EIGHTEEN
The Temple of Mithras
In common with the village of Rennes-le-Château, in France, Roslin, in Scotland, has been identified, by those who purport to know about such things, as straddling the meeting point of two sacred ley lines. Ley lines were officially ‘rediscovered’ by Alfred Watkins, a Herefordshire businessman, who in 1921 was perusing a map and noticed that a series of historical points of interest were situated upon a straight line. After much deliberation, his conclusion was that the entire world is connected with a series of mathematically regulated, invisible tracks that have a complex power in the ground and serve to link sacred places and natural magical sites.
Four years later he wrote a book on the subject, and thereafter his theories were taken up and expanded upon by several writers and notable New Age scientists, culminating in their being linked with UFO sightings and the ancient Chinese art of feng shui. As one might expect when one ventures into this kind of esoteric existentialism, it did not take long for somebody to claim that sudden upsurges of energy have, from time to time, been experienced within the village of Roslin and the nearby chapel.
The Revd Michael Fass, priest in charge of the congregation of St Matthew at Rosslyn Chapel, recalls standing before the transept when a visitor approached and angrily informed him that he was standing in her space. ‘I did not have a clue what she was talking about!’ he said. ‘Was this not “our” space; the church in which we worship? And then she went on to say, “I have come a long way to stand on this spot where many ley lines meet, so please move over.” ’ The Revd Fass was unimpressed. ‘That she should come into God’s space and warn me off! Typical New Ager!’1
What serves only to excite this concept of a geometrical ground plan of the universe is the series of carvings of spirals, commonly known as ‘cup’ or ‘ring’ marks, to be found in Roslin Glen below the chapel. Some say that they too are representational of energy points on the surface of our plane of existence. Even a survey conducted by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland concludes that they are ‘most unusual’. I was naturally intrigued by these markings in the glen which turned out, when I eventually managed to find them, to be a series of naive triangles, spirals and circles. To my eye they look aboriginal, but then my reaction, to say the least, is jaundiced. I hate to be a spoilsport, but in the same genre as the recurring fad for discovering crop circles, who is to prove that they were not the work of a local prankster?
Not so, according to the investigation conducted by VG Childe and John Taylor in 1938, and confirmed by Professor Breuil, co-author of Rock Paintings of Southern Andalusia. Childe and Taylor write that the techniques of their execution suggest the Hawthornden Scribings, as they describe them, should be added to the well-known series of memorials of Scottish Bronze Age art represented by ‘cup-and-ring’ markings. But, they caution, there are conspicuous differences, the most obvious being the complete absence of ‘cups’. ‘All the markings have been executed by pecking’, they observed. ‘We can detect no technical differences save in the quality of the rock, between the “alphabetical” signs (f and g) and the spirals and circles.’2 Having established close stylistic affinities between the Irish Bronze Age and the conventional paintings of the Iberian peninsula, their conclusion is that these ‘scribings’ are of Irish origin, which does not sound nearly as exotic, but makes sense in the light of the early Celtic settlements which existed throughout Midlothian.
Online discussion occasionally takes place about these findings on the Internet, but I would firmly caution those considering further investigation. The necessary excursion involves crossing the River North Esk and climbing up a dangerous, muddy bank before even reaching anywhere close to where they are located. Even then, the patterns are exceedingly hard to see because the surfaces are largely covered over by moss or overhanging vegetation. To reach the shelf on which they lie requires a sensible degree of mountaineering skill.
Inevitably, Rosslyn does attract more than its fair share of odd-balls. Staff in the chapel shop were recently alarmed when a man burst in and shouted out, ‘Give me a match and I will burn the debts of the world!’ The following day he was found making offerings on the altar, and it was later revealed that he had been sleeping rough in Wallace’s Cave. ‘You get used to it’, I was told. ‘Somebody once turned up claiming that he was the brother of Sarah Michelle Gellar, the girl who plays the lead in the American television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He wanted to know if there were any jobs going in the graveyard!’
Nonsense or not, there is definitely something about this place which consistently draws upon human sensitivities, in particular the great yearning shared by so many of us to find some inner truth as to what our existence is all about. More than one visitor has observed that what they have felt at Rosslyn, a sensation that it is not of this world, is undeniable. That it plays with the mind is obvious.
Another supposition, often voiced, is that the mound upon which the first St Clair castle, and later the chapel, was erected, was once the sacred centre of the kingdom of the ancient Picts, who also excavated the caves within the glen. It is also claimed that on this spot the Romans who invaded Scotland in or around the first and second century AD, built a temple, which they dedicated to Mithras, god of prosperity, lord of the skies, and judger of souls. Mithras was the deity of the Roman soldiers dedicated to ‘Duty’. He was worshipped in silence.
Some years ago, Niven Sinclair, founder member of the Friends of Rosslyn Chapel, who has dedicated his life to an investigation of his ancestor’s creation, invited Professor Lun Yin, a prominent Buddhist, to accompany him on a tour, and claims to have been astounded by his reaction. Of all the temples and cathedrals the professor had been to see throughout the world, he said that he had never found anywhere with the same ‘earth energy’ as Rosslyn. He had brought with him a group of his followers, including severalfeng shui experts from Mongolia, Korea, Malaysia and Japan. Before they dispersed, it was suggested to Niven that the boundary wall to the east of the chapel, the one constructed by General Sir James St Clair in 1736, be forcibly removed, because it was preventing the ground energy from reaching into the chapel from the glen below. To date, this advice has been ignored.
In 1997, investigative holes were dug and one revealed an underground passageway leading from the chapel, under Gardener’s Brae to Rosslyn Castle, which is some considerable distance away. At the time, the tunnel was described as being huge and very deep underground at the point where it enters under the chapel’s foundations.
The steps that descend into the crypt from the main chapel end on a modern floor, but there is thought to be yet another flight of steep steps concealed beneath, leading in the opposite direction under the main building to a vault lying directly underneath the engrailed cross in the chapel roof. According to Niven, the passageway to begin with is 3 feet wide and 5 feet high where it emerges below the south door, its ceiling 8½ feet below ground level. After a straight run of approximately 25 feet, it turns 90 degrees towards the east and drops down the hillside with its roof 12½ feet below ground level. It then continues under the field towards the castle.
Fascinating though this discovery is, the Rosslyn Chapel Trust and Historic Scotland are now in general agreement that in future ground scans and similar investigations should not be carried out unless strictly necessary for conservation purposes. The consensus was that such interference would not only be damaging to the fabric of the chapel, but could prove detrimental to its reputation were there found to be nothing there. However, it is difficult to suppress the groundswell of curiosity that continues to envelope Rosslyn.
Secret passages and priest holes were commonplace in Catholic houses throughout Scotland, but coupled with the rumours of a lost treasure, secret societies, mediaeval knights, holy reliquaries, metaphysical goings on and the supernatural, is there anything left for Rosslyn to be associated with? Well, of course, there is always Gotham City, from the realms of comicbook fiction. In 1998, under the inspirational invention of writers Alan Grant and Frank Quitely, and courtesy of publishers DC Comics, the legendary caped crusader Batman, otherwise known as Bruce Wayne, descends upon the chapel to discover a hypnotic amulet hidden in a secret vault. All that is needed now is a visitation from Superman, Spiderman, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Austin Powers.