Fire in the Cathedral
When I was living in England, I enjoyed visiting the historic buildings there. Once, I remember, I was in Worcester Cathedral. At least, I think it was that one. I might be wrong. However, I was strolling around enjoying the place and just getting a feel for it when I moved towards the crypt. This was not some vast underground place, but was reached via some steps and was not as enclosed and ‘cut off’ from the rest of the building the way that most crypts are. I was standing on the steps when I got the distinct impression of fire. I didn’t feel threatened by it, just got a flash of a picture. Then I got the impression of a death or fighting there. It was all a bit confused, but very apparent to me. I stood for a moment or two longer, trying to make sense of it, but eventually gave up. I scanned the guidebook, but that had nothing of help there. A few moments later, I was staring up at some of the arches when one of the guides approached me. Perhaps I looked lost, perhaps he was bored, perhaps it was meant to be. Anyway, we fell to talking and we soon found out that we both had gone to the same school (albeit at different times) and spoke of the buildings and the teachers we both knew.
Then the talk turned to the cathedral. I casually asked if anything had happened of note in the crypt. At which he launched into a detailed description of a nobleman (one of Elizabeth’s favorites, I seem to recall), who, having lost favor at court, and in the manner of those days, being considered a threat, was eventually cornered in the cathedral. A fight ensued and several deaths resulted. At some point in the fracas a fire had been started which trapped the supposed felons inside, where they died. All this, he pointed out, happened not in the crypt itself, but on the stairs leading down to it.
I suppose I must have looked somewhat amazed because I remember telling him I had felt something there. He said that other people had reported similar sensations, although he had never noticed it himself.
I have no real explanation for this incident. I’m not sure that it can be explained easily using our current understanding of the world. All I know was that it was a real experience for me, unlooked for yet corroborated by the guide and by all those other visitors who had reported the same thing.
It was, I suppose, just my intuition kicking in to let me know that something ‘nasty’ had happened in that area. Maybe it was trying to warn me to stay away. Maybe it was me reacting to some sort of energy left in the area; the legacy of the violence which had once happened there in that beautiful cathedral.
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