Telluric Symbols in the Landscape

The benefit of having a dog is that he does force me out into the fields and woods for a walk, even when I want to be a lounge lizard on a cold and wintry day.

Not so last summer, which was long and hot. It was then, when out with rods and pendulum, Harley and I found something strange. I was on my usual search for Energy Drains in the Landscape and dowsing for on/off switches (for more on this see energy drains DD article 2, but this was a completely different phenomenon to these drains — these were symbols, or telluric symbols, out in the countryside.

The first one I found was out in an open field, or in fact, Harley found it, as for some strange reason he just decided to sit down on it, which I thought odd. Dowsing around, I found no special energy lines nor intersections of lines. As it was on a regular walk, each time I passed by I’d check, and the rods would lead me on a peculiar ‘dance’, in that I’d cross the area but then they’d lead me straight back again within a few paces, and then away again and back.

Then I remembered one of our previous members in Devon Dowsers, Gunther Schneck, who lived in Bideford, talking about his investigation into telluric symbols and how they are in no way connected to the energy lines that we normally dowse, but sit in splendid isolation, unconnected to them.

They are not like the ones that Hamish Miller and others have found, of stars and other shapes distributed at points along an energy line, but they are ‘power points’ of energy coming up out of the ground and reside in an oval or egg-shaped outline that measures about 2 m to 2.5 m long.

Within this oval shape sits a symbol that’s always about 80 cm long, which always seems to have a different quality and effect upon us humans. This energy radiates out from the broader end of the oval for a number of metres in a short horizontal ‘energy line’ that does not connect with anything.

I have been finding these symbols out in the fields and countryside, first detecting them with the rods, but then identifying each symbol using a pendulum to mark out the twists and turns of it inside the oval. The one above is the telluric symbol for joy, with an energy ‘beam’ of this quality emanating out for about 8 metres.

It was Gunther Schneck who first made the connection between the ancient rock carvings of Extern Steine (the German Stonehenge) in his homeland and the runic characters of prehistory, which in turn are very similar to telluric symbols, which he also found. He later wrote on this in the DD Magazine of 2005, issue no. 23.

He reasoned that the rock carving symbols, usually found on north faces, have different effects on the human psyche and were put there to influence prehistoric peoples. One carving can radiate the feeling of joy and happiness, another the feeling of increase, another protection, and so on; and telluric symbols, unseen in the landscape, seem to act in the same way if you stand in the short ‘beam’ of energy.

To find them it’s quite easy: just go out into a field and ask if one is there. If yes, then ask for its direction, then walk a bit more and ask for the direction again. Then go to where the two lines cross and use one rod to trace out the oval. One end should be slightly broader and have an energy beam going out from it. The tricky bit is tracing out the symbol with a pendulum; however, I find it very difficult and have to do it several times.

The picture of the ovals (to the side) are computer drawn but should be slightly broader at the bottom than the top.)

I find it amazing that different ‘feelings’, or energy, can emanate out of Mother Earth to affect us in this way. I’ve long since stopped asking ‘why’. Clearly our ancient predecessors were tuned into this.

Even more amazing, I find that if you draw out any one of these symbols, like joy, onto a clean A4 sheet of paper, one can feel ‘joyfulness’ if you sit beside it in its ‘beam’.

If you draw this symbol out with a felt-tip pen and position the A4 sheet in an east–west direction with the broader end of the oval facing west, you should be able to dowse the energy beam coming out from the symbol. Sit yourself on a chair near this symbol and you should be able to notice a positive effect on your mood.

Then choose another symbol to test the difference.

My very badly drawn sketch (alongside) attempts to show the recipient of the energy beam sitting about a metre away from a table with an A4 sheet orientated in an east/west direction. This effect should last up to four hours, but when the energy is ‘used up’, another clean sheet of paper is needed and a new symbol within an oval drawn.

You cannot have two symbols together. Equally, the sheet of paper can be attached to the north wall of a room in your house for a similar effect, as in rock carvings from thousands of years ago.

It may be that the act of carving symbols into rock (and the carver’s intent) caused a more lasting beneficial effect in the surrounding area than just a felt-tip drawing on paper.

For example, after the DD visit to Tintagel in Cornwall in April 2013 for our 30th anniversary, many of us on the way home visited Rocky Valley on the north coast. Halfway down the path to the sea are two carved labyrinths in the vertical rock face, and notably these are on the north side of the valley.

The iron plaque placed there, denoting them as a National Monument, dates them to the Early Bronze Age, at about 1200 to 1400 BC. Several of us finger-traced the labyrinths or placed our hands over them and could feel the energy.

Again, like Energy Drains scattered around our landscape, I leave it to others to go out, investigate, and find some examples nearby to them.

Richard Sears
January 2026