Dear Sinclair,
The story is told that at the first night of one of George Bernard Shaw's
plays, the audience went into raptures as the final curtain dropped. The
people in the stalls, gallery and the gods were all cheering; crying author,
author in a rising crescendo of rapture. There was one exception, one lone
voice in the gods, who cried out Booh!.
Shaw strode on stage amid tumultuous applause and called for silence. Then he
spoke:
"Mr Booh, I agree with you sir, but then who are you and I among so many?"
Shaw's comment echoes my own feelings on reading your latest contribution
The mythologists create a miasma of innaccuracy that masks and devalues the
true history of a noble Clan. The vibrant and proud reality of the countless
important achievements made by sucessive generations of the St Clairs and
their descendants is being buried in a welter of fevered imaginings, flights
of fancy, falsehood and irrelevance.
Like you, I too have tried to focus the list's atention on the towering genius
of Earl William St Clair, third Sincalir Jarl of Orkney and builder of Rosslyn
Chapel, but, sadly, with little success.
His achievements and the fascinating legacy that he has left us encoded in
stone within the confines of Rosslyn Chapel have enthralled historians,
puzzled religious thinkers and inspired countless numbers of truly spiritual
people ever since the building began to rise and reach for heaven. Earl
William's legacy is undoubtedly one of wisdom and enlightenment, but this is
largely ignored in favour of the non-sense of the 'Sinclair Timeline'.
Well intentioned members of the present generation of Sinclairs, with a few
notable exceptions, would apparently rather manufacture misleading non-sense
than delve for truth. A pity really, as the truth is far more fascinating than
the miasma of myth that pervades the various sites dedicated to the Sincalirs.
Earl William was undoubtedly a Gnostic. However, while the Cathars obviously
had some beliefs in common with Earl William and other followers of the
Templar tradition, proving any form of direct linkage is, in true historical
terms, rather difficult if not downright impossible. Just because they shared
certain beliefs does not prove contact. To suggest that it does is false logic
of the order of the old argument "Dogs have tails, Monkeys have taisl,
therefore all dogs are monkeys.
There is however an old tradition that certain Cathars fleeing from sustained
oppression sought refuge in the British Isles. Some have been traced to
Oxford, others, it has been suggested, settled near Roslin and started a
paper-factory. Proof is non-existant, but paper manufactured near Roslin is
beieved to have carried the watermark of a 'Dove in Flight', symbols which are
ascribed to both the Cathars and the Knights Templar.
As to the vexed 'Sinclair Timeline', perhaps the most insulting aspect of that
farago of non-sense is the allegation that the Mi'qmaq people only acquired a
sense of spirituality as a result of contact with Henry St Clair. First Henry
Pohl steals these deeply spiritual people's entire creation mythology that had
sustained them for millenia, and ascribes it to Henry St Clair. Now, these
noble native American's spiritual values which had their roots in Shamanistic
practices that predate Christianity by thousands of years, are ignored. The
native people of Nova Scotia are now believed, by those who read the Sincalir
Timeline, to have gained all their beliefs and values from Earl Henry.
Despite gross irrelevance, historical innaccuracy, outright falshood and
dreadful English usage, the offending pages, (over fifty of them) still
desecrate the web and devalue the achievements of a noble family. A poor
reflection upon history and a dreadful commentary on the intelligence of those
who belive this flim-flam.
'Forgive them Lord, they know not what they do'
Best wishes
Tim
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