THE HANGING

ANGEL of

ROSSLYN

CHAPEL

"Rosslyn Chapel is touted as being one of the most mysterious places in Scotland, especially with the current gloat of books purporting to show how hidden secrets lurk within every crack of stone at this venerated place. Anybody who has ever visited the chapel may feel that it deserves its current status, and I must confess the atmosphere even on a busy day is something to be experienced. The exquisite carvings are some of the best in the whole of Europe, and portray scenes not found in any other 15th century chapel. It has become a kind of Mecca to those interested in the mysteries of life, and contains many carvings relevant to biblical, masonic, pagan and Knights Templar themes."

This quote is from the Mysterious Britain web-site's article on Rosslyn Chapel. The article goes on to say:

History

The area around Rosslyn has played an important role in the history of Scotland, and the castle was a key holding during the wars of independence. A battle was fought here in 1303, when small force of Scottish Knights defeated a larger English army three times in 24 hours.

From what can be ascertained from the scattered surviving historical references, the chapel was built for the Prince of Orkney, Sir William St Clair in 1446. The chapel being part of a large-scale project involving a cruciform structure that was never completed. The Prince of Orkney died in 1484 and was buried within the chapel.

According to Father Richard Augustine Hay, who published a study on the genealogy of the St Clairs of Rosslyn. The workers and the materials were brought from far and wide. The village of Roslin being created for the numerous stonemasons and other labourers. It was in this period that the Apprentice is supposed to have been murdered for far surpassing his master's skills. But more on that later.

The chapel did not remain in use for long, great changes in secular activity during the reformation led to the provost resigning under threat of violence, and by 1592 the altars of the chapel had been smashed in accordance with the reformation and puritanical thought. From this time onwards until the 18th century the building began to fall into ruination.

Cromwell's troops used the chapel as a stable while they were besieging nearby Roslin Castle in 1650. It is surprising they did not destroy the chapel further, as many ancient places of sanctity were destroyed by Cromwell's troops. Eight years later the chapel was attacked by an Edinburgh mob and some of the villagers from Roslin. The chapel was still seen as blatantly Catholic, and a target against idolatry, some of the interior carvings of the chapel were damaged during the rampage.

The Knight Templars

The Prince of Orkney was undoubtedly involved in the Order of the Knights Templar, who were forcibly disbanded in 1307, although they continued on in one form or another. The Templars have become embroiled in many legends of mystical significance. They were supposed to have in their possession the Holy Grail, and it has been surmised that the chapel is the hiding place for this and other religious treasures, including a fragment of the holy rood, the cross of the crucifixion. The vault, unopened for centuries is the suggested repository for these items. The vault actually contains the remains of the Sinclair ancestors, interred in full armour as was customary until one of their wives objected to the practice in the 1700's.

The chapel is also said to be a representation of Solomon's Temple, and is said to hold encoded secrets to those who are willing to work them out. Another legend suggests that if you stand on a particular step within the castle and blow a horn a treasure will be revealed, Rosslyn, it has been suggested, is the treasure.

Some of the carvings within the chapel suggest that there was an early contact with the New World 200 years before the 'discovery' of America by Columbus. The carvings depict what is thought to be an American Cactus and Indian Sweetcorn, things that should not have been known when the chapel was created. Perhaps the Templars, who travelled far and wide discovered America before Columbus.

 

 

"What," you might ask, "has the fallen angel Shemyaza got to do with the Templars and a strange haunted chapel far away in both Time and Space?" It's a question that I kept asking myself.

I've turned the picture of the carving of Shemyaza upside down to better see the details of it. The first thing that strikes me in looking at this picture is the resemblance of the figure as a whole to a chess piece -- more specifically, a pawn -- "a person or entity composed of persons used to further the purposes of another". There are two S's on either side of him. Could these represent the two S's in the name SamSon? Could they symbolize both the names Samson and Shemyaza? Clearly, they are siginificant, but we can only guess what their true meaning might be. The figure is bound in ropes, much the same as we are told Samson was bound by ropes that melted from his arms, as if by magic. But these ropes are not going away.

There is nothing 'accidental' about any of the carvings in Rosslyn. They were all designed according to the specifications of William St. Clair and carven first in wood, before the masons set to creating them in stone. What happened to these original wooden carvings remains a mystery.

In their book "The Hiram Key" Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas (two Freemasons) go on at some length about this chapel and it's connections to the pharohs and their rites of the making and burial of kings, the Knights Templar, the Temple of the New Jerusalem and Freemasonry, itself. While I don't necessarily share the validity of some of their conclusions (as some will not agree with mine), this book is a valuable read in that it discloses the relationships of these entities quite well. They do not, however, at any time mention the enigmatic carving of the Fallen Angel Shemyaza and his connections with any of this. Hopefully, what is said here might rectify and shed some light on this mystery.

As Knight and Lomas describe in their book, the initiate into Freemasonry is blindfolded and a hangman's noose put around his neck. Heretics during the Inquisition were also provided with their own hangman's noose, according to their information. I've not read of this anywhere else, but that does not mean it is true or false. The point is made in one way or another that the initiate is a 'heretic' - that is, a free-thinker. The word heretic itself comes from a Greek word that means "able to choose". Such free-thinking individuals have always been anathematized, hung, drowned or burned at the stake for their audacity in not living and thinking by the "accepted doctrines" -- most notably of the Christian Church and the Papacy. I tend to believe that the noose is an alternate to binding the initiate by the arms, as Samson was bound and as the angel in question is bound. Like Samson, the intiate is also figuratively blinded.

What Knight and Lomas don't establish in any great relevance is the relationship to the Templars and the Nazarites (i.e., the prophets and the Left Hand of God). It is hinted at in one of the more amusing statements made in the book:

"Another distant echo of current Masonic practice lies in the Templars' use of sheepskin as their only permitted form of decoration, as well as the requirement of their Rule that they were to wear tight sheepskin breeches beneath their outer clothing at all times as a symbol of innocence and chastity. It is an alarming thought in this age of personal hygiene, but these conscientious knights did not remove their breeches even to wash themselves. After a few days, let alone the many decades that many of them spent under the desert sun, their chastity must have been totally guaranteed! Whilst Freemasons today do not wear breeches, they do wear white lambskin aprons in Lodge meetings, which we were told is the badge of innocence and the emblem of friendship." ["The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, pg. 34. Fair Winds Press (USA), 2001.]

Compare this, if you will to the description of the prophet Elijah from Kings 2, 1:8:

"an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins"

It would seem then that the Knights Templar were dressing in imitation of the prophets beneath their mantles. It is the contention of these two authors that the original order of nine knights formed by Hughes de Payens in the Holy Land were NOT there to protect Christian travellers through the Holy Lands during the time of the Crusades, but that they were in fact excavating under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, looking for 'treasures' that were secreted there -- most likely by the Qumran group of Essenes (Nasoreans) in the final days of the Jewish and Roman wars. What they found there was evidently of great interest to certain people in high places. Important enough to get them a Papal Rule, or churchly constitution and grant them the status of both holy knights and monks. Not to mention a good deal of monetary support for their continued endeavors from those same 'certain people'.

Hughes de Payens, a Frenchman of noble birth, was married to Catherine St. Clair. The St. Clair (or Sinclair) family was of Norman descent, related to and Henry Sinclair of Roslin became Earl of Orkney in 1379, an office obtained from King Haco VI of Norway. Sir Henry fought beside Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn and was one of the Scottish barons who signed the "Declaration of Arbroath", which was a letter to the Pope asserting Scottish independence in 1325. The text of this declaration begins as follows:

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner.

For the remainder of the text and more information on the Sinclair family, click on the links here. The Gaelic version of the Sinclair name is "Mac na Ceardadh". In regard to their claims of being from Scythian descent.... [from Irish Clans web-site]

One of the last invasions of Ireland recorded in the book is that of the Milesians, also known as the Gaels or the Sons of Mil. These people are said to be the true ancestors of the Irish race.

The legend of the Milesians is an amazing one, and covers half the then known world. This very amended version of the story starts in Scythia, the name given by the ancient Greeks after about 800 BC to the homeland of the Scythians in the southeast part of Europe, eastward from the Carpathian Mountains to the Don River.

Scythia was ruled by the King Fenius and was the land of a nomadic people famous for their horsemanship. One day a poisonous snake bit the King's grandson Gaedhuil (Green Gael). His father, Nuil, carried the boy to the Israelites, where Moses healed him with his staff.

Moses told the boy that his descendants would travel to a land where there were no snakes, an island in fact that lay in the setting track of the sun (to the west). Later in the story after much traveling either Gaedhuil, with a new name of Milesius, or a son of Gaedhuil with this name is found in Spain. Here he has a wife named Scota who is the daughter of an Egyptian Pharoah and he is a King of the land.

Milesius had a brother named Ith, who discovered an Island. In the course of investigating whether it was the legendary Innisfail (Island of Destiny), Ith was wounded by the Tuatha de Danaan (Gaelic for People of the Goddess Danu), and died on the journey home to Spain. Upon their arrival home, the remaining explorers found that King Milesius had died. His sons along with their mother Scota led a force that returned to punish the Tuatha de Danaan for killing Ith. After a large battle they conquered the Tuatha de Danaan and took control of Ireland. The mother Scota was killed in the fight and her surviving sons, Eber and Eremon, became rulers of the land.

Eremon took the northern half of the Island while Eber took the south. The northeastern corner was given to the people of their brother Ir who had also died in the fight, and the southwestern corner was given to their cousin Lughaid, the son of Ith who had died discovering the island.

The sixteenth century scholar, O'Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at about 1000 B.C. - the time of Solomon. Others give varying dates for this invasion from 3,500 BC to 300 BC. Like other legendary histories based on oral tradition, monks who interpreted them from a Christian perspective documented these stories. Over the passage of time these stories have been augmented and changed so that it has become virtually impossible to sift fact from fiction.

These people trace their origins back to Biblical times, the pharohs, and Moses. They claim to be those who drove the Tuatha de Dannan (Druids/serpents) from Ireland.

The rich complexity of this tapestry should be beginning to take hold of your mind. Truly, it is impossible to sift the facts from myths and fictions. I don't pretend to do so, but present to you the seemingly un-related pieces of information that tie the pharohs of Egypt, the Nasoreans and the prophets, the story of Samson, and the Freemasons to the Watchers, or fallen angels of Enoch. It's big. It's huge. So huge that it would take volumes to tear apart and analyse.

Going back to answer the question originally asked at the beginning of this section... "What has the fallen angel Shemyaza got to do with the Templars and a strange haunted chapel far away in both Time and Space?" I can only say this:

Shemyaza seems to represent the initiate who has betrayed the secrets of his order to those outside the 'brotherhood'. He is there to remind all initiates into these related orders of the perils of such actions and their results. There can be no doubt, when examining all this information and the complexity of relationships involved both historically and mythologically, that Shemyaza has become a codified symbol of this information in toto. But, believe it or not, there is even more to Shemyaza than this!

Shhhhhh!

 

DUMUZI, TAMMUZ & DIONYSIUS