The Avalon Rose Chapel®

The Avalon Rose Chapel®, formerly known as The Glastonbury Gnostic Centre & Chapel before the pandemic forced its services to move fully online, was founded on Beltane 1 May 2018 in Glastonbury by Annabel Du Boulay.

Annabel now lives in the new Chapel premises, situated on an island in the Great Lake of Avalon surrounding Glastonbury, which serves as a physical anchor for the online Chapel community.

The spiritual interests of the international Chapel community lie with the fascinating weave between the Rose and Celtic lineages on the Holy Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury, with its rich Early Christian Gnostic spiritual heritage.

The Avalon Rose Chapel® premises are also available to hire for exclusive use as a Retreat Venue catering for groups of up to 12 guests.

The Glastonbury Gnostic Centre & Chapel was situated in St Dunstan’s House, Magdalene Street, as close as possible to the Lady Chapel of the Abbey which was built upon the site of the original church, referred to by William of Malmesbury as an “old Church built by the hands of the disciples of Christ”.

Many Gnostics believe that Joseph of Arimathea brought Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and her daughter Sarah to Glastonbury with a group of followers after the death of Yeshua, and that they built this church, the first in the British Isles.

The powerful ley lines of Archangel Michael and Mary cross near the High Altar in the Abbey, creating the Sacred Marriage of divine feminine and masculine energies, embodied in the alchemical mix of Red and White Spring waters that flow from deep inside Glastonbury Tor.

For two years, the Glastonbury Gnostic Centre & Chapel hosted a programme of events inspired by the Rose Lineage and Gnosticism, and was open to the public for prayer, run by a dedicated team of volunteer priestesses.

The Glastonbury Gnostic Chapel Ltd charitable company also hosted by-donation events such as its Mary Magdalene Feast Day Celebration to raise funds for the Charities we support.

Although the premises in Glastonbury were forced to close during the pandemic, we continue to host The Avalon Rose Chapel® annual calendar of by-donation events online, such as the Resurrection Rites and Mary Magdalene Feast Day Celebration, to raise funds.

Please sign up to our newsletter below to keep informed on how The Avalon Rose Chapel® and its community of Priestesses and Practitioners are continuing to serve the international community online.

The goal of The Avalon Rose Chapel® is to support people on their path of gnosis, or self-knowledge, through the archetypal descent of their Soul and its return to the Divine Child Self through the Sacred Marriage of the divine feminine and sacred masculine within the Self, a process Jung termed ‘Individuation’.

The Chapel’s teachings are inspired by Gnosticism and the Rose Lineage, including:

• The shamanic traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia and their worship of the Semitic goddesses Inanna, Ishtar, Asherah and Astarte, inspired by the eight year cycle of the planet Venus
• Esoteric Judaism and Mount Sinai, the Shekinah, King Solomon’s Sophia and Asherah, the Kabbalah’s ‘Tree of Life’ and Astrology
• Ancient Egypt, the Isis-Osiris Mysteries, Hathor, Sekhmet and Sirius
• The Ancient Greco-Roman Goddesses Sophia, Athena-Minerva, Artemis-Diana, Aphrodite-Venus, Cybele and Philosophia
• The Hermeticists, the Alchemists, Hypnotism and Mesmerism (healing energy)
• Taoism, Tantra, Kundalini and the Chakras
• Yeshua and Mary Magdalene, the Black Madonna, the Gnostic Goddesses and the Early Christian Gnostics
• The Cathars, the Templars and the Freemasons
• The Tarot, the Arthurian Grail, the Celtic Grail, the Wheel of the Year and the Sacred Marriage
• Jung, Depth Psychology and the Path of Individuation

The Avalon Rose Chapel® Community consists of those individuals who have completed the Priestess and/or Practitioner Training.

We come together in our private Facebook Group and at our annual Community Day held at The Avalon Rose Chapel® each June, co-create a calendar of not-for-profit events to raise funds for our Charities, and share our academic research and lived, embodied experience of our spiritual paths through our Blog on the Chapel website and social media pages.

Many of our Priestesses facilitate their own offerings inspired by their unique path of gnosis, details of which can be found in the Directory of Priestesses on the Chapel website.

Our Practitioners are all licensed to deliver The Avalon Rose Chapel® Path to Healing Course, details of which can be found on the Path to Healing Course page with our Directory of Practitioners on the Chapel website.

6500 years ago, our Neolithic ancestors of the British Isles and Western Europe began building their megalithic monuments, many aligned as ritual resurrection chambers to the heliacal rising of the planet Venus and star Sirius, 1000 years before the Sumerians in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Sumeria is known as the ‘Cradle of Civilisation’ due to its creation of the art of writing. Its literature dates back to 2500 BCE was was written down in a collection of myths, epic tales, hymns and songs, some by the world’s first named author in history – Enheduanna, High Priestess of Inanna.

The primary Myth of the Descent and Ascent of Inanna was inspired by the cycle of the planet Venus, which creates the pattern of a Pentagram in the centre of a Celestial Rose, as featured in our logo since Beltane 2018 when The Avalon Rose Chapel® first opened its doors on the Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury.

The name given to the spiritual Wisdom tradition that evolved from this Venus Rose inspired mythos is the Rose Lineage, of which Mary Magdalene and Yeshua, as the later embodiment of the Venusian Black Goddess of Wisdom Sophia and her Sirian Bridegroom Christ ‘Kasista’, were Priestess and Priest.

Annabel Du Boulay has spent 30 years tracking the Rose Lineage from its origins in Africa and Neolithic Old Europe to Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and then as it wove its way down through the Ancient Judaic, Egyptian and Greco-Romano cultures to the Early Christian Gnostics, who brought these spiritual Wisdom teachings, contained allegorically in the Holy Grail, back to the British Isles. Here, they wove together with those of Celtic Druidism on the ancient Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury in the Summerlands, which some believe once leant their name to Sumer in Ancient Sumeria.

This Wisdom tradition was kept alive by secret societies like the Knight’s Templar, and in hidden codes like the Tarot, after it was forced underground by the patriarchal Church, and remnants of it still survive within the Cult of the Black Madonna in Southern Italy, where Annabel used to live and was initiated onto the path of the Rose Lineage in 1993.

The Venusian Pentagram is found in the centre of the Apple, the Fruit of Wisdom, and it is from these shared ancestral roots of honouring Venus, Sirius, the Rose, the Chalice-Grail, the Pentagram and the Apple of Wisdom, that the branches of the Rose and Celtic Druidic Lineages have blossomed in these sacred lands of Avalon, the Isle of Apples, from their singular Tree of Life, which Annabel calls The Avalon Rose Lineage.

Annabel’s programme of online trainings and in-person pilgrimages is a powerful way in which she facilitates your own experience of The Avalon Rose Lineage, energetically anchored in The Avalon Rose Chapel®, which is situated on an ancient island in the Great Lake of Avalon, on the Glastonbury Zodiac’s Isle of the Dog and beneath the Dog Star Sirius, and is available to hire for retreat groups of up to 12 guests.

The Wisdom teachings of the Black Goddess Sophia flow down to us through the millennia, from the original black Mother Goddess of Africa to Mount Sinai and thence to Sumeria in Ancient Mesopotamia, before weaving their way down the Rose Lineage.

Sophia was honoured as Goddess of Wisdom by the Ancient Greeks and Gnostics, gnosis being the Greek noun for spiritual knowledge and mystical enlightenment.

The path of gnosis teaches us that we can return to the Rose Garden of Eden through the Sacred Marriage of our Soul, by healing the wounds that are preventing us from stepping into wholeness and sharing our unique gifts with the world.

Self-knowledge was considered the path to enlightenment in the Rose Lineage spiritual tradition, through which we not only reunite with our Self but also with the Divine as we experience it, be it a transcendent being or inner guide.

Sophia is an archetype of divine feminine wisdom that can be found in all religious and spiritual traditions, thus forming a bridge of peace and union between all faiths.

To the Gnostics and Pagans, she is the Black Goddess of Wisdom. In Christianity, she is God’s wisdom, the Bride whom King Solomon speaks of with such reverence. In Islam, she is Ruh. In Judaism, she is Hokmah and the Shekhinah. In Buddhism, she is Tara. And to Agnostics or Atheists, she is simply a philosophy of life.

The Myth of Sophia teaches us that darkness is not separate from light, that it is within the darkest times of our lives when we experience deep pain, loss and fear that the light of rebirth can guide us towards greater wisdom, strength, love and compassion – gifts that we can then share with our loved ones and communities.

It is a philosophy that helps us to accept and surrender to life’s challenges, trusting in ourselves and in life that every seemingly negative experience is an opportunity for us to heal, learn and grow along our path of gnosis.

Philosophia is the term Annabel Du Boulay uses for all the teachings she shares on the Black Goddess Sophia, the Black Madonna tradition of Southern Italy, the Avalon Rose Lineage, and the Philosophia Wheel of the Year, inspired by the Celtic Wheel and Rose Mysteries.

Through her programme of online trainings and courses, and in-person retreats and pilgrimages, Annabel invites you to peel back the layers of patriarchal distortion, explore your spiritual and mythological heritage, and engage with ancient soul-development tools and rituals designed to guide you along your own path of gnosis or self-knowledge.

The Avalon Rose Chapel® icon is by Annabel Du Boulay’s late icon tutor, John Coleman, and honours Mary Magdalene’s relationship to Glastonbury and the Holy Grail.

It dwelt for many years in St Margaret’s Chapel & Royal Magdalene Almshouses before John gifted it to the Chapel.

32. There were three who always walked with the Lord:
Mary, his mother; the sister of his mother; and Miriam of Magdala,
known as his companion [koinonos];
for him, Miriam is a sister, a mother, and a wife [koinonos].

55. The Wisdom [Sophia] thought to be sterile [steira] is the mother of angels.
The companion [koinonos] of the Son is Miriam of Magdala.
The teacher loved her more than all the disciples;
he often kissed her on the mouth.

110. Whoever has knowledge [gnosis] of the truth is free [eleutheros]; the free human being is righteous.
Those who transgress are the slaves of transgression.
Truth is our mother; knowledge [gnosis] is the promise of our union with her.
Those who do not go astray are called free by the world;
the knowledge of truth lifts their heart,
making them free of all bonds;
it is love which makes them act.
Those who have become free through knowledge
become loving servants of those who do not yet have this
knowledge and freedom.
Knowledge [gnosis] makes them capable of this
because they are free, even of their freedom.
Love refuses nothing, and takes nothing;
it is the highest and vastest freedom.
All exists through love.
It does not say “this is mine,” but “this is yours.”

from The Gospel of Philip, translated by Jean-Yves Leloup