I'm sitting here, with my notes from my last little jaunt around the countryside, wondering where to start. "Could you do an article on psychic vandalism," I'm asked. "Surely", I reply, all the while wondering how to tackle the simple issue of intent.

But let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

This entire piece came about after a particularly fine ranting session, which resulted from the jaunt for which I was making the aforementioned notes. During that jaunt, some friends and I visited a series of sacred sites, starting with the White Horse at Uffington and ending with Glastonbury Tor, taking in Wayland's Smithy, the Rollright Stones, West Kennet Longbarrow and Avebury in between. It was 48 hours of bedlam. The White Horse was as difficult to see and as lovely as ever, and we had a fine time in the windy darkness on top of the Tor, but there were certain things at the other sites that gave us cause to be a little more than angry.

When we say vandalism, we immediately think of such things as broken windows and spray painted graffiti. When we mention vandalism in connection with sacred sites, we might think of people who light fires against stones to crack them, or people who daub pseudo-mystical sigils all over stones with white paint. This is intentional vandalism (although, as I will point out in a moment, the latter of these two might not have been strictly intentional in the context of vandalism).

The major problem facing most sacred sites is unintentional vandalism. Now, I do not mean that the damage done is unintentional, what I mean is that the intention behind the damage was not the damage itself. At Wayland's Smithy, for instance, we found no fewer than 14 pentagrams inscribed on the stones, using chalk that appeared to have been taken from the White Horse. There were the blackened remains of seven fires around the barrow, and a small fire appeared to have been lit at the back of the chamber. I removed two screws and a coin from indentations in the entrance stones, and there was a surprising (to me anyway) amount of ritual debris - incense remains, candle wax, night light holders etc etc.

This is vandalism in the sense that it causes permanent damage. The chalk markings had in places been put on lichen, and had actually removed some of the growth. Anyone who knows anything about lichen knows how long they take to grow, and that this sort of damage is irreversible. The soot and fire damage will also leave permanent scars. But is it intentional?

Sadly, I think the vast majority of the people who leave ritual debris at sites do so without a thought for the consequences. They see it as their inalienable right, as pagans, to perform their rituals, and perhaps even see the aftermath as contributing to the 'growth' of the site. They may not see it as damage at all. Thus I can only describe it as unintentional vandalism, because the intent behind these acts has nothing to do with damaging the site, indeed may even be to honour the site and its spirits.

Now that we have the idea of intent out of the way, as intent is a crucial factor in the point of this essay, let's turn our attention to the issue of what has been described as "psychic vandalism". I will immediately state that this is not how the label I would assign to this phenomenon, but I cannot think of another off the top of my head. Perhaps one will suggest itself to me during the course of writing this.

Every site has a pattern, if you will. What makes up this pattern is one of those questions that is very difficult to answer, but it is part of this pattern that turns a dowser's rods. It is an energetic pattern, and so may be made of electromagnetic energy, or it may be something completely different. Whatever it is made of, every site has one. Not just sites, either. Every person, every plant, every rock - all things have an innate pattern. The pattern of a site is determined by the pattern of the location in which it is built, the original intent of the people who built it, the cumulative intents of those who have used it, and the nature of the spirits and the beings that live there. A site with a Guardian will have a very different feel, for the sensitive, from a site that has no Guardian, and that holds true for both human and non-human Guardians. The pattern is affected by the motives and actions of those who visit, and, of course, by physical changes to the site. Thus, for me, Stonehenge, while being an undeniably powerful place, has too many decades of tourism and strife etched into its original pattern, and I cannot feel the call of the Mother Goddess at Avebury, for the pattern is irreparably cracked and fractured and I suffer intense headaches whenever I am near the inner circle.

The problem is that many people seem to approach their rituals with an energetic attitude that is remarkably similar to the physical attitude of those whose debris we encountered at the sites mentioned at the start. With nary a thought for the nature of the site and its own pattern, they blithely charge ahead and cast circles and spirals and change the connections of the energy lines, putting up shields walls and dome barriers and leaving sticky traces of the work they have done. I was once incensed to visit the Rollrights and discover that someone had performed a ritual that involved disconnecting the stones from their normal links with each other, each to its neighbours and thence to all the rest, and had created a spoked wheel effect, with lines coming from each of the stones to a small circle in the centre that appeared to act as a hub. There was also a spiral affair, and a dome fed from the node at the circle centre. The dome had a different source pattern from the spiral and the wheel, meaning that it had been created by a different group. The site's unhappiness at this state of being was more than evident to myself and those accompanying me, with the stones appearing far smaller as they tried to get closer to one another to make up for the lack of links between them, and it took some time to put the situation right.

While I personally feel that there is no reason to change the nature of a site at all, for any purpose, with the simple observation that, if the site is not of a nature conducive to the ritual already then you should not, surely, be performing it there at all, failing to remove all changes is unforgivable. The ASLAN charter applies to the pattern of a site as much as to the physical character, or if it does not, then it should (at least in my not so humble opinion).

I am, however, one of these incorrigible folks who do not believe in casting circle at sacred sites (or anywhere, to tell the truth, but particularly not at sacred sites). I understand all the reasons for one to feel that casting a boundary is A Good Thing, but do not agree with any of them. I have always thought that the reason for performing magical workings at sacred sites was for the site's energies to complement and aid the working. If the first thing one does is change the nature of those energies by casting a circle, then it is defeating the object of travelling there in the first place. If the first thing one does is change the energies of the site in any way, then surely the point of being there is immediately lost. It is also very difficult to remove all traces of an energetic change. I have found traces of workings even when those present at the working have assured me that everything was removed properly and nothing was left behind.

Trace remnants, however, do not concern me nearly so much as the attitude of those who make massive energetic changes without even considering that they may actually be damaging the site for those who come after. This is where the point of intent comes in. Those that perform these rites are not doing so in order to cause damage, in many cases they are doing it to honour the site. I remember with some pleasure the ritual that was designed to create a Guardian for a site, only it was done without direct inquiry as to whether the site itself would find this compatible. The Guardian did not last long, and the next time I visited Dragon at that place He was looking rather plump and smug. The intent of this group was honourable, was praiseworthy, indeed, but they again marched in without consideration for the existent energies and how they might have been affected, and whether the site and its existing Guardian, Dragon, would co-operate with those changes.

The point of this entire piece is, no matter what your intent, no matter how honourable and decent, if the working is incompatible with the nature of the site, if the site is there merely to provide an energetic and scenic backdrop for your magical rites, if you must spend time changing the nature of the site in order to make it compatible, then I believe that you are doing the working in the wrong place. It is the height of rudeness to go to a place, banish all from within a circle and then invite back the influences you want and exclude those you feel are incompatible. Those energies belong to the site, are part of its nature. It is you who is in the wrong place, not them.

Workings can be tailored to be compatible with a site. Try working without any form of boundary, perhaps something minor. Try asking the site directly how you would be best advised to go about a working at that location. Research your ritual materials. Go to your chosen place before performing or even writing the ritual and ask what would best achieve your aims. Make room for all aspects of the site in your workings. Observe the energies, get a feel for the nature of the site. Think about your plans and ask if any of them would interfere with the site energies. You may not think that something would affect the site when in actual fact it would. Above all, listen to what you are told, listen and feel for the impressions and replies that you will get and be aware of your own desires, so that you do not colour what you are told with wishful thinking in interpretation. This is, perhaps, the hardest part. If you tailor your work to be compatible with the site, instead of fighting the nature of the site to make it compatible with your work, then not only will you leave the site unchanged, feeling loved and content rather than simply used, you will find that your workings take on a whole new meaning. If you feel you cannot work without boundaries and energetic constructs, and the original site boundary just is not enough for you, consider moving your workings to a different location, with a neutral energy background. If you use this same spot time after time, you will find that the energies change to resonate and reflect the work you do, and it will be much easier and more profound. You will not be fighting the place, and you will not be fighting the trace remnants left by countless others in their quest for energetic compatibility.

I married my husband at the Rollrights. We deliberately did not include a circle casting in the ceremony, and we deliberately welcomed all those, both flesh and spirit, who wished to be part of the celebrations. We trusted the site, let the site host our ceremony, for that was, after all, why we had chosen that place to be wed. To do anything less than give that trust in return for the privilege of being married there would have been the greatest discourtesy. I maintain the same principle no matter at which site I work. It is a privilege, not a right. These sites deserve respect in the physical and the magical sense, and while physical debris may be more visible, in principle energetic debris is no different. If you are one of those who feel there is nothing wrong in pushing coins and screws into the indentations in stones, if you are one of those who are not concerned about leaving dead nightlights, incense sticks, fire remains, ritual tools and objects, and soot blackening at and inside sites, if you are one of those who think that it is their inalienable right to perform what ritual they wish where they wish and how they wish with no thought for conservation then my pleas are probably falling on deaf ears. And yes, I am one of those who remove your rubbish (and is continually surprised and saddened by how much of it there is). And, no, I am not afraid of what you will do to me, before you ask.

If, on the other hand, you also find yourself dismayed and angered by those who litter sites with their debris, but have never thought about the energetic equivalent, I ask you please to consider it. Please, just once, try asking the site and doing without the boundaries and barriers and energetic constructs. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised.