Who knew there was a connection between lightning and big stones called menhirs?

I sure didn't. But since I began studying with European Master Builder, Dominique Susani, I found a fascinating correspondence to big stones erected by the Neolithic people and thunder and lightning in the sky. This interest was sparked by a visit to see one of the biggest Menhirs in Brittany, France.

Kerloas Menhir is 9.50 meters high. That's about 30 feet tall, and when it was erected, it was even taller! It stood at 12 meters or around 36 feet tall. The story was that it was broken by a lightning strike. But as Dominique began to explain to me, that couldn't have possibly happened to a menhir.

First of all, what is a Menhir?

The word itself comes from 19th-century archaeologists, who adopted it from a couple of words in the Breton language of France. Men means stone, and hir means long. Brittany is a place in France that is full of menhirs. There are over 11,000 of them. The Neolithic people erected menhirs and, as I was learning, served an essential purpose. 

From the perspective of ancient man, thunder and lightning were extremely scary. The deafening sound of thunder was terrifying, and then there are the disruptive effects of lightning. Ancient man had much to fear from lightning strikes, from forest fires that could burn out of control to the killing or injuring of people and animals.

So what if these people from the past found a way to keep the lightning away from their village?

That would be worth the effort of erecting a big standing stone. Let's take a look at why lightning strikes in certain places. It has to do with the earth energy below our feet. 

It is well known that water veins carry and generate electricity. When two water veins cross, they cause an exchange of electrons between them called a potential differential. When there is an electrical storm in the area, this crossing of water veins generates lightning from the earth, which calls for lightning from the clouds. It acts as a lightning rod.

Let's explore now explore what the connection menhirs have with lightning.

Traditionally Menhirs were placed on a crossing of two water veins. An excellent example of this is Kerloas Menhir. After we dowsed the earth energy around it, we found it was placed over a crossing of two large water veins and two faults. 

Placing a huge stone over the water vein crossings has the effect of discharging the electrical energy in the area. That's the primary job of a menhir, to continuously release the electrical energy of a place. By doing this, lightning won't be called to the earth from the clouds anymore. There is no longer an electrical energy charge to hit anymore.

So the story of the lightning strike and the menhir's piece broken by lightning strike must not be true, because we found the Kerloas Menhir was erected in a place to discharge all this electrical energy.

I didn't understand how a menhir could do this, so Dominique told me a couple of interesting real-life stories.

The first one involves chickens. Dominique once designed a chicken coop with the measurements of the solsticial quadrilateral, a fundamental measurement for Master Builders. The chickens in this coop were happy; they grew faster and produced more eggs than a regular chicken coop. Then there was a big storm, and lightning struck the iron feeding chute next to the coop and followed the metal through the coop and went out the other side. 

This strike affected the subterranean water veins and faults running under the coop. Water veins and faults are the main conduit of electricity and became supercharged with electricity when lightning hits. This affected the chickens, and they started laying eggs that were oddly shaped like they were squeezed tight in the middle.

After a week of strange eggs, Dominique was called in to help with this problem. Since there was no way to quickly dissipate this static electrical energy, he needed to manually do this by placing a menhir on a crossing of water veins and faults that were being affected by this excess energy. After he placed the menhir, the electrical energy dissipated, and the chickens went back to laying their normal-looking eggs.

We don't know how long the water veins and faults are charged after a lightning strike, but we do know that menhirs continuously discharge this excess electrical energy. This knowledge and ability was useful to the Neolithic people. They were able to create a safe place for their village and animals. In the case of the Kerloas Menhir, this effect could affect an area several kilometers in diameter. 

Dominique told me another menhir story.

During a class, one man wanted Dominique to erect a menhir in his yard. Over the years, his yard was regularly struck by lightning and wanted to do something about it. After placing a menhir in the man's yard, the lightning never struck in his yard again; it moved elsewhere. This menhir protected an area with a radius of around 50 meters from its placement.

Placing a menhir is more complicated than just putting it over a water vein crossing.

Standing stones need to be appropriately oriented. For example, did you know that there is a cosmic side to stones and a telluric or earth side? You need to place the telluric side in the ground and position the cosmic side up to the heavens. 

That is not all; there is also a magnetic north orientation that needs to be taken into account. At the moment when a stone is formed, it becomes aligned to the earth's magnetic north at that particular point in time. The earth also oriented to the magnetic north, which has changed throughout time. When you erect a standing stone, you need to align the magnetic north of the stone to the magnetic north of the stone. 

Finally, there is a sweet spot of alignment for the stone.

What this means is that stones are not always aligned vertically. Most of the time, they are leaning slightly to one side, and this alignment opens the energy of our energy system. We can feel this in our body through body dowsing in our central channel (imagine a tube inside your body from the perineum to the crown). The energy circulates energy freely from the earth to the cosmos when a standing stone is aligned correctly.

It is a bit tricky to find the correct alignment of the stone. Training in body dowsing and feeling subtle energies is needed to get it right. It is part of our in-person training in our certifications, weekend workshops, and tours. We also invite you to learn more about menhirs in our upcoming online class, called Stones, Energies, and Sacred Places.