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GHOSTS

MYTHS

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Boleskine House Rosalin Chapel The Vaults

Boleskine House

The house - now a private residence - dates from the 19th century, and is famous for its association with Aleister Crowley, the most notorious magician of all time.

Boleskine served as Crowley's retreat during 1900, when he was engaged in the magical sequence of Abramelin, which concluded with the contact of ones holy guardian angel. The ritual was a long elaborate affair consisting of several weeks of purification and ritual work. Boleskine was chosen by Crowley because it fitted a number of factors crucial to the operation.

It seems that Crowley caused quite a stir while he was there. If his writings are to be believed, his experiments in magic were not completely successful and resulted in some disturbing phenomena that was to send one of his housemaids mad, and lead to the house becoming haunted by strange entities.

Until relatively recently the house was owned by the rock guitarist Jimmy Page, who is also an avid collector of Crowley memorabilia.

There is a graveyard situated across from the property, which may have had a reputation for strangeness before Crowley's occupation. One legend (which may or may not date before Crowley) suggests that a tunnel exists linking Boleskine to the graveyard, and the graveyard is said to be the haunt of witches. Many burial places within the Highlands have similar superstitions attached to them, perhaps denoting ancient corpse ways and spirit tracks, along which the soul was believed to travel.

Rosalin Chapel, Lothian Region

In Roslin Chapelstands a most remarkable carved pillar, known as the "Prentice Pillar". It is said that the design for the chapel pillars was created by the local master mason, but the scheme was so intricate that he did not have the skills to carve them. So he travelled abroad in an attempt to learn the necessary expertise. On his return, however, he found that his apprentice had completed the first pillar and, on their Lord's instructions, had hidden the secret Grail within it. In a fit of jealous rage, the mason killed the poor boy! The murderer had, however, failed to learn the continental skills he had hoped for and, with the talented apprentice dead, the "Prentice Pillar" remained unique.

Roslin Chapel Basement

The Vaults, Edinburgh

The maze of vaults under the city have played host to numerous reports of hauntings within them from a Brown Lady who has appeared next to pregnant women ; to an angry drunk man who doesn't seem to understand why all the people are visting ! Other common experiences within the vaults are various scents throughout the tour. Most popularly, leather and alcohol !

The Vaults has received a great amount of television exposure, the most popular of which was an experiment of placing students within seperate vaults, armed with video cameras and a good pair of lungs ! There is an unbelievable atmosphere in The Vaults, and it would be no surprise if there was concrete evidence of them being haunted

Mary King's Close, Edinburgh

This is possibly the most publicised haunted site in Edinburgh, and attracts thousands of visitors every year underneath the Edinburgh City Chambers. Mary King's Close runs North to South across the Royal Mile, parallel with Anchor Close. You can see the doorway from standing on Cockburn Street, but nothing can compare to walk up the close itself.

The Close was once the home to Edinburgh's devasted plague victims, and this is what is believed to have left Mary King's Close a lively supernatural site. It is believed that plague victims were boarded within the Close, and left to die. It was some time after the plague had cleared before Mary King's Close was to opened up again, and to a gruesome sight.

The carcasses within Mary King's Close had rotted to an extent that the flesh was hanging from the bodies. Since the Close lies on such slope, there had to be a solution to removing the hundreds of bodies from the Close. Two men were brought in to do the job, armed with axes and wheelbarrows, their trade - butchers.

After the Close was cleared, a Mr and Mrs Coldhart were the first people to move in. Stories of floating body parts and apparitions of severed heads soon became heard around Edinburgh, and there began the hauntings of Mary King's Close.

The Brahan Seer

Kenneth the Sallow (Coinneach Odhar) was born 300 years ago in the Highlands of Scotland. He was gifted with "the sight" - an ability to see visions that came unbidden day or night. His prophecies were so impressive that he is still quoted to this day.

These came true
Some of his prophetic visions that have actually come true in the years following his death include:
1. The battle of Culloden (1745), which he uttered at the site, and his words were recorded. "This bleak moor, ere many generations have passed, shall be stained with the best blood in Scotland. Glad I am that I will not see that day."
2. The joining of the lochs in the Great Glen = accomplished by the construction of the Caledonian Canal in the 19th Century.
3. Pointing to a field far from seashore, loch or river, he said that a ship would anchor there one day. The canal did not come near the spot, so folk decided this prophecy must be incorrect until one day in the 1930s an Airship did indeed tie up there.
4. The most impressive of his prophecies concerned the doom of the Mackenzies of Seaforth. You can read about this in the book "Scottish Lore and Folklore" by Ronald Douglas

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