Before the Pyramids: Cracking Archaeology's Greatest Mystery (23 page)

The first circle was of course King’s Circus, and the second, in an easterly direction, is now Henrietta Park. This park is named after Henrietta Laura Pulteney, who was the first countess of Bath and heiress to a huge fortune, much of which was spent in and around the city of Bath. Henrietta was not born until 1766, by which time John Wood the architect had been dead for 12 years. He died in his 50th year, just before King’s Circus was completed, but during his lifetime he had been very close to the Pulteney family, which was reputed to be the wealthiest family in Europe at that time.

It is not at all clear exactly what the site of Henrietta Park was originally intended to be. Its circle can be seen on an old map of central Bath that dates back to the time when the King’s Circus was either being built or had just been completed. On this map all that can be seen is a perfect circle in the midst of what was obviously at the time undeveloped land. Henrietta Park was not opened to the public until much later, in fact in 1897, but development of land in this part of Bath had been significantly slowed down by, of all things, the American War of Independence. Much of the Pulteney holdings were in North America and the West Indies. Unrest, caused by the fallout between Britain and its American colonies, had a significant bearing on the family fortunes and it can be seen that for this, and other reasons, land to the east of King’s Circus was not developed fully until well into the 19th century.

Our reason for paying any attention at all to the circle that eventually became Henrietta Park was that centre-to-centre it is an incredibly neat 2 Megalithic Seconds or 732 MY (607.3 m) from the King’s Circus. This could be a bizarre coincidence.

We could not help but wonder if a third had been planned, or indeed built and since lost, so as to make a perfect copy of the Orion’s Belt henges at Thornborough. This is an investigation that will have to continue after this book is completed.

This information was another highly significant staging post in our research, not least because it was these circles that alerted us to the henges in the first place. For years we had come across ‘hints’ that aspects of knowledge regarding the megalithic system had survived and that some of them had been encapsulated into that most peculiar of institutions, Freemasonry. This was certainly not evidence that could confirm or deny a Freemasonic link to these megalithic values – but it certainly raised our level of suspicion. However, we would not have to wait to long to find extraordinary evidence of such knowledge being used by Freemasons at that time and since.

According to some modern Freemasons, the fraternity is nothing more than an 18th-century invention – an amalgamation of historical facts and fantasies, deliberately created to foster comradeship and to promote good citizenship amongst its members. Even those senior Freemasons who encourage this line of thought, notably the paid officers of the United Grand Lodge of England, know it is untrue.

Chris wrote his first book in 1996 after 20 years of private research into the origins of the rituals used by Freemasonry. He had expected to find that they had evolved from the rituals used by medieval stonemasons (as the standard history cautiously intimates) but he found that that was way off the truth. In fact, he found that the many old rituals of the order correctly tell a story of the transmission of information from deep antiquity.

Those who ask to become Freemasons, and are accepted (invitation is not strictly speaking permitted), are put through three stages called ‘degrees’ which are astronomically structured. The temple is laid out with the Worshipful Master in the east to mark the rising equinox Sun, a Senior Warden in the south to mark the Sun at its meridian and the Junior Warden in the west representing the setting Sun. The Worshipful Master has the two pillars that stood outside King Solomon’s Temple, Boaz and Jachin, behind him on either side – representing the extremes of the Sun on the horizon at the solstices.

Jachin (meaning foundation) is in the northeast, marking the summer solstice, and Boaz (meaning strength) is in the southeast marking the winter solstice. In the first degree, the candidate is given certain information whilst standing in the line of the shadow cast by Jachin, and in the second degree in the shadow of Boaz. Finally, in the third degree, the candidate is made a Master Mason in a totally dark room after being symbolically ‘killed’ and resurrected to a new life under the light of the rising Venus at the equinox.

This is exactly the layout used at megalithic sites such as Newgrange in Ireland, where the light of Venus penetrates into the centre of the structure once every eight years – although this is just before dawn at the winter solstice.

The mode of the ‘death’ of the candidate for the third degree is a reenactment of the supposed assassination of Hiram Abif, the architect of King Solomon’s Temple; an event that, if true, would have taken place around 980
BC
. Hiram Abif had been supplied by the Phoenician king, Hiram of Tyre, at great cost because he brought great secrets with him that Solomon desperately needed. The architect is said to have been murdered by workmen who tried unsuccessfully to extract those great secrets.

Once a Master Mason (the highest degree in mainstream ‘Craft’ Masonry) the individual is free to join other degrees such as those of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The Scottish Rite is of particular significance as its 33 degrees originally told (unfortunately many have been altered) the story of the progress of an ancient knowledge from before Noah’s Flood through Old Testament times to the Middle Ages and beyond. In the United States anyone who sticks around long enough can reach the 32nd degree (without participating in most of the intermediate degrees at all), but the 33rd degree is restricted to about 1 per cent of eligible Masons.

To anyone embarking on the Freemasonic road and expecting finally to understand exactly what the hotchpotch of gestures, icons, flowery passages and paraphernalia might actually mean, disappointment is the final destination. In reality what seems to matter most to Freemasons is not the ceremony (though most would admit it has some very beautiful and prosaic elements) but rather its fraternal and charitable elements.

This seemingly nonsensical series of lectures, ceremonies and the award of various degrees, beyond the three recognized ones of ‘Entered Apprentice’, ‘Fellowcraft’ and ‘Master Mason’, were as much of a puzzle to Chris, when he embarked along this road many years ago, as they were to any of his fellow Masons. The difference in the case of Chris is that he decided to discover what Freemasonry was really all about – if anything.

His results are detailed in the best-selling book
The Hiram Key,
³
written with fellow Mason, Robert Lomas. Far from being nonsense, Chris came to understand that Freemasonry had genuine historical integrity and that elements of it did indeed go back far into the mists of time. It turned out that rather than being assisted by the formalization of Free-masonry that took place in 18th-century England, the Craft was actually depleted and diminished at that time. Prior to the Grand Lodge being formed in London, Freemasonry had been a peculiarly Scottish institution and it was in its Scottish pre-18th-century intentions and ceremonies that Chris found the ‘heart’ of the order.

According to
The Hiram Key
the true secrets of Freemasonry were to be found within, or perhaps more probably below, a strange little 15th-century Scottish building known as Rosslyn Chapel. Our past researches, both in common and individually, have shown in a number of books just how important Rosslyn Chapel actually is to Freemasonry. Rosslyn Chapel is nothing more or less than an attempt to recreate King Solomon’s Temple on British soil – although it is actually based on knowledge of King Herod’s Temple rebuilt at the time of Christ. Although it purports to be a Christian chapel, and merely a part of something that was intended to be much bigger, it has been acknowledged by several experts that it is nothing of the sort. It stands in stark isolation – its unfinished western end inferring that it would eventually have been only the eastern end of a much larger church, but the ragged stonework at the western end is nothing more than a sham – perhaps a way to deceive a jealous Catholic Church about the building’s real pedigree.

It is suggested that the true secrets of Freemasonry are to be found far below the chapel, buried there by William Sinclair in around
AD
1440. Sinclair was the powerful Scottish aristocrat who created this amazing little masterpiece of stone carving. The
Hiram Key
shows a detailed ground plan, and deliberate architectural messages and clues that point to the secrets of Freemasonry that are believed to be carefully hidden deep beneath the structure. Up to now, those who have a responsibility for the so-called chapel have seen fit to leave its possible treasure undisturbed, but Rosslyn remains a place that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. It is a virtual shrine to Freemasonry, whose members come from all over the world to see it.

Even Dan Brown in his novel
The Da Vinci Code
saw fit to take Chris’ observations about Rosslyn and weave them into a brand of fiction that is wholly outclassed by real history when it comes to intrigue and mystery.

Following on from Chris’ research, Alan joined forces with John Ritchie, a historian and researcher who grew up in the village in which the chapel is to be found. They took careful measurements of the building and were granted access to its roof and to the gallery above the retrochoir. The details of their discoveries are to be found in the book
Rosslyn Revealed
.
⁴
Alan’s expertise in historical astronomy came in handy because it was possible to reveal just how important Rosslyn Chapel was in an astronomical sense, and just how much trouble had been taken over its dimensions and its geographical position.

The Rosslyn temple, as it should more properly be called, is as significant in terms of its latitude as was Solomon’s Temple, far away in Jerusalem. Both are built from identical rock – from the same seam – and both allowed for a unique view of a rare event known as the ‘Shekinah’, which is a coming together in the pre-dawn sky of the planets Mercury and Venus just ahead of the Sun. More details of the Shekinah and its historical significance can be found in
Solomon’s Power Brokers
.
⁵
But what became quite obvious in the research leading up to the publication of
Rosslyn Revealed
was that Rosslyn Chapel was built with naked-eye astronomy in mind and that it could be described more reasonably as an ‘observatory’ than a church.

And just as Solomon carefully laid the foundation stone of his temple 1,440 years (one complete Shekinah cycle) after the Flood abated, Rosslyn was begun 1,440 years after the assumed birth of the Messiah.

There can surely no longer be any doubt that Freemasonry owes a great debt to Rosslyn Chapel. It has been suggested that it was in this location that the Craft was actually born. Secrets, both under Rosslyn Chapel and most likely within its architecture and sumptuous carvings, had to be safeguarded from both Church and State in the extremely dangerous days of the 15th century. One way of achieving this secrecy would have been to enrol all the masons involved in the project into a secret brotherhood – an extension of the already powerful craft guild to which they would have belonged since the time of the Knights Templar. Since Rosslyn Chapel was a carefully created copy of King Herod’s reincarnation of the Jerusalem Temple, it seems appropriate that the Temple and its foundation lie at the heart of Freemasonry.

From its Scottish origins Freemasonry became Anglicized, after James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. Many of its core ceremonies were altered during infighting between groups designated as ‘Ancients’ and ‘Moderns’, and some of its origin fables were changed or replaced to infer a more English ancestry. In our estimation the heart was torn out of Freemasonry when it became an essentially English institution just after the beginning of the 18th century. It therefore seemed natural to assume that any truly ancient legacy, such as knowledge of megalithic measures and the fantastic old system of which they were part, would have been lost to Freemasonry. Certainly during the many talks we have both given to Freemasons around the world we have never seen the slightest ‘glimmer’ or recognition in the eyes of our audience when factors such as the Megalithic Yard were mentioned – not even amongst the most elevated Masons.

However, Freemasonry describes itself as being at least as ancient as the earliest megalithic structure. But the standard reaction, quite understandably, is to assume that these very old rituals are romantic invention. We have very good reason to believe that there is substance to the claims.

When one spends years collecting and interrogating the oldest rituals of the Scottish Rite – begged from some of Scotland’s earliest recorded lodges – a picture emerges that is utterly startling. At the very root of Freemasonry is the idea that before the biblical Flood, there was an advanced civilization that was adept at the sciences – from mathematics to astronomy. When the story is pieced together it tells how knowledge of this progenitor science was written down on a pedestal known as the ‘Delta of Enoch’. This pedestal is described in a Masonic ritual that has not been used for over 200 years. It is described as being triangular in shape and the centre-piece for a temple built by Enoch; this at the time that Newgrange and other major megalithic sites were being constructed in the British Isles. Whilst Enoch’s temple was built in the land that would become known as Canaan and eventually Israel, the Book of Enoch describes, by means of astronomical observation, how he travelled to the latitude of Newgrange and there met God.
⁶

The Book of Enoch is one of the earliest texts known to mankind. It became lost from the first century
AD
until it was rediscovered by a Freemason in Ethiopia, in the 18th century – long after the Masonic degree had been in use.