Of Sound, Mound & Mind

A Multi-Media Experience In Megalithic Ireland by Eileen Roche from Northern Earth 70

With three friends, I visited the ancient lunar site of the Fourknocks ("Four Nights") passage tomb, a bell-shaped cairn, in Ireland last June.

This prehistoric site is situated on the edge of a field in the northeast part of Southern Ireland, to the north of Dublin, and south of the Meath Valley and the Newgrange complex. The archaeologists have been let loose on it, so it is a reconstructed site, which means that the stone chamber and the three recesses now have a large hemispherical concrete lid over them, covered with earth and grass. Inside, this makes for subdued lighting and good acoustics. A stone-lined passageway gives entrance. 67 bodies were recovered from this 'tomb' by the archaologists.

The interior has some interesting pre-historic rock art, which you can see illustrated here. The three recesses of the circular chamber lead off in a cruciform shape, with fine rock art picked carvings of spiral, circular, rayed and other designs. The chamber and recesses are peaceful, quiet, spiritual places, played upon by the seasonal changing light from the entrance tunnel and the central light of the dome constructed by the archaeologists.

After quietly meditating for some time in this serene place, my three friends started to chant, using the angular-styled rock art of the lintel stones in the central chamber as musical notation. They worked their way from left to right, reading the 'notes' according to the rock art designs. The sound was magnificent.

Suddenly, from the tops of the stones arose little white sparkling lights, ascending vertically like floating snowflakes. This continued for some time, while the chanting went on beneath in the centre of the chamber, increasing in volume and intensity. Abruptly and unexpectedly, a solid ring of white light appeared, erupting from the tops of the stones in harmony with the chanting, exactly circling the Fourknocks chamber. This hovered for a moment, and then rose a few feet above the tops of the stone ring, where it remained shimmering and circling whilst the chanting lasted.

Inexplicably, this ring of light did not exactly mirror the stones in the horizontal plane, but in fact bisected the tops of the stones on the left side of the circle. Either the band of light was tilted, or the stones were not laid out horizontally true on a 180° angle in the first place.

Other altered perceptual states were also induced by the melodic chanting, so that the four 'lozenges' on the lintel above the central recess suddenly appeared to jerk inwards to form a sort of 'gateway'.

The experience of such a musical tonally-induced light and movement phenomenon in the mound was felt to be deeply spiritual by the visitors. It was only because they ran out of puff that the experience was finally ended.

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