The Gate of Remembrance / The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury

Chapter 15: PART III THE LORETTO CHAPEL

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About This Book

An account of a psychological experiment that used automatic writing and trance-mediated communications to guide archaeological work at an English abbey, culminating in the discovery of a chapel. The narrative reproduces and analyzes the transmitted scripts, notes their patchwork of Low Latin, Medieval and Modern English, and confronts critics' concerns about linguistic form and authorship. It advances a speculative theory of a Greater Memory and telepathic or subconscious interconnection as the source of the messages, and interweaves excavation reporting with reflections on spiritual, psychological, and methodological implications.

PART III
THE LORETTO CHAPEL

The interest of this section is greatly enhanced by the fact that the foundations of the Loretto Chapel were discovered last summer in the place indicated by the script. The work of excavation will not be completed until next season, but already more than half of the plan of the chapel has been laid bare, and a full report with illustrations has been contributed by the author to the Somerset Archæological Society, and will appear in their Proceedings for 1919, now being published early in 1920. The report will be accessible to all archæological students at the principal libraries. The footings of the chapel show that it was 20 feet wide, as the script indicates, but the author's interpretation was at fault in assuming this width to be an internal one, whereas it is the external dimension. The length may be found to follow suit. The chapel lies about 5 feet within the bank as stated, and the west wall-footing is the best preserved, thus bearing out the accuracy of the writings.