of the Synthesis www.rosenoire.org
website and educates his four children at home. Troy is also a vocalist and musician
with the Anglo-Dutch group, H.E.R.R., the Anglo-German group, Seelenlicht and has
provided vocals for Survival Unit (Sweden), Erich Zahn (Holland), Horologium
(Poland) and Sistrenatus (Canada).