What Is The Black Mausoleum?

Edinburgh is practically oozing horror, mystery and darkness. Go on any of the numerous ghost and history tours and you’ll hear “the most haunted town in the world” or “more recorded sighting than in any other town in the world.” Now, this is rather hard to prove either way, but it must be admitted that Edinburgh does have an awful lot of hauntings under its belt. One of these, however, CAN be said to be “the most well documented” ghostly phenomenon in the world.

Thousands of people were once crammed into the Old Town of Edinburgh, trapped behind a great defensive wall in a space only 1/4 mile by 1 mile. In the 1700 upwards of 80,000 people lived in this tiny little space, perched on the tail of a glacial feature (Edinburgh Castle sits on the ‘crag’). Disease, murder, fires, body snatching and all sorts of horrible things happened in this city. But perhaps one of the most horrific events was the imprisonment, torture and execution of The Covenanters.

These Presbyterian zealots, for want of a better word, believed they were God’s chosen and in 1637 they signed, in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the “National Covenant with God.” They then set out on a religious crusade against the south and King Charles I (a Scotsman by heritage) and later his son.

Needless to say, they eventually lost (at least the people themselves; the Presbyterian movement crossed the ocean and lived on strong in America). At the last encounter of this holy war, the Battle of Bothwell Brig, Charles II crushed the Covenanters’ army and imprisoned 1200 survivors in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the very place their movement had begun. The area is now known as the ‘Covenanter’s Prison’ and was effectively the world’s first concentration camp (though some ancient historians may beg to differ). Having visited this small enclosure I can tell you; I can’t see how 1200 people could even fit in there, let alone ‘live.’

These martyrs, so Robert Louis Stevenson recounts, were kept day and night, lying on the ground for months on end. They were fed only bread and water, unable to move for fear of the guards’ punishments. Their voices drowned out by the beat of army drums. Terrible treatment indeed, yet this is not the worst of it.

Lord Advocate George Mackenzie was their keeper and tormentor, so the story goes. Despite his early essays on tolerance and the fact he defended Presbytarians in court during his early career, he supposedly brutally tortured and mutilated these captives in an area now housing The Black Mausoleum. This small yet ominous crypt lies inside the now locked Covenanters Prison.

Even in the harsh light of day this is a foreboding area. The Kirkyard itself was once a monastic garden, and signs of this still poke through in the form of luscious grass banks, dainty flowerbeds and various, well kept lines of bushes and trees. Inside the Covenanters Prison though, little seems to want to live. There are only simple lichens, dry grass and two sycamores that stand at the entrance like ancient, gnarled guards. A few dead things have been found inside, mostly birds and squirrels. Though in the last year, a large bird has made its home inside the Black Mausoleum; brave bird.

The tombs and mausoleums stand in silent rows on either side of the Prison. However, they are late additions; when the Covenanters were held here, it was just a walled piece of open ground. This area is the focus of the “City of the Dead” night-time tour.

It is thanks to this ghost tour, run by the children’s author Jan Andrew Henderson, that the phenomenon within this area is so well documented. Not only are there here hundreds of eyewitness reports on paper but also many photographs of the physical damage that has been blamed on it. At the beginning and at the end of the tour, all the guides ask that, if any injuries do show up, if anything did happen and you didn’t want to mention it in public, that they be contacted with details as soon as possible. They even include a small, false report of common phenomenon. If anyone reports this thing happening, they know it is false… and no, I don’t what it is; they won’t tell us.

What Happens There?

The hauntings of this area began, so the story goes, in 1999 when a homeless man broke into the gaudy and massive mausoleum that houses the remains of George Mackenzie and his family. This mausoleum is located only a few yards from the prison that held Mackenzie’s victims. The tour guides will give a mighty, grizzly recounting of this tale. However, the basics are; he broke into the tomb to find shelter from a storm; somehow or other he fell into a then unknown illegal mass grave… and supposedly woke something up. The very next day a woman, peering into the tomb, was blasted back off its steps by a cold ‘force.’ A few days later, a woman was found on the ground near the Black Mausoleum with great bruises around her neck. She claimed that invisible hands had tried to strangle her. A few days later a young gentleman was found opposite the tomb, with the same injuries. The council quickly locked up the Covenanters Prison.

The tours began not long after this, with permission from the council. Numbers of sightings, injuries and strange occurrences escalated. People passed out upon entering the Prison or the Mausoleum; young, impressionable English girls, big burly Australians and Swedes, loud mouth Texans. People complained of feeling immense cold. Not just a light breeze, but so cold that it hurt. There were noises; whisperings, spoken but garbled words, rustlings, bangings, scrapings.

The injuries, many of them not noticed until people got home, and a lot of them vanishing within hours or not healing for months, include but are not restricted to; bruises on necks, arms, legs and  faces; scratches on legs, arms, backs and faces; skin gouged from thighs, backs and upper arms; burns on ankles and wrists. The tour guides, if asked, will show you their collection of photos of these injuries.

Most of these injuries are mysterious in origin. How does one get a burn on their ankle when tramping through a cold graveyard in knee high boots? How can a woman wearing a scarf get bruises on her neck without feeling the attack? Some, however, come from what must be terrifying attacks within the Black Mausoleum. People have been pulled to the ground, dragged across the walls, punched in the stomach and kicked in the legs. And all of these events have vast numbers of witnesses.

Two deaths are also associated with this haunting. Two men, father and son, attempted to exorcise whatever is within the Kirkyard. Not only did they fail, on two separate occasions, but both died of heart attacks after the events. Skeptics would say that heart disease runs in the family and that exorcisms put a lot of pressure on the heart.

So What Could Be Causing It All?

Everyone has their own theories about this entity, now known as The Mackenzie Poltergeist. Some believe it is indeed Mackenzie, back and ready to carry on his sadistic torment of innocent people. Others believe it is the combined energies of all the people that were tortured and killed in the area. They died angry and frightened, leaving behind something dark and twisted that now takes vengeance upon anyone nearby.

Some will argue that this is an area under the influence of the South Bridge Entity. This is a menacing little trickster. However, it has little real influence on the physical realm and enjoys merely being a pest. Whatever is within the Black Mausoleum is far from a simple pest. This explanation also leaves us asking; well what is the South Bridge Entity then?

The theory that the tour guides tout is that pheromones, given off by humans, have built up within this area and are now so strong they are psychosomatically affecting people. It’s a good theory, especially considering the fear that is added to the area on a nightly basis by the tours. Unfortunately, it does not quite explain some of the more violent attacks. People are not dragged around by their own, primordial emotions. Besides; it has yet to be proven that humans give off pheromones, though people are trying.

Another theory tries to explain why Edinburgh itself is extremely haunted. Ghosts haunt every corner of the Old Town, and many parts of the New Town. Why is this? Yes, the town has a dark and brutal history, but so do many towns and cities. And not all of the hauntings are associated with the dead. The South Bridge Entity seems in no way associated with a once living person. Could there be something within the city itself that draws these souls, entities, energies, forces (whatever you feel like calling them) to it? Could it be something sitting within the Kirkyard? Something like a “spiritual gravity well”, drawing spiritual energy to itself?

This would explain several things. The first is the afore mentioned frequency of hauntings in the city. The second is the sightings within the Black Mausoleum. These have included small boys, smiling teenage girls and faceless men. Why, if the poltergeist is Mackenzie, the South Bridge Entity or the souls of the tormented Covenanters, are smiling girls showing up? One witness reported a sense of wellbeing when she saw a ghostly young girl. If there is a ’spiritual gravity well’ then perhaps these entities have nothing to do with the area at all and have been pulled from somewhere else.

Finally, this could be used to explain the deep cold and fainting spells of otherwise normal, skeptical, healthy human beings. A ’spiritual gravity well’ would not only drag the dead to it, but also pull at the ’spirit’ of living people. Once pulled far enough away from the well, people would (and do) regain consciousness and are no worse for wears. Unfortunately, the only way to prove this theory with current technology is to spend a night in the Black Mausoleum and have a go at getting it to yank on you. And who wants to do that, really?

A last theory rests on the fact that the Black Mausoleum backs onto the Edinburgh University’s Artificial Intelligence Unit. Here they house a lot of high voltage machinery, machinery that has been known to put out a lot of electromagnetic energy. As we know; humans are little walking power plants. We are full of electric energy and anything that may have an effect upon the fields in our bodies could cause some very strange sensations and occurrences. In deed, it might even cause bruising… burns and cuts are pushing it a little.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your spiritual bent), this falls down on closer inspection. The ghost tours run through the late night, when the AI department is closed. Even if we knew they were leaving the machinery on or someone was working late, it would not explain why only one or two people per tour group are affected, or why the attacks are not even more frequent.

No one has come up with a completely satisfactory explanation, even if you accept and believe in spirits, ghosts, poltergeists and spiritual plains. If you are ever in Edinburgh, take the chance to go on a tour and explore this strange place for yourself. See what you think it might be.