Pyramid power is the belief that the

pyramids A pyramid () is a Nonbuilding structure, structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a Pyramid (geometry), pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid ca ...

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

and objects of similar shape can confer a variety of benefits. Among these supposed properties are the ability to preserve foods,Bovis, Antoine. (Nice: Bovis, c. 1935). Translation by Jean-Paul Buquet. ''Skeptic.com.'' Retrieved November 24, 2008. sharpen or maintain the sharpness of razor blades,Drbal, Karel. ''Patenti Spis c. 91304.'' (Prague: 1959). improve health, function "as a thought-form incubator", trigger sexual urges, and cause other effects. Such unverified conjectures regarding pyramids are collectively known as

pyramidology Pyramidology (or pyramidism) refers to various religion, religious or pseudoscience, pseudoscientific speculations regarding pyramids, most often the Giza pyramid complex and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.Martin Gardner, ''Fads and Fallaci ...

. There is no evidence that pyramid power exists.Linse, Pat. (2002). ''Pyramids: The Mystery of Their Origins''. In

Michael Shermer Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of '' Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientif ...

. ''The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience''. ABC-CLIO. pp. 397-412. "If pyramid power really existed it would be wonderful indeed... But no scientific tests to date have managed to detect it."Neher, Andrew. (2011). ''Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination''. Dover Publications. pp. 262-264. "There is no satisfactory evidence to support the theory of pyramid power. Although the pyramids are impressive structures, their particular construction—their shape and geographical orientation—does not seem to be capable of altering fundamental physical processes."

History

In the 1930s, a French ironmonger and pendulum-

dowsing Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, Petroleum, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active do ...

author, Antoine Bovis, developed the idea that small models of pyramids can preserve food. The story persists that Bovis, while standing inside the King's Chamber of the

Great Pyramid The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It served as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Built , over a period of about 26 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wond ...

in Egypt, saw a garbage can inside the chamber piled with dead animals that had wandered into the structure, noticed that these small carcasses were not decaying and inferred that the structure somehow preserved them. However, Bovis never claimed to have visited Egypt. In his self-published French-language booklet Bovis ascribes his discovery to reasoning and experiments in Europe using a dowsing pendulum: In 1949, inspired by Bovis, a Czechoslovakian named Karel Drbal applied for a patent on a "Pharaoh's shaving device", a model pyramid alleged to maintain the sharpness of razor blades. According to the patent (#91,304), "The method of maintaining the razor blades and straight razor blades sharp by placing them in the magnetic field in such a way that the sharp edge lies in the direction of the magnetic lines." Drbal alleged that his device would focus "the earth's magnetic field", although he did not make it clear how this would work, or whether the device's shape or materials exerted the effect. Drbal's contention that razors could be sharpened or have their sharpness maintained by alignment with Earth's magnetic field was not new. In 1933, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' carried letters claiming, "if I oriented my razor blades... N. and S. by the compass... they tend to last considerably longer" and "The idea of keeping razor blades in a magnetic field is not quite new. About the year 1900 I found this out". Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, authors of the paranormal, visited Czechoslovakia in 1968, where they happened upon a cardboard pyramid manufactured commercially by Drbal. They met Drbal, and dedicated a chapter of their popular 1970 book ''Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain'' to pyramid power. This book introduced both the concept of pyramid power and the story about Antoine Bovis to the English-speaking world.

Origin of the term

Debate continues over who coined the term "pyramid power". Author Max Toth has claimed he coined the phrase, as has Patrick Flanagan. Both authors released books entitled ''Pyramid Power'' in the 1970s. According to Toth, this led to a lawsuit by Flanagan against him. However, the term "pyramid power" in its current usage first appeared in print in Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder's 1970 book ''Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain''. Ostrander and Schroeder claim that "Czechoslovakian researchers" coined the term in the 1960s.

Popularisation

The conjectures of pyramid power convinced the Onan Family, hotel and condo developers in

Gurnee, Illinois Gurnee ( ) is a Village (United States), village and suburb in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Its population was 30,706 as of the 2020 census. It borders the city of Waukegan, Illinois, Waukegan, and is a popular tourist attraction within ...

, to build the "Pyramid House" in 1977. Summerhill Pyramid Winery in

Kelowna, British Columbia Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ', ...

built a four-story replica of the Great Pyramid, alleged by the winery to improve the quality of wine aged within it. A religion founded in 1975, called Summum, completed the construction of a pyramid called the Summum Pyramid in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...

in 1979. Pyramid power was used by the

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. The Maple Leafs compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the A ...

and their coach

Red Kelly Leonard Patrick "Red" Kelly (July 9, 1927 – May 2, 2019) was a Canadian professional hockey player and coach. Kelly played on more Stanley Cup-winning teams (eight) than any other player who never played for the Montreal Canadiens; Henri R ...

during the 1975–76 quarter-final series, to counter the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team play ...

' use of

Kate Smith Kathryn Elizabeth Smith (May 1, 1907 – June 17, 1986) was an American contralto. Referred to as The First Lady of Radio, Smith became well known for her renditions of "God Bless America" and "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain". She began ...

's rendering of "

God Bless America "God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin during World War I in 1918 and revised by him in the run-up to World War II in 1938. The later version was recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature song. "Go ...

". Kelly hung a plastic model of a

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

in the team's clubhouse after a pair of away defeats at the start of the series, and each player took turns standing under it for exactly four minutes. The Maple Leafs managed to win all three of their home matches before losing the series' decisive game seven. It is common in

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

magazines to see advertisements for open metal-poled pyramids large enough to

meditate Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...

under. The New Age group

Share International Share International Foundation is a non-profit organization in London founded by Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) with sister organizations in Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Berkeley, California. From their 'about us' page, Share International describes the gro ...

, founded by Benjamin Creme, practices a form of meditation called 'Transmission Meditation' using an open metal-poled

tetrahedron In geometry, a tetrahedron (: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular Face (geometry), faces, six straight Edge (geometry), edges, and four vertex (geometry), vertices. The tet ...

, which according to their beliefs tunes into the cosmic energy of

Maitreya Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pali), is a bodhisattva who is regarded as the future Buddhahood, Buddha of this world in all schools of Buddhism, prophesied to become Maitreya Buddha or Metteyya Buddha.Williams, Paul. ''Mahayana Buddhism: Th ...

and other spiritual masters.

Skepticism

The neurologist and skeptic

Terence Hines Terence Michael Hines (born 22 March 1951) is an American academic and researcher. He is a professor of psychology at Pace University, New York, and adjunct professor of neurology at the New York Medical College; he is also a science writer. Hi ...

has written that pyramid power is a

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

and tests have failed to provide any evidence for its claims: In 2005, an episode of ''

MythBusters ''MythBusters'' is a science entertainment television series created by Peter Rees (producer), Peter Rees and produced by Beyond International in Australia. The series premiered on the Discovery Channel on January 23, 2003. It was broadcast in ...

'' was aired on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

in which a basic test of pyramid power was performed, using pyramids built to the specifications found in pyramid power claims, reflecting the location of the King's Chamber in the

Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It served as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Old Kingdom. Built , over a period of about 26 years ...

. Several claims were tested, concerning food rotting, a flower rotting and a razor blade going dull. With control protocols in place, there was no significant difference between items in pyramids and items outside.

In popular culture

*Patrick Flanagan's book was featured on the cover and in the lyrics of

The Alan Parsons Project The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock music, rock duo formed in London in 1975. Its core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons, and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They shared w ...

's 1978 album ''

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

''. "Pyramania", a song from the album, mocked the idea of pyramid power. *Martin Gardner spoofed pyramid power in his "Mathematical Games" column in the ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' issue of

June 1974 The following events occurred in June 1974: June 1, 1974 (Saturday) *The U.S. medical magazine ''Emergency Medicine'' published "Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary", an informal article by thoracic surgeon Henry Heimlich, describing the effective us ...

, featuring his recurring fictional characters Dr. Matrix and Iva Matrix. *

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English author, humorist, and Satire, satirist, best known for the ''Discworld'' series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the Apocalyp ...

's satiric fantasy novel ''

Pyramids A pyramid () is a Nonbuilding structure, structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a Pyramid (geometry), pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid ca ...

'' incorporates elements of the conjecture when an industry develops around pyramids' ability to manipulate time.

References

External links

* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313222718/http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5408709/Pyramid-power.html , date=March 13, 2012 Pyramid Power: original research that details on origins, makers and backgrounds.
Pyramidiocy
–

Skeptic's Dictionary ''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 ...

New Age Paranormal terminology Pseudoscience Pyramidology