Talk:George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh

Alleged paranormal activities
"However, unlike similar paranormal tours in other parts of the UK, this 'City of the Dead' tour may well be dealing with a genuine poltergeist." > This seems like an entirely unreasonable thing to say. Who is to say that either (a.) the alleged spirits the other tours deal with are not real or that (b.) the mackenzie poltergeist is real. Does this not contradict Wikipedia's impartiality rules ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.25.160 (talk • contribs) 29 August 2006

On 10 June 2011 an IP editor 24.107.63.127 blanked the section "Alleged paranormal activities". This seems correct to me as this is a short biography article and far too much of the text was taken up with "Alleged paranormal activities" particularly as the viewing of these alleged activities form part of a commercial tourist enterprise. In case anyone wants to create a new page on this topic, I am including a copy of the text here. I am also including the links that were provided for the text which I have just deleted from the article. I have left two of the links on the article page. The first contained the number of Covenanters who died and the second one in a further reading section is about a real crime which was committed in Scotland when the scull from the mausoleum of George Mackenzie was removed. -- PBS (talk) 21:45, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Since late 1998, Greyfriars Churchyard has been the site of unexplained events linked in the popular imagination to the ghost of Mackenzie, two days after a "vagrant" had broken into his tomb to find shelter. More than 500 attacks had been reported in 2006. Visitors reported being cut, bruised, bitten, scratched and most commonly blacking out. Some complained later of bruises, scratches and gouge-marks on their bodies. Most attacks and feelings of unease occurred in MacKenzie's Black Mausoleum and the Covenantors Prison. An exorcist, Colin Grant, tagged along by journalist Claire Gardener,was brought in to perform an exorcism ceremony, but soon claimed that the forces were too overpowering, and feared that they could kill him. A few weeks later, he died of a heart attack. .
 * Alleged paranormal activities

Edinburgh City Council closed off that part of the cemetery until an Edinburgh-based historian and author, Jan Andrew Henderson, persuaded the council to allow controlled visits to that part of the churchyard and in turn this developed into a nocturnal guided tour, which became a local attraction. Of the visitors who have taken the tour, over 400 have reported feeling various sensations of being touched, pulled, grabbed or similar and many of them have returned home to find dark bruising and/or deep scratches on their faces, necks, hands, bodies or legs. Greyfriars Churchyard and, in particular, MacKenzie's Poltergeist, have been featured on paranormal TV programmes, including Fox's Scariest Places on Earth, and ITV's Extreme Ghost Stories.

On Monday 15 September 2008, the team from the US show Ghost Adventures were seen filming outside the Covenantors Prison. They briefly visited the Greyfriars Kirkyard while filming their first season Edinburgh Vaults episode.


 * Sources (deleted 14 August 2011)


 * Scottish teenagers in court, from thisislondon.com
 * Edinburgh Evening News article, July 2003
 * City of the Dead Tour - documenting the Mackenzie Poltergeist


 * Two sources still on the article page (14 August 2011)

Sources in the article
The sources currently used seem quite weak. I'm pretty much convinced the father-in-law was John Dickson of Hartree, not George Dickson, because it it verifiable that John Dickson was a Senator of the College of Justice. Andrew Lang says George, the ODNB says John, and the latter is to be preferred. I generally don't trust the SBDEL at all. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 29 June 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 05:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

George Mackenzie (lawyer) → George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh – Including his territorial designation, which at any rate was part of his name, eliminates the need for disambiguation. Zacwill16 ( talk ) 10:31, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: "lawyer" is not an apposite one-word summary of Mackenzie's significance; and territorial appellations, in a Scottish context, are both frequently used and understood. 45ossington (talk) 07:58, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:47, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - current title is insufficient disambiguation: George Mackenzie of Tarbat was another lawyer of this name. Opera hat (talk) 00:06, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Also note more a jurist than a lawyer.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.