Derek Acorah: Extreme Psychic. Derek Acorah

and beautiful cities.

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      Niddry Street Vaults are reached by travelling up Niddry Street itself, which is hardly wide enough to accommodate one vehicle, never mind two. Almost at the top of the street on the right-hand side is a sign proclaiming ‘Witchcraft Museum’. It is from here that you gain entry to Niddry Street Vaults.

      To the left of the entrance is the museum itself, which is full of the instruments of torture used to extract confessions from those poor unfortunates accused, mostly without basis or proof, of witchcraft. These poor broken victims were then transported to a place where they were burned to death for their supposed crimes.

      As I negotiated the steps to the vaults that first time I was made aware of a feeling of persecution – of women suffering at the hands of a nasty misogynistic man. I was sure that these feelings and impressions had nothing to do with the vaults I was about to enter but were the lasting impressions of the history of the tools of torture I had so recently viewed, some of which were authentic and dated back to the seventeenth century, when such atrocities took place.

      I went down to a dark passageway, illuminated only by ghostly green lights that had been placed along the wall. Although it was a relatively chilly spring day outside, the temperature underground was surprisingly warm. The floors were covered in puddles of the condensation that was trickling perpetually down the walls. The air smelled stale, though not badly so – much like a room that has remained unopened for a number of years.

      The first thing that I encountered on entering the vaults was a closed area to the left of me. On peering through the wrought-iron gateway, I could see that this ‘room’ was dedicated to some form of pagan worship. There was a pentacle on the floor and the walls were decked out with pagan regalia.

      Outside the room there stood a wooden block. ‘This was used to chop people’s heads off,’ the guide who had accompanied us said with some relish. Although it was impressively marked and stained with ‘blood’, a quick touch told me that this story was untrue. My psychometric senses could pick up no such savagery having taken place anywhere near the block of wood – it had been placed there for effect and was no more than ‘window dressing’.

      We moved forward along the passageway, visiting each room in turn. The camera rolled and I explained what I was receiving both clairvoyantly and clairaudiently. I picked up on children – lots of children. There were also workmen carrying out their daily workaday lives. In other parts of the vaults there were drinking houses and an air of industry. Each room told a story.

      There was one room, however, that was different. This room I knew had been used in a way that none of the other rooms had. In the centre stood a stone circle. The atmosphere within this room held emanations that were not altogether pleasant. If I wanted to uncover the secrets of this vault, however, I would have to return at a later date.

      Some four years later I found myself back in Edinburgh. I was there to appear at the Festival Theatre as part of my tour of the UK. What better opportunity was there to revisit the vaults at Niddry Street and delve further into the mysteries of the room containing the stone circle?

      Together with Ray Rodaway, I once more descended the well-remembered steps into the vaults themselves.

      As I did so, I heard somebody not of this physical world shout out, ‘Balfour! Balfour! Alison was innocent!’

      I received a momentary clairvoyant image of a woman in her forties. She had two children with her. There was an air if extreme sadness about her, a feeling of loss – of unfinished business on the orders of James VI of Scotland, who was not particularly fond of women and was an ardent supporter of the witchcraft laws. I was later to discover that Alice Balfour had been burned at the stake as a witch. Her husband, also accused of witchcraft, had been beheaded in Germany.

      In the vaults everything remained the same – nothing had changed in the time that I had been away. I bypassed the rooms I had previously investigated and headed straight for the vault containing the stone circle.

      As we moved along the dimly lit passageway I was aware of hooded spectral figures in a regimented line entering the room to which I was walking. As I entered the room myself, I felt the air temperature grow colder and colder. Ray remarked to me how cold he felt. I felt the same. I was also feeling something else – a predatory watchfulness.