The Sgt.

Pepper Code

Redwel Trabant
In time the hidden truth shall be revealed

2016 Redwel Trabant

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

by any other means without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in
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This book is dedicated to Beatles fans all over the world. Their
appetite for new stories knows no bounds I salute you.
I would like to thank in particular Richard M. Compton and Meagan
Leigh Compton for their amazing help in pointing out new clues, their
unwavering support and for their encyclopaedic knowledge.
I would also like to thank various anonymous contributors on Beatles
related web forums. Their capacity to suspend all forms of rational
belief defies logic; however, occasionally they do deliver spectacular
results!

Introduction
____________________________
If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin
with doubts, and we are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.
Sir Francis Bacon
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Lennon/McCartney
Paul McCartney once said; We wanted the whole of Pepper to be so
that you could look at the front cover for years, and study all those
people and read all the words on the back.
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, like The Beatles themselves,
means different things to different people. To brand it as simply a
psychedelic album would be to do it as gross a disservice as it would
be inaccurate. To label it simply as the first ever concept album would
render it paternally responsible for the crimes of its 1970s prog-rock
offspring. Likewise, to claim it as undoubtedly the finest rock and roll
album of all time is to overstate its significance massively. However,
whatever it means to you, to me, or to anyone else, you cannot deny
the immense influence that the release of that single, twelve-inch,
slab of vinyl has had on successive generations and now, as we
approach its fiftieth anniversary, this influence shows no sign of
declining.
But is all as it seems? Should it all be taken at face value? After all,
Paul McCartney has his back facing the camera on the rear of the
cover, so, does this not imply that all should not be taken at face
value? It is my belief that the album, its lyrics, and most importantly
its sleeve design, contains clues to reveal a hidden message.

I believe that the album cover is a treasure map and the clues it
reveals can be used to crack a code that has lain previously
undiscovered since its release.

The purpose of this book is to demonstrate that the clues exist, that
they can be linked, and, finally, to decode their meaning. The Sgt.
Pepper Code is the Rosetta Stone that will allow you to tap into the
Holy Grail of Beatle mystery and symbolism.
I suspect that, like the album itself, the book will elicit a plethora of
varying theories and opinions and that is great. It is not for me to

dictate what is and what is not. I may suspect I am right but, I cannot
prove it, so I write this as a means that others may begin their own
investigations, seek out their own clues and their own truths. All I can
demonstrate categorically, without fear of rebuttal, is that the clues
exist. As an aperitif, here is an example.
The Sgt. Pepper album cover is famous for its montage of cardboard
cut-out celebrities. People The Beatles supposedly like and admire,
yet, they are arranged there to pay homage to The Beatles, not the
other way around.
One of this list of players, one of the characters that appears in the
cover crowd scene, one of the people we like, one of The Beatles
heroes was H. G. Wells. We will look later at Wells in greater depth
but, let us for a minute, consider one of his printed works, 1933s The
Shape of Things to Come and its 1936 film release rebranded as
Things to Come.
The film portrays a vision of a future history from 1940 to 2036 and is
set in the fictional British city of 'Everytown', which is based on
London. Successful businessman John Cabal cannot enjoy
Christmas Day, 1940, with the ominous news of possible war
looming. His guest Harding shares his worries, but over-optimistic
friend Passworthy believes it will not come to pass, or even if it does,
it will do some good by accelerating the rate of technological
progress. A bombing raid on the city that night then results in general
mobilization and global war.
Some-time later, Cabal, now piloting a biplane, shoots down a oneman enemy bomber. He lands and pulls the badly injured enemy from
the wreckage. As they dwell on the madness of war, they have to put
on their gas masks as a poison gas drifts ominously in their direction.
When a little girl runs towards them, the wounded man insists she
take his mask, saying he is done for anyway. Cabal takes the girl to
his aeroplane, pausing to leave the doomed man a revolver. The pilot
is left to dwell on the irony that he may have gassed the child's family
but yet he has saved her. He then shoots himself.
The war continues for decades, long enough for the survivors to have
forgotten why they are fighting in the first place. Humanity enters a

new Dark Age. The world is in ruins and there is little technology left
apart from the firearms used to wage war. In 1966, a plague called
the wandering sickness is spread by the unnamed enemy using its
last few remaining aircraft. Dr. Harding and his daughter Mary
struggle to find a cure, but with little equipment, it is hopeless.
By 1970, a local warlord called the Chief or the Boss has risen to
power in the south of England and has eradicated the sickness by
shooting the infected. He dreams of conquering the hill people in
order that he can obtain coal and shale to render into oil so his
biplanes can fly again.
On May Day 1970, a futuristic aeroplane lands outside the town. The
sole pilot, John Cabal, emerges and proclaims that the last surviving
band of engineers and mechanics have formed a civilization called
Wings over the World. They are based in Basra, Iraq, and have
renounced war and outlawed independent nations. The Boss takes
the pilot prisoner and forces him to work for Gordon, a mechanic
working on repairing the few remaining aeroplanes. Together, they
manage to fix a plane. When Gordon takes it up for a test flight, he
uses the opportunity to flee to alert Cabals friends.
Wings over the World then attacks Everytown with gigantic
aeroplanes and drops sleeping-gas bombs on the town. The Boss
orders his biplanes to attack but they are soon shot down. The people
of Everytown awaken shortly thereafter to find it occupied by the
Airmen and the Boss dead.
A montage follows, showing decades of technological progress,
beginning with Cabal explaining plans for global consolidation by
Wings over the World. By 2036, mankind lives in modern
underground cities, including the new Everytown.
However, all is not well. The sculptor Theotocopulos incites the
populace to demand a rest from the rush of progress, symbolized by
the first manned flight around the Moon. The modern-day Luddites
are opposed by Oswald Cabal, the head of the governing council and
great grandson of John Cabal. Cabal's daughter Catherine and her
boyfriend Horrie Passworthy insist on flying the spaceship. When a

mob rushes to destroy the space gun used to propel the spacecraft,
Cabal launches the ship ahead of schedule.
Cabal then delivers a speech about progress and humanity's quest
for knowledge, asking: And if were no more than animals, we must
snatch each little scrap of happiness, and live, and suffer, and pass,
mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. It is
this, or that. All the universe or nothing. Which shall it be,
Passworthy? Which shall it be?
An interesting little tale culled shamelessly, from Wikipedia, however,
what is its relevance to The Beatles or to Sgt. Pepper? Well, it tells
the story of the rise of a new world order, a one government world
that is born from the seed of war and in which technology and
knowledge are king and where opposition here coming from the
artistic world is brutally suppressed. That the new civilisation
formed as it is from mechanics and engineers, is highly reminiscent of
a Masonic style secret organisation and their supposed formation by
highly skilled builders and architects should also be a key
consideration. Its issues, now extremely familiar, would have seemed
anathema to the audiences of 1936, or indeed 1966, and yet this
theme of secret knowledge and new world order are ones that are
repeatedly returned to in Sgt. Pepper, as I will demonstrate.
The Wings over the World, this new civilisation, is based in Basra in
Iraq, very near to the home of the ancient Sumerian civilisation and
Pepper will consistently refer back to the knowledge of the ancients
and to lost civilisations. But most intriguingly, Wings over the World
was the name that Paul McCartney bestowed on his 1975 / 76 world
tour with his then vanity project band, Wings.
Who gain the world and lose their soul they dont know they cant
see are you one of them?
The single, sole question asked on Sgt. Pepper and taken from the
song Within You, Without You, and as we shall see, it gets right to
the heart of the matter.
My views on Christianity are directly influenced by a book, The
Passover Plot by Hugh J. Schonfield. The premise in it is that Jesus

message had been garbled by his disciples and twisted for a variety
of self-serving reasons by those who followed, to the point where it
has lost validity for many in the modern age.
- John Lennon, The Boston Globe, reported on Dec. 12, 1980
This book, The Passover Plot would have an enormous influence on
John Lennon. He obtained it, as he did the works of Nietzsche, at the
Indica bookshop. The bookshop, along with its attached art gallery,
was owned and run by Barry Miles, John Dunbar and Peter Asher.
Lennons interpretation of the meaning of these books would lead
directly to the so called more popular than Jesus comments, and the
subsequent furore they caused, in 1966. This, in great part, would
lead to The Beatles deciding that they no longer wished to perform
live and to their re-invention as a solely studio based band.
This decision would have massive implications for both the band and
its management. Indeed, from this point onward The Beatles were
never the same band again. No longer were they the lovable moptops of old, beloved of both child and parent. Now they were longhaired, moustachioed, avant-garde gurus striding forth toward cultural
immortality.
Except, of course, that they had no perception of this themselves.
The Beatles had always been manipulated; packed off to Hamburg by
grasping management, transformed from 50s style bequiffed rockers
to a freshly coiffured elfin look by German art students, only to be
converted from leather-clad greasers to Pierre Cardin clad mods by
the shop owners son, Brian Epstein, and then subsequently deprived
of the services of their drummer at the behest of a producer of
comedy records.
But, for all of the above mentioned, whose own career paths would
reach stratospheric proportions thanks to the boys, this manipulation
was benign and caring, almost paternalistic in its nature.
But what of the new pack? The Miles, Asher, Dunbar triumvirate,
enhanced as it was by the influential art dealer Robert Fraser. This
was a new breed; left-leaning, socialist inspired vanguards of a

cultural and social revolution but, nevertheless, still Oxbridge

educated examples of the old British Establishment order.
Marx reading communists in expensively hand-tailored Savile Row
suits.
Clearly they believed in the LSD tinted, anarchic, peace and love,
hippy bull-shit they printed in their proto student rag, International
Times, but were they puppets or puppeteers?
How seriously the security services on either side of the Atlantic took
the supposed threat that bands like The Beatles and The Stones
posed is a moot point. But that the International Times faithfully
reported on any, or all, of the more subversive aspects of this
movement can only of been an advantage to the powers that be.
We must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army for LSD
said John Lennon to Playboy in 1980. Of course, post the 1970s CIA
mind-control revelations, many were aware by then that LSD was a
tool of The Man; nevertheless John Lennon was, coincidentally,
dead before the year was out.
But who knew any of that in the 1960s?
The Beatles were certainly pro LSD proselytisers but their
introduction to the drug was far from organic given that that their
drinks were spiked by a dentist friend.
Is it significant that the wicked dentist was a US trained son of a
Metropolitan Police Officer?
Is it significant that the Cambridge educated John Dunbars father
was a former cultural attach to Moscow?
Is it significant that Peter, and Jane, Ashers father was involved in
LSD related, medical experiments in the sixties?
For sure the police raids on the International Times gave it a certain
veneer of respectability, an element of being for the people, but was
this really the case?

It is all too easy to start bandying around terms like Tavistock and
MKUltra and sounding like a conspiracy theorists wet dream when,
in reality, there is scant evidence for this level of involvement.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that when a spokesperson for the acid
generation was needed, it would turn out to be the cute Beatle that
stepped up to the plate. The Beatle, who by his own admission, had
only tried LSD a couple of times. The Beatle whose establishment
friend had died whilst driving under the, rumoured (by Marianne
Faithfull, then John Dunbars husband), influence of LSD. The very
same Beatle who could, very well, be the spokesperson for The
Man.
It is interesting also that for all the left-leaning, liberal agenda of the
Indica crowd their bottom line was, and is, the selling of product be
it avant-garde art, poorly typeset newspapers, books or records to
the masses and they certainly appreciated the marketing potential of
a Beatle to enhance that.
Puppets or puppeteers? Benign manipulators or malignant mindcontrol experts? The jury is still out; however, their influence is all
over the Sgt. Pepper concept.
Another pertinent event that took place in 1966 was a Time
magazine article asking Is God Dead? Clearly, one cannot prove
that John Lennon or The Beatles or any of their inner-circle read this
article but its theme, and its subsequent parallels to the Paul is
Dead? theory, are intriguing when viewed in the light of the obvious
religious soul searching that the band were undertaking.
Clearly the Time piece didnt influence Lennons comments to the
journalist Maureen Cleave that sparked the more popular than
Jesus outrage. That interview was conducted in March 66 and the
Time magazine didnt appear until the following month, however, the
Time article was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsches much-quoted
postulation God is dead and Lennon, at this very time, was heavily
influenced by both Nietzsche and The Passover Plot.

The theme that Lennon took from The Passover Plot was that Jesus,
far from being born of a virgin as the Son of God, was in fact a master
manipulator who carefully engineered his position.
Indeed, he had attempted to fake his own death on the cross, so that
he could be resurrected and duly considered the true messiah.
Paul McCartney in the book Many Years from Now by Barry Miles
would set the scene for the origins of Sgt. Pepper as: We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking
four little mop-top boys approach.
Then suddenly on the plane (returning from Kenya) I got this idea. I
thought, lets not be ourselves. Lets develop alter egos so we do not
have to project an image which we know. It would be much more
free. What would really be interesting would be to actually take on the
personas of this different band.
An interesting comparison can also be drawn with The Beatles and a
movie that came out in the same year as Sgt. Pepper entitled
Privilege.
In the movie, which is set in the future, the main protagonist is a pop
star entitled Steve Shorter, the most influential character in Britain.
We are presented with a creation of pop star as prisoner and are
introduced to Shorter when we see him being handcuffed, stuffed into
a sack, and carried to the stage where two uniformed guards
physically dump him out onto the boards.
They then hit him with sticks and lock him in a cage. Dazed and
bleeding, he sings just the one song.
Visually, the camera cuts back and forth from shots of the caged
singer and his audience, which is filled with tearful, screaming,
yearning little girls. They love him. They want him. As long as hes
safely out of reach up there on the stage, they desperately desire
him.

This is the psychology that the pop idols managers cynically exploit in
Privilege and the analogy of that to the mop-top Beatles and their Ed
Sullivan staged arrival in America to hordes of screaming teenage
girls is plain to see.
The astounding achievement of Privilege is that it uncannily predicts
the 21st century Britain of today. A world in which there is no
discernible difference in the policies of the major political parties.
Factions are bad because they divide the nation and the population is
told that the new motto is We must all conform. An almost perfect
parable of the anodyne, corporate controlled, media-centric UK of
today with its Were all in it together mantra that allows the rich to
get richer whilst the working classes are pitched against one another
to fight over the scraps. Divide and conquer.
In the movie the government decides to use Shorter as a symbol of
the new national unity. His managers agree. The three most
influential power groups in the country (church, state and public
relations) stage a public ceremony in which the singer is divested of
his handcuffs, confesses his sins and is set free to embrace the new
fascist state.
It is the perfect forerunner of the modern day phenomena whereby
we are now constantly spoon-fed the pseudo-tragic backstories of
saccharine sweet American Idol / X-Factor contestants. Equally it
embodies the Z-list non-entities that peer out from the covers of
Hello or OK magazines to declare their semi miraculous recoveries
from their self-induced drinks/drugs/gambling/sex addiction
nightmares.
These media manipulated smokescreens are designed to ensure we
remain in our Disneyfied blinkers whilst world government lurches
wildly to the right. Proof, if any were needed, of the worlds love for
the endearing charms of the redeemer. He who has renounced his
sins shall conquer the earth.
The Beatles perfectly encapsulate the Privilege model. Four,
streetwise but lovable, cheeky-chappie, working class lads swept
from the slums of Liverpool to miraculously conquer the world and, as
reward, are invited to nestle at the bosom of the Establishment.

Shocked at their elevation to the status of deities they rebel and

appear to be figureheads for a new movement; spokespersons for the
coming new order.
Of course, the promised revolution never arrives and the powers that
be maintain the status quo. For the revolutionaries amongst the band
that actually believed the hype only assassination awaits, whilst, for
those content to toe the line and redeem, knighthoods and the status
of national treasure is assured.
So, was this Beatle creation and transformation organic or stage
managed?
From lovable, cute, but slightly dangerous pop minstrels to drug-guru
counter-revolutionaries in a few short years. Is this the natural order
of evolution or test-tube experimentation?
Certainly we now know the LSD hippy phenomena was born from a
CIA blueprint so, is it possible that The Beatles were the architects of
a cultural revolution or merely sculpted puppets designed to enslave
our freedom of thought and expression?
The Illuminati, if one believes in such a concept, are often depicted as
being involved on both sides of a war and the Templars of old upon
whose ideals the quasi-masonic Illuminati are apparently based would hide their secrets in plain sight. So, could it be that The Beatles
were the tools through whom this coded knowledge of ancient power
and control could be drip-fed to the public via Sgt. Pepper and its
treasure trove of information and symbolism, or, were their puppet
masters using them as agents of disinformation?
Alternatively, could it be that The Beatles are using Sgt. Pepper as an
allegory that, when understood, details this looming corporate
dystopia and their dissatisfaction at being used as unwitting pawns in
bringing about its achievement?
It is my belief that this last theory best fits the bill and as we progress
down the rabbit-hole I shall do my best to prove this.

It has been claimed [HERE] that John Lennon read John Fowless
book The Magus around the time that he was away filming How I
Won the War in 1966, which would segue perfectly were it to be a
formative influence for the embryonic Sgt. Pepper concept.
In the book the main protagonist, according to Wikipedia, becomes
embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which
become increasingly dark and serious.
The book is set on a Greek island and features twins, fake deaths
and an aging Magus who induces the main character, Nicholas Urfe,
into a number of staged situations whereby he loses his ability to
determine what is real and what is deception. In essence Nicholas is
Alice in his own version of Wonderland being guided through the
various nodes of the tree of life in some forced attempt to make him
re-evaluate his views of the world around him. As such there are
clear parallels with the nothing is real statements espoused on
Strawberry Fields Forever and the concept of taking on the
personas of this different band from Sgt. Pepper. It is a forced
initiation ceremony. On the Sgt. Pepper cover we also find twin
Beatles, a fake death and an aging Magus inhabiting a staged
fantasy world. They share this world with a number of authors in
whose works are contained codes and ciphers, hidden meanings,
allegories and fantastical scenarios and gurus and actors and
psychologists and, or, secret society members. You are being invited
to journey through this world and, in so doing, to become initiated.
Perhaps the biggest single influence in the creation of this concept is
Lewis Carrolls Alice books. Essentially, Sgt. Pepper is The Beatles
through the Looking Glass.
So, from out of this conspiratorial stew, we shall delve, prod, and
probe our way through a forensic autopsy upon the carcass of the
worlds most famous funeral scene, all the whilst trying to pick out any
pairings, partnerships, codes, titbits and tall tales from the mass of
clues that is The Beatles, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
LP.

This, updated, version of The Sgt. Pepper Code will conclude with,
what I believe to be, an elegant and simple solution to the code. A
solution that I hope you will agree with.
Ultimately, any solution would need to be both simple and elegant as
the protagonists had only a short period of time in which to formulate
it, however, there is a wealth of material, of potential clues, that we
must evaluate before we can arrive at any solution.
It is this journey that I now wish to share with you all.
Yes, this is my interpretation of Sgt. Pepper; it will differ from yours
and you almost certainly wont agree with my deductions. But read
the book, read it from start to finish, hear all about the clues and
codes and then tell me there is nothing there.
So, as John Lennon said on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: Picture
yourself in a boat on a river, because were going on a journey.

Chapter one: Robert Fraser and Tara Browne

_______________________________________________________

Robert Fraser and Tara Browne

So, to where can we trace back the origins of the Sgt. Pepper code?
The answer would appear to be 1965 and The Beatles second
movie, Help! In the film we find The Beatles embroiled within a plot
line that has them fleeing a mystical eastern cult, lead by a high
priestess, who worship a goddess figure and sees the band
searching for a lost temple.
The album cover features the group with their arms positioned to
spell out a word in flag semaphore. According to cover photographer
Robert Freeman; I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters
H.E.L.P. But when we came to do the shot the arrangement of the
arms with those letters didnt look good. So we decided to improvise
and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms.
On the UK Parlophone release, the letters formed by the Beatles
appear to be N.U.J.V., whilst the slightly re-arranged US release on
Capitol Records appeared to feature the letters N.V.U.J. The original
photograph used on the UK album was reverse printed. Holding it up
to a mirror reveals the letters L.P.U.S., which, when pronounced
phonetically becomes Help Us.

It has been claimed that there is a further, magickal, significance to

these symbols and that, they are, representative of the Golden Dawn
LVX (pronounced lukes) symbols.
Whether there is any truth in this I cannot be sure, however, it is
important to remember that these signs were not just an idle formality
to be used without meaning. Each sign was originally shown to a
student of the Golden Dawn as he/she underwent an elemental
initiation ceremony. Signs from higher grades were not shown to
students who had not been initiated into those grades.
This was partly so that when initiation ceremonies were being
conducted, it would be simple to make sure that no one was present
who hadnt experienced an initiation into that grade yet.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the
Golden Dawn) was an organisation devoted to the study and practice
of the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities during the late
19th and early 20th centuries in Great Britain. Many present-day
concepts of ritual and magic that are at the centre of contemporary
traditions, such as Wicca and Thelema, were inspired by the Golden
Dawn.
The three founders, William Robert Woodman, William Wynn
Westcott, and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers were Freemasons
and members of Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.)
It may be apposite, at this juncture, to make mention of another
Golden Dawn theme. A key feature of the Sgt. Pepper code is its use
of Alice in Wonderland references. The classic childrens story was
written by Lewis Carroll who was rumoured to be a Rosicrucian
himself who based the eponymous lead character on a child named
Alice Liddell, a relative of the aforementioned Golden Dawn founder
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers.
It is also no coincidence, I believe, that Alice in Wonderland
symbolism was heavily utilised by the CIA, amongst others, when
developing mind-control techniques.

Whatever the truth of the Help! LP imagery The Beatles, by 1965,

were, by their own design, or by manipulation, displaying coded
messages on their album sleeves. This would be a recurring theme.
I said in the introduction that the line Who gain the world and lose
their soul they dont know they cant see are you one of them?
from the song Within You, Without You on the Sgt. Pepper LP was
the one, sole question asked by The Beatles on the record cover.
This is nonsense, there are dozens; So may I introduce to you is the
very first, found on the albums title track, this is followed by What
would you think if I sang out of tune, Would you stand up and walk
out on me, Will you still be sending me a Valentine, Will you still
need me, Will you still feed me, May I inquire discreetly, when are
you free, to take some tea with me etc. etc. are all further examples.
They are numerous and various; indeed one may describe them as
plentiful. In fact my single question statement begs a question of its
own, why would I say such a thing?
And therein lies the answer. In that curiously shaped curly appendage
that is formally known in the English language as the question mark.
That form of delineation, of demarcation, of symbolism that signifies
to the reader when, and only when, a question has been asked.
Of the many firsts that Sgt. Pepper brought to the world stage its use
of the printed lyric has become one of the most important. It has
become common place for the artist to inform us of his or her own
tortured genius via the medium of the printed lyric; the de-facto forum
for the forthcoming confessional, therapy or intervention. The myriad
of odes to unrequited love, forbidden love, forgotten love, shattered
love, all manner of love all recorded for posterity on a foot square
piece of cardboard or the glossy liner of a CD.
Invented especially for the occasion, by one Gene Mahon, then laid
out with military precision to overlay an image of our heroes in military
uniforms on the back cover of the, at that time, most expensive piece
of musical embellishment known to man. Grammatically correct in all
other ways including the use of full stops, of commas, of hyphens and
exclamation marks. Does it not beggar belief that nobody noticed that
the one, the only, the sole, the singular use of a question mark comes

at the end of the question from Within You, Without You, Who gain
the world and lose their soul they dont know they cant see are
you one of them? . Unless, of course, it was all highly intentional.
Read again the question asked, Who gain the world and lose their
soul they dont know they cant see are you one of them?, this
could be a description of Freemasonry, a mission statement for the
Illuminati, a recruitment campaign for the Rosicrucians or, at the very
least, the strap line for the latest Dan Brown novel, it is all very Da
Vinci Code.
Look at the lyrics at the beginning of this song, We were talking
about the space between us all and the people - who hide
themselves behind a wall of illusion.

Firstly, look at The Beatles. There is no space between them all; was
that just a coincidence or a deliberate concept designed to reinforce
the statement? Secondly, consider just who are the people hiding
themselves behind a wall of illusion? At first glance one could argue
that The Beatles are referring to the celebrities who appear on the
record cover with them, except, of course, they are all visible. Or are
they?
We shall look later on at some of the characters who, for whatever
reason, fell by the wayside or were simply removed or airbrushed out
of the picture. For now we shall focus on a row of figures that were,
quite deliberately, by dint of being placed immediately behind The
Beatles, hidden from view on the final cover shot. Hidden behind a
band who were dressing up as somebody else, these people are
literally hiding behind a wall of illusion.
Who are these hidden people? Well, interestingly, none are who they
claim to be for they are all actors in character. There is Sophia Loren
and Marcello Mastroianni from the film Marriage Italian Style, there
is actor Timothy Carey appearing as he does in a scene from Stanley
Kubricks The Killing, and finally, and most significantly, there is the
actress Bette Davis dressed as Queen Elizabeth I from the film The
Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.

Sgt Pepper: The full cast list

Why go to all the trouble of sourcing, cutting out, colouring and

placing these characters into the final tableaux and then hiding them
behind The Beatles? If we can understand that, or perhaps who
sanctioned that, then we will go a long way to decoding the riddle.
So may I introduce to you? The act youve perhaps never heard of,
the one and only. Robert Fraser.
Paul McCartney first met Robert Fraser at the flat of Marianne
Faithfull and her then husband, and owner of the Indica art gallery,
John Dunbar, in the spring of 1966.
Robert Fraser was the Eton educated art gallery owning,
establishment figure who would act as tour guide for The Beatles
McCartney in particular and The Rolling Stones into the wonderful
world of the avant-garde. From the personal perspective of this
author as someone whose appearance on this planet coincided with
the tail end of the sixties, avant-garde seems to have been the catch
all term applied to any sort of artistic endeavour that couldnt be
easily referenced, or regarded as, mainstream and subsequently
encapsulated an awful amount of dross. My apologies then to those
who think I am being disingenuous to some of the greatest art, or
artists, or movements of the twentieth century, however, the term
coined by George Harrison to describe it as avant-garde a clue
seems to best describe it for me.
For Fraser though, it was his niche, his avenue to the big time and to
the big players and through his vast network of friends and
associates he would lead The Beatles into a world of high society,
high flying intellectuals who brought with them the agendas of those
who have received a classical and highly expensive education.
In the book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones by Spanish Tony
Sanchez, Sanchez speaks about the gambling debts that Fraser had
built up and, in particular, those which he had accrued with the
notorious London gangsters the Kray Twins. Sanchez claims he
personally met with Krays to barter an arrangement on behalf of
Fraser and his debts. Quite what was offered to assuage the Krays
appetite for violence is unclear; however, immediately after this the

crime barons turned their attentions towards Beatles manager, Brian

Epstein.
The Krays told Glasgow crime-lord Arthur Thompson that they were
blackmailing Epstein and were going to take The Beatles from him.
Thompson apparently convinced the twins that The Beatles career
would go downhill fast if they were associated with the Krays. They
settled for blackmailing Epstein for cash instead.
On the 27th August 1967 Brian Epstein was found dead in the locked
bedroom of his home in London. Nearly a year and a half later, in
December of 1968, Beatles lawyer and Epsteins close friend, David
Jacobs, was found hanging from a length of satin tied to one of the
beams of the garage at his seaside home.
It has been rumoured that Ronnie Kray may have ordered the murder
of the flamboyant showbiz lawyer for refusing to help him, and his
twin brother Reggie, to beat the murder charges for which they were
due to stand trial at the Old Bailey in January 1969.
Jacobs was the suave, arrogant, senior partner in the firm of M.A.
Jacobs Ltd of Pall Mall. His clients, aside from The Beatles, included
Pepper cast members Marlene Dietrich and Diana Dors as well as
The Rolling Stones.
Another intriguing possible link, and example of Frasers influence
and pull, concerns Tom Driberg. Driberg was a homosexual Labour
MP and fan and friend of Aleister Crowley. He was also rumoured to
have had a romantic relationship with Ronnie Kray. In addition to all
his other vocations and interests Driberg was also a spy for MI5 and
was controlled by an individual named Maxwell Knight (Knight may
also have been an apprentice of Crowleys).
In 1967 Driberg would speak on behalf of both Fraser and Mick
Jagger after the Redlands bust and would later try to convince Jagger
to stand as a Labour MP.
Fraser clearly had designs on both The Beatles and The Stones;
however, the inbred snobbery and superiority that he and his ilk
engender may well have served to temper the enthusiasm of Lennon,

Harrison and Starr. But Paul McCartney, still at this time safely
ensconced in the bosom of the similarly minded and educated Asher
family, lapped up the influence and teachings of Fraser and his
acolytes from the Indica Gallery.
In the Beatles Anthology McCartney says While the others had got
married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got
into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles
and papers like the International Times. We opened the Indica
gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that.
Indeed, when McCartney decided to publish his memoirs, Many
Years from Now, he chose Barry Miles as its author, one of that
same Fraser/Indica set and founder of the McCartney funded paper
International Times. In this book McCartney says, The most
formative influence for me was Robert Fraser.
It is Frasers influence that would lead The Beatles to abandon the
original artwork for the cover of Sgt. Pepper, designed by the Dutch
psychedelic artists, The Fool, and bring them into the sphere instead
of Peter Blake.
However, we are getting ahead of ourselves, I shall return to this
subject shortly.
It is Frasers more malevolent influence that would bring The Beatles
and The Stones into contact with the cinematic works, and
acquaintance, of occultist film-maker and Aleister Crowley adept,
Kenneth Anger. Angers influence, and contacts, in turn, would then
permeate deep within the hearts of both these camps formulating and
regulating their works for a long time forward, possibly, even to the
present day.
As mentioned above, Fraser was present at the Redlands home of
Stones guitarist Keith Richards when he and his party were the
recipients of the famous bust that would ultimately lead to the brief
jailing of Mick Jagger, the very brief jailing of Keith Richards and the
rather more substantial incarceration of Fraser himself; the victim of
his self-inflicted heroin addiction.

Fraser was also present at the infamous false rumour event.

The February 1967 copy of the Beatles monthly magazine carried an
article stating that there was no truth to rumours that Paul McCartney
had been killed in a car accident on the 7th January 1967 whilst
driving in his black Mini Cooper car on the M1 motorway.

Subsequent articles would claim that McCartney was travelling with

Jagger, Richards, Brian Jones, antique dealer Christopher Gibbs and
the aforementioned Fraser, and that they were travelling on the M1
motorway having been on their way to Jaggers home in
Hertfordshire. Again, later, it was claimed that there were, in-fact, two
Coopers travelling in convoy; one belonging to Jagger that contained
the gang, the other, McCartneys, that contained Frasers boyfriend
cum man-servant Mohammed Chtaibi aka Mohammed Hadjij - and
the drugs. This vehicle, apparently, whilst travelling at seventy miles
an hour was involved in a head first smash into an inconveniently
placed lamp-post and that, whilst its sole occupant managed to
escape without injury, Mr McCartney had been rather ticked off at the
loss of his stash; though presumably not his car?
At no point are the details ever questioned. Details such as could six
grown men ever fit into a Mini Cooper? That Jagger did not at this
time own a home in Hertfordshire or that at no time did McCartney
own a black Mini Cooper (his was green). This leads one to naturally
ponder the point of the article?
If there was a big media fuss about this event at the time it has
passed me by, so who, or what was the source of this rumour? One
could speculate that this was a deliberately placed and created piece
of journalism designed to seed a legend; the legend of a hoax. And
that mention of a hoax brings us nicely onto the elephant in the room,

a subject that has to be confronted when writing a book about The

Beatles and Sgt. Pepper, namely the Paul is Dead myth.

Ringo knows theres an Elephant in the room

Paul is Dead, or PID, was born on the college campuses of

Michigan in 1969 and revolved around a rumour that Paul McCartney
had died, in a car crash, in November 1966 during the recording of
the Sgt. Pepper sessions and that he had been subsequently
replaced by a double.
However, not content to have successfully masterminded this
deception, The Beatles had been, thoughtfully, leaving clues of Pauls
demise on the covers of their records for the discerning fans to
discover and unravel.
I should, at this juncture, declare my position on the rumour; it is
nonsense. The assassination of John Lennon in 1980 proves that you
could not supress the death of a Beatle. It cannot be done, it is a
hoax, and it is a conspiracy theory.
That said it is by far my most favourite conspiracy theory of all time,
bar none. I am not saying that I wish the venerable knight of the
realm were dead, I am merely saying that, as a concept, or a
construct this theory is quite brilliant and it is almost certainly
deliberate.
So, what is Paul is Dead? An accident or a quirk of fate? The
product of too many over active or over stimulated minds? A massive

hoax or plain good old disinformation? I shall leave it up to you to

decide; however, that the clues exist is a matter of fact and once you
start to look you will see there are clues aplenty!
Uppermost amongst this dearth of clues is the fact that what is being
depicted upon the cover of Sgt. Pepper is, undoubtedly, a funeral
scene. This I hold to be true, that this funeral is for Paul McCartney I
do not.
During my lengthy research there are two names that crop up time
after time. One is our friend, the aforementioned Robert Fraser; the
other is, I believe, the intended recipient of this well-heeled and wellattended send off.
All of which brings us to Tara Browne. The Hon Tara Browne, heir to
the Guinness fortune and archetypal golden child of the 1960s,
whose death at 21, in a car crash, inspired The Beatles song A Day
in the Life.
It was just a week before Christmas 1966, at the height of the Pepper
sessions, when he was with killed as he drove his turquoise Lotus
Elan through a red light at high speed and collided with a parked van
in Redcliffe Gardens, in Earls Court, London.

As The Beatles sang in A Day in the Life on Sgt. Pepper:

He blew his mind out in a car
He didnt notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
Theyd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.

The British newspaper, The Telegraph, stated on 22 June 2012 that

Paul McCartney told interviewers that he took LSD for the first time
with Tara Browne, and Marianne Faithfull has asserted that Browne
was on acid the night he died. Could McCartney have been present
on that fateful night?
What exactly was the nature of Paul and Taras relationship? Could
Sgt. Pepper be an elaborate homage to a fallen friend or indeed,
lover?
As an aside, Paul to this day uses a piano on stage that is replete
with a psychedelic mural design painted by Dudley Edwards - of
Binder, Edwards and Vaughan - that is a replica of the design that
Edwards had painted onto another of Taras cars. Tara was also
believed to have been travelling on that fateful night to meet Edwards
and see how the work was progressing on a window-design for
Taras shop, Dandie Fashions.
Whatever the answer to those questions, it is certain that Paul and
Tara were no strangers to drug fuelled motor accidents. The following
extract from the Beatles Anthology Book will allow Paul to tell the
story.
I had an accident when I came off a moped in Wirral, near
Liverpool. I had a very good friend who lived in London called
Tara Browne, a Guinness heir - a nice Irish guy, very sensitive
bloke. I'd see him from time to time, and enjoyed being around
him. He came up to visit me in Liverpool once when I was there
seeing my dad and brother. I had a couple of mopeds on hire,
so we hit upon the bright idea of going to my cousin Bett's
house.
We were riding along on the mopeds. I was showing Tara the
scenery. He was behind me, and it was an incredible full moon;
it really was huge. I said something about the moon and he said
'yeah', and I suddenly had a freeze-frame image of myself at
that angle to the ground when its too late to pull back up again:
I was still looking at the moon and then I looked at the ground,
and it seemed to take a few minutes to think, Ah, too bad Im
going to smack that pavement with my face! Bang! There I

was, chipped tooth and all. It came through my lip and split it.
But I got up and we went along to my cousins house. When I
said, Don't worry, Bett, but I've had a bit of an accident, she
thought I was joking. She creased up laughing at first, but then
she went Holy...! I'd really given my face a good old smack; it
looked like I'd been in the ring with Tyson for a few rounds. So
she rang a friend of hers who was a doctor.

He came round on the spot, took a needle out and, after great
difficulty threading it, put it in the first half of the wound. He was
shaking a bit, but got it all the way through, and then he said,
the threads just come out Ill have to do it again! No
anaesthetic. I was standing there while he rethreaded it and
pulled it through again.
In fact that was why I started to grow a moustache. It was
pretty embarrassing, because around that time you knew your
pictures would get winged off to teeny-boppery magazines like
16, and it was pretty difficult to have a new picture taken with a
big fat lip. So I started to grow a moustache - a sort of Sancho
Panza - mainly to cover where my lip had been sewn.
It caught on with the guys in the group: if one of us did
something like growing his hair long and we liked the idea, wed
all tend to do it. And then it became seen as a kind of
revolutionary idea, that young men of our age definitely ought to
grow a moustache! And it all fell in with the Sgt. Pepper thing,
because he had a droopy moustache.

That this accident happened is beyond doubt the injuries at any rate
- as there is photographic evidence to prove it, however, exactly
when is an issue still open to debate. No date is given in the piece
above for the accident but it is widely held to have occurred on
December 26, 1965. We must remember that when McCartney
recalled this event it was many years later, however, his comment
that it was an incredible full moon has to be questioned as lunar
records state that the moon was in its new moon phase at this point.
Further doubt concerning this incident can be cited on the grounds
that in the videos for Paperback Writer and Rain, filmed on the
same day in May 1966, and some six months after the alleged
incident, Paul still clearly has a broken tooth. No moustache either,
despite McCartneys protestations of embarrassment! Michael
McCartneys book Thank U Very Much also confirms this story,
though dates it to 1966.
As already mentioned, Tara Browne came from an influential and well
connected family and stood to inherit a sizable sum from the
Guinness family legacy had he lived. He was connected, through the
marriage of a Guinness cousin, to the Rothschilds and an interesting
Knights Templar connection can be found in the family crest, which
adorns his headstone. It bears the image of a double-headed eagle,
an image which according to Jacques De Molay, Templar founder,
means A black two-headed Eagle is GOD;

So, what do we have? A litany of accidents and reports thereof, the

death of a socialite and the birth of a myth: All of which brings us
back neatly to PID.
One of the major clues of the PID theory is the supposed mirrored
message found in the Sgt. Pepper drumhead. If one takes a mirror
and lays it across the middle section of the drums where it says
lonely hearts a message will be revealed that reads 1 one 1X he
die. To the believers this is a coded message revealing McCartneys
death date if you read it as 11/9 he die, the only flaw being that it
gives an entirely different date depending upon which side of the
Atlantic you choose to read it. To those of us of the British persuasion
11/9 reads as the 11th September whilst it would be 9th November to
our American brethren.

No matter though, at least for those of us from the school of nonbelievers. Of more interest perhaps is the fact that the date, 9
November 1966, is an important one in the Beatle lexicon for it is the
(official) date when John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at her Unfinished
Paintings and Objects exhibition held, perhaps unsurprisingly, at the
Indica Gallery. Oh, by the way, one Robert Fraser sponsored the
event.
Before we depart this subject, however, it would be remiss of me not
to mention another candidate as being the subject of the funeral
scene.
Stuart Sutcliffe was a member of a proto-Beatles, that traded under
various names such Long John and the Silver Beetles, and Stuart
was a major player in The Beatles early Hamburg days.
Tragically Stuart died on April 10, 1962, and this event is marked by
his inclusion on the Sgt. Pepper cover.

We shall return to Stuart, and his significance, in the fullness of time.

So there you have it. I do not know if Tara Browne introduced Robert
Fraser to The Beatles or if Robert Fraser introduced Tara Browne.
What is certain though is that they moved in the same circles, had
access to some of the worlds most glamorous people and would
influence The Beatles in more ways than are imaginable.

Chapter 2: Creating that sleeve

_______________________________________________________

It didn't occur to me that the waxworks of the suited Beatles looked

like the Beatles are dead; long live the Beatles and that they were
looking at their funeral flowers, but it's an interesting idea. We set up
a couple of myths to find in the puzzle, but most of them are dead
ends. What's intriguing is how the mythology never stops. Peter Blake
Mojo March 2007

When The Beatles released Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
in 1967 it was, quite rightly, universally lauded as breaking musical
barriers and set the template for rock albums for decades to come.
What is, perhaps, not quite so well known is the story behind the
record cover itself and the concealed story that it contains. Here, for
the first time, we shall attempt to break the code of the Sgt. Pepper
cover and decipher the treasure trove of clues that it contains.
So, let us start at the beginning. As discussed in the previous chapter
Paul McCartney had struck up a friendship with the art gallery owner
Robert Fraser and it was he who took Paul to Paris to meet
Alexandre Iolas in 1966. Iolas acted as agent for the artist Rene
Magritte, who Paul admired greatly, and Paul was shown a number of
Magrittes works. He chose two oils Cibria and The Countess of
Monte Christo, which he bought. Magritte was on the initial shortlist
of candidates to be included on the album cover but who, for some
unknown reason, was omitted from the finished piece.
The visit proved to be a timely one as Magritte would die the following
year in August 1967. One of his last works was a painting etitled Le
Jeu de Mourre (The Guessing Game). Fraser brought the painting to
Pauls house in Cavendish Avenue and, seeing Paul was busy with
other things, placed it on a table and left unannounced. Paul bought
it. It was a painting of a large apple and it is widely believed that this
is the work that would inspire the Apple logo.
Having educated his young friend with a crash course in art history it
was Robert Fraser who commissioned his client, Peter Blake, to paint
a copy of Sir Edwin Landseers 1851 painting The Monarch of the
Glen to hang above McCartneys fireplace in 1966. Quite what the
significance of this painting is remains unclear, but both McCartney
and Landseer resided in St. Johns Wood in London, an area that in
ancient times belonged to the Knights Templar. It is possible that the
area was used as a deer reserve for hunting and that the picture
commemorates this, however, the Knights Templar are also the
model for all manner of ancient and modern secret societies, and as
we shall see the Pepper cover seems to reference a large number of
these secret societies.

Moreover, the area surrounding the McCartney home and Abbey

Road studios sits on an ancient London Ley Line known as the Mary
Line. It may be that Fraser and McCartney were aware of the areas
sacred pagan history and attempted to tap into its spiritual power. It is
no secret that McCartney built a glass domed meditation centre in
his garden back in the sixties.

Indeed, it has been said, although not substantiated, that Paul

became so obsessed with the Tarot tree of life that he built a literal
Tarot zigzag path in his garden at Cavendish Avenue and put a
series of Alice in Wonderland statuettes at each of the nodes.

The Landseer commission however, would prove fortuitous for Peter

Blake as he, and his then wife Jann Haworth, who had also exhibited
at Robert Frasers gallery, were approached to take over the Sgt.
Pepper sleeve project.
Peter Blake: The Beatles already had a cover designed by a
Dutch group called the Fool, but my gallery dealer, Robert

Fraser, said to Paul: Why don't you use a fine artist, a

professional, to do the cover instead? Paul rather liked the
idea and I was asked to do it. The concept of the album had
already evolved: it would be as though The Beatles were
another band, performing a concert, perhaps in a park. I then
thought that we could have a crowd standing behind them, and
this developed into the collage idea. In 1964 I began a painting
titled The Battle, which featured Elvis Presley, Tony Curtis,
Shirley Temple, W.C. Fields and Lou Costello all in the crowd.
So the idea of a crowd made up of famous people actually
predated Sgt. Pepper by three years. The concept eventually
evolved into The Beatles dressing up as the pretend group and
being surrounded by some of their pop culture and historical
heroes. The last vestiges of the park idea surfaced in the floral
display that spelled out The Beatles at the bottom of the cover.
We had an original meeting with all four Beatles, Robert Fraser
and Brian Epstein, Blake remembered later. Most of the
subsequent talking was done with Paul at his house and with
John there sometimes.
Despite the Fools initial contribution Paul McCartney clearly had a
similar idea in mind as he recalls in an excerpt from his biography
Many Years from Now written by Barry Miles.
As the recording sessions for Sgt. Pepper had progressed, so
too did the work on the sleeve. First came Pauls initial concept
of The Beatles standing before a wall of framed photographs of
their heroes. One of his pen-and-ink drawings shows the four
Beatles, all sporting moustaches, wearing long military-band
jackets complete with epaulettes, holding brass-band
instruments: Paul has an E- flat bass, the same brass
instrument that his grandfather played; John holds a clarinet,
George a trumpet and Ringo a kettle drum. John has a sash
and Ringo a medal. They stand in an Edwardian sitting room
with a wall of framed photographs behind them and a few
trophies and shields. To the left of the framed photographs is a
pin-up poster of Brigitte Bardot in one of her famous late-fifties
poses: kneeling with her hands behind her head. By some
oversight, Brigitte did not make it on to the final album sleeve.

Next, Paul made a series of pen-and-ink drawings of The

Beatles being presented to some dignitaries in front of a floral
clock. Paul: I did a lot of drawings of us being presented to the
Lord Mayor, with lots of dignitaries and lots of friends of ours
around, and it was to be us in front of a big northern floral clock,
and we were to look like a brass band. That developed to
become the Peter Blake cover.
So, it remains unclear quite whose idea it was to include their
heroes, though that it was always a staple part of the concept is
apparent.
Blake and Haworth then began putting together the covers collage,
titled People We Like, by taking suggestions from the band. Jann
Haworth claims that she and Blake chose about 60 per cent of the
participants as The Beatles hadnt come up with enough. She also
confirms that all the women depicted were their choice, as The
Beatles chose none.
I still have no idea who chose some of those people. I think
Peter Blake put a lot more of the confusing people in there. It
was just a broad spectrum of people. The ones I wanted were
people I admired. I didnt put anybody on there because I didnt
like them (unlike some people...). George Harrison Beatles
Anthology.
Some of the original suggestions for inclusion did not make the cut
and it is interesting to speculate as to why? Neil Aspinall went looking
for portraits of everyone on the list as it stood before Peter Blake was
involved. The list he brought into Indica Bookshop read as follows:
Yogas, Marquis de Sade, Hitler, Nietzsche, Lenny Bruce, Lord
Buckley, Aleister Crowley, Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, Oscar
Wilde, William Burroughs, Robert Peel, Stockhausen, Aldous
Huxley, H. G. Wells, Einstein, Carl Jung, Beardsley, Alfred
Jarry, Tom Mix, Johnny Weissmuller, Magritte, Tyrone Power,
Karl Marx, Richmal Crompton, Dick Barton, Tommy Handley,
Albert Stubbins, Fred Astaire.

Let us examine this list for a second; no fewer than eight of this
original list will fail to appear on the finished piece; Hitler for reasons
that will become apparent shortly. As for the rest however, we shall
need to seek the reasons as to why this should be. Of the survivors
from the above list is James Joyce, who does appear but is not
formally listed. It seems bizarre that so many get the chop when the
very concept was that these were people we like and our heroes,
not to mention Jann Haworths claim that The Beatles hadnt made
sufficient suggestions.
Additionally, of these original suggestions there is indeed a woman
included; Richmal Crompton. Crompton was responsible for writing
the Just William series of books that The Beatles, in particular John
Lennon, were fans of. In some of the Pepper out-take photos there is
an image of what appears to be a young boy. The images are blurry
and out of focus but I have wondered if it may be of an early Just
William incarnation? It seems most likely that it is an image of
William Graham who portrayed the character in 1940s.

Peter Blake: I asked them to make lists of people theyd most

like to have in the audience at this imaginary concert. Johns
was interesting because it included Jesus and Ghandi and,
more cynically, Hitler. At the very last minute we took out Adolf
Hitler and Jesus. John (Lennon) had inserted them in a joking
kind of way but this was just a few months after the US furore
about his Jesus statement, so they were all left out.
Lord Buckley seems an odd choice at the outset. Lord Buckley was
an American comic performer who was most likely considered
because of his old routine, Willy the Shake, which may have been the
inspiration for Billy Shears and an example of hidden or concealed
identities. Billy Shears is really Ringo in disguise whilst William
Shakespeare is really Sir Francis Bacon in disguise. What this tells us
is that Sgt. Pepper has hidden, un-credited writers, or, at the very
least, unseen influences.
If we are to believe the initial list then where did the suggestions for
Gandhi and Jesus come from, as they do not appear on it? A Gandhi
cut-out certainly existed as he appears in the original photo and had
to be airbrushed out of the final piece. Did Jesus actually exist?
Perhaps that question is too big for the scope of this book to answer,
however, joking aside, there is no evidence to suggest a Jesus cutout was ever produced.
Curiously, in an article in Mojo in March 2007, Peter Blake claimed
that the Hitler cut-out was used, and was simply obscured in the final
image by Johnny Weismuller, though there is photographic evidence
to suggest that Hitler was in fact moved out of shot before the final
images were taken.

Nobody to the right of Hitler!

Peter Blake: Yes he is on there - you just cant see him. Hitler
and Jesus were the controversial ones, and after what John
said about Jesus we decided not to go ahead with him - but we
did make up the image of Hitler. If you look at photographs of
the out-takes, you can see the Hitler image in the studio. With
the crowd behind there was an element of chance about who
you can and cannot see, and we werent quite sure who would
be covered in the final shot. Hitler was in fact covered up
behind the band.
What all this does suggest, however, is that The Beatles list was revisited. In Many Years from Now it states that Lennon added Lewis
Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe later and this may be a truly startling
revelation.
Stuart Sutcliffe, the former Beatle member who sadly died aged 22, is
another who is missing from the initial list but who subsequently
appears. It is inconceivable that his appearance could be attributed to
anyone other than one of The Beatles; again, most likely, John
Lennon.
Bob Dylan, friend and influence and not to mention the man who
would introduce The Beatles to marijuana, is there though he too is
missing initially. Would he have been a Blake, Haworth or Fraser
suggestion? It seems unlikely.
Talking of musical influences, there is no Elvis and no Buddy Holly.
One can only ask why? Likewise, Brigitte Bardot is nowhere to be

seen despite, supposedly being in McCartneys original sketch. Bill

Harry in an article suggests: By rights, Bardot should have appeared
on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album.
When Paul originally began to sketch out the ideas for the Sgt.
Pepper sleeve he had the four Beatles standing before a wall, which
was covered, in framed pictures of their heroes - and taking
prominence was a pin-up poster of Bardot. Although Bardot was
drawn ten times larger than any other figure on Paul's original
drawing, she was absent from the final tableau, indicating that a
number of The Beatles original suggestions were left off the final
piece.
Blake had borrowed a wax figure of Diana Dors from Madame
Tussauds and placed it prominently in the assembly. Probably
thinking that one blonde bombshell was enough, Blake didnt include
Pauls choice of Bardot. Dors wasnt a Beatles heroine, but Bardot
was, which indicates that the Sgt. Pepper sleeve wasnt really the
collection of Beatles choices that people have always been led to
believe.
So, is this really people we like and heroes or is there a deeper,
hidden reason behind the selections in the characters we see on the
album sleeve? Peter Blake continues:
Georges list was all gurus. Ringo said, Whatever the others
say is fine by me, because he didnt really want to be bothered.
Robert Fraser and I also made lists. We then got all the
photographs together and had life-size cut-outs made onto
hardboard.
Despite what Peter Blake says about Ringos lack of suggestions
Wikipedia states that Mexican actor and comedian German Valdes
claimed Ringo approached him to appear on the front cover. He
declined and requested that Ringo swap him for a Mexican tree
known as a Tree of Life. Ringo Starr agreed and placed it in the
lower right corner of the cover.
I believe that this Tree of Life became an important part of the Pepper
symbolism and this is a facet we shall return too.

This then is a potted history of how the assemblage of actors,

singers, writers, comedians and political and sporting figures was
compiled. Wax effigies of The Beatles were also borrowed from
Madame Tussauds (which in itself presents a mystery that we shall
explore) while Blake himself claims he chose to include figures like
comedian Max Miller and the singer Dion. He and Haworth set up the
garden with flowers, plants, statuettes, trophies, candles, a hookah,
and the word Beatles spelled out in hyacinths. There was even a
portable TV set, brought in on the day of the photo shoot by John
Lennon. Television is very important to me just now, he assured the
art director.
EMI realized that because many of the people that were being
depicted were still alive they might sue the company as permission
had not been sought for their visages to be used. In The Beatles
Anthology McCartney remembered having to calm tensions with the
record label about the cover and even met with EMI head Sir Joseph
Lockwood about Sgt. Pepper. I said, Dont worry, Joe its going to
be great, man. He said, Well have dozens of lawsuits on our
hands it will be absolutely terrible. The legal department is going
mad with it. I told him, Dont worry, just write them all a letter. I bet
you they wont mind.
As a precaution, The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, who was very
wary of all the complications in the first place, had his assistant write
to everyone. Mae West replied, No, I won't be in it. What would I be
doing in a lonely hearts club? So The Beatles wrote her a personal
letter and she changed her mind.
Jann Haworth said that: Im the person who didnt do 50 per-cent of
the Sgt. Pepper cover. I did the other 50 per-cent. Its sort of invisible,
but in a way its the whole thing: It was to build it like a set. The idea
of the front row being three dimensional, leading into a twodimensional flat frame was very much the territory of my work.
Janns father, the art director Ted Haworth, was in London at the
time, working on the film Half-a-Sixpence. When she visited him on
the movie set, he advised her not to make a background piece for the
album. He thought the idea was too Hollywood and too expensive for

the budget. So Haworth resorted to blue paper for the sky, and blackand-white cut-out photographs for the heads and bodies.
Gene Mahon, a designer who was hired as co-ordinator on the
project, selected the more than sixty photographs collected from
libraries and magazines and supervised the enlargements. These lifesize cut-outs were then hand-coloured and glued to hardboard
sheets.
I hand-tinted all the photographs for colour, and nailed them to
batons on the back wall, said Haworth. Then put the front row in 3D. Thats an old movie trick.
Michael Cooper was a business partner of Robert Fraser and an
excellent photographer so he was commissioned to do the shoot. For
the cover, Blake and Haworth constructed a life-size sculptural
collage of cut-outs, plants, props and wax figures in Coopers
Chelsea studio. Each life-size cut-out figure was placed in position
behind the constructed stage and The Beatles, decked out in their
faux military uniforms rented from Burmans theatrical costumers,
came in and were photographed by Cooper.
Peter Blake explains some of the problems he faced using a staged
set rather than a photographic collage:
Its a retouched photograph. In the original photo the blue
paper behind them, which represented the sky, was slightly
bumpy so it was retouched. And there was an artificial palmtree on the right-hand side which was rather gloomy, so it was
completely retouched and then became a rather badly painted
palm-tree. It was all done by a professional re-toucher but not
very sympathetically. I was very unhappy with it. It killed
whatever wed done. It was meant to be a happening, an
environment, but all that got lost. Looking back, it would have
been much easier to have just made a collage. I could have
done it in a couple of days.
I worked in Michael Coopers studio for a fortnight constructing
the set, fixing the top row to the back wall and putting the next
about six inches in front and so on, so that we got a tiered

effect. Then we put in the palm-tree and the other little objects. I
wanted to have the waxworks of The Beatles because I thought
they might be looking at Sgt. Peppers band too. The boy who
delivered the floral display asked if he could contribute by
making a guitar out of hyacinths, and the little girl wearing the
WMCA Welcome the Rolling Stones, Good Guys sweatshirt
was a cloth figure of Shirley Temple, the shirt coming from
Michael Coopers young son Adam.
The Beatles arrived during the evening of March 30. We had a
drink, they got dressed and we did the session. It took about
three hours in all, including the shots for the centre fold and
back cover. Im not sure how much it all cost. One reads
exaggerated figures. I think Robert Fraser was paid 1,500 by
EMI, and I got about 200. People say to me, You must have
made a lot of money on it but I didn't because Robert signed
away the copyright. But it has never mattered too much
because it was such a wonderful thing to have done.
As with all things Pepper however, I have also come across some
information pertaining to the jumper that is worn by the Shirley
Temple doll on the Sgt. Pepper sleeve that is contradictory to Blakes
version. This story comes from the August 1966 edition of Hit
Parader magazine and tells the tale of a young woman named Mary
Scruggs aka Mary Ann May.
From the magazine version it would appear that young Mary entered
a competition organised by the local AM radio station, W.M.P.S. to
design some artwork for the chance to meet The Rolling Stones
backstage at a gig in Memphis.
Whilst most entrants took the standard pencil and paper route, Mary
went down the knitwear path. According to the article, she was 17, a
Senior at Immaculate Conception High School and an officer in a
local Rolling Stones Fan Club.
When her entry was chosen as the winner she gave the sweater to
Mick Jagger, reportedly at his request. Far from dumping it as soon
as she departed he seems to have taken care to bring it back to the

UK, thus ensuring its place in history when it was photographed in

glorious Technicolor on March 30th 1967.
So, it would appear that the sweatshirt says, WMPS and not
WMCA', despite what practically every source says, and that it must
have been given to The Beatles by Jagger himself and therefore, did
not come from Pepper sleeve photographer Michal Coopers son,
Adam.
Which story is the correct one? Who knows, however, it proves yet
again that when dealing with stories concerning The Beatles and the
Sgt. Pepper sleeve you just never know what is fact and what is fake.
As John Lennon famously said on Strawberry Fields Forever,
nothing is real!
Indeed, since the first edition of this book was published I was
contacted by Mary May and she assures me it said The WMPS
Good Guys Welcome the Rolling Stones and that she gave it to
Jagger.
The morning after the shoot, Blake returned to Coopers studio only
to find that Robert Fraser and a couple of his friends had already
dismantled the stage and taken the pick of the sculptures. I got about
six, including W.C. Fields, Max Miller and the wax work of Sonny
Liston, he says. One wonders what the rush was to remove the
evidence.
Even more remarkable was the sale at Sothebys of one of two
original Sgt. Pepper drum skins, painted by fairground artist, Joe
Ephgrave. The drum skin, estimated to reach between 25,000 and
35,000, sold for 52,100, after Blake had authenticated it for
Sothebys. There were two made, he recalls. Paul has one, the
alternative one that was not used. I thought John had the other, but,
in vaguely mysterious circumstances, this one came through Mal
Evans estate.
So, let us end this chapter with mystery number one; the record cover
clearly depicts a funeral scene, indeed this is backed up Blakes initial
sketch, and yet nobody ever makes mention of this fact. McCartney in
Many Years from Now says the idea did get a bit metamorphosed

when Peter was brought in; they changed it in good ways. The clock
became the sign of The Beatles in front of it, the floral clock
metamorphosed into a flowerbed. Our heroes in photographs around
us became the crowd of dignitaries, and it was them that was
presenting us with something, except no one was getting presented
with something any more. So the idea just crystallized a bit. Which
was good. It took a lot of working out but its one of the all-time
covers, I think, so that was great.

Chapter 3: Pepperback Writer

_______________________________________________________

As I have already speculated, the cover depicts a grave scene

complete with red hyacinths spelling out the word Beatles. It may
imply something as simple as a reference to the death of The
Beatles, in that, having abandoned touring and performing live
because the band could not make themselves heard over the
cacophony of hysterical teenage screaming they were symbolically
killing off the old mop-top Beatles and re-launching themselves as
serious, studio based musicians.
An alternative interpretation for the use of the funeral imagery and the
hyacinths could lie in the story of Apollo and Hyacinthus. In Greek
mythology there once was a beautiful young boy called Hyacinthus.
He was the favourite companion of the Greek God of music Apollo,
as well as being much loved for his beauty by Zephyr, the God of the
West Wind.
One day Apollo and Hyacinthus were playing a game to see who
could throw a discus the furthest. Zephyr saw this and became
jealous, so when Apollo took up the discus and threw it, Zephyr blew
the discus from its course and it struck Hyacinthus on the head.
Apollo was horrified and tried to stop the blood that came from his
friends wound. But it was too late and Hyacinthus died. The blood
that spilled from his wound onto the ground turned into a flower and
Apollo named this flower after him - the Hyacinth.
One could argue that the circumstances surrounding the death of
Tara Browne are connected to Paul McCartney and Brian Jones of
The Rolling Stones. For starters, Tara Browne died during the same
three-month time span that the Paul is Dead rumour stipulates that
McCartney died. As we will see, this date has been derived from a
mirror image message contained in the drum that appears on the Sgt.
Pepper record sleeve. Tara Brownes crash is extremely similar to
some of the accounts of Paul McCartneys fatal accident.

A girlfriend named Suki Potier was in the car with Tara Browne when
he was killed. Suki was an English model. Almost immediately
following the crash, Potier started dating Brian Jones, who had also
been a great friend of Taras. Suki would later share Joness fifteenthcentury farmhouse with him for the last few months before his
untimely death.
Tara Browne was with Paul McCartney when he crashed his moped
in 1965, and received facial injuries.
When in 1967, The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper it included the song
A Day in the Life. The song has become famous for its lyrics
describing a car accident. John Lennon has confirmed that the lyrics
for A Day in the Life were written about the death of Tara Browne, or
that Guinness child as he refers to him. He blew his mind out in a
car. He didnt notice that the lights had changed. A crowd of people
stood and stared. Theyd seen his face before, nobody was really
sure if he was from the House of Lords.
Tara Brownes father was indeed a member of the House of Lords,
the longest serving ever, I believe; though rarely seen in attendance.
Furthermore, it has been suggested that Paul McCartney was in the
car with Tara Browne when he was killed. Alternatively, some people
have suggested that McCartney died that night and Tara replaced
him in The Beatles, or that it was really Brian Jones in the car crash.
Add to this the rumours of a homosexual relationship between Jones
and Browne or, Browne and McCartney.
It is an interesting fact that both John Paul Getty II and Keith Richards
named their sons Tara after Tara Browne. So, could it be that the
story of Apollo and Hyacinthus was employed as an analogy for the
Tara/Paul/Brian triangle? Certainly McCartney embraced the
pseudonym Apollo C. Vermouth when he produced the song Im the
urban spaceman for the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, who appeared
alongside The Beatles in the film Magical Mystery Tour, and who
later repaid the favour by recording the song Mister Apollo.
Interestingly, hyacinths are sometimes associated with rebirth and
what should appear on the Browne family crest that appears on

Taras tombstone but a double-headed eagle or phoenix, the bird that

is famously reborn from its own ashes.
What is beginning to appear is a pattern of symbolism and hidden,
deeper meanings that are embedded within the Beatle imagery.
Perhaps we should explore the background to this.
Pivotal to the advancement in The Beatles education was Paul
McCartney moving into the family home of his then lover, Jane Asher.
The Ashers would introduce McCartney to a world of classical music
and literature and, crucially, to Janes brother Peter. It was through
Peter that Paul would meet John Dunbar, husband of Marianne
Faithfull and owner of the Indica gallery, and Barry Miles who ran the
Indica Bookshop. It was through John Dunbar that The Beatles would
first encounter Robert Fraser and, therefore, presumably, Tara
Browne? What is certain though is that this would open up a whole
world of inspiration and education for those Beatles who were keen to
absorb it.
For McCartney and Lennon this was an opportunity too good to miss
and they would jump into this vat of learning headfirst. For two
ordinary, working class, lads this was a sphere that would not
ordinarily be available and through this looking glass they would
discover that all that they previously thought to be true, and held
dear, should, in fact be questioned and re-examined.
Though The Beatles song-writing ability had been developing greatly
with each passing LP a telling moment in this development occurred
when Paul McCartneys used a pseudonym upon the handwritten
lyrics for his song Paperback Writer. Here he employs the name Ian
Iachimoe; supposedly the sound of his real name when played
backwards on tape, and this name would also be listed as an
emergency contact for the publication the International Times.
International Times was an underground newspaper that flourished
in the avant-garde world of the mid-sixties, though whether it would
have enjoyed any success at all had McCartney not secretly
bankrolled it in its early days is a moot point. One of its editors was
McCartneys friend, and later, his biographer, Barry Miles.

The choice of the Ian Iachimoe name as an alter ego is intriguing as it

introduces for the first time, what will prove to be a recurring theme,
that of connections to William Shakespeare / Francis Bacon. Iachimo
is a character in the Shakespeare play Cymbeline. Cymbeline is a
name of an ancient tribal King of England, that of the Catevulauni
tribe who ruled in south-east England. In the play, the Kings daughter
Imogen is secretly married to Posthumus Leonatus, a man raised in
her fathers court who is described as possessing exceeding personal
merit and martial skill.
Not only is this a play about secret, forbidden, love but it also tells a
tale of a King who is over protective towards his daughter because
his two elder sons have been previously abducted by a banished
courtier.
Sir Francis Bacon was alleged to have been the real author of the
Shakespeare plays and was Lord Verulam, Lord of St. Albans, which,
not incidentally, was part of the ancient Catevulauni territory. Not only
is Bacon a contender to be the true author of Shakespeare but he is
also rumoured to have been, along with his half-brother Robert
Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the illegitimate sons of Queen
Elizabeth I.
The story goes that documents in the Spanish archives tell of a secret
marriage between Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
and that, therefore, Bacon, as their offspring, was the true heir to the
throne of England but had been excluded from taking his rightful
place at the helm of the nation. This tragic life-story was the secret
hidden in code in the plays of Shakespeare.
Certainly in Cymbeline we can see the parallels; the tale of a
Princess and her forbidden love with a knight of the court, and of the
two Princes denied their birth right by virtue of being forcibly hidden
from public sight. Could McCartney have been initiated into this world
of secret knowledge? Could he or part of his circle have wished to
encode this knowledge into the design for the Sgt. Pepper LP?
Fanciful, far-fetched and unlikely I sense youre thinking but let me
throw something else into the mix. As mentioned previously, hidden
behind The Beatles in their gaudily coloured military uniforms on the

Sgt. Pepper cover are some obscured characters whose appearance

has never been acknowledged.
Principal amongst these is a cut-out of Bette Davis dressed as Queen
Elizabeth I and taken from the film The Private Lives of Elizabeth and
Essex. The film details the relationship between Elizabeth and
another of her rumoured sons, the Earl of Essex. Quite how this
would fit into the realm of people we like is unclear; however, as a
clue it is certainly intriguing!

Still not convinced? Then let us consider some lyrical clues. In the
first song on the album, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band we
are invited to meet the albums KEY character, an ACT, apparently,
that weve known for all these years. So let me introduce to you,
the one and only BILLY SHEARS. The emphasis is mine however
the implication is not. Billy is short for William and Shears is an
amalgam of shake and spear, or, in other words, Shakespeare.
Consider also the song that Billy then sings for us, A little help from
my friends which contains the line LEND ME YOUR EARS and Ill
sing you a song and Ill try not to sing out of KEY.
Here we are being given a line from a Shakespeare play, Julius
Caesar, and being told that it is the key!

Another Shakespeare / Caesar allusion can be

found on the back cover in the two songs
sandwiched in between A little help from my
friends. If you take your copy of Sgt. Pepper
and scan down the lyrics to the opening track,
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, you
will find that the opening letters, capitalised, to
the last four lines begin with the letters, S.T.A.B.
Go now, to the third track Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds, and beginning with the line A girl
with kaleidoscope eyes and you will find the
lines begin with the letters A.C.T. Stab Act. This
could be a reference to the stabbing of Caesar
by Brutus.
Remember how I spoke of the obscured
characters that are lurking invisibly behind The
Beatles on the cover. One of these is the
actress Sophia Loren. Sophia is honoured as a
Goddess of wisdom within the Neo-pagan and
New Age movements, as well as within feministinspired Goddess spirituality. Sophia in Hebrew
means wisdom; could it be that The Beatles are
urging us to seek the hidden wisdom?
Quite possibly I believe. Certainly they are
urging us to reconsider what we hold to be true
about conventional religion.

Alternatively, Stab Act could be seen as an anagram. Could stab act

= Bast cat? Bast, or Bastet, was an Egyptian goddess and daughter
of Ra, the sun god. According to this site Bast was the goddess of
witchcraft and sexual magick in the Egyptian pantheon.

Crowley's concept of the Scarlet Woman or Babalon is another name

for the goddess Bast. Scarlet is chosen because it is the colour of
blood (also the colour chosen for the cover of The Book of the Law).
Does this explain the inclusion on Pepper of this doll?

Does she represent the scarlet woman? Alternatively, could Diana

Dors also represent the scarlet woman?
The Stab Act clue brings us to the song Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds so let us consider what that may be telling us.
Most of you will be aware of the supposed reference to LSD
contained within the song title that utilises the capitalised letters in the
songs title, a reference that John Lennon always denied. I know not
the validity of the tale or the denial; however it does act as a
convenient smokescreen for what the song may really be telling us.
We are informed in the lyrics that Lucy is a girl with kaleidoscope
eyes.
Eyes are organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical
impulses. In Masonic lore we have the All Seeing Eye or the eye of
Horus which represents the eye of Lucifer.
Lucifer is the light bearer, the morning star, the planet Venus and is a
fallen angel. Lucifer can be shortened to Lucy. A kaleidoscope is a
device which distorts light through the use of mirrors. Therefore,
could Lucy, the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes, be a reference too, or
a metaphor for Lucifer?
After all, do not the lyrics also ask us to Look for the girl with the sun
in her eyes?

Is the Statue of Liberty, in New York, truly an image of Libertas, or is

it in fact a representation of Sol Invictus, the sun god?
The statue wears a crown of six sun rays like the ones pictured on
images of Mithra and Helios.
As torch bearer, the Statue of Liberty is Lucifer, the bearer of the
light or a symbol of enlightenment.
One of the keys to cracking the Sgt. Pepper Code can be obtained by
understanding the hidden word-play elements that certain members
of the Pepperati provide. Diana Dors is a perfect example. Diana
means heavenly and Dor translates as golden in French and Diana
Dors (heavenly gold) is resplendent in her gold dress on the cover. Is
she, therefore, illustrative of a solar temple of the sun king?
The golden doors of the temple are opened to signify a Masonic
meeting has begun. Could Diana Dors represent the doors to the holy
of holies, Solomons Temple?
The former gateway to the United States the living embodiment of
the Masonic ideal - Ellis Island is also known as the Golden Doors as
it represents the entrance to America. Next to Ellis Island, of course,
is the Statue of Liberty which is, in some ways, reminiscent of
Diana Dors and has major Masonic influences.
Diana (Artemis) is the sister of Apollo.
The Statue of Liberty is also believed to have been a representation
of Mary Magdalene.
This reminds me of a legend that suggests that Mary Magdalene was
the wife of Jesus as well as his half-sister.
According to this story Mary Magdalenes actual name was Cleopatra
Selene and she was the offspring of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony and
had two brothers in addition to her half-brother, Jesus.
Jesus, according to this tale was actually Caesarian (or Little Caesar)
or Ptolemy XV, the last Pharaoh of Egypt and the result of the union
between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Cleopatra claimed herself to

be the reincarnation of the virgin goddess Isis; therefore, Caesarian

would have been the son of a Virgin Mother Goddess.
Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by his adopted son Octavian,
who then seized power as the new Roman Emperor.
Since Caesarian was Caesarss son and the rightful heir to the
Empire, Octavian wanted him killed. Cleopatra feared for his safety,
so when Octavian and his Roman Army invaded Egypt, Cleopatra
arranged for Caesarians escape with her most trusted servants; Mary
of Arthenia and Joseph of Arimathea.
Octavian overthrows Egypt and Mark Antony and Cleopatra commit
suicide thus Caesarian is forced to hide his identity and changes his
name to Esu, which means Son of Isis.
As an adult, Esu returns to Egypt, where he grew up as a boy. He
spends three years in Egypt before looking for his younger half-sister
and two younger half-brothers, fathered by Mark Antony.
Within this tale we can see yet more similarities to that of the
Shakespeare play, Cymbeline, that we discussed earlier.
Esu finds his half-sister Cleopatra Selene and changes his name to
Jesus Christ, which incorporates his Fathers initials. Later I will talk
about the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs who also utilises the JC
initials for the lead characters in his Tarzan and John Carter books.
Jesus then plans to reclaim his Fathers kingdom, the Roman Empire.
He plans not to capture it with weapons and armies, but by creating a
new religion and by transforming the Roman Empire into the Holy
Roman Empire.
Jesus then survives the crucifixion and starts a family with Cleopatra
Selene/Mary Magdalene. This crucifixion survival theme echoes that
contained within The Passover Plot which, as mentioned earlier, so
heavily influenced John Lennon.
In a similar vein, we can find another lyrical clue contained within the
song Lovely Rita.

Took her out and tried to win her.

Had a laugh and over dinner,
Told her I would really like to see her again.
Got the bill and Rita paid it.
Took her home I nearly made it,
Sitting on the sofa with a sister or two.
Oh, lovely Rita meter maid,
Where would I be without you
Give us a wink and make me think of you.

Reading from the bottom line up, and excluding the italicised line, we
can see the word GHOST appears. I have highlighted the relevant
letters in bold for ease of reading.
Could this be a reference to the Holy Ghost? The italicised line above
includes the words without you. Could this be another pointer to the
song Within You, Without You which talks, as we know, about the
people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion?

Chapter 4: The Initiation

_______________________________________________________

Let us start with a list of the Sgt. Pepper characters: 1. Sri Yukestawar Giri (Guru)
2. Aleister Crowley (Dabbler in Sex, Drugs and Magic)
3. Mae West (Actress)
4. Lenny Bruce (Comic)
5. Karlheinz Stockhausen (Composer)
6. W. C. (William Claude) Fields (Actor/Comic)
7. Carl Gustav Jung (Psychologist)
8. Edgar Allen Poe (Writer)
9. Fred Astaire (Actor)
10. Richard Merkin (Artist)
11. The Vargas Girl (by Artist Alberto Vargas)
12. * Leo Gorcey (Actor)
13. Huntz Hall (Actor with Leo Gorcey, one of The Bowery Boys)
14. Simon Rodia (Creator of Watts Towers)
15. Bob Dylan (Musician)
16. Aubrey Beardsley (Illustrator)
17. Sir Robert Peel

18. Aldous Huxley (Writer)

19. Dylan Thomas (Poet)
20. Terry Southern (Writer)
21. Dion (di Mucci) (Singer)
22. Tony Curtis (Actor)
23. Wallace Berman (Artist)
24. Tommy Handley (Comic)
25. Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
26. William Burroughs (Writer)
27. Sri Mahavatara Babaji (Guru)
28. Stan Laurel (Comic)
29. Richard Lindner (Writer)
30. Oliver Hardy (Comic)
31. Karl Marx (Philosopher, Socialist)
32. H.G. (Herbert George) Wells (Writer)
33. Sri Paramahansa Yoganandu (Guru)
34. Anonymous (Wax hairdressers dummy)
35. Stuart Sutcliff (Artist, former Beatle)
36. Anonymous (Wax hairdressers dummy)
37. Max Miller (Comic)

38. Lucille Ball Petty Girl (by Artist George Petty)

39. Marlon Brando (Actor)
40. Tom Mix (Actor)
41. Oscar Wilde (Writer)
42. Tyrone Power (Actor)
43. Larry Bell (Artist
44. Dr. David Livingstone (Missionary & Explorer)
45. Johnny Weismuller (Swimmer and Actor)
46. Stephen Crane (Writer)
47. Issy Bonn (Comic)
48. George Bernard Shaw (Writer)
49. H.C. (Horace Clifford) Westermann (Sculptor)
50. Albert Stubbins (Soccer Player)
51. Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (Guru)
52. Lewis Carroll (Writer)
53. T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence (Soldier, Lawrence of Arabia)
54. Sonny Listen (Boxer)
55. Binnie Barnes Petty Girl (by Artist George Petty)
56. Wax Model of George Harrison
57. Wax Model of John Lennon

58. Shirley Temple (Child Actress)

59. Wax Model of Ringo Starr
60. Wax Model of Paul McCartney
61. Albert Einstein (Physicist)
62. John Lennon (Holding a French Horn)
63. Ringo Starr (Holding a Trumpet)
64. Paul McCartney (Holding a Cor Anglais)
65. George Harrison (Holding a Flute)
66. Bobby Breen (Singer)
67. Marlene Dietrich (Actress)
68. ** Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Indian Leader)
69. Legionnaire from the Order of the Buffaloes
70. Diana Dors (Actress)
71. Shirley Temple (Child Actress)
72. Cloth Grandmother Figure by Jann Haworth
73. Cloth Figure of Shirley Temple (Child Actress) by Jann Haworth
74. Mexican Candlestick
75. Television Set
76. Stone Figure of Girl
77. Stone Figure

78. Statue from John Lennon's House

79. Trophy
80. Four-Armed Indian Doll of the Indian Goddess Lakshmi
81. Drum-Skin, Designed by Joe Ephgrave)
82. Hookah (Water tobacco pipe
83. Velvet Snake
84. Japanese Stone Figure
85. Stone Figure of Snow White
86. Garden Gnome
87. Tuba
* Leo Gorcey was painted out because he requested a fee to use his image.
** Gandhi was painted out by request of EMI as they feared it would offend record buyers in India.

Perhaps we should consider why The Beatles have included the

subtle allusions to Shakespeare and, more specifically, Sir Francis
Bacon? Well, we are being asked to look for hidden clues and
meanings and also, I believe, a certain duality between the
characters depicted upon the cover. It is not enough to perceive the
references to Shakespeare we must look beyond and find the clues
that suggest that Shakespeare was merely a front, the public persona
that masks the real or key players and what the underlying message
is.
I will attempt to establish the duality, or the connections, between the
individuals that appear on the LP cover, but there is, I believe, an
added facet to consider at this juncture, namely secret societies.
Could it be that what The Beatles are pointing to is a hidden
knowledge that these societies conceal? Are The Beatles members

of a secret society? Are they, through Sgt. Pepper, inviting us to a

secret society initiation ceremony?
Far-fetched and a figment of your imagination I hear you cry, well, I
shall attempt to alleviate those concerns by taking a look at some of
the luminaries listed above and considering why they might have
been included.
If we can assume that Sir Francis Bacon is present, at least by
means of allusion, then he should be our starting point. Bacon has
been long connected with that influential Society which flourished in
England in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, known as the
Rosicrucians, whose very existence was so carefully concealed that
few outside of its fellowship knew of its existence. The following
passage has been attributed to Bacon.
I was twenty when this book was finished; but methinks I have
outlived myself; I begin to be weary of the sun. I have shaken
hands with delight, and know all is vanity, and I think no man
can live well once but he that could live twice. For my part I
would not live over my hours past, or begin again the minutes
of my days; not because I have not lived well, but for fear that I
should live them worse. At my death I mean to make a total
adieu of the world, not caring for the burthen of a tombstone
and epitaph, but in the universal Register of God I fix my
contemplations on Heaven. I writ the Rosicrucian Infallible
Axiomata in four books, and study, not for my own sake only,
but for them that study not for themselves. In the law I began to
be a perfect clerk; I writ the idea of the Law, et., for the benefit
of my friends, and practice in Kings Bench. I envy no man that
knows more than myself, but pity them that knows less..... Now,
intake midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that
dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor
can be legacies amongst my dearly beloved and honoured
friends.
I have highlighted the striking phrase, I begin to be weary of the
sun, as it is also a line in Macbeth, as I gin to be a weary of the
sun, and helps further strengthen the Bacon as Shakespeare
argument.

That the Rosicrucians, who are based on or descended from the

Knights Templar, can be seen as a model and forerunner for all
manner of other organisations, most notably perhaps the
Freemasons, is well documented. That there should be eleven
Freemasons*, three 33 Master Freemasons, three OTO members
and two Golden Dawn members on top, of course, of the Legionnaire
of the Order of Buffaloes, depicted on the album cover and we see
something of a pattern beginning to emerge.
*Subsequent research has uncovered the existence of a twelfth Pepper freemason.

I do not believe that it is too much of a stretch to say that the Sgt.
Pepper album performs the function of a Masonic initiation ceremony
for the listener. As you look at the front of the sleeve you will see the
twin torch pillars known as Boaz and Jachin that represent Solomons
Temple. The pillars in this instance are symbolized by the Diana Dors
and Sonny Liston characters.
Jachin is derived from the Hebrew word for moon, so Jachin, on the
right and represented by DIANA Dors, is the moon, the Goddess
figure, and Boaz, on the left and represented by SONNY Liston, is the
sun God.
Diana, a moon Goddess, was the twin sister of Apollo. Interestingly,
there is a Dianic Temple in Cefalu, Sicily, where Aleister Crowley had
his Abbey of Thelema. The site of St. Pauls Cathedral in London is
also believed to be located at the site of where a temple dedicated to
Diana once existed. Apollo is linked to Lucifer, the light bearer.
Queen Elizabeth I was also the subject of a Dianic cult in which she
was the chaste, virgin moon goddess.
In a set of Tarot cards the twin pillars of Jachin and Boaz are
represented by the High Priestess card.
We should not underestimate the pagan symbolism that is on display
here as it is the key to understanding the underlying point that the
Sgt. Pepper code reveals.

The original pillars in the Temple of Solomon were decorated with two
hundred carved pomegranates (highly symbolic fruit believed by
some to be the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. Maybe The
Beatles simply substituted the pomegranate for an apple as the
modern bible does. The pomegranate symbol was used by Henry
VIII, father of Queen Elizabeth I, and also the Holy Roman Emperor
Maximillian I who was a leading Rosicrucian and whose family crest
bears the same double headed eagle as Tara Brownes family). The
pillars were wreathed with seven chains and adorned with lilies. It is
also possible that they were designed to have flames at the top,
possibly as beacons of light.

As you can see from the image above Royal Arch degree masonry
tracing boards feature the twin pillars as well as a symbolic coffin at
the bottom of the piece. This is reminiscent of the Sgt. Pepper sleeve
and its grave scene. It is also highly reminiscent of the frontispiece
from Bacons final work, New Atlantis, and uses the twin pillar theme
to represent the Pillars of Hercules as the end of the known world and
the entrance to another world of hidden knowledge.
Some Masonic tracing boards also depict a third, central, pillar.

As illustrated above, we can see this third pillar. The W emblazoned

upon it stands for wisdom. We have already discussed the inclusion
of some hidden characters on Pepper, including Sophia Loren.
Sophia, in Hebrew, translates as wisdom; hidden wisdom in this case,
as illustrated by the obscuring of the Sophia Loren character.
To further reinforce the idea that the inclusion of Sonny Liston and
Diana Dors is illustrative of these Masonic pillars we should consider
that the S emblazoned on the left (the Sonny Liston column) pillar
stands for strength, whilst the B on the right (Diana Dors column)
pillar stands for beauty.
The tracing board image also shows a very prominent ladder. This is
representative of Jacobs ladder which is a Biblical reference to an
earthly connection with heaven.
Clearly there is no ladder, either real or symbolic, on the Sgt. Pepper
cover. There is however, the renowned author of the Alice in
Wonderland books, Lewis Carroll, who invented word ladders. A word
ladder puzzle begins with two words, and to solve the puzzle one
must link the two, so that two adjacent words (that is, words in
successive steps) differ by one letter. The player is given a start word
and an end word. In order to win the game, the player must change
the start word into the end word progressively, creating an existing
word at each step.
The first and last words on Sgt. Pepper are IT and ON.

The solution = IT IN ON.

There are 2560 (2+5+6+0=13) words on the Sgt. Pepper lyric sheet,
the middle word (1280(1+2+8+0=11)) is SHE: SHE and IN make
SHINE. IT SHINE ON?
Perhaps they were pre-empting the lyrics to John Lennons song
Instant Karma, where, we all shine on!
Aleister Crowley wrote a poem called the ladder and, in 1971, a
rumour surfaced that three of The Beatles (John, George and Ringo)
were going to reform, along with Klaus Voorman as The Ladders.
The song Im the greatest written by Lennon for Ringo and which
is the only song that features The Ladders line-up includes a
reference to Billy Shears;
The song also references boogaloo supposedly a nickname for
Paul McCartney, but that could also refer to Back Off, Boogaloo,
another Ringo Starr tune, which included the lyrics;
Wake up, meat head,
Don't pretend that you are dead,
Get yourself up off the cart.

All of which could be taken as examples of hidden wisdom, as so

defined by the obscured inclusion of Sophia (wisdom) Loren on the
Pepper cover.
I believe this may also explain the inclusion of the character labelled
Legionnaire of the Order of the Buffaloes, or American Legionnaire
(No: 69). There is a slight use of word play involved here as the real
title of this organisation is the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes
and according to Wikipedia, it is a Fraternal, Benevolent and Social
Organisation in the United Kingdom. It has no royal patronage; it was
founded after the Flood, it is not a recognised Order of chivalry and
has no connection with buffaloes.
What is it then? Ostensibly it is an organisation created by
stagehands and for whom there may be a Beatle connection via John
Lennons uncle Charlie who was a member.

The Legionnaire image used on the final cover is intriguing as it

appears to have been altered or manipulated. In some of the original
cover shoot photos it appears as if the character is wearing a
Masonic apron that has been subsequently concealed in the final
piece.

However, the real clue here is revealed in the characters positioning

on the sleeve and the word Antediluvian.
The Antediluvian period meaning before the deluge is the period
referred to in the Bible between the Creation of the Earth and the
Deluge (flood) in the biblical cosmology. The Legionnaire character is
a nod to the author Ignatius L Donnelly. In 1882, Donnelly published
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, his best known work. It details
theories concerning the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. Donnelly
suggested that Atlantis had been destroyed during the same event
remembered in the Bible as the Great Flood.
It is interesting that in The Beatles film Yellow Submarine the
mythical destination of Pepperland is described as an Earthly
paradise and that it lies 80,000 leagues beneath the sea!
Donnelly was also a great believer in the theory that Sir Francis
Bacon was the true author of the works of Shakespeare and in 1888
he published The Great Cryptogram in support of this belief.

Consider also where they have chosen to position this seemingly

incongruous character on the record cover; directly behind the Shirley
Temple and Diana Dors images but just in front of Lewis Carroll and
Marlene Dietrich.
If I were to inform you that in German Dietrich translates as skeleton
key then what we have here is a blatant clue: Carroll is the key to the
temple door.

The Sgt. Pepper Rebus:

If we ignore the hidden RAOB
character we can see Lewis
CARROLL, Marlene DIETRICH,
Shirley TEMPLE and Diana DORS.
Dietrich, Temple and Dors are all
actresses, therefore, are not
necessarily what, or whom, they
seem to be.
Dietrich in German means skeleton
key a key that can open any lock
therefore we are left with CARROLL
KEY TEMPLE DO(O)RS. Or
possibly just CARROLL = KEY.

The term Masonic Temple originates in Masonic ritual and tradition.

Masonic tradition, as expressed through the fraternitys ritual, holds
that the first Masonic Lodge was formed at the building of King
Solomons Temple in Jerusalem.
We can possibly extend this thought further. There are three Shirley
Temple characters listed as being present on the album cover. One is
seated on the lap of the Grandmother figure designed by Jann
Haworth. The Shirley Temple doll seated on her lap, therefore is the
original, or first, Temple of Solomon.

The Legionnaire character, placed as he is behind the second Shirley

Temple and with his clearly Masonic influences, could be construed
as a Brethren Mason, another name for the Knights Templar. The
aim of the Templars was to rebuild the Temple of Solomon, thus
making them the builders of the second Temple, and the Legionnaire,
therefore, a symbolic reference to the Knights Templar.
To bring this full circle, Francis Bacons book New Atlantis features a
fictional institution called Salomons House (i.e., Solomons House)
that is a seat for the collection of all knowledge and led directly to the
formation in 1660 of the Royal Society as a device to collate
knowledge. The book which was published in English in 1627, the
year after Bacons death, is a portrayal of a fictional land based on
the foundation of knowledge and wisdom. It is largely seen as a
blueprint for the foundation of the United States of America under
Masonic principles.
The third and final Shirley Temple depiction on the cover appears on
the opposite, or west side, of the cover. She is largely obscured by
the waxwork Beatles. Could this be a reference to the secretive
goings-on of Scottish Rite Freemasonry which is largely based in the
US and as such could be a symbolic reference to the hidden activities
of the illuminati? Could this also be why the Legionnaire is referred to
as an American Legionnaire on the CD cover?
A further initiation clue can be gleaned from the lyrics of the song
Getting Better.
In the previous chapter we spoke about the discovery of the STAB
ACT clue from tracks one and three. Getting Better is track four,
immediately after the clue.
This Stab Act could possibly be interpreted as a reference to Hiram
Abiff and, therefore, relate to the Third Degree of Masonry.
The Blue Lodge (degrees 1 - 3) are centred upon the legend of Hiram
Abiff.

This legend, loosely, has its historical basis in 1st Kings 7 and 2nd
Chronicles 2. King Hiram of Tyre sent a skilled man, also called
Hiram, to Israel to help King Solomon build the Temple of the Lord.
Hiram Abiff, a widows son from Tyre, skilful in the working of all
kinds of metals, was employed to help build King Solomons Temple.
The legend tells us that one day, whilst worshipping the Grand
Architect of the Universe (GAOTU) within the Holy of Holies, Hiram
was attacked by three ruffians, (called Jubela, Jubelo & Jubelum
and known collectively as The Juwes) who demanded the Masters
word, that is, the secret name of God.
The first ruffian, named Jubela, struck Hiram across the throat with a
24 inch gauge. The second ruffian, named Jubelo, struck Hirams
breast, over the heart, with a square. The third ruffian, named
Jubelum, struck Hiram upon the forehead with a gavel, whereupon
Hiram fell dead. His blood, therefore, was shed within the temple.
Hiram, having been killed, was carried out the East gate of the
Temple and buried outside Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, incidentally
where Jacob had his dream of a ladder unto heaven.
Early the following morning, King Solomon visited the temple and
found the workmen in confusion because no plans had been made
for the days work. Fearing evil had befallen Hiram, King Solomon
sent out twelve Fellowcraft Masons to look for Hiram. King Solomon
himself accompanied the three who journeyed towards the East.
Having finally located the grave of Hiram, Solomon and his fellow
Masons exhumed the body. A search was made for the Masters
word (the Name of God), but all that was found was the letter G.
Finding the word lost, a lament went up: O Lord, my God, is there no
help for the widows son?
They first took hold of Hirams body with the Boaz grip of the first
degree. This failed to achieve its purpose.
They then re-positioned their hold upon Hiram's body using the
Jachin grip of the second degree. This also failed to accomplish its
purpose.

Solomon finally raised Hiram from the dead by using the third degree
grip of the Master Mason, the five points of fellowship, and by uttering
in Hirams ear the phrase Ma-Ha-Bone.
These first three degrees are based upon the legend. The Scottish
and York Rites base themselves largely upon the Hiramic legend that
follows after Hiram Abiffs resurrection.
Hiram Abiff has been raised from the dead. However, he soon leaves
the legend, for he has been ushered into a more glorious existence.
Solomon is left to continue building the Temple. Many decisions have
to be made. Solomon first selects seven expert masons to guard the
Temple, before holding a requiem for the departed Hiram Abiff.
Solomon then appoints seven judges to hand out justice to the
workmen building the Temple.
Five superintendents are installed to oversee the continuing building
of the Temple. Solomon then focuses upon apprehending the
assassins of Hiram Abiff. He appoints nine Masters, who begin the
search for the assassins. The first assassin is discovered asleep. He
is stabbed in the heart and head and then decapitated.
It is upon this tale that the basis for the Masonic initiation ceremony is
formed. Within these ceremonies the candidates those being
initiated will find themselves being held down and turned around
and being asked for a secret password.
So, to return to Getting Better we see it includes some intriguing
lyrics; in the first verse:
Its getting better all the time
I used to get mad at my school (No, I cant complain)
The teachers who taught me weren't cool (No, I cant complain)
Youre holding me down (Oh Oh)
Turning me round (Oh Oh)
Filling me up with your rules (Oooh)

And in the second verse:

Me used to be angry young man
Me hiding me head in the sand

You gave me the word, I finally heard

I'm doing the best that I can

Viewing the lyrics from the perspective of a Masonic initiation one

could argue that they talk about the initiation itself and then the
effects of that initiation on the candidate.
Holding me down. Restrained in order that you will know the true
meaning of freedom.
Turning me round. Blindfolded and turned round so you dont know
your direction or path. A ritual that teaches one to know their direction
and point of view.
You gave me the word. The replacement terms given to the
candidate in place of the lost name of God.
In a Masonic initiation ceremony the pillars are the first things the
candidate will pass as they enter into the lodge. In the context of Sgt.
Pepper the cover is an invitation and the playing of the LP and the
reading of the printed lyrics symbolises the initiation and the imparting
of knowledge.
The blue sky featured on the cover represents the Masonic concept
of the Canopy of Heaven or Heavenly Arch which is widely featured
as part of the dcor in Masonic Lodge-rooms.
The basic concept of Christianity is that there is one God - God and
Jesus being in essence the same thing - and that any belief in
anything other than this one God, i.e. Satan, is intrinsically bad. The
concealed Rosicrucian / Templar belief is that there is more than one
God - the pagan sun and moon concept - and that there is good and
bad in all things. By forcing their concept onto the masses Christianity
seeks to hold sway on what is good and bad and in so doing claim
control over the populace.
Far be it for me to sit in judgement on peoples religious beliefs, what
I am portraying in this work is an understanding of the message that
has been encoded into the Sgt. Pepper sleeve. I am not, nor have I
ever been, a member of any secret society and do not claim to hold

an in-depth understanding of their aims or stated beliefs. I do use the

term stated quite specifically though, for I feel that the professed
beliefs of these organisations may not always match their true
agendas.
What Bacon and his followers, of whom many are depicted on this
cover, are trying to do is keep these ancient beliefs alive. There was
one impediment to Bacons mission. This was his mother, Queen
Elizabeth. She was the reason he wrote the Shakespeare plays in
secret. Within those plays he tells his true story, including his birth,
using ciphers. The Beatles are telling the same tale, using the same
techniques. They just use the media of the day, and the one at their
disposal, to encode their message.
It took hundreds of years before Bacons codes were deciphered,
indeed many still remain concealed, and so it was with The Beatles.
This riddle was not intended to be easily decoded. The clues were
hidden in plain sight, in true Templar fashion, so that when the time
was right they could be revealed. The bigger than Jesus furore
made it plain that the world was not yet ready for the revelation and
so this plan was hatched, to conceive of the greatest concept album
of all time.
In a 1984 interview with Playboy Paul McCartney said of Pepper:
.... It was an idea I had, I think when I was flying from L.A. to
somewhere. I thought it would be nice to lose our identities, to
submerge ourselves in the persona of a fake group. We would
make up all the culture around it and collect all our heroes in
one place. So I thought a stupid-sounding name for a Dr.
Hooks Medicine Show and Travelling Circus kind of thing
would be Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Just a word
game, really.
McCartney is talking about the genesis of Sgt. Pepper, and, as he
quite often does, is getting a bit muddled with his history. The
generally quoted story is that McCartney came up with the concept
when returning to London from Africa with Mal Evans, whereas the
L.A. trip was in 1967 and, I believe, was when he came up with the
Magical Mystery Tour concept.

But, I digress, the clues lie in the words; I thought it would be nice to
lose our identities, to submerge ourselves in the persona of a fake
group and Just a word game, really. That, perhaps, sums it up best.
Lewis Carroll appears on the cover and, as we have already seen,
Carroll is the key. A lot of the clues on Pepper appear to be wordgames that point to Alice in Wonderland and reflect the increasing
loss of identity that the band feels. In late 1966, immediately prior to
developing Pepper, The Beatles were reeling from their shock
expulsion from the Philippines, the fallout from Johns bigger than
Jesus comments and the decision to stop touring.
There also appears to have been some attempts to unsettle The
Beatles and their management. In 1966 Brian Epstein formed
Nemperor Records with Nat Weiss and then, in early 1967, he
negotiated a deal with Robert Stigwood concerning joint ownership of
NEMS. Meanwhile there is some evidence that a Beatle, or two, had
approached Allen Klein about representation.
The Beatles were tired of being perceived as the cute mop-tops and
of being corporate cash cows and, so, were confused about their
identities and futures. I believe this the reason that they sought to
embed within Pepper a number of Alice in Wonderland clues that
could be seen as metaphors for the journey upon which they had
embarked, the knowledge and wisdom that they were absorbing and
the strange, schizophrenic nature of their public and private
personas.
For example, when in Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Alice
encounters the Hookah-smoking Caterpillar he asks who she is and
she says I hardly know, Sir, just at present-at least I know who I was
when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several
times since then.
Is that why on the Pepper cover we have both a Hookah pipe and a
caterpillar next to one another?

We also have an egg-shaped trophy on the Pepper cover. Is this

telling us that Sgt. Peppers is an egg-hunt and, as such, an obtuse
Humpty Dumpty reference?

We will find a reference to the egg-man in the lyrics of I am the

Walrus, which itself links back to Alice via the poem The walrus and
the Carpenter.
We encounter Humpty Dumpty in the book Through the Looking
Glass where he provides Alice with a solution to the nonsense poem
Jabberwocky.
Aleister Crowley recommended both Alices Adventures in
Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, as essential reading
for students of the AA when he said they were: Valuable to those
who understand the Qabalah. He also refers to Carroll as Ludovicus
Carolus - a Latinised version of Lewis Carroll and recommends
him as an occult authority and an illuminated man.

It has been suggested that Carroll, when writing Humpty Dumpty,

was alluding to the death of King Richard III the hunchback King
who died in battle after receiving numerous blows, hence, he couldnt
be put back together again and this website claims that a 16th
century collection of manuscripts that once contained the
Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III, names Francis Bacon
as their author?
So, once again, we have this loop through Bacon, Crowley and
Carroll that reappears time and again on Sgt. Pepper. King Richard III
was also the last of the line of Plantagenet rulers of England from
whom Jane Asher and her family are descended.
One of Jane Ashers first acting roles was as Alice.

When talking about Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds John said this:
The images were from Alice in Wonderland. It was Alice in the
boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty-Dumpty.
The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep, and the next
minute theyre rowing in a rowing boat somewhere - and I was
visualising that. There was also the image of the female who
would someday come save me a girl with kaleidoscope eyes
who would come out of the sky. Its not an acid song.
My belief is that as Humpty Dumpty assists Alice to understand the
nonsense poem Jabberwocky, then we should use the Alice clues
on Pepper to help understand its message.

We know that it was not just John Lennon that was obsessed with all
things Alice.
Paul McCartney said of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:
John had the title and he had the first verse. It started off very
Alice in Wonderland: Picture yourself in a boat, on the river
It's very Alice. Both of us had read the Alice books and always
referred to them, we were always talking about Jabberwocky
and we knew those more than any other books really. And
when psychedelics came in, the heady quality of them was
perfect. So we just went along with it. I sat there and wrote it
with him: I offered cellophane flowers and newspaper taxis
and John replied with kaleidoscope eyes. I remember which
was which because we traded words off each other, as we
always did ... And in our mind it was an Alice thing, which both
of us loved.
As mentioned earlier, McCartney was given a set of Alice statuettes
which, it has been said, Paul arranged as nodes to form a tree of life
structure in his garden at Cavendish Avenue.
Perhaps that is why there is a tree of life present on the Pepper
cover.

So, we have hidden allusions to Alice in Wonderland that lay within

the Pepper cover, however, the biggest clue is one that is, itself,
hidden from view.

Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, had noticed this clue until a

cryptic post appeared on an internet forum.
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

Do you see the walrus peering out from in-between Diana Dors?

That the clue is meant to be there was pointed out by The Beatles in
the video they produced for A Day in the Life for the Pepper
twentieth anniversary in 1987. Both ends have been mirrored for no
obvious reason.

But does this actually constitute a clue given that nobody discovered
it, even after the twentieth anniversary video hint above?
Is the walrus even deliberate? To embed a walrus into a palm-tree
that only becomes visible when a mirror is applied to a certain point of
the record cover does seem, on the face of it, somewhat
preposterous.
However, as we have seen, Peter Blake said:
Its a retouched photograph. In the original photo the blue
paper behind them, which represented the sky, was slightly
bumpy so it was retouched. And there was an artificial palmtree on the right-hand side which was rather gloomy, so it was
completely retouched and then became a rather badly painted
palm-tree. It was all done by a professional re-toucher but not
very sympathetically.
I accept that the above statement does not constitute proof, but
nevertheless, the mere fact it was professionally re-touched does
lend some credence to the fact that it was deliberate and that the
walrus was purposely embedded.

I was further struck by the resemblance of the carpenter as

portrayed above in John Tenniels illustration and the mysterious
Legionnaire of the Order of the Buffaloes character lurking behind Ms
Dors. Their choice of headgear appears identical.
Consider also that the waxwork Diana Dors seems to have oyster
shells supporting her breasts.
So, when the mirror is applied we have the Walrus, the Carpenter
and the four oysters. A particular stanza from the Walrus and the
Carpenter reads;
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat-And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

If we read the four young Oysters as being The Beatles then this
could possibly be a reference to their treatment since achieving fame.
In the poem the Oysters are lured from the sea by the Walrus and the
Carpenter and they are eaten. The Beatles feel as though they have
been consumed by the music industry. Is that why the walrus on the
Pepper cover seems to be devouring the doll?
Still not convinced? Well, we have playing cards, a la Alice in
Wonderland, in that we have Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds on
Pepper, though no Spades; so maybe we have to do the digging?

Through the Looking Glass begins with a list of Dramatis Personae

lined up on either side of a chess-board and each of them plays some
part in the ensuing story, similar to the cast on Pepper.
There is a chess theme that weaves its way throughout Through the
Looking Glass and that may deem this Ringo Starr comment as
being very pertinent; The biggest memory I have of Sgt. Pepper ... is
I learned to play chess. Is this a clue that Sgt. Pepper is a game?
Then we have the fact that in both Alice in Wonderland and Through
the Looking Glass Alices adventures are actually dreams. Is there a
comparison to be made with the dream like state that LSD induces?
And what are we to make of the frequent claims that Pepper
represents either Pauls death or replacement? Well in Through the
Looking Glass Alice replaces Lily as Lilys too young to play and
Alice herself undergoes a transformation from pawn to Queen.
Could the Alice theme within Pepper be about a symbolic
replacement? Paul McCartney spoke about The Beatles losing their
identity and adopting a fake persona. Rather than assuming that this
should be taken literally, perhaps we should understand that, from
that point on, the old mop-top McCartney was, metaphorically, dead
and that the persona presented to the public was, therefore, fake. Is
this why this diary entry reads?

Walrus in French translates as Morse. Should we be looking for a

translated clue such as Dietrich in German meaning key?

There is rumoured to be a segment of Morse code contained within

Strawberry Fields Forever. It has been claimed that it spells JL, but
this is widely disputed.
There may also be some mileage in the tale that McCartney
frequently recants about the song Yesterday as having come to him,
fully formed, within a dream. This was during the time in which he
was living with the Asher family and I believe that this may have been
deliberate given Dr. Ashers professional expertise and that the
Establishment seem to have been conducting LSD experiments at
this time. We shall explore this possibility further as we go deeper into
the rabbit-hole.
Finally though, let us not forget that Strawberry Fields Forever the
place where nothing is real and the song that inspired the Pepper
concept is itself describing a dream world as, of course, are Alices
adventures.
Let us then explore the Dramatis Personae The Beatles have
selected for us to grace the cover of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band.

Chapter 5: The Luminaries

_______________________________________________________

When describing the individuals on display I shall use the numbers

that were ascribed to them in the official Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band CD booklet.
Number 47: Issy Bonn

A strange choice to start with you may well think. Issy Bonn was a
noted British radio and music hall star of the 1940s and 1950s and
was perhaps best known for singing My Yiddish Mama. As such the
band may well have known him; however, I believe he was included
because of the position of his waving hand directly above Paul
McCartneys head.
This following tale has been widely touted by the Paul is Dead
believers as being another clue. They claim that the hand is an
illustration of some sort of death symbol. Indeed, there are other
examples post Sgt. Pepper and into Magical Mystery Tour of
photographs or cartoons where a hand is placed above McCartneys
head. It would appear that this is designed to display some
significance however; I would dispute the claim that it is a symbol of
death.

I believe it could be a representation of the hand of the mysteries; the

Master Masons hand. The hand of the philosopher that is extended to
those who enter into the mysteries. The hand represents an invitation
to join an elite group, those who were said to guard the secret
wisdom of all the ages.
Besides its alchemical and Qabbalistic meanings, the figure
symbolizes the hand of a Master Mason with which he raises the
martyred Builder of the Divine House. So in the case of Sgt. Pepper,
Issy Bonn a Hebrew comedian is representing the Master Mason
and Paul McCartney is Hiram Abiff, the mythical builder of Solomons
Temple, being raised from the dead.
Since writing the first version of this book I have discovered that Issy
Bonn was also a freemason, he was a member of the Chelsea Lodge
#3098, where a fellow brother mason was Peter Sellers. Chelsea
Lodge #3098 appears to be a lodge designed specifically for actors,
musicians and entertainers.
Could, alternatively, Issy Bonns upturned hand represent the Dead
Mans Hand, the supposed hand of cards that Wild Bill Hickok was in
possession of at the time of his death? The, rumoured, unturned card
was the Queen of Hearts which would serve as yet another link back
to Alice in Wonderland.
Number 40: Tom Mix

As well as being one of our clique of Sgt. Pepper freemasons Tom

Mix is another who departed this mortal realm via a car crash. Mix
was also a resident in that conspiracy theorist paradise that is Laurel
Canyon. The actor purchased what was then known as the Laurel
Tavern but would thereafter be known as the Log Cabin which
would later be purchased by Frank Zappa for use as the prototype
hippie commune and, as such, would be visited by Charles Manson
before he set up his own version at the Spahn Movie Ranch, where,
many years previously Tom Mix had plied his trade.
I will move next to perhaps the most discussed and controversial
character on the record cover;

Number 2: Aleister Crowley

Crowley was John Lennons choice. Crowley was a British magician

who specialized in the black arts and who was once known as The
Great Beast. He was once the subject of a novel by W. Somerset
Maugham called The Magician. During his life he was involved in
many scandals and was referred to in the press as the most evil man
in Britain. He was a practitioner of sex magic and wrote many books
on the occult.
Crowleys inclusion was clearly critical to the appearance of the
collage as in some of the preparatory photos we can see an
alternative version of his image was being prepared. Ultimately, this
younger image was dropped as, it is claimed, it bore too similar a
likeness to Paul McCartney.

Crowley can be tied in to a large number of the Pepper characters, as

we shall see, and there are numerous references to The Beatles, that
coincidentally or not, cannot be ignored.
One of Crowleys publications was a book entitled The Winged
Beetle. Given the similarity between Beetle and Beatle and the name
of McCartneys post Beatles band, Wings, we must consider that
Crowleys works heavily influenced the Beatles.
Crowley also produced a poem called the ladder. The poem quotes
the Bible from Psalm 24:7 and Luke 15:18. It contains the line, O
may the Four avail me. It contains another line that says, Dire
chaos; see! these new-fledged wings. Apple records would later
release the song Jacobs Ladder by Doris Troy.

Furthermore, on Klaus Voormanns Wikipedia entry it claims that:

After the Beatles disbanded, there were rumours of them reforming
as the Ladders, with Voormann on bass as a replacement for Paul
McCartney. An announcement to this effect filtered out of the Apple
offices in 1971, but was ultimately withdrawn before it got very far.
Aleister Crowley was a major influence, not just on the Beatles, but
also the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
An argument could be made that he also seems to appear twice on
the cover as the character labelled No: 69, Legionnaire from the
Order of the Buffaloes also seems to bear a strong resemblance to
Crowley. This is itself an interesting inclusion.
As discussed previously The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes
(RAOB) are an order, similar in structure to the Freemasons, who
evolved as an exclusive club for stage artists. I have discovered that
John Lennons uncle Charlie was a member of the RAOB in
Liverpool, and this fact may be the catalyst for the Legionnaires
inclusion, but it is the positioning and the word Antediluvian that belie
the Masonic connection.

He is placed directly behind, and partially obscured by, the Diana

Dors and Shirley Temple characters. This is Beatle word play and
denotes that he has been deliberately placed behind the Temple Dors
(Doors) where the secret Masonic knowledge is stored.

A further positional clue brings to mind another secret organisation

with very close ties to Crowley, the OTO. Ordo Templis Orientis, their
full Latin title, means Order of the Temple of the East and these
characters are positioned to the East as we look at the record sleeve.
The OTO seems to play a prominent and on-going part in the
narrative of this story. Aleister Crowley is perhaps its most prominent
member, although another chief Sgt. Pepper protagonist, Kenneth
Anger, was and still is a member.
Whether The Beatles were ever initiated into the OTO is a moot point,
however, there is enough symbolism present on the album sleeve to
indicate that somebody is presenting to the world knowledge of the
workings of the OTO or some other related secret society.
The Stones too would embrace all things occult and interestingly,
their LP Goats Head Soup could be interpreted as a nod to the
father of all secret societies, The Knights Templar, who worshipped a
goats head known as Baphomet; a name Crowley would use in his
membership of the OTO.
The thread that links all the disparate parts of the Sgt. Pepper
phenomena together is Robert Fraser. As previously mentioned,
Fraser was appointed as artistic director for the sleeve and his first
move was to commission Peter Blake and his then wife Jann
Haworth. Haworth would later work for Kenneth Anger designing
costumes for his film Lucifer Rising.
Anger has said that he means his films to cast a spell, to be a
magical invocation of his fusion of dreams, desire, myth and vision.
Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Anger are very closely linked. Anger
has been inspired by, and a devotee of Thelema, Aleister Crowleys
religion since being introduced to his work as a teenager. Anger was
introduced to Robert Fraser, presumably through actor Dennis
Hopper, and by dint of this opportunity entered the orbit of The
Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Indeed, Fraser would arrange
screenings of Angers work at his flat in Mount Street, London; the
same road that Anger would also set up home in, and thus from
where Fraser would introduce both bands to the films of Anger.

Anger would cement his relationship with the occult in his film Lucifer
Rising. Originally due to star Bobby Beausoleil as Lucifer, the film
had to be abandoned when the footage mysteriously disappeared.
When Anger accused Beausoleil of stealing the film Beausoleil would
flee only to re-emerge later in the bosom of Charles Manson and his
family; an acquaintance that would lead to his lifetime incarceration
for murder. What did remain of the film footage was assembled
alongside concert footage of Jagger and the Stones and was
released under the title of Invocation of my Demon Brother.
When Anger later decamped to London he would find a willing patron
for his work in the form of John Paul Getty, another of Robert Frasers
close circle of friends. With this funding Lucifer Rising was
resurrected, phoenix like from the ashes, and filming resumed with
Mick Jaggers then girlfriend, Marianne Faithful, cast as Lilith and
Donald Cammell in Beausoleils old role as Lucifer.
As a further aside to this remarkable chain of connections, Cammell,
whose father wrote a biography of Aleister Crowley, would go on to
produce the film Performance which starred Jagger as a faded pop
star, as well as Keith Richards then girlfriend, and serial Stones
groupie, Anita Pallenberg.
Previously, in 1954, Kenneth Anger released the film Inauguration of
the Pleasure Dome which starred actress Marjorie Cameron as The
Scarlet Woman. The Scarlet Woman is a major feature in Crowleys
Thelema mysticism and is a mother Goddess. Interestingly a Scarlet
Woman image can be found on the Sgt. Pepper cover in the form of
character No: 80: Four-Armed Indian Doll of the Indian Goddess
Lakshmi. Lakshmi is a Hindu mother Goddess and she is also the
personification of the spiritual energy, called Kundalini, within us and
the universe.

Marjorie Cameron was married to Jack Parsons who was leader of

the Agape Lodge of the OTO. A fellow member of this lodge was L.
Ron Hubbard who would go on to form Scientology.
Marjorie Cameron was the subject of work by the artist Wallace
Berman, who features on Sgt. Pepper (No: 23). In the piece,
Temple, Berman incorporates an Aubrey Beardsley style drawing by
Cameron whilst on peyote. Aubrey Beardsley is another Sgt. Pepper
luminary (No: 16) and was an acquaintance of Crowleys through the
business of Crowleys father. Cameron was introduced to peyote after
attending a lecture by Aldous Huxley (yet another Sgt. Pepper
luminary, No: 18). Berman also used her image on the cover of his
piece entitled, Semina.
The link to Berman is provided, perhaps unsurprisingly, by Robert
Fraser. Fraser exhibited Bermans work and Bermans son Tosh, on
his blog, states in the summer of love 1967, my family stayed at
Robert Frasers flat in Mayfair London. It was the first time I have ever
been outside of California and I was just overwhelmed to be in a city
that in my heart I thought The Beatles owned. Now I know that is not
true. Rolling Stones were co-owners as well as the art dealer Robert
Fraser. Sadly Fraser was in prison for a drug offence (he got arrested
in the famous Stones bust) but he arranged for us to stay in his flat.
Wallace Berman is one of a number of people who had at the time of
Pepper, or later, as in this incidence, died or were involved in car
accidents. In Bermans case he would be run down and killed by a
drunk driver just like John Lennons mother Julia in 1976.
Marjorie Cameron, who preferred to be known as Cameron, was a
visual artist, an actress and a certified practicing witch. Jack Parsons
believed she was an elemental, having learned about such
creatures from Aleister Crowleys circle of warlocks, the Ordo Templi
Orientis. Parsons was a rocket scientist and the founder of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He was a pioneering genius whose
work with solid fuel and other aspects of rocketry made the US space
missions possible.
Parsons became obsessed with trying to instil a divine being, a
Goddess, into a human body, and, in so doing, change the course of

history. Parsons, through his immense knowledge of Crowley, knew

of a technique for just such a mission via the magickal process known
as a Babalon Working. It is an extremely difficult process to master
if you believe such things are possible and so Parsons enlisted the
help of another black magick aficionado, L. Ron Hubbard.
It is coincidental; I am sure, that at the exact same time as these
rituals were being performed Janaury 1946 the US Army Signal
Corps were bombarding the moon with radar signals under the
auspices of Project Diana.
The Babalon Working rituals, according to Parsons, worked and
Cameron duly appeared into his world. They would marry and
immerse themselves fully in Thelema .The aim of their union and their
endeavours were to create what was termed a moonchild, something
very similar to the plot of Rosemarys Baby.
As a short aside, the film version of Rosemarys Baby was directed
by Roman Polanski whose heavily pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was
viciously murdered by members of Charles Mansons Family. Manson
has been heavily linked with the OTO and, whilst others have written
prolifically about links between Manson and The Beatles, one link that
we can be certain of is the previously mentioned tie between Manson
family member Bobby Beausoleil and Kenneth Anger with whom he
lived and starred in his film Lucifer Rising. Whilst in prison, he also
composed the musical score for the movie.
Kenneth Anger was also instrumental in the founding of Anton
LaVeys Church of Satan and LaVey was, rumoured to have been,
employed as a technical advisor on Rosemarys Baby, though
these claims appear to have been no more than self-promotion on
LaVeys part .
In 1952, Jack Parsons was killed by an explosion at the home he
shared with Cameron. Whilst officially an accident there has been
widespread speculation that something more sinister and
premeditated took place. After her husbands death, Cameron went to
the desert to grieve and to seek a vision.

She would return to live in Malibu, and in 1954, would star in Kenneth
Angers film, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.
Dennis Hopper, another friend of Robert Fraser and strangely absent
from the Sgt. Pepper cast, is said to have found Cameron frightening.
They co-starred in Night Tide, a black and white film made by Curtis
Harrington (Harrington was a close friend of Kenneth Anger and who
also appeared in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome).
Whilst there is no actual appearance by Kenneth Anger on the cover
of Sgt. Pepper there may be several subtle allusions to his influence
on The Beatles and Robert Fraser provided in the cover. The
inclusion of the child actor Bobby Breen (No: 66) is, on the face of it,
a strange one.
Whilst he may have been a favourite of someone on the project,
Peter Blake would be my candidate if this is the case, it seems
unlikely. There is an obscure connection to him and Lenny Bruce (No:
4) in the sense that Bruce name checked him, and Hitler, in a sketch
he once performed.
My belief is that his inclusion is a nod to Kenneth Anger. Anger claims
to have been a child star having appeared in the 1935 movie version
of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is quoted
as having said: I was a child prodigy who never got smarter. He also
claims to have danced with Shirley Temple, and this may, at least
partially, explain why she merits inclusion on the cover no less than
three times!
Clearly, none of this is conclusive, however, it is clear that Anger was
a highly influential figure at this stage of The Beatles career and he
leads us neatly to our next character for consideration, Shirley
Temple.
Shirley Temple (No: 58, 72 and 73) appears three times according to
the official booklet. I have speculated that this may have something to
do with wishing to make a subtle allusion to the OTO Order of the
Temple of the East as she appears twice on the eastern side of the
sleeve. I also feel that this could be because they are alluding to a

Masonic Temple and the hidden knowledge due to the placement of

the Legionnaire behind the Temple Dors.

The image of Shirley Temple above comes from the 1934 movie
Bright Eyes in which Temples character has a mother called Mary
who is killed in an automobile accident.
One of these images, the one to the extreme east is seated upon
what is listed as cloth grandmother figure (No: 72). We are told that
this figure is illustrative of Shirley Temple via the official booklet,
because, in reality, all we see is an anonymous childs doll.

It is interesting to note that by the time Pepper was re-visited for the
twentieth anniversary the cloth grandmother figure has been
replaced. In her place we find Albert Schweitzer. Albert Schweitzer
was an internationally renowned humanitarian and physician who had
been influenced by Rudolf Steiner who was a Rosicrucian mason.
Schweitzer was not a freemason, but was greatly honoured by them;
in 1960 he received the Matthias Claudius medal, the first non-mason

to receive it. He had devoted a large part of his life to the study of the
historical Jesus.
However, returning to Shirley Temple. She is clearly highly
significant, but what of the third, largely obscured image of her hidden
by the waxwork Beatles. If I am correct about the positioning being
important and about her being chosen more for the word play of her
surname, then what of this westward placement?
We shall explore this theme further, but I believe it represents the
spread of Freemasonry and its principles across the Atlantic to the
United States of America.

Chapter 6: The Brotherhood

_______________________________________________________

The appearance of Aleister Crowley on the album cover is immensely

significant and his shadow will continue to loom large over
proceedings.
As we have seen, the Sgt. Pepper album sleeve is full of Masonic
symbolism. There are twelve freemasons and of these, three are 33
master Masons, Karl Marx (No: 31), H. G. Wells (No: 32) and Aleister
Crowley (No: 2).
Of these three, Marx and Wells are placed next to each other and if
you overlay a compass on top of the album sleeve then you will see
that Marx and Wells are placed at exactly 33.

Once again, this surely cannot be coincidental and implies that the
number 33 may be significant.

Sir Francis Bacons cipher number is 33, that being the numerical
value of his surname in a simple cipher.
33 is also an important number in Masonic symbolism. It is the
number of the highest grade of the Scottish Rite and is the degree
gained by our master masons. It is also the number of years Christ
walked on the earth.
In 1988, some 21 years after the release of Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles
released Past Masters, Volumes One and Two, on compact disc.
Past Master is a Masonic term used to describe the former
Worshipful Master of a Masonic Lodge. If you should have any
remaining doubt as to the Masonic implications of Beatles recordings,
the album Past Masters contains exactly 33 recordings.
Another 33 mason was Walt Disney. Disney does not appear on the
record cover; however, there are subtle references, primarily in the
use of the Snow White statue (No: 85). I have read claims that the
stone figure on the cover (No: 78) is Disney, though I personally
doubt this. My personal belief is that this represents a headstone and
is designed to amplify the funereal aspect of Pepper.
We should not forget though that in the Disney fairy-tale the Queen
attempts to kill Snow White through the use of a poisoned apple. Or
that The Beatles song, Do you want to know a secret? was inspired
by the song Im wishing from the Disney Snow White movie.
There are, as already stated, twelve (known) freemasons on the
cover. Other than the aforementioned H.G. Wells, Karl Marx and
Aleister Crowley we can add; W. C. Fields (No: 6), Sir Robert Peel
(17), Stan Laurel (28), Oliver Hardy (30), Tom Mix (40), Oscar Wilde
(41), T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)(53), Aldous Huxley (18) and Issy
Bonn (47).
To that assemblage we can supply additional knowledge on Tyrone
Power (42) whose father was a Mason, as was the father of English
actress Diana Dors (70). This Masonic upbringing clearly rubbed off
on her because on her death it was discovered that her final will and
testament was full of Masonic symbolism and was written using a
cipher code.

She is also somewhat of a curious choice for the cover. The blonde
bombshell that always set Beatle hearts racing was Brigitte Bardot
and yet on the finished article we have Marilyn Monroe and Diana
Dors.
Dors was well known within showbiz circles for the extremely risqu
sex parties she would host, with her husband, at her house. These
soirees would attract the cream of the entertainment industry and
would often lead to photographs being taken of stars in compromising
situations through a two-way mirror.
Aside from the Masonic connotations already ascribed to her
inclusion perhaps we should add the possibility that she also
represents the Scarlet Woman. For the complete Pepper word-play
concept to work, she, rather than Bardot, has to be included.
Lewis Carroll (52) was not, to the best of my knowledge a freemason,
however, he was rumoured to have been a Rosicrucian like Sir
Francis Bacon and, curiously, the son of a Mason is in England
called a Lewis. Neither was Dr. David Livingstone (44) a Mason
however; a Masonic lodge in Scotland is named after him.
Edgar Allan Poe (8) is also not a known Mason, but his works contain
references to Freemasonry and he was clearly an interested
observer. At least four of his books contain references and it is
possible he was murdered because he was revealing details of
Masonry or was deemed to be critical of the practice.
We shall explore in far greater detail the writers depicted on the
album shortly however, we should consider first Carl Gustav Jung (7)
and down another avenue that Sgt. Pepper takes us. Jungs
grandfather was a Mason and his ancestors may have been
Rosicrucian founders. Jung did a lot of research in symbolism,
including Masonic symbolism and was the first psychologist to study
weird coincidences and to name them synchronicities. Sgt. Peppers
Lonely Hearts Club Band is full of synchronicities.
He is another with links to the OTO like the psychoanalyst Sigmund
Freud, who some claim appears on the cover though this is actually
James Joyce and the Tavistock Institute, and this website states: -

After the 1917 Russian revolution, Soviet influence infiltrated

into Theosophical and OrdoTempli Orientis lodges in Europe,
including the Viennese Blue Lodge of Theosophy, with which
both Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were associated. The Carl
Jung Foundation has allegedly been linked to mind-control
cultic activities.
Carl Jung was a major figure in the on-going struggle by the
Illuminati social engineers to control the minds of humankind.
He devoted much time to developing ways to change the belief
structure of the masses which gave us the Renaissance. Jung
lectured at the Children of the Sun centre, at Ascona, Italy, a
learning centre for Illuminati offspring. He provided a safe
house for Lenin and Trotsky there. Jung lectured to Mary
Mellon, who later founded the Bollingen Centre in America; this
centre spawned several cults.
Jung was not only an influential advisor to Nazi sympathizer
and CIA director Allen Dulles, he also instructed Alice Bailey
and her 33rd degree Masonic husband. She founded the
Lucifer Publishing Company which later changed its name to
the Lucis Trust. Her book Education in The New Age outlined a
social engineering program which later was adopted by the
Club of Rome. In it she wrote ...the science of eugenics will
grow.
The Lucis Trust is a major New Age command centre on behalf
of the Illuminati, as evidenced by its sponsors, who have
included John D. Rockefeller; former U.S. Defence Secretary
Robert MacNamara; former World Bank President and Masonic
Grand Commander Henry Clausen; Thomas Watson, former
U.S. Ambassador to Moscow and IBM president; and the late
Canon West, Dean of New York's Cathedral of St. John the
Divine and protocol officer to Queen Elizabeth II.
There is a statue of Jung in Mathew Street in Liverpool, which is most
famous for being the home of the Cavern Club where The Beatles so
famously played.

The Rosicrucian links are extremely interesting as according to

material available, the supreme council of the Fraternity of R.C.
(Rosie Cross) was composed of a certain number of individuals who
had died what is known as the philosophic death. When the time
came for an initiate to enter upon his labours for the Order, he
conveniently died under somewhat mysterious circumstances.
In reality the initiate changed his name and place of residence, and a
box of rocks or a body secured for the purpose was buried in his
stead. It is believed that this happened in the case of Sir Francis
Bacon who, like all servants of the Mysteries, renounced all personal
credit and permitted others to be considered as the authors of the
documents which he wrote or inspired.
This also has very obvious parallels with the stories touched on in this
books introduction about Jesus faking his death on the cross by use
of a substitute.
Aleister Crowley has described human religious development as:
Within the memory of man we have had the Pagan period, the
worship of Nature, of Isis, of the Mother, of the Past; the
Christian period, the worship of Man, of Osiris, of the Present.
The first period is simple, quiet, easy, and pleasant; the
material ignores the spiritual; the second is of suffering and
death: the spiritual strives to ignore the material.... The new
Aeon is the worship of the spiritual made one with the material,
of Horus, of the Child, of the Future.
Before we leave this thread I would like to make a brief connection
with two of the original list of characters that did not ultimately make it
onto the cover. Firstly, the Marquis de Sade, who along with many
other things, was a Rosicrucian initiate within the very inner sanctum
of the organisation and Friedrich Nietzsche, who was an influence on
Crowley and who also advocated the theory that Francis Bacon was
the author of the Shakespeare plays.

Chapter 7: The Writers

_______________________________________________________

The inclusion of certain writers on the album sleeve, particularly

Edgar Allan Poe, is relevant because they help to establish the
premise that Sgt. Pepper is a code, or has a code buried within.
In the story The Gold-Bug, written by Edgar Allan Poe, the character
William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after
being bitten by a beetle-like bug thought to be made of pure gold.
He notifies his closest friend, the stories narrator, and tells him to
immediately come and visit him at his home on Sullivans Island in
South Carolina. Upon the narrators arrival, Legrand informs him that
they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure along with his
African-American servant Jupiter. The narrator has intense doubt and
questions if Legrand, who has recently lost his fortune, has gone
insane.
Legrand captured the golden bug but had let someone else borrow it,
so he draws a picture of the bug instead. The narrator says that the
image looks like a skull. Legrand is insulted and inspects his own
drawing before stuffing it into a drawer which he locks, to the
narrators confusion. Uncomfortable, the narrator leaves Legrand and
returns home to Charleston.
A month later, Jupiter visits the narrator and asks him to return to
Sullivans Island on behalf of his master. Legrand, he says, has been
acting strangely. When he arrives, Legrand tells the narrator they
must go on an expedition along with the gold bug tied to a string.
Deep in the wilderness of the island, they find a tree, which Legrand
orders Jupiter to climb with the gold bug in tow. There, he finds a
skull and Legrand tells him to drop the bug through one of the skulls
eye sockets. Based on the point at which it lands Legrand determines
the spot where they should dig. In so doing they find treasure buried
by the infamous pirate Captain Kidd, estimated by the narrator to be
worth $1.5 million. Once the treasure is safely secured, the man goes

into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasures

location, based on a set of occurrences that happened after the
discovery of the gold bug.
The story involves cryptography and provides a detailed description
of a method for solving a simple substitution cipher using letter
frequencies. This idea of hidden messages and codes to be cracked
is intriguing because many proponents of the Francis Bacon as
Shakespeare conspiracy contend that Bacon hid codes and ciphers
in the works of Shakespeare.
These substitution ciphers are often referred to as Caesar ciphers. As
mentioned earlier, in the Pepper song With a Little Help from my
Friends we get the line Lend me your ears and Ill sing you a song
and Ill try not to sing out of key. This line comes from
Shakespeares Julius Caesar; could this be a reference to a Caesar
cipher in Pepper? If so, I have yet to find it.
Could it explain why on the Pepper cover Marlene Dietrich has her
hand at the ear of the Legionnaire of the Order of the Buffaloes
(RAOB) character?

RAOB is boar reversed and boar could be an allusion to Bacon (he

used a boar as one of his logos), so, if Bacon wrote Shakespeare
could that be why the RAOB is lending Dietrich her ear?
Captain Kidds treasure is often claimed to be buried on Oak Island in
Canada which is also rumoured to the resting place for a treasure
trove of Bacons original manuscripts.
An old, but not seemingly true, theory ran that John Jacob Astor (of
the extremely wealthy, and connected, Astor family) reportedly

discovered the treasure of Captain Kidd, thus founding the familys

great fortune. Astors mother was named Mary Magdalena Vorster
(Worster) whilst Marlene Dietrichs real name was Marie Magdalene
Marlene Dietrich. Could there be a connection?
It would be a stretch, I admit, but we should consider firstly that
Bacons work New Atlantis was essentially a blueprint for the
creation of a Masonic utopia in North America. Secondly, obscured
behind the waxwork Beatles on the western side of the Pepper cover
is a hidden Shirley TEMPLE. Could this be a reference to a hidden
temple of knowledge in the western hemisphere?
Poe is also one of a number of the people featured on the cover that
died under mysterious circumstances. On October 3, 1849, Poe was
found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, in great distress, and... in
need of immediate assistance, according to the man who found him,
Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the Washington College
Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the
morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he
came to be in this dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that
were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name
Reynolds on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom
he was referring. Some sources say Poes final words were Lord,
help my poor soul. All medical records, including his death
certificate, have been lost.
Newspapers at the time reported Poes death as congestion of the
brain or cerebral inflammation, common euphemisms for deaths
from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of
death remains a mystery; from as early as 1872, cooping was
commonly believed to have been the cause.
Cooping was a practice by which unwilling participants were forced to
vote, often several times over, for a particular candidate in an
election. Generally these innocent bystanders would be grabbed off
the street by so-called cooping gangs or election gangs working on
the payroll of a political candidate, and they would be kept in a room,
called the coop, and given alcohol or drugs in order for them to
comply. If they refused to cooperate, they might be beaten or even
killed. Often their clothing would be changed to allow them to vote

multiple times. Sometimes the victims would be forced to wear

disguises such as wigs, fake beards or moustaches to prevent them
from being recognised by voting officials at polling stations.
Edgar Allan Poe appears on the cover of Sgt. Pepper as well as
featuring in the lyrics to I am the Walrus, John Lennons famous
nonsense song. This does provide a link with another writer featured
on the Pepper cover, Lewis Carroll (No: 52). Carrolls books Alices
Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and what
Alice found there were massive influences on John Lennon and his
writing.
The idea for the walrus came from the poem The Walrus and The
Carpenter, which is from the sequel to Alice in Wonderland,
Through the Looking-Glass. In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon
said: It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on
the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what
he really meant, like people are doing with The Beatles work. Later, I
went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad
guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, oh,
shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, I am the carpenter.
But that wouldnt have been the same, would it?
The songs opening line, I am he as you are he as you are me and
we are all together is yet another tantalising link to Aleister Crowley.
Crowley in his book Magick in theory and practise talks about the art
of speaking backwards and uses the illustration, Let him practise
speaking backwards; thus for I am He let him say, Eh ma I. Given
The Beatles penchant for using backwards masking and subliminal
messages in their songs, I think this is highly significant.
Also, from the end of I am the Walrus, we find a mysterious piece of
dialogue, recorded from a BBC radio broadcast of the Shakespeare
play King Lear. The section of King Lear used came from Act Four,
Scene 6, with Oswald saying: Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take
my purse. After Oswald dies, we hear this dialogue:
Edgar: I know thee well: a serviceable villain, as duteous to the vices
of thy mistress as badness would desire.

Gloucester: What, is he dead?

Edgar: Sit you down, father. Rest you.
Finally on the walrus trail, it has often been quoted that Lennon got
the line Goo Goo Ga Joob from the book Finnegans Wake by
James Joyce. No such line appears, however, James Joyce does
appear on the cover. Interestingly, he is not listed amongst the cast
list of luminaries. Is this an oversight or an intentional omission?

James Joyce

Joyce is one of three Irish writers that appear on the cover, the other
two are George Bernard Shaw (No: 48) and Oscar Wilde (No: 41).
Wilde was famously jailed for his homosexuality although,
presumably in an attempt to conform to Victorian standards, he was
married with children. His wife, Constance, along with another Pepper
grandee, the artist Aubrey Beardsley, and the ubiquitous Aleister
Crowley were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
which was an magical society formed in 1888. George Bernard
Shaws one time mistress, Florence Farr, was also a member of the
order. Another interesting connection with Alice in Wonderland
stems from the fact that Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (who cofounded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and who was a
long-time associate of Aleister Crowley) was related to Alice Liddell,
the girl upon whom the Alice adventures were based.
The links to Crowley, secret societies and occult organisations just
keep on coming.
Another interesting author featured on the cover is Stephen Crane
(No: 46). Crane is another who died young when he was just 28
years old, and is perhaps most famous for his short story called The
Open Boat. It concerns four men who struggle to survive in a lifeboat.

The one most determined to keep the group together dies in the
ordeal; the other three then act as interpreters of the event.
This has been proposed as being a metaphor for Paul McCartney
and the Paul is Dead theories.
Continuing the theme of those who appear on the cover and who died
young is the poet Dylan Thomas (No: 19). Thomas died not long after
his 39th birthday in New York, his death exacerbated by his chronic
alcoholism.
It is worth noting the work of another writer, one who does not
actually appear on the cover, but who is featured if you apply The
Beatles word play clues. On the Sgt. Pepper cover we have Johnny
Weismuller as Tarzan. The Tarzan series was written by Edgar Rice
Burroughs who, as I say, does not appear, but Edgar Allan Poe and
William Burroughs do. Edgar Rice Burroughs is another whose father
was a mason.
In the Tarzan series, Tarzan goes looking for a lost American, John
Blake, who is quoted as saying my father is a thirty second degree
Mason and a Knight Templar.
In the stories Tarzan also encounters a high priestess who worships
the flaming God. This appears to be clearly designed to represent
the mother Goddess and sun worship. In a set of Tarot cards it is the
High Priestess card that bears an image of the twin Masonic pillars of
Boaz and Jachin. Sgt. Pepper represents these with the use of the
Sonny Liston and Diana Dors mannequins.
Tarzan, far from being the feral ape-man that he is depicted as, is
actually John Clayton, Earl Greystoke, and is the son of a British Lord
and Lady who were marooned on the Atlantic coast of Africa by
mutineers. Burroughss other famous character is John Carter, a
supposedly immortal human from Earth who is marooned on Mars.
That both lead characters have the initials JC and share almost
supernatural abilities allows us to detect a clear Jesus Christ
analogy? In fact according to Wikipedia, Burroughss narrator in
Tarzan of the Apes describes both Clayton and Greystoke as

fictitious names implying that, within the fictional world that Tarzan
inhabits, he may have a different real name. Here we have another
nod to hidden identities and secret authorships, and Burroughs often
wrote about characters with split or double personalities. This is yet
another clue that leads back to Sir Francis Bacon.
Burroughss tales about the adventures of John Carter, a confederate
soldier, who is transported to Mars, was turned into a film by Disney
in 2012.
Incidentally, Johnny Weismuller (No: 45) is believed to have assumed
the identity of his brother in order that he could qualify to compete for
America as a swimmer.
The final writers that appear on the cover reveal yet more links with
Crowley and the intertwining nature of some of the relationships of
the characters involved. Take for example Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells
and our friend Aleister Crowley.
I will use a quote from Huxley that may get to the very heart of what
Sgt. Pepper pertains too:
There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological
method of making people love their servitude, and producing
dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of
painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people
will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will
rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire
to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing
enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be
the final revolution.
Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961.

Huxley was an initiate of a group called the children of the sun which
incorporated the offspring of Britains greatest minds, and would go
on to run the CIA MK-ULTRA drug programme, possibly in
collaboration with the Tavistock Institute. Huxley would meet Crowley
through H. G. Wells and be initiated into the OTO.

Could it be that through another Crowley devotee, Kenneth Anger,

The Beatles were being used as tools, either willingly or not, for the
MK-ULTRA plot? Dr. R. D. Laing was the Tavistock resident
psychoanalyst and by 1967 - the year of Sgt. Pepper and
McCartneys LSD confessions - was hosting a conference at the
Roundhouse in London called the dialectics of liberation promoting
the use of drugs. The Roundhouse, at this time, was being run by
Barry Miles and the International Times crowd.
Indeed, in his Barry Miles penned biography, Paul McCartney, when
talking about his house in Cavendish Avenue says I used to get a lot
of R. D. Laings people; he must have sent em round. I used to talk
to em, you know.
The Beatles at this time were in the full midst of their psychedelic,
LSD period and Paul McCartney, who conversely had consumed the
least amount of the drug, had appeared in a televised interview in
which he espoused the virtues of LSD.
The OTO, references to whom seem to crop up throughout the
Pepper sleeve, are a sex magick cult and it may be that The Beatles
are espousing the benefits of these forms of religious beliefs over the
more conventional Christian virtues.
Aldous Huxleys grandfather, Thomas, was an anatomist who coined
the term agnostic and taught H. G. Wells. Thomas Huxley was a
member of the Royal Society of London which was founded in 1660
by Freemasons and was hugely influenced by Sir Francis Bacon and
his book New Atlantis. H. G. Wells would later tutor Aldous Huxley at
Oxford. Wells would introduce Aldous Huxley to Aleister Crowley in
Berlin in 1930 where Crowley may have introduced him to peyote.
Huxley wrote Brave New World as a parody to H.G. Wells Men Like
Gods, and both have parallels with Bacons New Atlantis and its
vision of a Rosicrucian paradise. Add to this Wellss The Shape of
Things to Come that I spoke about in the introduction and we can
see the promotion of this Masonic utopian one-world-government
agenda being conveyed via Pepper.
Could it be that The Beatles were being manipulated by the powers
that be, MI5/CIA etc., into propelling a myth about the benefits of drug

use as some sort of generational mind control? Or could it be that

The Beatles were aware that they were the victims of this clumsy
attempt, and so started to reveal it to the world.
Lennon was clearly aware of the CIA LSD links, as he specifically
mentions them in his 1980, final ever, interview for Playboy
magazine.
Dr. Richard Asher was regarded as one of the foremost medical
thinkers of our times and was the senior physician responsible for
the mental observation ward at the Central Middlesex Hospital before
opening private consulting rooms at the Asher family home of 57
Wimpole Street, London. This is, famously, where Paul McCartney
lived from 1964-1966 during his relationship with Dr. Ashers
daughter, Jane.
Curiously, in 1964, Dr. Asher suddenly gave up his hospital post and,
possibly, all medical activities, just as the famous Beatle moved in.
Could it be that he had a full-time patient to tend too?
One story of the time, according to The Beatles bible website, relates
that:
Dr. Asher loved to shock his family. Once, when Paul had a
bad cold, Dr. Asher wrote him a prescription for a nasal inhaler
and showed him how to use it. You take off the top and place it
on your little finger, like so. He demonstrated. Then you take a
sniff with each nostril as per normal; then, after you've finished
with it, you can unscrew the bottom and eat the Benzedrine.
Peter shuffled his feet nervously and Paul grinned, not knowing
how much he could confide in the good doctor.
When we consider this and the fact that Dr. Asher was a member of
the Dunlop committee on the safety of drugs the possibility arises that
he may have been involved in some sort of Establishment drug
experiments.
I have received testimony, via my blog, that Dr. Asher was involved in
experiments, utilising LSD, on injured and stricken soldiers who, due
to wartime injuries, were no longer capable of having sexual

intercourse. The purpose of this experimentation appears to have

been to induce the mental aspects of an orgasm in patients who are
no longer physically equipped to produce one.
I am not in any way suggesting McCartney was involved with these
experiments but, when you consider that Margaret Asher (Dr. Ashers
wife and Janes mother) was a music teacher and musician who was
a professor of oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where her best known student was Beatle producer, George Martin and that McCartney famously claims that the tune to Yesterday
came to him in a dream, fully formed and that he just wrote it down
when he awoke. Is it then possible that the tune was somehow
placed in his mind as an experiment?
It is perhaps too easy to suggest that The Beatles were part of a
Tavistock / MK-ULTRA style plot to corrupt the world and supress the
masses. However, on Pepper, they are certainly paying homage to,
or at least, are aware of the work and philosophies of a lot of people
who are connected with these New World Order theories.
Huxley is a key link in establishing this theory and in providing a link
between the Masonic New World Order characters and the number of
writers who appear on the record cover.
I shall include one final tale to this collection. This one concerns,
Isaac Asimov, a writer who did not make it on to Pepper. According to
Wikipedia:
In December 1974, former Beatle Paul McCartney approached
Asimov and asked him if he could write the screenplay for a
science-fiction movie musical. McCartney had a vague idea for
the plot and a small scrap of dialogue; he wished to make a film
about a rock band whose members discover they are being
impersonated by a group of extraterrestrials. The band and
their impostors would likely be played by McCartneys group
Wings, then at the height of their career. Intrigued by the idea,
although he was not generally a fan of rock music, Asimov
quickly produced a treatment or brief outline of the story. He
adhered to McCartney's overall idea, producing a story he felt
to be moving and dramatic. However, he did not make use of

McCartneys brief scrap of dialogue, and probably as a

consequence, McCartney rejected the story. The treatment now
exists only in the Boston University archives.
Which is curious, why would Paul McCartney wish to commission a
movie about a rock band being replaced?
The plot to the un-commissioned work Five and Five and One is the
story of six extra-terrestrial, parasitic, energy beings that crash land
their space ship on Earth and are forced to take drastic measures to
survive: copying the identity of a rock band, with the goal of
brainwashing the entire world.
Where might he have got the idea?
One of the recurring themes on the Pepper cover are the many
literary references. Whilst conventional Beatle lore likes to depict
McCartneys influence as being the primary driver behind the Sgt.
Pepper concept that of the band replacing themselves with
anonymous personas, it is via Lennons suggestions that the Pepper
cover back-story comes to light.
When presenting the Beatle-approved version of the Pepper history,
the media like to focus on Lennons contributions as being highly
controversial; Hitler, Jesus and Gandhi etc. However, it is through his
inclusion of many of the authors that inspired him as a child that we
can gain a real insight as to the purpose of the Sgt. Pepper code.
Richmal Crompton, dropped from the original list, makes a ghost
appearance via the, ultimately discarded, Just William homage.
Edgar Rice Burroughs, likewise, makes a ghost appearance via the
inclusion of the Johnny Weismuller / Tarzan character and via the
portmanteau names Edgar Allan Poe and William Burroughs. The
hidden Elizabeth I / Bette Davis character is an allusion to Sir Francis
Bacon; the proposed author of the works of Shakespeare.
Ultimately, it is in understanding that Pepper contains allusions to
unseen and un-credited writers that will allow us to solve the Sgt.
Pepper code.

Maybe Lennon is tipping a hat to these fondly remembered childhood

authors and is saying that without them there would be no Sgt.
Pepper?

Chapter 8: The Y code

_______________________________________________________

I spoke in the very first paragraph of chapter 1, of how The Beatles

were using their groundbreaking optimization of the printed lyrics on
the album cover to conceal clues and codes.
The host of questions without question marks serve firstly to tell us
that there is some form of word play in use within the lyrics. An epic
game of twenty questions, perhaps, that beg of the listener to
explore, and question, what is right in front of them.
The Beatles, all dressed up in their faux military gear, are expounding
the virtues of the Knights Templar - master exploiters of the use of
codes and ciphers to hide clues in plain sight.
Hence the significance of the positioning of the one question in the
lyrics that does use a question mark. Take a copy of the original vinyl
version of Sgt. Pepper and you will see that the question appears
within the lyrics of Within You, Without You. The very first line of the
song says: We were talking - about the space between us all.
Now notice how, looking at The Beatles, there is no space between
them, they are all bunched together. To further reinforce this clue
look at the song Lovely Rita Meter Maid and we will find the line
nothing can come between us.
There is, on closer inspection however, a tiny gap in between Paul
and John. Within this small space we can find a word. This one word
is they.

Continuing this line of thought, let us add a space within the word
they so that it then becomes the-y. Here things become more than
a little bit spooky.
To reveal the code we must examine the lyrics to the song Shes
Leaving Home.
Firstly, take a pencil and paper and, starting at the beginning of the
song lyrics, search for the letter Y. If you then go back three letters
from each Y, and jot down the letter, you will reveal a hidden code.
Example:
Wedne[s]daY morning at five oclock as th[e] daY begins
Sile[n]tlY closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped woul[d] saY more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief Qui[e]tlY turning the backdoor[r]
keY

SENDER.
Ok, that doesnt mean too much, so let us carry on with this
experiment, ignoring any lyrics in brackets.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
Home (We gave her everything money could buy)
Shes leaving home after living alone
For so [m][a]nY Yea[r]s, b[Y]e bYe

MARY.
SENDER MARY.
The code seems to end at this point, but not before having spat out
the cryptic message above. Now, I am not a statistician, however, I
would imagine the odds on that message appearing randomly would
be pretty large?
With codes, you must have a sender and a receiver. If Mary, via
The Beatles, is the sender, then are we, the listening public, the
receiver?

So, who is Mary? Could it be Mary Magdalene? We have already

discovered that Marlene Dietrichs (key in German) real name was
Marie Magdalene Dietrich, so we have a Mary Magdalene on the
cover.
The Templars origins are long believed to have contained a bloodline
that can be traced back, via Jesus, to King David. This same
bloodline would then have continued into the future if Mary
Magdalene had conceived Jesuss child. A bloodline that, it is said,
may have ascended to the throne of Britain through King James I.
King James VI of Scotland became King James I of Britain after his
predecessor, Queen Elizabeth I died without issue.
As previously discussed Sir Francis Bacon is believed to be the
illegitimate offspring of Elizabeth. When King James ascended to the
English crown he ordered that an English language version of the
Bible be produced, what we know now as the King James Version.
Bacon was heavily involved in this task including having possession
of the original manuscript for over a year for editing purposes. It is
widely rumoured that this expert in inserting codes into scripts did
precisely that with the King James Bible.
Could The Beatles be alluding to this secret royal bloodline?
Paul McCartneys ex-fiance Jane Asher, like the Duchess of York
and Camilla Parker-Bowles, is of the same lineage as Englands King
Richard III. This lineage she inherits from her mother Margaret and it
instils in her a Plantagenet bloodline. This is significant because the
Plantagenets claim ancestry, via Eleanor of Aquitaine, from the
Merovingian dynasty; the once and future kings, who, legend has it
are the descendants of Jesus and who continue his bloodline.
Indeed, the Plantagenet dynasty sprang from a union between the
aforementioned Eleanor and Henry (later King Henry I of England)
from the House of Anjou.
Legend clung to the House of Anjou; one such ran that they were
descended from no less a person than Satan himself. It was told that
Melusine, the daughter of Satan, was the demon ancestress of the
Angevins. Her husband, the Count of Anjou, was perplexed when

Melusine always left church prior to the hearing of the mass. After
pondering the matter he decided to have her forcibly restrained by his
knights while the service took place. Thus restrained, Melusine
reportedly tore herself from their grasp and flew, birdlike, through the
roof, taking two of the couples children with her and was never seen
again.
So, it would appear that, the Ashers are descendants of a
metaphorical union between the son of God and the daughter of
Satan!
Alternatively, could Mary be Mother Mary? The virgin Mother of Christ
and, incidentally, also the name of the mother of Paul McCartney.
It has been held by many that the Templars were followers of the
female Goddess figure, or, at very least in re-establishing the
feminine aspect of divinity that had been excised by the church. It
should be noted that their patron, St. Bernard of Clairvaux had an
absolute obsession with Mary and was responsible for her being
named the queen of Heaven and the Mother of God.
It is interesting to note that Mrs. McCartney had some intriguing
relatives; one of whom, her uncle, invented the gas meter the
original meter maid? whilst another, Pauls cousin, Bert Danher was
a famous creator of crosswords.
It appears that a Beatle had a code maker in the family. According to
Danhers obituary in the Daily Telegraph he was the greatest
inventor of anagrams and he particularly enjoyed linking two clues
together so that the solutions created a homophone; thus the clues
fairy-like and ghost made elfin and spectre, or botanical
gardens and beast made Kew and brute.
Perhaps the most telling tribute is Danher also liked to signal his
authorship in cryptic puzzles by beginning 1 Across with a musical
clue.
Ultimately, I guess we will never know to which Mary the code refers?
Maybe it is a reference to both, but that the code exists within the
lyrics surely cannot be an accident.

To further establish the Marian clues we should take a brief sojourn to

the area of London that has spawned The Beatles recordings
including, of course, Sgt. Pepper and consider whats in a name?
Everyone knows of the world famous Abbey Road studios in St.
Johns Wood in London, the recording and spiritual home of The
Beatles and numerous other bands from the sixties and beyond.
The focus here though is on the history of the area and how this may
have influenced, subliminally or not, The Beatles and their work. The
area of St. Johns Wood is known to have once belonged to the
Knights Templar, until 1323, when it was handed over to the
Augustinian order known as the Knights of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem, from whence the area gets its name.
The studios at No: 3 Abbey Road were built in 1830 as a lavish
private residence, with nine bedrooms, servants quarters and a wine
cellar within a Georgian townhouse on what was once a track-way
leading to Kilburn Abbey, from whence the road acquired its name.
The history of the Abbey is sketchy to say the least. It was owned by
a hermit named Godwyn who allowed it to be used by a small band of
Augustinian nuns who founded the Abbey circa 1134. These nuns
would later acquire lands in London in Bishopsgate, in Middlesex in
Wembley and Harrow, as well as in Buckinghamshire, Kent, Surrey
and Essex quite some portfolio given that they were only meant to
number but a handful of nuns?
Though no trace of the old Abbey still exists, its influence, particularly
in the local street names lives on; Abbey Road, Priory Road, Kilburn
Priory, Priory Park Road and Hermit Place pay homage to this former
institution. Interestingly, the exact location of the old building itself is
something of a mystery, though one blog I have read claims that
some remains from the building can be found in Coventry Close.
Interestingly, Coventry Close leads into Cathedral Walk and onwards
to Canterbury Road and Chichester Road.
This may be pure coincidence but Canterbury, Coventry and
Chichester are well known cathedral cities and this, and the number
of references to the Abbey in the locale, leads me to speculate as to
the possibility that this was once in fact a much larger religious site.

As an aside, it is curious that the Paul McCartney pseudonym, Percy

Thrillington, was supposedly born in Coventry Cathedral and, should
you travel down these far from salubrious, north-west London roads,
you will come to a pub called the Sir Robert Peel. Peel (No: 17), of
course, was one of those who appeared on the cover of Sgt. Pepper.
Just coincidences, though, I am sure.
There is an ancient well near the site and this is believed to form part
of ancient pagan pilgrims procession route towards St. Albans and it
is believed that there was a Roman fort here at one time. The most
likely explanation for the lack of the Abbey remains is the fact that the
site is now pierced by the Bakerloo and Overground railways and
sidings and these would have destroyed any archaeology.
Another local sacred site is that of the church of St. Marys that sits
on the crossing between Abbey Road and Priory Road. Some of the
relics from the old Abbey are now in residence in this church.
I have often wondered if there is not some ancient pagan significance
to the Kilburn Abbey site. It lies on the old Watling Street, the ancient
Roman road to the north along which travelled Boudicca when she
journeyed down to sack London and battle the Romans. It may have
begun life as an ancient track but it had a pivotal role as a route
linking the important centres of Canterbury and St Albans.
In Anglo-Saxon times it became known as Watling Street and it
became an important resting place on the pilgrimage route from
London to St Albans, where Lord Verulam, Sir Francis Bacon became
1st Viscount St. Alban(s).
I wonder if the old Abbey does not hold ancient significance, or
possibly was once the home of some ancient relic of the Knights
Templar. The old nuns of Kilburn did, it once seems, have a seal
inscribed as the secret seal of Kilburn and worked to the legend Ecce
Agnus Dei loosely translated as, I believe, Behold the Lamb of God.
I am extremely grateful to the author of the book Londons Ley
Lines, Chris Street, for the following information. The site of Abbey
Road, the church of St. Marys and the old priory all lie along an

ancient ley line, known as the Mary line, that connects a series of
churches all with the name St. Mary's and that ends at an ancient
site of Dianic worship.
The starting point for this startling alignment is St. Mary-le-Strand, an
ancient church that also has a holy well nearby. The next St. Marys
is St. Mary-le-Bone where a church is known to have stood since at
least 1200 and is where Sir Francis Bacon, yes him, again, was
married in 1606.
We then pass through the site of Kilburn Priory and its holy well and
on to St. Marys in Willesden Green, where again we find an ancient
well indeed the name Willesden is believed to be a corruption of
Welles Dun, the hill of wells, and where there is a statue of a Black
Madonna.
Unusually, St Josemara Escriv, the founder of Opus Dei, came to
St. Marys Willesden every time he was in London to pray at the site
of the shrine. On the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1958,
Escriv held his annual rededication Mass for Opus Dei in this
Anglican parish church of Willesden. Because of this, Opus Dei
members and many other Catholics make the pilgrimage to
Willesden.
Finally, after travelling through Wembley, we arrive at Harrow-on-theHill and the church of St. Mary the Virgin. The first recorded church at
this site dates back to 1094, however, the church sits next to a
wooded area known as the grove and it is long held that this marks
the spot of an extremely ancient pagan ceremonial site where Dianic
worship took place.
Yet again, there is an ancient well and, even more remarkably, the
hilltop marks the centre point of an enormous pentagram that is
marked out by the surrounding five hills, all at the pentagonal angle of
72.
According to the Zohar, the degrees of Jacobs ladder were to the
number of 72.

The name of God, lost with the death of Hiram Abif, is composed of
72 letters according to the cabalistic tradition.
This sacred geometry gives the area a remarkable symmetry with
Rennes-le-Chateau in France with its five hills and amazing tales of
buried Templar treasure. Not to mention the painting of The
Shepherds of Arcadia by Poussin with its encoded clues and
symbolism that is believed to depict the Rennes-le-Chateau area.
For an alignment to pass through the point of so many St. Marys
seems remarkable and when you add to that the fact that so many of
the sites are of great antiquity it points to something else.
The fact that the churches share the same name, and a female one
at that, would point to the sites being chosen for their antiquity. It is
well known that Christian churches are placed on the sites of old
pagan places of worship, and it would appear that these may share
an historic allegiance to the mother Goddess.
To strengthen this, Paul McCartney built a hexagonal meditation
chamber in his garden in Cavendish Avenue, St. Johns Wood, back
in the sixties. Could it be that he was aware of this alignment and
tried to tap into its power?

As another short aside, the author A.A. Milne, he of Winnie the Pooh
fame was born very near to the site of Kilburn Priory. Rolling Stone
Brian Jones would live and die in Milnes old house in Surrey,
Cotchford Farm, where the author created his famous Winnie the
Pooh works which featured the Christopher Robin character with
whom Jones so clearly related.

That we can decode and claim so many clues that can be traced
back to the Templars and Sir Francis Bacon is nothing short of
extraordinary.
Further clues can be extrapolated too, the Templars are again long
associated with the quest for the Holy Grail, and if we look at a line
from the dream sequence in A Day in the Life we find Found my
way downstairs and drank a cup. Found a Cup. Found a Grail.
Pushing it a bit? Well, possibly, but consider the Baconian clues
contained in Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite.
Bishopsgate is mentioned as the location in the lyrics though this was
not part of the original poster feature that Lennon used for inspiration.
That particular show was to be held in Rochdale in Lancashire; so
why mention Bishopsgate?
True, it probably scans a lot better than Rochdale, and it clearly
rhymes with late, but could there be another reason? I believe so,
possibly two. Firstly, Bishopgate was home to both Anthony Bacon brother of the aforementioned Sir Francis, and possible co-author of
some of the works of Shakespeare as well as Shakespeare himself.
Could it be that the two lived together? If so, what was the nature of
their relationship? Was Anthony one of Bacons good pens, one of his
team of secret writers?
As we have already seen the Pepper cover is loaded with Baconian
references; could this be another?
This assertion can be strengthened by the line in the lyrics that talks
about a Hogshead of real fire. This comes from a line in the original
poster but does serve as yet another Baconian clue as Bacon would
often use references to hogs, sows, pigs, boars or swine as a clue to
the true authorship of a work he published under a pseudonym.
Secondly, the area of Bishopsgate in London, now home to
numerous banking organisations, has traditionally been split into two
areas known as within and without; references to their location as
either being part of the City of London or falling just outside the city
boundaries.

Well, what song should appear on the album immediately after Being
for the benefit of Mr Kite? Answer: Within You, Without You
coincidence? Happenstance? Or something else?
In 1984 Paul McCartney would make further reference to the area in
his film, Give My Regards to Broad Street, Broad Street station, now
demolished, being in the Bishopsgate area. The film, whilst not a
critical success, is interesting in that McCartney makes reference to
the Paul is Dead phenomena.
At one point, Paul enters the BBC building and is introduced by an
old man to another with the question, Do you know William? which
is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the myth that Paul McCartney
actually died in 1966 and was replaced in The Beatles by a look-alike
named William Campbell.
Just to add further meat to the bone, one of the families referred to in
the lyrics of Being for the benefit of Mr Kite are the Hendersons. An
anagram of Hendersons is Her Sons End. A reference, possibly, to
the illegitimate sons of Queen Elizabeth - Bacon and Essex - being
the end of the Tudor line of royal descent?
Let us next consider the very end of the album and a phenomenon for
which The Beatles have become synonymous; backwards messages:
The Beatles have long been fascinated by including backwards
recordings into their work. This began in 1965 with the inclusion of
some backwards guitar in their track Rain. By the time of Sgt.
Pepper the band had experimented considerably with these
procedures and a backwards message was included at the very end
of the LP.
Immediately after the song A Day in the Life comes a curious little
repeated vocal segment which says It really cant be any other way.
When played backwards, this message becomes Ill fuck you like
Superman.
Paul McCartney told his biographer Barry Miles that in the summer of
1967 a group of kids came up to him complaining about the lewd
message hidden in it when played backwards. He told them:

Youre wrong, its actually just It really couldn't be any other.

He took them to his house to play the record backwards to
them, and it turned out that the passage sounded to him very
much like We'll fuck you like Superman. McCartney recounted
to Miles that we had certainly not intended to do that but
probably when you turn anything backwards it sounds like
something ... if you look hard enough you can make something
out of anything.
An alternative suggestion for the wording of this cryptic backward
phrase is Well all be Magick Supermen.
Whatever the circumstances concerning the origins, or intentions, of
the message a little research into Superman makes for very
interesting reading given the Sgt. Pepper code.
Superman originates from a planet called Krypton where his
Kryptonite name was Kal-El. It has been suggested that the
Superman character has certain parallels with Jesus and Kal-El in
Hebrew means the voice of God.
Furthermore, there has also been speculation linking Superman with
Friedrich Nietzsche and his concept of the Ubermensch. As you read
earlier, the writings of Nietzsche highly influenced John Lennon and
he was originally considered to be included amongst the cast for the
Sgt. Pepper sleeve.
The backwards element is also highly relevant in the comic
adventures of Superman, particularly the goings-on on the Bizarro
world of htrae earth backwards and Supermans foe Mister
Mxyzptlk who can be defeated if he can be tricked into saying his
name backwards.
Maybe this is why McCartney stands on the back cover with his back
facing us. Paul standing backwards in the photo could simply mean
One Part Backwards.
In the printed lyrics to Shes Leaving Home on both the original vinyl
and in the CD booklet we will find the use of brackets to denote the

parts that are being sung by the parents of the missing girl. For
example: She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)

Curiously, by the third refrain the brackets have mysteriously

disappeared and we are left with:
She - What did we do that was wrong - is having
We didnt know it was wrong - fun.
Fun is the one thing that money cant buy.

As stated before this occurs on both the vinyl and the CD version
which was released some twenty years later. Plenty of time to spot
and correct the error, if, of course, it is an error? Lets look at it again;
The Beatles twice tell us something is wrong, but what?
Fun is the one thing that money cant buy, well according to The
Beatles, the one thing money cant buy you is love. It has been
claimed that in the picture of The Beatles on the Pepper back cover
George Harrison positioned his hand in a certain way, not to point to
the printed lyrics, but to make the letter L, the first letter in the word
LOVE, as The Beatles appear to be spelling out the word LOVE
with their hands. In addition to George pointing his fingers in the
shape of an L, Johns hands are arranged in a V shape, and
Ringos clasped hands form an E.
The reality is that this picture has been reversed, as can be seen by
the position of Georges medal on his tunic. So, if this claim were true
then The Beatles would actually be spelling the word EVIL with
McCartneys back making the letter I.
However in the year 2006 The Beatles, through George Martin and
his son Giles, released a remix album called Love in which George
Martin also promised a prize to those who could crack a code found
in the album. Maybe love is the code? After all Iamaphoney
discovered that when you put a mirror to the word LOVE on the LP
cover it became CODE.

Chapter 9: A little help from my friends

_______________________________________________________

In this chapter we shall explore the links between, and the

connections to, the various people we like on the Sgt. Pepper cover.
There seems to be a lot of pairings; we have two child actors, Bobby
Breen (No: 66) and Shirley Temple (No: 58, 71 and 73), two
sportsmen, Sonny Liston (No: 54) and Albert Stubbins (No: 50), two
Dead End Kids, Leo Gorcey (No: 12) and Huntz Hall (No: 13)
ultimately Gorcey got greedy and demanded a fee and so was
airbrushed out and two members of the Socialist organisation the
Fabian Society, H. G. Wells (No: 32) and George Bernard Shaw (No:
48).
There remains the possibility that Aleister Crowley appears twice,
once as himself and also, possibly, as the Legionnaire of the Order of
the Buffaloes. If this is not Crowley then it is a very good replica!
Oliver Hardy (No: 30) and Stan Laurel (No: 28) were partners in
comedy but early in his career Stan Laurel would double for Charlie
Chaplin in Fred Karnos troupe.
Tony Curtis (No: 22) and Marilyn Monroe (No: 25) both starred in the
film Some like it Hot. In 1967 Curtis appeared in the movie Dont
make Waves which also starred Sharon Tate, Roman Polanskis illfated wife. Curtis also provided the voice of Donald Baumgart in
Polanskis tale of a Satanic Babalon Working, Rosemarys Baby.
Whilst on the subject of Rosemarys Baby; its author, Ira Levin, was
once a student at Drake University in Iowa which is where the initial
Paul is Dead rumour first surfaced.
Incidentally the art director on the film Some like it Hot was Sgt.
Pepper artist Jann Haworths father Ted. Ted Haworth also worked
with Marlon Brando on the film Sayonara and Brando starred with a
hidden Pepper luminary, Sophia Loren on the 1967 film A Countess
from Hong Kong. Brando famously appeared in the movie The Wild

One in which there is a gang called The Beetles. Timothy Carey who appears on the Sgt. Pepper cover although he is obscured by
George Harrison - also stars as a member of The Beetles as does
Jann Haworths uncle Joe, brother of Ted. Marlon Brando starred in
Candy based on a Terry Southern novel and which also featured
both Ringo Starr and Anita Pallenberg.
Terry Southern (No: 20) was a friend of Sgt. Pepper photographer
Michael Cooper and was a Robert Fraser selection for the cover.
Southern produced the film The Magic Christian which starred Ringo
Starr (again) and featured Roman Polanski, Southern also worked on
tightening and brightening the film Eye of the Devil which starred
Polanskis wife and future Manson family victim Sharon Tate.
Southern also worked with Stanley Kubrick on the screenplay of the
film Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick, although not on the cover, gets a
partial reference via the use of the Timothy Carey character from the
Kubrick movie The Killing. Careys visage is obscured by George
Harrison in the finished piece. Kubrick, around this time, was being
wooed by The Beatles to direct a version of Lord of the Rings that
they were interested in making. For me, it is Kubrick and not Carey
that is at the heart of this reference. All of Kubricks films were filled
with symbolism and strange, coded, references. Kubrick was, like
The Beatles, illuminated.
The Beatles would also salvage unused footage from another Kubrick
film, Dr. Strangelove, for the Flying segment on the Magical Mystery
Tour movie. In the book/movie for Dr. Strangelove, the dis-arm code
used to diffuse the bomb was P.O.E., short for Peace on Earth
and is another link to Edgar Allan Poe (No: 8). The Dr. Strangelove
character was based on the ex-Nazi and Operation Paperclip
scientist Werner Von Braun who came to the US to help develop the
rocket-programme that Jack Parsons had done so much to initiate.
Not only does Edgar Allen Poe appear on the Pepper cover, but he is
also mentioned in the song I am the Walrus. There is even
speculation that the inspiration for the song Blackbird came from his
epic poem titled The Raven, and the inclusion of the word
Eldorado, heard on Revolution #9, may stem from his poem of the
same name.

In the poem Eldorado, Poe writes about an elderly knight in search

of this idyllic land. There are definite parallels to Francis Bacon and
the search for his Atlantis.
Meanwhile, returning to Terry Southern, he is partially responsible for
the fame of William Burroughs, (No: 26). It was Southern who helped
convince Maurice Girodias to publish, the then unknown, Burroughs
work, Naked Lunch.
William Burroughs, who was a friend and collaborator of Paul
McCartney, was famous for his cut-up technique of writing where he
would chop up passages of text and randomly re-arrange them. This
was a technique that McCartney would also borrow.
Indeed, Burroughss 1965 LP Call Me Burroughs was a huge
influence at the time. Barry Miles, in his liner notes for the 1995 Rhino
re-release, says:
The Beatles may have been the soundtrack to 1965 for the
beautiful people of swinging London, but to the cognoscenti
there was something even cooler to listen to.
Its in all the best homes, my dear, said Brion Gysin, and he
was right. At the height of the 60s, Call Me Burroughs was an
essential record. The Beatles all had copies (Paul McCartney
included Bill on the sleeve of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club
Band). Art dealer Robert Fraser bought ten copies to give to
friends such as Brian Jones and Mick Jagger. Marianne
Faithfull and Keith Richards dealer had copies, as did
numerous painters and writers.
McCartney, in particular was a fan, he was so impressed by the
album that he hired the producer, Ian Sommerville, to set-up a studio
and act as tape operator for him in an apartment Ringo Starr owned,
but was not using, at 34 Montagu Place. Sommerville ended up living
in the apartment, and subsequent tape experiments were conducted
there by Burroughs. McCartney was said to have found all of this very
interesting and relevant to his own recordings

Burroughs also discovered the 23 Enigma linking all manner of

events, dates and incidents that involved the number 23. In The
Beatles film Yellow Submarine, The Butterfly Stomper, who destroys
all things of beauty, wears a shirt with the number 23.
Shakespeare was both born and died on April 23 and his wife Anne
later died in 1623, the same year his First Folio was published. Two
23s equals 46 and, that's how old Shakespeare was when the King
James Version was published. Grab a copy of the King James
Version of the Bible and turn to Psalm 46. Count 46 words and you
arrive at the word shake. Turn to the end of the chapter and count
46 words backwards and the word you end on is spear. This is
another clue as to the real author of Shakespeare.
Stretching the 23 clue to breaking point is No: 21, Dion DiMucci who
was, reportedly, Peter Blakes choice. An American teen singing idol,
his hits included Runaround Sue and The Wanderer. He originally
fronted the Belmonts, who had a major international hit with
Teenager in Love.
On February 3, 1959 (2nd month, 3rd day told you I was stretching
it!) he refused to board the plane which, subsequently, crashed killing
musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson.
However, according to Dion himself, the story of his inclusion is a little
different. When asked how he landed up being one of just two singers
on the cover the other being Bob Dylan he replied:
Well, I met John Lennon and George Harrison in a restaurant
on 57th Street and I found out that John loved the song Ruby
BabyI think he used to sing it in Germany. They used the
picture of me from the cover of Ruby Baby, although I didnt
know I was one of two musicians on the cover of Sgt. Pepper.
I always say thats why the thing sold so much. Actually it was
the Stones who did it for meThe Beatles were always too
cute and complicated for me.
Yet another example of Beatles disinformation? Who knows?
According to the official key of Sgt. Pepper characters the No: 23 is
the artist Wallace Berman. Berman, as we have already seen, can be

linked to Robert Fraser, Kenneth Anger and OTO key man Jack
Parsons wife Marjorie Cameron.
No: 24, Tommy Handley was a Liverpool comedian who died in 1949.
He became famous for his long-running radio series I.T.M.A. (Its
That Man Again) in which he replaced Adolf Hitler as That Man.
Mae West, No: 3, who famously, when first approached for
permission to use her image turned down The Beatles, stating, What
would I be doing in a Lonely Hearts Club?; also starred with Ringo
Starr and Tony Curtis in the film The Sextette.
No: 5 is Karl Heinz Stockhausen. Aside from sharing a first name with
Karl Marx there are not too many links, however, he was McCartneys
choice and as a contemporary German composer he was noted for
his use of electronic sounds.
It is known that several frantic telegrams were sent to Stockhausen to
ensure his participation. This implies that he was integral to the
overall look and feel of the project. There have been rumoured
links with his music and experiments and the use of sound or music
as triggers in mind-control programming.
Stockhausen claimed he came from a planet orbiting Sirius, and that
he was put on Earth to give voice to a cosmic music that will change
the world.
There are numerous mannequins on display on the record cover
two hairdressing dummies, Beatles waxworks, Sonny Liston and
Diana Dors to list but some but even The Beatles waxworks come
complete with an interesting back-story.

If we peruse the above image of the mop-topped mannequins, kindly

loaned to Peter Blake for the photo-shoot by Madame Tussauds, we
see a smiling John and George and a sad Paul and Ringo; and, this,
presents a problem.
In this shot we see the cross-legged fabs and their original wax
replicas back in 1964.

As befitted their status at that time of being the undisputed

champions of teenage idolatry we see not only smiley John and
George, but also smiley Paul and Ringo.

Fast forward three years to the Pepper shoot and two are smiling and
two are not. At the risk of starting a whole new conspiracy, not only
has Paul been replaced but so has RINGO!!
Via the website of the auctioneers Cooper Owen I discovered that the
dismembered heads of the waxy marionettes had sold for 70,000
back in 2005. Furthermore, the blurb revealed that: The waxworks
were borrowed from Madame Tussauds who are credited on the back
of the album for the shoot that took place at photographer Michael
Coopers studio on 30th March 1967.
Except, I then discovered that, the accompanying photograph
revealed a further anomaly.

We can see smiley John, smiley George, sad Ringo andsomething

vaguely approximating Paul, but who, frankly, could be just about
anyone. To be honest none of the latex doubles would pass the very
good replicas test, George looks more like Keef Richards to me,
however, Pauls severed cranium has been replacedagain!
The sales spiel says: the original wax heads of John, George and
Ringo with cut-off shirts and ties, supplied by Madame Tussauds to
be used on what has to be the most iconic cover shot of all time the
Sgt. Pepper album sleeve. Together with an original Paul head from
the 1960s, which was not used on the cover but completes the fabfoursome.
This is not true. The original Paul head came with the obligatory
McCartney arched eyebrow, as seen modelled here by the original
James Paul himself and his replica.

This next image, taken behind the scenes of the album photo-shoot,
shows us the headless corpses of our Pepper dummies, well three of
them anyway.

Why did they not use the original dummies complete with the collarless Pierre Cardin suits?
Remember, according to Blake:
Paul and John said I should imagine that the band had just
finished the concert, perhaps in a park. I then thought that we
should have a crowd standing behind them, and this developed
into the collage idea I wanted to have the waxworks of The
Beatles because I thought they might be looking at Sgt.
Peppers band too. The Tussauds figures were a key part of
Blakes interpretation of the concept: It was a comment on the
fact that the record wasnt really by The Beatles but by Sgt.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, so The Beatles themselves
were in the audience watching Sgt. Peppers band
If that were truly the case surely you would use the most stereotypical
image of the band going?

Why would you use two previously unknown versions of Paul and
Ringos heads?
Perhaps, the answer harks back to an earlier incarnation of The
Beatles called Long John Silver and the Beetles?
One member of Long John and the Silver Beetles was Stuart
Sutcliffe. Stuart died and was replaced by Paul. Also, Pete Best was
in Long John and the Silver Beatles before he was replaced by
Ringo.
So, is that why the Paul and Ringo waxwork mannequins on the Sgt.
Pepper cover are replacements?
The use of the mannequins may also imply a link to Project
Mannequin. Project Mannequin is rumoured to be a Tavistock
Institute funded programme that seeks to use mind-control
techniques to manipulate people into committing acts beyond their
control. Similar in many ways to the film The Manchurian Candidate
Project Mannequin is also rumoured to have access to alien
technology that allows a viewer to see into the future using Looking
Glass technology. There are many and numerous Alice in
Wonderland and Lewis Carroll references in The Beatles canon;
could these be looking glass ties?
Indeed, there is a connection with Lewis Carroll that goes from Sgt.
Pepper and beyond in McCartneys songs, Hey Jude and Getting
Better.
In the Through the Looking Glass books, it seems that the White
Queen has a habit that when she says the word better, she repeats
it over and over again, each time getting more high pitched and
louder until it ends in a squeal. At which time she completely
transforms herself into a new creature or a new location. McCartney
repeats this lyrical trick within these songs.
Aubrey Beardsley (No: 16), produced illustrations for Oscar Wildes
(No: 41), play, Salome.

No: 19, Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet who died in New York in 1953.
Thomas wrote a poem entitled My World Is Pyramid, which some
translate as having illuminati connotations.
Dylan Thomas wrote the radio and stage play Under Milkwood. The
film version of Under Milkwood starred Peter OToole (who also
played T. E. Lawrence, No: 53, in the film Lawrence of Arabia) and
Victor Spinetti (Sgt. Spinetti from Magical Mystery Tour and who
also appeared in A Hard Days Night and HELP! as well as coauthoring Lennons In His Own Write).
Thomas was friends with Victor Neuburg and upon his death said:
Vicky encouraged me as no one else has done ... He
possessed many kinds of genius, and not the least was his
genius for drawing to himself, by his wisdom, graveness, great
humour and innocence, a feeling of trust and love that wont
ever be forgotten.
Neuburg was an acolyte of Aleister Crowley and was initiated into his
magical Order the A A . In 1909 Crowley took Neuburg to Algiers,
and they set off into the desert, where they performed a series of
occult sex-magick rituals in an attempt to summon Choronzon.
Richard Lindner (No: 29): In 1941 he went to the United States and
worked in New York City as an illustrator of books and magazines
and made contact with German emigrants Albert Einstein (No: 61)
and Marlene Dietrich (No: 67). His artwork would be an inspiration for
Yellow Submarine.
He would later teach at Yale University, home of Skull and Bones the notorious undergraduate senior secret society. New members of
Skull and Bones are assigned secret names, by which fellow
Bonesmen will forever know them.
The skull and bones symbol relates to the skull ceremonies of the
Knights Templar who were believed to have worshipped the severed
head of St. John the Baptist known as the Baphomet. Often mistaken
for Satan, it represents the duality of male and female, as well as
Heaven and Hell, or night and day, and is signified by the raising of

one arm and the downward gesture of the other, similar to the
semaphore signal being given by Ringo on the cover of the Help LP
and the Magician card in the Tarot deck.
Bob Dylan (No: 15): In July of 1966, Dylan was involved in a very
serious motorcycle accident and spent many months in seclusion and
shares with McCartney the distinction of being the subject of
speculation that he actually died in an accident and was replaced.
Interestingly, Dylan in his 2012 album Tempest makes some Pepper
references in his tribute to John Lennon, Roll on John. In the song
the lyrics contain I heard the news today, oh boy, and Another day
in your life both referring to A Day in the Life.
It is interesting to note that the song appears on an album entitled
Tempest. The Tempest is a Shakespeare play, believed to be his
last. Roll on John is the last song on the album.
The song preceding Roll on John on the album is the title track
Tempest and is a 14 minute account of the sinking of the Titanic.
Shakespeares The Tempest is believed to have been a story based
on the real-life shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the island of
Bermuda while sailing towards the British settlement at Jamestown,
Virginia. The lyrics to Roll on John contain numerous references to a
sea voyage, presumably from England to America, just like the
journey of the Titanic.
Could it be that Bob Dylan, who also appeared on the cover of
Pepper is acknowledging this and could it be that Dylan sees himself
as a song writing contemporary of Lennons and, as such, an
equivalent of one of Bacons good pens; his band of fellow writers
and Knights of the Helmet?
It is interesting that whilst Francis Bacon employs the use of cipher
keys to hide, or obscure, information, The Beatles often refer to doors
and keys in the Sgt. Pepper lyrics. Keys open doors and by
understanding the word-play and allusions employed by The Beatles
we can crack the Sgt. Pepper code.

Bacon often used substitution ciphers to encode information. Is it

possible that The Beatles employed substitution characters to
obscure their message?
We have already discussed the employment of the Billy Shears
Shakespearean clue in With a little help from my friends and the line:
Lend me your ears and Ill sing you a song, and Ill try not to sing out
of key. The line, lend me your ears, is borrowed from the
Shakespearean play Julius Caesar and is immediately followed by I
come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. On the Pepper cover The
Beatles, and the attendant assemblage, have all come to bury
someone.
Remember this song comes immediately after we have been
introduced to the primary character Billy Shears who is essentially
Bacon. What they are telling us is to look for the hidden clues.
As an example; the line and Ill try not to sing out of key is sung
by Ringo, aka Richard Starkey. A star key is the key of Solomon. In
this case does the key open the doors to the temple of Solomon? The
place where Jacob had his dream about a ladder to heaven and
where Hiram Abif was slaughtered.
In Fixing a hole we find numerous references to doors such as And
wonder why they dont get in my door. Incidentally, here we have
another question with no question mark. Also if you listen to this song
through headphones you will discover another anomaly. The printed
lyric states that the line reads: See the people standing there who
disagree and never win, and wonder why they wont get in my door,
however, if you listen carefully you will hear that McCartney actually
sings See the BEATLES standing there This is repeated later with
the line Silly BEATLES run around they worry me and never ask me
why they dont get past my door. Again the printed lyrics suggest the
line is people, not Beatles. Maybe this is implying that only
McCartney knows the true meaning of the Sgt. Pepper code?
Moving on, Shes leaving home contains the line Quietly turning the
backdoor key. When Im sixty-four provides If Id been out till
quarter to three would you lock the door. Yet again, no question
mark is employed. Finally we arrive at the A Day in the Life and the

dream sequence where we find three references to Found in quick

succession. Found my way downstairs, Found my coat and
Found my way upstairs These are clues that the individual has
been led, blindfolded and helpless, through the Masonic initiation
ceremony, provided the correct passwords and has been taken
through the doors into the light of the Masonic temple. Add to this the
lyrics from Getting Better; Youre holding me down (Oh Oh),
Turning me round (Oh Oh) and, of course, You gave me the word, I
finally heard and the journey is complete. That all these songs are
Paul McCartney compositions is, I am sure, no more than
coincidence!
Could any of this be true, and equally, could evidence of these
secrets be contained within the cover, lyrics and music of The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper LP? I contend that it can be true and that is exactly what
is taking place. I leave all of the above to stand in perpetuity as
evidence for this claim.
Of course, I still hear your doubts and your accusations that these are
little more than the fevered imaginings of an underemployed mind. As
such as I shall leave it up to you to form your own opinion, what
cannot be disputed is that these clues exist and that far more than
meets the eye is going on with this record.
Who instigated this code is unclear. Was it The Beatles themselves
or Peter Blake, Barry Miles and the Indica brigade, or is it a joint
initiative? We shall probably never know. For what it is worth my
money is on Robert Fraser being the leader of this particular pack,
but I cannot prove it.
The themes contained within Sgt. Pepper would be returned too by
The Beatles in future works such as Magical Mystery Tour and
Yellow Submarine. The clues contained therein would all point back
to Pepper.
In time it would lead to the whole Paul is Dead fanfare. That this was
a Beatle created myth seems assured, however, what is absolutely
certain is that in 1968, Detroit DJ and musician Terry Knight was
invited to watch The Beatles record at their Apple HQ. He further
claims that he witnessed Ringo Starr walk out of the band during the

recording of Back in the USSR before, on his aeroplane ride home,

Knight penned his own record Saint Paul.
It is a source of debate as to whether, or not, the song is about the
alleged death of Paul McCartney or is simply an ode to the break-up
of The Beatles. What is certain though is that upon the records
release in May 1969 it would appear on The Beatles US label,
Capitol records. Initially it was credited to Storybook Music however,
that was quickly changed to MacLen Music. MacLen Music was a
vehicle by which John Lennon and Paul McCartney published their
songs in the US. Saint Paul has the unique distinction of being the
sole non-Beatle song to have been credited to MacLen.
Later that same year the Paul is Dead mystery really sprang into life
when students began calling in to a radio DJ claiming that not only
was Paul dead but that if you played certain tracks from the White
Album backwards clues would be revealed.
The DJ discovered that what was formerly indecipherable mumbling
from John Lennon at the end of I'm So Tired could now clearly be
made out as the literary Beatle moaning Paul is a dead man, miss
him, miss him, miss him. Also, the oft-intoned words number nine,
number nine from Lennons musique concrete opus, Revolution #9,
miraculously transformed into the eerie phrase turn me on dead
man when spun counter clockwise.
The name of this DJ was Russ Gibb and when he asked the student
whistle-blower how he came to know all of this he revealed that he
had heard of the clues from some passing musicians. Now where
was Russ Gibb based? No less than Detroit, Michigan, the home of
musician and DJ, Terry Knight!
Coincidence, or birthplace of a Beatle conspiracy, you decide, but
ultimately all roads lead back to Pepper. I began chapter two with a
quote from Peter Blake and I shall return to a part of it now:
We set up a couple of myths to find in the puzzle, but most of
them are dead ends. Whats intriguing is how the mythology
never stops.

He is, of course, right. The mythology never stops and maybe this
merely adds to that, however, whilst some of my clues may well be
dead ends, I do believe that the Sgt. Pepper code does exist, and
that the record sleeve is a treasure map waiting to be decoded.

Chapter 10: Voyage to Treasure Island

_______________________________________________________
..Its no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different
person then, said Alice to the Mock Turtle in Alices 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 Ashers 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; Alices Adventures in Wonderland
and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis
Carroll (No: 52), appears on the album cover, amongst the pantheon
of the great and the good of Sgt. Peppers 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.
Fortunately, this is a journey that we have already travelled.

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 Dors 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 Martins 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. Dor in French means gold and in
1987, twenty years after Peppers 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 Dor (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. Flints 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.
Ive always had this vision of bein 60 and writing childrens
books. I dont know why. Itd be a strange thing for a person
who doesnt really have much to do with children. Ive 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. Peppers 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 Flints
skeleton point from Poes 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 pirates
skeleton which points to the correct path.

Billys 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, Pauls
character Billy Bones does die. Upon this event the protagonists
discover that the key to the dead mans chest hangs around the neck
of Billy Bones. It is in this chest that they discover a book and the
map to Capt. Flints 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 Bonns curious pose may

represent the Dead Mans 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. Peppers 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 mans 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 mans 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. Flints 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 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 Stuarts 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.
On the cover of this book is a legend: In time the hidden knowledge
will be revealed.
That time is now.
Of course when the Sgt. Pepper code was devised I dont expect
anybody envisaged that it would take fifty years to solve, but, it is

fitting, I believe that as Sgt. Peppers 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 Poes The GoldBug 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!