The MacKenzie Pyramid

' Because the occultist systems of Masonry that survived underground in post-Stuart Britain and that flourished in eighteenth-century Europe developed out of the architectural, scientific, religious, and political policies of the Scottish descended Stuart kings of Britain, it is necessary to examine those elements of early Stuart culture which were preserved within the secret enclaves of Ecosaisses lodges.' 

Eric Wynants

Nestling between the Gothic spires of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, and the minimalism that is its Catholic counterpart, sits the Georgian serried rows of Rodney Street.

The one time enclave for affluent physicians,and solicitors and birthplace of Gladstone, has long dispensed with 'the Harley street of the North,'  and now provides trendy offices and apartments for yupsters(1) and students, as well as film crews seeking that authentic backdrop for their Dickens period drama.

Across the street,stands St Andrews Church, now clad in scaffolding as it undergoes transformation from temple to template for upscale living, it's Greek style columns and twin towers must have stood out like stockings beneath a Victorian skirt at one time.

Built for the Scottish Presbyterians of Liverpool in 1823, for those clued up on the Churches allusions to the Scottish rite(2), it's surprising then, that such an obvious symbolic overture as an ominous black pyramid, stands erected in its graveyard.

The MacKenzie pyramid, is monument and purported tomb of former civil engineering contractor, William James MacKenzie. 
Born in 1794-the son of Scottish contractor, he carved an indelible mark through the English landscape, with his work on the Caledonia canal, as well as the  Edge Hill cutting between Manchester and Liverpool, enabling fellow engineer Stephenson to coast his locomotive Rocket into trainspotter history.

Some say his greatest legacy however is the one made a decade after his death on October 29th, 1851, when his brother erected the austere monument. Folklore has it, possibly perpetuated by that most hyperbolic of sources-Tom Slemen(3), that MacKenzie was an avowed highroller, advancing his soul in a crapshoot game to none other than Old Nick himself. And having made his personal fortune-no doubt enabled by Satanic forces and secret handshakes, MacKenzie-ever the architect-left strict instructions that upon death, his body never be committed to the earth, but instead entombed in the upright position within the confines of the protective pyramid, thus duping the devil from claiming his rightful bounty.

Of course, it could all be bollocks, similar tales ensue pyramid tombs across the UK.
Yet their is no denying that with its sacred geometry, erected for a practitioner of stone Masonry within the grounds of a Masonic temple, on what are Julian Cope(4) claims to be a ley line running between the two Cathedrals, MacKenzies pyramid sits like a Planchette on a Monopoly board.

Was our fledgling Führer drawn to a site of occult mysticism in his quest for enlightened empowerment? Did he understand what William B Stoecker (5) described in his exemplary article that 'certain geometric shapes possess some kind of power' which is very 'old, sacred or magical' or did he understand as a student of architecture, the innate power upon the human psyche of what I will introduce as sinister geography?

1. Yupsters: a terminology I have coined to ascribe the blight of former Yuppie culture as being none interchangeable with the Modern hipster.
2.  In 2004, one of Kenya's largest churches in Nyrobi-the St Andrews PCEA fell into dispute over its symbols and artifacts associated with Freemasonry. Leaders vowed to destroy all "satanic and devil worship symbols" from all churches with the purpose of employing demolition squads to "all sanctuaries built by Scottish missionaries at the beginning of the last century."  : http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/africa_presb.html
   
   
3. (3)Tom Slemen is a former resident of Rodney street and the author of the ubiquitous series Haunted Liverpool. Now in its 19th volume and showing little sign of abating, his 'research' seems to ascribe the most dubious historical factoid to account for the paranormal events of every street on Merseyside. Make no bones, Liverpool is a veritable Hellmouth according to Slemen. Tom Slemen: http://slemen.com/
4.  Former Teardrop explodes frontman, and Liverpool shaman published a book entitled the Modern Antiquarian in 1998, which was adapted as a BBC2 documentary detailing remote, historical and mystical sites of interest: http://themodernantiquarian.com/home/
5.  William B Stoecker, author of 'The Atlantis Conspiracy', describes his theory on the pertinence of architectural geometry and their significance on leylines in the following article: The Sacred Geometry of Planet Earth: http://www.monstrous.com/Monstrous_Places/The_sacred_geometry_of_planet_Earth.html 

 picture credits:

• MacKenzies Pyramid 
• St Andrews Church,after the fire and before renovation
• William MacKenzie
• Crest over MacKenzies tomb, signifiers in heraldry...Man: the subject.  Stag/antlers: peace,harmony and fortitude. Escallop shell: Traveler to far places or protection.

Rise

'Rise'
Oil on canvas
30" x 40"

'Rise' was one of the inscriptions left in blood on the wall of the La Bianca residence.
According to Linda Kasabian, Manson had instructed her and the other girls to leave a sign....'something witchy'.

Mired then, in the never-ending miasma of Satanic verse, cabalistic rite and sinister forces, the ritual murders of nine people with Sharon Tate caste as Madonna and child, become's part of the tapestry of American folklore.The truth melting away with dimming embers of a candle, that death in its most senseless form, can only be comprehended when it is engulfed in subterfuge of conspiracy. Or something like that.

Darchitect part one- the Liverpool Führer

The Hitlers flat 102 Upper Stanhope Street, Liverpool, right of the railings

'...This driving force to a great degree was aesthetic: it's ambition was to beautify the world through violence.'
On Nazism-the Doomsday Architects

There's an apocryphal tale in Liverpool, that has long been told amongst old wives and art students-a story which seems to summon a curious connection between the terrible, convoluted saga of Cielo Drive, Helter Skelter and Manson's predeliction for head tattoos.

In 1912, a 21 year old Adolph Hitler escaping the obligations of Army conscription in Austria was living on the bohemian fringes as an aspiring but largely failing artist and architect (1). Whether consumed with wanderlust, faced with the ravages of penury, or training as a covert British double agent (2) it is said that the young Adolph lived for a brief period in Toxteth, Liverpool, rooming with half brother Alois Hitler and his wife Brigid Dowling, in their three bed-roomed flat, 102 Upper Stanhope Street.

Hitler at cell window in Landsberg prison, 1924-aged 33

In her contentious manuscripts of the period,(3) Brigid notes that the Führerling was bone idle, dividing his time between playing with her two year old son, or the strange Mrs Prentice-a neighbor with more than a passing interest in the occult. At other times Brigid's guest would disappear for hours,lost she presumed amongst the architectural delights the city had to offer. Indeed, Liverpool, with it's Gothic style Cathedral, three graces and national gallery, offered a veritable grotto for the future empire builder.

Liverpool Walker Art Gallery-1895. was Hitler drawn to the city
because of it's rich baroque architecture?

Within sight of his lodgings, beneath the shadow of the Anglican Cathedral sits the Liverpool Institute and school of Arts. Constructed in the 1800's and home to former alumni such as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and a certain Lennon and McCartney, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that frustrated with his failed application to the school of art in Venice, Adolf sought tenure at the one time prestigious academy. Indeed, during my own period there, it was said that one of the faded watercolors in the halls, was a Hitler original, (4) which hung incidentally, opposite a Lennon doodle.

Watercolor of Munich Opera House-Adolf Hitler

That the period in Liverpool lasted just six months however, suggests that his pretext to study at the college was short lived . What is with little doubt, is that his appetite for architecture and the occult would have exposed young Adolf to a number of points of clandestine interest, within the city, all of which we shall explore in the next several entries.

Next-St Andrews Pyramid

(1) It's arguable that Hitlers ambitions-however corrupt-didn't delineate, and that his 'masterplan', was purely architectural (see Albert Spears "Theory of Ruin Value")

(2) In his book "Hitler was a British Agent"-Greg Hallett proposes that the Führer was a brainwashed pawn in a nefarious plot by occultists to eventually enslave humanity in a one world government. Hallett expounds that during 1912, Hitler was being programmed at the British Military Psyche-ops school at Tavistok ,Devon. Whilst the book seems to fail under the weight of all the usual of Illuminati predisposing, Tavistok happens to be the home of Crowley, and the Golden Dawn (more whom in a later post), and the school an earlier incarnation it seems of MK ULTRA.

(3) The manuscripts were discovered in the main branch public library of New York in the 1970's, spawning a book entitled 'The memoirs of Brigid Hitler' and the Beryl Bainbridge BBC series-Young Adolf. Controversy arose as to there authenticity, as although Alois and Brigid Hitler did indeed live in Liverpool, no documents can be provided for placing Hitler in England during the period of 1911 and 1912.

(4) I have vague recollection of an episode of the Antiques Roadshow, broadcast in the 1990's whereupon a Hitler original was discovered of a guest house in Southport, but can find no resource to confirm it.