The four of them sat in the room, clearing their minds to enable the woman to communicate. Suddenly, Graham saw a strange image of an Egyptian-looking building, like an ancient tomb, situated in a garden. He saw two sphinxes, between which ran a corridor with a winged sun disc carved above the entrance. He knew that this building was somewhere in the Midlands, although this seemed preposterous. There could not possibly be such a building anywhere in England. But the image remained, and he knew that it was connected with the secret society in Victorian times. He then saw a woman, and the name Mary Heath came into his mind. He felt it was she who had been in charge of the secret society.
He told Terry and the others that Joanna had spoken through Jane, and related what he himself had seen. But the mystery remained, until Terry mentioned it to a colleague, Mike Ratcliffe, who worked in the Stoke-on-Trent Parks department. Mike, intrigued by the story, identified the building as a monument in the grounds of Biddulph Grange, just to the north of Stoke-on-Trent. So the Egyptian temple actually existed.
But Graham was not the only one to experience the impression of the temple. Gaynor also saw it and said they must go there quickly. She felt the woman would also be present. In addition, Marion had the impression of a path between huge pine trees leading to the temple.
Alan collected Gaynor from Oakenholt and, accompanied by Martin, Andy, Graham, Terry, Jane and Pat they visited Biddulph Grange on Sunday, 28 September.
Biddulph Grange is now an orthopaedic hospital, a fine old building rebuilt after a fire in 1897. The researchers were intrigued to discover that on one of the remaining walls of the original building there were four circular stained-glass windows depicting the mystic elements, earth, air, fire and water. Leaving the main building, they made their way through a labyrinth of pathways, running between high hedges and thick shrubberies. Every so often they passed neatly-cut recesses, where, on wooden benches, patients sat talking with their visitors in the bright afternoon sunshine.
After following the pathway around the flower beds and lawns, spread out before the splendid Grange, they came at last to the wide gravel trackway that Marion had described, flanked on either side by tall pines and redwoods, interspersed with the occasional stunted conifer. The path led them on, winding through the wood, where the high trees cast strange shadows in the harsh sunlight. Finally, it came to an end at the steps of what they first took to be a large summer house, or a lonely hermitage tucked quietly away in the secluded woodland.
Biddulph Grange
When she saw the house, Gaynor stopped and stared. This was it! She was sure. The pathway that her mother had seen had led them to this building. She herself recognised it, almost remembered seeing it before. When the others caught up with her, they, too, stood and examined the house from a distance. Its deep red timbers against the cream coloured wall gave the quaint structure something of a bold countenance. Was this the inner sanctuary of the Order, now half overgrown by the impenetrable bushes encroaching from both sides?
Above the open doorway, supported by two carved wooden posts, was the overhanging gabled window on either side of which was painted a date in stylized figures: 1865. The year of its construction. But it was the lettering above the window that caught their attention, the letters M8M. The figure 8 with a vertical dividing line, which they recognised as a version of the ancient hermetic glyph for eternity. Could M8M symbolise the words inscribed on the sword? Meonia for(ever) Mary. If so, then it clinched the link between this place and The Nine in Victorian times.
When they entered the building, they found themselves within a small ante-chamber, from which led two further openings. To their right was a cramped room, where in an alcove there crouched an ugly statue, seated in the cold damp interior, green fungi and mosses clinging to the walls and ceiling. It stared out along the narrow stone corridor that led away towards the light. As Gaynor examined the creature, she had the impression that mystical ceremonies had once taken place there. After Andy had identified the beast as the Egyptian Ape of Thoth (2), they turned and walked through the cold passageway and emerged again into the sunshine. There could be no doubt that this was the temple Graham and Gaynor had seen in their visions. On either side of the entrance stood a large stone Sphinx, facing one another, guarding the threshold of the temple. Above the entrance, in the stone-fronted facade, was a colourful depiction of the Egyptian winged sun disc. (3)
It seemed certain that this was where the secret society, The Nine, had met in the last century.
Gaynor found herself being drawn towards the woodland above the pathway. Something was there waiting for her, someone wanted to speak with her. As she strayed further from the path, she felt it grow stronger, and she knew she was being led. Then she saw her, a young woman wearing a flowing white dress standing beside a tree, her long brown hair bunched neatly on top of her head. The woman was looking straight at her, standing, waiting. Who was she? What did she want? Gaynor moved close enough to see that she was beautiful and of fair complexion. But as Gaynor sensed she was about to speak the woman faded and vanished before her eyes.
Upset by this episode, Gaynor ran back and told Terry and then the others. When she had recovered, she was able to recount that she was certain that the woman had been connected with the temple, and that it had been ‘her place’; she felt that the woman wanted desperately to tell them something.
Leaving Biddulph Grange, they next visited the local parish church to make enquiries about the history of the area. There they discovered that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Biddulph Grange had been owned by Robert Heath. Mary Heath had been his wife (correction: later discovered to have been his daughter, not his wife). So they had been right! This mock Egyptian temple must have been the meeting place for The Nine in the last century, and Mary was presumably the last to lead The Nine. It seemed that Gaynor had experienced a vision of her at what was once her home.
So what was the message that Mary Heath was trying to impart? Before visiting Biddulph Grange, Gaynor had the impression that a ceremony had once taken place somewhere in an underground chamber, and that something dreadful had happened, which had caused them to flee and forced them to replace the sword with the replica they had found, years later, at Knights Pool. But how had this secret society met their end? Mary Heath was clearly trying to tell them, but she had been unable to do so.
On Sunday 16 November 1980, at 1.30 pm, Penny Blackwill had a vision of a large house and a bearded man, who, by his clothes, must have lived there during the Victorian era. She knew there was something very wrong about this man and that she must immediately tell Terry. As she sketched her impression, she saw him again, but now he stood next to a fire. She felt that he meant ‘danger for all’ and wrote these words beside her drawing of the man. She then sensed that he meant to destroy someone, and she began to write down the impressions as they flooded in, accompanied by further sketches. She knew this was of great importance to them all.
The scene then changed, and she saw robed figures which at first she thought were monks. Then followed a woman dressed in ‘old-fashioned clothes’, who she recognised as the same person she had seen standing beside the lake. In the distance a dog was barking, and there were people standing in a circle with one in the centre. She knew they were in an underground chamber somewhere, with gold-coloured plates and other artefacts placed around the circle. A sudden horror overcame her. She saw that they were making the wrong moves, and that there was a great danger of them being destroyed.
Penny quickly wrote it all down, then dated and signed it to give to Terry. She had no idea what it meant, but it was imperative that he should have it. Her insistence that this was vital prompted him to see Graham on Tuesday, 18 November.
Jane McKenzie and Pat Shotton at the Biddulph Egyptian Temple
That evening Terry, Graham and Jane sat in Jane’s house discussing the recent events and the meaning of Penny’s visions. They decided that the woman trying to pass the message to them was Mary Hea
th, who was showing her what had become of her secret society, and that the tall, dark-bearded man had somehow done great harm to them at the time. Had she seen Mary Heath preparing a ceremony, somewhere in an underground chamber, and the man trying to destroy them? Their ceremony had failed. Had this failure resulted, as Gaynor had felt, in the untimely end of The Nine and of Mary Heath’s society?
They must discover what had happened to Mary Heath and her Order. This was the crux of the whole affair. Penny had said that Terry, Alan and the others, without precautions, would meet the same fate. They had to know. But how were they to find out? How could they communicate with Mary Heath?
The Ouija Board with séance equipment used at the time
Around 9.30 pm Terry made a suggestion. Perhaps they could attempt some form of seance. He did not like the idea, but it was the only way left to discover the answers they needed. They were not experts in communicating with spirits, but there was no choice. Something was trying to get through and was experiencing difficulties because of their fears about falling into trance. If they made a makeshift Ouija board, it would perhaps unconsciously guide their fingers and they would be safe in not knowing who was being controlled. Whether spirits exist in the sense that some people believe, they did not know, but they were aware that usually the glass is moved unconsciously by the participants.
They drew out the letters of the alphabet and found a glass. After some minutes of apprehension and garbled nonsense, the glass began to move more purposefully around the table. They asked if someone was there and it spelt YES. Next, they asked if they had managed to tune into the source of the psychic messages and again it spelt YES.
Was Penny’s message important? The glass repeatedly spelt YES until they instructed it to stop. Then they asked more questions:
Q. Do you have something to tell us?
A. Yes.
Q. Has it to do with this underground place that Penny and Gaynor saw?
A. Yes.
Q. Where is it?
A. Wolverhampton.
Terry then felt that the underground chamber was near the old house where Penny said the bearded man had lived. The glass confirmed this.
Q. Was his house in Wolverhampton too?
A. Yes.
Q. Whereabouts?
A. It was a school.
Q. What is the name of the school?
A. The Catherine Geney School.
Q. Is it a school now?
A. No.
To their amazement the glass spelt out that the school once stood in Oaks Crescent. This was surely too incredible to be true but it could be checked.
Q. Was the underground place that Penny saw below the school?
A. Nearby.
Then they asked if it was correct that the ceremony took place in a cellar in, or near, Oaks Crescent, and if it involved Mary Heath. It answered YES. But could this be correct? The glass repeated that it was so.
Q When was this ceremony?
A The 22nd of November, 1875.
They then asked where exactly the cellar was, but the answer was unclear. However, it did say that something terrible had happened there which brought about the end of the Order. They must, it said, now put this wrong to right in order to release the power of the Stone. They must go to the place and banish the evil guardian that held this power.
The cellar at 19 Oaks Crescent
The underground chamber was a cellar below a house, and a tunnel led from it to another chamber, where the power was held. To this they must go. It then surprised them all by saying that it referred to the old cellars below the Oaks Crescent flat! This was too ridiculous for words.
They asked if the cellars in Penny’s and Gaynor’s visions were indeed the cellars below Graham’s flat, but it would not answer. It repeated that this chamber was there in 1875, once again spelling out that this was where the power was now held. It was no coincidence that the flat was their headquarters.
‘But I chose that place,’ Graham objected.
‘Can you remember how you found it?’ the glass answered.
‘Yes. A girl I knew whose brother lived there was moving out, and she told me about it.’
‘Your meeting with her was no coincidence,’ it answered.
Graham removed his finger from the glass and sat back. This was too much!
Terry then asked if it had all begun to happen because they had taken the Oaks Crescent flat.
Yes, it answered. They had been chosen and the circumstances had been created to permit them to move into the flat.
Graham objected, saying this was going too far. He refused to continue.
Jane – Q. Was this power held because of the ceremony going wrong?
A. Yes.
Terry – Q. Was it to do with the bearded man who Penny thought destroyed them?
A. Yes.
Q. Who was he?
A. John Laing. (4)
Q. Who is John Laing?
It answered that Laing was a black magician through whom all the power of the Evil One was wielded in 1875.
Terry - Q. How did he manage to destroy them?
A. They made incorrect moves.
Q. In what way?
It did not answer.
Q. Who are you?
Still it would not answer. Instead, it told them that it would explain how they must banish the evil to release the power from the cellar.
Jane – Q. How do we know it’s not a trick? You may be Laing.
The glass did not move.
Graham – Q. Are you Mary Heath?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you the last leader of The Nine?
A. Yes.
Q. How do we know you are Mary Heath and not something or someone evil?
A. I will tell Marion. She knows what you have to do.
The cellar at 19 Oaks Crescent
They agreed that if she accomplished this then it must be Mary Heath, reasoning that nothing evil could penetrate Marion’s mind. They phoned Marion but told her nothing of the seance. She said that just before they phoned the vivid image of an eight-pointed star entered her mind. Then an underground passageway bricked up with rubble. Following this she gave an exact description of the cellars below the Oaks Crescent flat.
‘You must go there and draw the star,’ she said. ‘You have to do something, but I’m not sure what.’
As Marion knew nothing of Penny’s vision or their seance, they were shocked, most of all because she had described the cellars, which she had never actually seen.
They told her they would explain later and returned to the board.
Terry – Q. Is Marion right?
A. Yes, it is the eight-pointed star of Michael.
Q. What does this mean?
A. Use the symbol.
Q. Are we to banish this evil with it?
A. Yes.
Q. How do we do that?
A. By calling upon the force of St Michael.
Q. How?
It did not answer.
Q. What happened in 1875, on 22 November?
A. On that day the Evil One, working through Laing, launched a great force against us and our power was destroyed.
Q. How could he do that?
A. We did not use the Stone.
Q. But you knew where it was.
A. Yes. But we did not dare use it. Too many of us had already been corrupted by the power we held. We had to ward off his attack, if we could, without it. If we gathered the full force of the Stone we might have, in our weakness, lost it to him.
Q. But he beat you?
A. Yes. He destroyed the Order of Meonia.
Q. Is that what you were called?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you all die?
A. Not immediately.
Q. But shortly after at the fishing village?
A. Some of us.
Q. What happened then?
A. We knew that the Order would be rekindled to continue the work and complete our task.
Q. Is th
at us?
A. Yes.
Q. And you brought us together?
A. Yes.
Q. How?
It did not answer.
A. You must repossess the power that will enable you to complete the Stone.
Q. How?
A. Marion will tell you.
At that moment the phone rang. It was Marion. She had just had a vision of a cellar with a huge eight-pointed star painted on the floor and a mystical ceremony in progress. She said that this had happened many years ago, and when it had gone wrong some powerful influence had remained behind in the place to contain a great force the defeated Order had possessed. They could now release it by calling upon St Michael and performing a banishment.
The glass moved no more. It was 1 am, 19 November 1980.
20 November
In the old town records at the Wolverhampton reference library, the investigators checked the facts. The Catherine Geney School was indeed in Oaks Crescent during 1875, and the mysterious Mr Laing had been a real person associated with the school.
That evening, Terry and Alan visited Jane and were joined by Graham and a little later by Mike Ratcliffe, who had become interested in the story because of its links with Biddulph Grange. Before leaving Terry’s, Alan had a strong impression that he should take some holy water. Terry’s wife Pat, being a Catholic, had a phial of water from the grotto at Lourdes, given to her by a close friend. Alan felt this would suffice and, generously, she let him have it.
That evening they again used the glass and letters and, as previously, it spelt out the information. It explained that by the 1870s the Order of Meonia had discovered that the Evil One had been using John Laing and his black-magic group in much the same way as it had used the dark-haired woman and the Warwickshire witch coven.
John Laing had lived in Wolverhampton. A member of the Order of Meonia, a chemist named Thomas Reade, took a house in Oaks Crescent so that they could observe his activities. By November 1875, Laing had used his power to corrupt the Order and had caused them considerable trouble. However, Mary Heath, the leader, refused to use the Stone because she felt that they were insufficiently powerful to repel the force of the Evil One. If they tried and failed, they might risk the destruction of the Stone. They decided instead to try and break the influence of Laing on 22 November 1875 by using their mystical knowledge. Their efforts failed, and the occult battle was lost, and with it much of their power. Their protection now gone, the group fled, some falling ill, and others even dying a short while later.
The Green Stone Page 16