Humpty Dumpty fell off a Walrus

Aiwass done.

I was, honestly. Case closed, had enough and, quite frankly, I was beginning to bore myself shitless with all the old Pepper is a treasure map rhetoric.

It is though, and I think old Mac the knife may have added an additional wee layer of lacquer to an already overly polished turd thanks to his latest paean to all things Egypt, Egypt Station. Not an #Ad – though open to offers!

Shit pushing solitary Dor Beetle

Amidst a welter of symbolism upon his new album cover, including the obligatory solitary beetle – literally pushing shit, no less – we have a curious pyramid logo – or is it a train-track in a tunnel – emitting mysterious beams like a Tesla tower radiating the latest instructions from Radio Tavistock, a reverse Abbey Road procession, old-timey dancing couples – a la A Collection of Beatles Oldies - , curious stylised animals and the ultimate reference to all things Pepper, namely palm trees.

Anyone vaguely connected with this amateur collection of autistically rendered ramblings – and you’re here reading this, so you must be – will know that palm trees denote treasure and Sir Machiavellian does not let us down.

It occurred to me that possibly there was a link between all this Egypt gubbins and Aleister Crowley’s Cairo chat with his invisible friend Aiwass.

Accordingly, I have overlaid the Egypt Station cover over Pepper and whaddya know?

Okay, okay, I’ll grant you that the simple fact that the album title logo merely grazes the great baldie’s bonce is confirmation of very little, however, conspiracy fans, the overlay does create some tantalising ‘clues’.

Firstly, there is an interesting placement of one of the weird pyramid things right over the face of the waxwork Paul, the apex going right into his eye in fact. Secondly, is it pure coincidence that the name of Paul McCartney spreads out over the entire Beatles, almost as though there was really only one talented member? Solitary beetle again! Then there is the placement of another pyramid over the ‘S’ in Beatles, further elaborating the point above?

Then we have the sun shining directly over Marlene Dietrich’s head, pointing us back to the ‘key’ to the temple door. Again.

Now, whilst many of the more rational of you will be saying that this is just mere coincidence, I will attempt to demonstrate why so many Beatle ‘clues’ point back to Sgt. Pepper and its oft overlooked Alice in Wonderland references.

I shan’t bore you by repeating the references here – they’re covered in other posts – however I shall attempt to further establish these links by positing a potential explanation to the age-old riddle of the Savile Row door photo that appeared on Ringo Starr’s Rotogravure album.

If you’re anything like me then this mystery will have been keeping you up at night!

As you can see, the second-best drummer in the Beatles is snapped for the front cover peering through a magnifying glass, or, in other words, literally looking through a looking glass. Is this yet another ocular occult Beatley reference? A pretentious all-seeing eye allusion or, yet another, aspersion to Lewis Carroll and his all-pervading Alice tomes? Sir Ring-Piece and Love explained it thusly:

Question: There is a photo of the front door of Apple on the back of the cover, where did you get it?

Ringo: Neil Aspinall took it and sent us one each and I thought, “I’m gonna put it on the back of the album.” It’s a front door, but it’s a back door too. It’s got all these names scrawled on it from Finland. That’s why you’re getting a magnifying glass with the album, so you can read it all. And I thought it would be a nice bit of fun, especially for those who actually wrote on it. It used to be so smart, with a doorman and a pretty letterbox, and now it’s just…yeah!

Which, as topics for blog posts go, is pretty dull. Except, it was Neil Aspinall who sent him the photo, the same Neil Aspinall for whom nothing is a coincidence and the same Neil Aspinall who was rumoured to have been the fun-loving forum lurker Apollo C. Vermouth.

The same Apollo C. Vermouth who authored this curious little nugget of conspiratorial gold.

Keep searching the clues on the door.

One in particular is all you need.

Apollo

And…

As stated earlier in another thread, the original release included a magnifying glass so one could decipher the writings on the door.

Obviously, there remains an important clue that he wished you all would find.

The hunt begins…

You’re on the right path.

Apollo

To the best of my knowledge that clue, such as it is, has not been uncovered.

Until now.

Possibly.

I will freely admit that I have spent some of my precious, sweet time pouring over the inane scribblings of many and varied Apple scruffs trying to uncover the vital titbit that the little drummer boy wished us to find. All to no avail.

Perhaps, therefore, it is not a graffiti-based clue but a song title one that we should seek?

Indeed, one track on the album, ‘Pure Gold’ was written by the first knight of Beatledom, Beatle Paul.

If we look back to the Pepper cover who is pure gold? Why it’s the heavenly Diana Dors herself, a front door, a back door and, furthermore, a key to the temple door. And, to further labour a point, who was it that was to be sacrificed in a temple back in the Help! movie? Why ‘twas our erstwhile ring-clad drummer.

So fucking what, I sense you’re mouthing now, big fucking deal. And, too be fair, you’d have a point.

But whomsoforth* was it that led us to the fabled Walrus keyhole in the first place, for it was not I?

No, it was Mr Vermouth, of course.

Hidden on the Pepper cover is a WALRUS.

Using your trusty mirror, place it vertically touching Diana Dors left elbow.

See him?

Apollo

Walrus keyhole

A point confirmed in the video for ‘A Day in the Life’.

And just who is the movement upon the shoulder of the divine Miss Dors, the enigmatic Buffalo? Why it is a distinctly Crowleyesque vision replete with an Egyptian fez.

Which brings us back to Egypt Station.

Where we see a strange, bald man stood next to a horned ram or goat type beast.

The great beast and the strange beast also reappear on this ingeniously cryptic homage to a departed Chuckle Brother and Gary Glitter**.

Whatever the identity of the said strange beast, it’s all a bit Baphomet like.

Horny goat weed crescent moon man

As you can see the horny goat god gives us a hand signal reminiscent of the ‘as above, so below’ tarot card of the magician and so beloved of Sir Ring a ding ding from the Help! movie where, as previously mentioned, he needs to be rescued from a temple because a magician who looks like a dead ringer for Crowley is chasing him. Sync after sync after sync.

Clang / Crowley in his fez from Help!

Of course, the Walrus symbology emanates from the book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There where we also find Humpty Dumpty. 

Humpty Crowley

Aleister Crowley has a peculiarly Humpty Dumpty like look about him – what with his great big bald head ‘n all – and Crowley claimed that Humpty Dumpty’s fall from the wall symbolised the descent of spirit into matter – whatever that means.

Indeed, the great pompous prick said this:

This is so simple as hardly to require explanation. Humpty Dumpty is of course the Egg of Spirit, and the wall is the Abyss--his "fall" is therefore the descent of spirit into matter; and it is only too painfully familiar to us that all the king's horses and all his men cannot restore us to the height.

Only the King Himself can do that!

But one can hardly comment upon a theme which has been so fruitfully treated by Ludovicus Carolus, that most holy illuminated man of God. His masterly treatment of the identity of the three reciprocating paths of Daleth, Teth, and Pe, is one of the most wonderful passages in the Holy Qabalah. His resolution of what we take to be the bond of slavery into very love, the embroidered neckband of honour bestowed upon us by the King himself, is one of the most sublime passages in this class of literature.

So there you go, consider yourselves illuminated.

It’s been fun being back. Can I go now?

*Newly invented word © Me.

**For non-UK residents, Google it.

Reverse Abbey Road procession with added crescent moon

olDIES merge: note car driving out of Macca’s head

Full Egypt

Radio Tavistock

Voyage to Treasure Island

I have tried, at all cost, to stress that who I am, is not as important as to whom I am not. I am a "castle keep". There are some that believe me to be Sir Paul. Others, Bill. When dealing with Sgt. Pepper, keep in mind that we are dealing with a parody of a satire, based on a band that NEVER existed. In those terms, Dr. Leary was correct in saying, "This time around, you can be anybody you want."

John echoed the same in "I Dig a Pony." Just know that "I WAS" there.

Apollo C Vermouth

Points to ponder...

So many of the supposed “clues” found on MMT seem to point back towards Sgt Pepper.

Case in point:

Hidden on the Pepper cover is a WALRUS.

Using your trusty mirror, place it vertically touching Diana Dors left elbow.

See him?

Yet, this “clue” pre-dates any mention in Beatle lore of a walrus. That would come on the following release, MMT….

Apollo C Vermouth

It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 

Alice to the Mock Turtle in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Which is interesting; not least because Ringo Starr would play the role of the Mock Turtle in a 1985 made-for-TV film version, or because Jane Asher, the former partner of Paul McCartney, had played the role of Alice in 1958, or indeed, because the aforementioned McCartney had written his opus ‘Yesterday’ whilst residing with the Asher’s – most likely whilst under the hypnotic suggestion of Dr Richard Asher -  and who would become the subject of a long running death and replacement theory, but largely because Sgt. Pepper is loaded with Alice in Wonderland symbolism.

In the book Alice journeys into an alternative world by travelling through the looking glass. By utilising a looking glass (a mirror) the Sgt. Pepper cover allows us to do the exact same thing.

The author of the Alice books; ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’, Lewis Carroll, appears on the album cover, amongst the pantheon of the great and the good of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. You can see him next to the palm-tree, in front of Lawrence of Arabia and behind Marlene Dietrich.

Now T. E. Lawrence (of the aforementioned Arabia was also the author of a book entitled the Seven Pillars of Wisdom) had once worked for British intelligence producing maps and that is a huge clue that what we are looking at with the Pepper cover is indeed a map. It is also a clue that we need to study the individuals that make up the Pepper assemblage – the Pepperati, if you will - and decode the clues that they inevitably reveal.

Indeed, as we have already discovered, the word dietrich in German translates as skeleton key, and this can enable us to produce a rebus utilising the characters of Carroll, Dietrich, Shirley Temple and Diana Dors (who all appear together on the album cover) that states; Carroll [is the] Key [to the] Temple Door.

It is in understanding, I believe, the subtle word-play and hidden meanings contained within Sgt. Pepper that will allow us to crack the Sgt. Pepper code. 

On the LP cover Lewis Carroll is stood next to a palm-tree, as is Diana Dors. This is telling us where to look. To paraphrase the rebus Carroll is the Key to the Door and, I believe, the door lock is represented by Miss Dor’s elbow. So, Lewis Carroll wrote ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and a looking glass is a mirror. If we were to look through a looking glass we would expect to see a reflected image, therefore, if we put a mirror to the elbow of Miss Dors it should come as no surprise to find something and, indeed we do, we discover the image of a walrus.

Why a walrus? Well the Walrus and the Carpenter is a poem that appears in ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and whilst the walrus on the cover is something of a magic-eye type image which not everybody can see, it is confirmation that we are on the right track. Interestingly, Beatles producer, George Martin’s father was a carpenter and via the cover we can discover a curious coincidence. To produce the walrus we must put a mirror to the elbow of the gold dressed Diana Dors who stands next to the palm-tree. D’or in French means gold and in 1987, twenty years after Pepper’s release, George Martin produced a documentary about the album that was called ‘It was Twenty years ago today’ for which he would win a coveted Palme D’or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes film festival.

Either by accident or design, The Beatles have concocted a clue for the future from the past.

But what is the relevance of the walrus? Well apart from numerous Beatle references; I am the walrus, the walrus was Paul etc. the ‘Walrus’ was also the name of Capt. Flint’s pirate ship in the book ‘Treasure Island’. A book John had read as a child and which clearly influenced him.

“I never see myself as not an artist,” he said to me that morning. “I never let myself believe that an artist can ‘run dry.’ I’ve always had this vision of bein’ 60 and writing children’s books. I don’t know why. It’d be a strange thing for a person who doesn’t really have much to do with children. I’ve always had that feeling of giving what Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island gave to me at age seven and eight. Those books opened my whole being.”

 John Lennon

Long John Silver, the infamous pirate from the Treasure Island book served upon the Walrus as did his colleague, Billy Bones. As we have already noted, a previous incarnation of The Beatles was called Long John Silver and the Beetles. 

    From Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles by Tony Bramwell

Therefore we can claim to have discovered both silver (silver beetles) and gold (Diana Dors = gold) hidden upon the cover indicating that we are embarking upon a metaphorical quest for treasure and that the record cover is the map. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a parody of a non-existent group being portrayed by The Beatles, therefore, the band are in character. Clearly John is Long John Silver and so, presumably, Paul is Billy Bones.

John Lennon once said of The Beatles on the Sgt. Pepper cover that “…two are flying, two are not.”  This was assumed to be an inside joke but I believe it is a clue that, in order to crack The Sgt. Pepper Code, we need only concern ourselves with John and Paul.

Palm-trees regularly appear on pirate treasure maps and this may therefore explain the presence of the palm-tree on the Pepper cover. In this case the palm is a symbolic X marking the spot where we need to dig.

Not convinced? Okay, let me give you more.

There exists in nature a bug entitled a Dor Beetle, ergo Diana Dors is the Golden Beetle (as opposed to the Silver Beetle) or the Gold Bug which allows us to form a link between Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island author), and Pepper alumni Edgar Allan Poe; he who takes such a kicking on ‘I am the Walrus’. Interestingly, Poe wrote a poem entitled The Literati of New York City which includes a line about ‘golden doors’ and ‘wonderland’.

The story of ‘The Gold-Bug’, like Treasure Island, is also a treasure trail, specifically, in this case, for the treasure of Captain Kidd. Wiki says:

“The Gold-Bug” inspired Robert Louis Stevenson in his novel about treasure-hunting, Treasure Island. Indeed Stevenson publically acknowledged this influence: “I broke into the gallery of Mr Poe... No doubt the skeleton [in my novel] is conveyed from Poe.” 

Stevenson also admits that he took the idea of Captain Flint’s skeleton point from Poe’s ‘The Gold-Bug’.

The skeleton reference derives from the fact that in ‘Treasure Island’ they search for the hidden loot upon Skeleton Island, so named because to find the treasure you must first find the dead pirate’s skeleton which points to the correct path.

Billy’s bones - Skeleton point? ‘The skeleton points in the direction we need to go’. Back (to Pepper)

On the Pepper cover, Billy Bones represents the dead pirate and it is he who will lead us to the treasure.

Of course, up to now, I have avoided getting too heavily immersed into the topic of PID (Paul is Dead). The Pepper cover does indeed show a funeral scene and, in the ‘Treasure Island’ book, Paul’s character Billy Bones does die. Upon this event the protagonists discover that the key to the dead man’s chest hangs around the neck of Billy Bones. It is in this chest that they discover a book and the map to Capt. Flint’s treasure.  The book contains the strange legend “Off Palm Key he got itt (sic)”. 

We have already deduced that Lewis Carroll is the key, and, as confirmation, he is standing next to the palm-tree. If we seek further confirmation perhaps we can find it in the personage of Issy Bonn who stands directly behind Paul/Billy. 

I have already postulated that Issy Bonn’s curious pose may represent the Dead Man’s Hand, the supposed hand of cards that Wild Bill Hickok was in possession of at the time of his death, and that contained the unturned card of the Queen of Hearts with its inevitable Alice in Wonderland connection.

Of course we should not forget that Sgt. Pepper is a parody of a band that never existed (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and that, therefore, the album cover is a parody of a writer who does not appear upon the cover, a la Edgar Rice Burroghs and Shakespeare/Francis Bacon.

So, what would be contained within a dead man’s chest? In the Treasure Island book they discover a map in the chest which leads them to Skeleton Island, the place where Capt. Flint stowed his stash. As this is a parody we need to search for a metaphorical clue that leads us to treasure and it could be argued that a dead man’s chest may contain a lonely heart.

This leads nicely, of course, to the mirrored drum clue on the Sgt. Pepper cover that was the catalyst for the entire Paul is Dead phenomena.

The legend – widely interpreted as I ONE IX HE ◊ DIE (1 1 9 HE DIE) – is created by holding a mirror (a looking glass clue again) to the words ‘lonely hearts’ on the Sgt. Pepper cover bass drum. 

This, in turn, has been taken to represent a date, (either 11 September 1966 or 9 November 1966 depending upon which side of the pond you live) on which Paul McCartney, reputedly, departed this mortal coil. This claim is supported by the fact that the ◊ symbol points up toward McCartney.

A point not previously considered, I believe, is that the ◊ symbol also points down toward the ‘grave’ with Beatles spelt out in red hyacinths.

If one should be so minded as to Google the meaning of the maxim ‘As above, so below’ we would find this Wikipedia image to which I have supplemented a ‘Help’ era Ringo;

The Beatles have again concocted a clue for the future from the past. Therefore, above we have Paul, as Billy Bones who does die, and below a grave for the dead Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe.

Of course nobody truly knows if the mirrored message was deliberate or if it is merely a bizarre fluke of nature. With that caveat in mind, I would like to posit an alternative suggestion.

Perhaps there is a double meaning here and that HE DIE is an anagram of I HEED, therefore it reads; 1 1 9 I HEED. It is on page 119 of ‘Treasure Island’ that we first meet an actual lonely heart: Ben Gunn.

 

Ben Gunn is a pirate who has been marooned on Skeleton Island for many years and it is he who has already discovered, and recovered, Capt. Flint’s treasure.

So, The Beatles, having killed of their mop-top personas, are presenting us with alternate identities and, in so doing, are illustrating a memorial to their former selves and to their fallen comrade, Stuart Sutcliffe. 

Sutcliffe, of course, does appear amongst the Pepperati in tribute to his own tragic and premature death. Sutcliffe, of course, was in a proto version of The Beatles – indeed he was a member of Long John Silver and the Beetles. After Stuart’s departure Paul would, of course, replace Stuart on bass guitar.

The main strains of the Paul is Dead/Paul was Replaced myth originated from the fact that what we see on the Pepper cover is a grave also adorned with a floral tribute in the shape of a bass guitar that, according to some, spells the word PAUL.

I repeat; Paul replaced Stuart on bass. Add to that the fact that Stuart Sutcliffe died on a Tuesday and the significance of the line ‘Stupid Bloody Tuesday’ takes on greater meaning. The song that the line comes from? ‘I am the Walrus’, of course.

STU – PID Bloody Tuesday.

Could it really be as simple as that?

Ultimately, I believe so.

The Beatles devised a system whereby through gaining an understanding of the assembled cast one could travel, metaphorically, on a magical mystery tour through a golden door to a temple on a mystery land – let us call it Pepperland – where there exists treasure; knowledge.

Hidden knowledge, available only to those who have been initiated, and through gaining this knowledge one is returned to a world of child-like excitement and awe as encapsulated in books such as ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Treasure Island’.

Why else would John Lennon tell us: “Picture yourself in a boat on a river”, if not to travel this epic journey of understanding.

Of course when the Sgt. Pepper code was devised I don’t expect anybody envisaged that it would take fifty years to solve, but, it is fitting, I believe that as Sgt. Pepper’s golden anniversary looms its gilded treasures should finally be shared with us all.

However, proof that the Sgt. Pepper code should be revealed gradually, drip-fed if you like, can be found in a post Pepper Beatle project, Magical Mystery Tour.

For it is here that we are first introduced to the walrus, our master of disguise, in the November 1967 track ‘I am the Walrus’. This song comes replete with lyrical messages about ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, and its attendant Alice references, and Edgar Allan Poe, he of ‘The Gold-Bug’ fame. 

It is only when we merge these Alice themes and their associated word play clues with the treasure seeking aspects of Poe’s ‘The Gold-Bug’ that we can discover ‘Treasure Island’ and the walrus that was there in front of us all along.

After all, it was John in a scene from Magical Mystery Tour who wore a hat with a HEART on it in a scene that took place in a CLUB where he was watching a BAND.

John is telling us that everything leads back to Pepper!