Editing Ley line (section)

====Schism in the community====
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| quote = From one perspective, the tale of ley-hunting is one of a classic modern religious movement, arising with an apocalyptic language which appropriated some of the tropes of evangelical Christianity, flourished for a brief time, and then subsided into a set of motifs and assumptions retained by a particular subculture of believers. From another, it is a frustrating tale of missed opportunities. The neglect of landscape and sensory experience by mainstream archaeology in the mid twentieth century was indeed a serious omission, which earth mysteries researchers could well have remedied to the lasting benefit of knowledge{{nbsp}}[...] Misled by a fixed and dogmatic set of ideas, however, they passed this by to focus on an attempted proof of beliefs which were ultimately based on faith alone.
| source=Historian [[Ronald Hutton]], 2013{{sfn|Hutton|2013|pp=141–142}}
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Williamson and Bellamy's book brought two different responses from the ley hunter community.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}} Some maintained that even if the presence of earth energies running through ley lines could not be demonstrated with empirical evidence and rational argumentation, this did not matter; for them, a belief in ley lines was an act of faith, and in their view archaeologists were too narrow-minded to comprehend this reality.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}} The other approach was to further engage archaeologists by seeking out new data and arguments to bolster their beliefs in ley lines.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}} Hutton noted that this pulled along "a potential fissure between rationalism and mysticism which had always been inherent in the movement".{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}}

In 1989, a book that Devereux had co-written with Nigel Pennick, ''Lines on the Landscape'', was published.{{sfnm|1a1=Hutton|1y=1991|1p=123|2a1=Hutton|2y=2013|2p=140}} It laid aside ideas of leys representing channels for earth energy, noting that this was beyond the realm of scientific verification, and instead focused on trying to build a case for ley lines that archaeologists could engage with.{{sfn|Hutton|1991|p=123}} In particular, it drew attention to ethnographically recorded beliefs in the importance of lines running through the landscape in various communities around the world, proposing these as ethnographic comparisons for what might have occurred in prehistoric Britain.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}} Hutton called the book "an important development", for it was "by far the most well-researched, intelligently written and beautifully produced work yet published on leys".{{sfn|Hutton|1991|p=123}} Devereux pursued this approach in a series of further books.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=140}}

Reflecting his move towards archaeology, in 1991, Devereux published an article on sightlines from the prehistoric site of [[Silbury Hill]], [[Wiltshire]] in ''Antiquity''.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} By the 1990s, British archaeology had become more open to ideas about language and cognition, topics that Earth Mysteries enthusiasts had long been interested in.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} A prominent example of this was the work of [[Christopher Tilley]], who devised the idea of [[Phenomenology (archaeology)|phenomenology]], or using human senses to experience a landscape as a means of trying to ascertain how past societies would have done the same.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}}

The ''Ley Hunter'' magazine ceased publication in 1999.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} Its last editor, Danny Sullivan, stated that the idea of leys was "dead".{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} Hutton suggested that some of the enthusiasm formerly directed toward leys was instead directed toward archaeo-astronomy.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=151}} He also noted that the ley hunting community had "functioned as an indispensable training ground for a small but important group of non-academic scholars who have made a genuine contribution to the study of folklore and mythology."{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=142}} Pennick for instance went on to write a range of short books and pamphlets on European folklore.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} Another prominent ley hunter, Bob Trubshaw, also wrote several books on these subjects and served as a publisher for others.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}} Jeremy Harte, editor of ''Wessex Earth Mysteries'', subsequently produced several books on folklore; his book on British [[fairy]] lore later won the [[Folklore Society]]'s annual prize.{{sfn|Hutton|2013|p=141}}