Mersey Mason's part 1.

"When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend. "

William Blake

 When spiritualist-Madam Blavatsky arrived in Liverpool, en route from the US to India in 1879, it would be fair to say that despite her reputed precognitive gifts, she had little knowledge that in our journey to Cielo Drive, she was passing through what Jung would come to describe as 'the pool of life' (1).

Hitler, extreme commissary of the madams Ariosophy, was in 1912, still yet to pen his poison manifesto-Mein Kampf, but his literary assertions may have been further piqued by a curious publication entitled 'Bibby's" annual and indeed, one of its esteemed contributors.

Edited and compiled by Liverpool councilor Joseph Bibby, of J Bibby and sons, King Edward street, Liverpool 3, the volumes were said to contain 'materials of agricultural interest'-which given that Bibby's main source of income was as a miller is unsurprising. And yet animal feed and manure were not the fledgling editors singular interest, and as the books progressed, so did esoterical themes to include topics on socialism, mysticism, Arthurian and Grecian mythology ,along with matters of spirituality which included Theosophy- the manifesto of the madam herself. 

Running alongside such distinct text, were beautifully reproduced illustrations, often by a roster of the most eminent of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood- Burne-Jones, Rossetti,Leighton, Holman-Hunt,William Morris, William Blake and Aubrey Beardsley.(2)
Unsurprising, when one considers that a stones throw across the banks of the Mersey, one of its regular contributors(3) and fellow philanthropist Sunlight soap magnate-Viscount-Lord Leverhulme-was an avid collector of the movement, and would go on to dedicate an entire gallery in memory of his late wife Elizabeth in 1922.

William Hesketh Lever, was born 19th September 1851, and after establishing Lever brothers with his brother James, set the sights and sites of his empire beyond the austere crags of the soap factory, into what would become Port Sunlight model village. Built as affordable accommodation for his employees,with its serried rows of tied cottages (with an obvious debt to William Morris), it's corporate affectation of enclosed rural community for a proletariat workforce-with hospital, church, concert hall and open air swimming pool, sails a little too close to Hitlers idea of Germania in retrospect, particularly when one considers that the workers were eligible for eviction from both job and abode, if they transgressed any of the intrusive rules or refused to participate in the mandatory activities. 

Still, I can attest that even today, it is a beautiful if oddly quaint village, with its mix of Tudor, Flemish and Greco architecture, it brings to mind Portmerion-the village in Wales, used prominently in the 60's television series-The Prisoner (4) starring Patric Macgoohan
Indeed, it seems all the more incongruous in that beyond the confines of the railway that separates it, is one of Merseyside's most lowly area's.

Yet its the art gallery which is the jewel set in the centre of the villages crown, with it's Beaux arts classicism (5) and marble and Wedgewood interiors, it houses a portion of Leverhulmes vast collection of Art and antiquity from the neoclassic period of 1750 to 1900, along with Jacobean furniture, Napoleonic artifacts and Greek and Roman antiquity set in a rotunda fit for King Solomon. But its beneath the marble floors, that lies the true beating heart in what is an unprecedented collection of Masonic regalia, bearing emblems of the Scottish rite (6).  This was no passing collectors fad, Lord Leverhulme's was a Grand Warden Freemason, and it is said that William sought Freemasonry as a tool, for fostering 'social cohesion and high standards amongst the male workforce. Still, the Chairman distinguished himself by initiating a lodge in his name in 1902 along with founding a startling number of sister lodges in and around the Merseyside area. 

It is the Mersey Lodge, founded by Lever in which we will be delving in our next entry.


(1) Jung's proclamation came about following a dream about Liverpool, which is odd when one considers that he had never visited the city. Was this a vision or an exertion of knowledge from someone who speculated an archetype as a universal symbolic entity which can influence man, thus providing the blueprint for future mind control programs such as MK Ultra.

(2) Beardsley was to become a member of the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, no surprise when one considers the rich mystical and Arthurian symbolism in the work of the Brotherhood.
 
(3) One of Lord Levers articles extolled the helpful Inter-relationship of Capital and Labour, foreshadowing Der Fatherlands socio-economic planen by almost twenty years. The same edition ran an article by Templeton Cherry on The Occult Side of Healing. Strange bedfellows for a book on Agriculture.

(4) The inspiration for the Prisoner, came from events at the Inverlair Lodge, a secret institution set up during WWII by British Intelligence to house agents who 'new too much'. The Lodge was based in Scotland: http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/inverlair.htm

(5) Beux Arts classicism was popularized in American architecture in the early 1900's, and was popularly utilised by Leverhulme's US counterpart, the Huntington Library Gardens in San Marcos, California.

(6) Acquired from disgraced businessman Albert Calvert, a Fellow Mason and authority on Freemansonry, whose entrepnereal expertise ran to mining Gold in Australia, and attempting to swindlie jewels from the sister of the late Russian Czar : http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/calvert-albert-frederick-5469


pic credits:

(a) Bibby's annual circa 1922

(b) The Scapegoat from the Lever collection by William Holman Hunt-as described in the book of Leviticus, on the Day of Atonement, a goat would have its horns wrapped with a red cloth. The Scapegoat theory was a a term defined by philosopher Kenneth Burke, in his book Permanence and Change (1935) influencing the Weimar movement of Philosophical anthropology in Germany.
 Based on the premise of Scapegoating, a study was undertanken in 1961 by D. Weatherly, in which students were presented wih photos with jewish names attached and asked to write stories. Those with anti semitic tendancies produced stories with aggression centred around the Jewish characters. (ref: Anti-Semitism and the expression of fantasy aggression, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology)

(c) William  Hesketh Lever

(d) Port Sunlight-the mews to the gallery

(e) Masonic jewel (c1735-1832)-part of the Leverhulme collection. Originally belonged to J.L Wright of the Irish Lodge of Waterford, it was presented in 1811 to the actor Edmund Kean; it is the only evidence of the latters membership to Freemasonry.  Calveart acquired the jewel from the collection of great actor-Sir Henry Irving, also a Freemason.

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.

Do what thou wilt...

"...for the occultist-there is truly "no such thing as coincidence," or more accurately, that coincidence is a clue that deeper connections exist between observable phenomena, that another force of nature is at work that we don't understand, but which has something to do with what quantum physics means when they refer to "non-locality."

Sinister Forces-Book III, Peter Levenda.

"How can I get out? There's no way I can get out"

The Christians-Forgotten Town-(Island records, 1987)

Growing up in Liverpool in the 70's was akin to living in a forgotten town.

The golden gate to the new frontier that had been the shipyards lay dormant, whilst vessels banked in the mud of a receding Mersey. The modern tenements that had been constructed on the promises of post war zeal two decades earlier, now lay in ruin.
And the Beatles had disbanded in 1970.

And yet they were still ubiquitous-the original Cavern may have been relegated to a car park in '73, but the chorus of moptop's echo on every wireless was Liverpool's swansong-albeit one barely audible over the Kops 'You'll never walk alone.'

It was the only cache Liverpool had left, any aspirations beyond it, might as well have been on the Moon, or at least in Hollywood.

Meanwhile thousands of miles away in California, time had been called on the Sixties, and a dreadful pall hung over the subsequent era like a incomprehensible epitaph:Helter Skelter and the Manson Murders.

Back in my Liverpool bedroom overlooking Anfield cemetery, a few yards from the railway line were four year old Jamie Bulger, would be murdered by two boys in the mid 1980's, I was immersed in the subculture of fantagoria... Hammer Horror, Dennis Wheatley, Man,Myth and Magic, little realizing that terrible events in an affluent suburb of LA, and a song by Liverpool's favorite sons were intertwined with Friday night Horror staples such as Rosemary's Baby and the fearless Vampire killers.

Thirty years on,living in California, Hollywood no longer feels like a moonage daydream. The shadows of childhood are faded photo links to the past, and the seeds of those early influences have informed my artistic journey throughout most of my life.
In my journey, there have been threads that go beyond mere happenstance, symbols and ciphers that are window dressing for something profound and dark beneath. In commencing then with the new series, utilizing the tragic muse and slain Madonna figure of Sharon Tate as a symbol for an endpoint, there was a need to relate and process that which is beyond understanding.

Drawing on key events and some of the players, links between Liverpool, LA and the occult, my own notes and dark history as well as accompanying Art, this blog is a companion to that process.