Sacred Precinct

“The Seven Sisters” are a row of seven very famous Victorian houses in Alamo Square park, also known as the “Painted Ladies” of Alamo Square.  Designed by Michael Cavanaugh, the Seven Sisters are the most widely photographed residences in America, second only to the White House.  Residents report that it feels like they live in Disneyland, as their homes are such popular tourist attractions.  The name “Seven Sisters” is appropriate for this group of “Ladies” as the phrase usually refers to the Pleiades star cluster, which is universally depicted as seven tight knit women who are trying to evade attention.

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Carl Byoir, a founding father of the profession of Public Relations, and the man who would serve nearly a decade as E. Virgil Neal’s right hand man, was a child prodigy of the newspaper business. He started working in the industry when he was 14 years old and made managing editor of the Iowa Times by the time he was 17. He first worked under the legendary editor Joseph Pulitzer, and then worked his way up to become circulations manager for the entire Hearst newspaper empire, where he was known as the “Miracle Man” for his ability to get things done. He then studied under the educator Maria Montessori, and bought the first Montessori franchise in the United States. Because of his thorough understanding of mass media, when America joined the Allied forces in 1917, Byoir was hired as Associate Chairman of the Creel Committee of Public Information, which launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign to sell America to the world. There Byoir gained the sobriquet of “M.D.” which stood for “Multiple Director,” because of his capacity to oversee many initiatives at once.

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“The Machiavelli of the mid-20th century will be an advertising man; his Prince, a textbook of the art and science of fooling all the people all the time.”

– Aldous Huxley

The “Twilight Mages” were a group of practical occultists that emerged in the 1890s, who commercialized the occult by making previously esoteric or forbidden knowledge available to the masses – for a price.  The Twilight Mages promised to reveal the secrets to success, and to help develop one’s latent powers and hidden talents.  Using the same business model that Scientology would later perfect, the Mages sold elaborate mail order lesson plans in esoteric subjects as diverse as personal magnetism, telepathy, and hypnosis.  A single topic would typically consist of an average of 30 lessons, and mastering the “complete system of personal influence” required the completion of nearly 200 lessons.

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It seems like once every couple of years someone proposes closing down San Francisco’s most popular tourist attraction: Lombard Street, “The Crookedest Street in the World,” to automotive traffic.  In 1977, one such proposal made the news with the headline “Crookedest Street Facing a Dead End?”  Similar to recent reports on the subject, it suggested that the tourist traffic be redirected instead to Vermont Street, between 20th and 22nd, which, with both a steeper grade and tighter turning radius, is a more rightful claimant to the world’s title.  The article would have otherwise been of little interest to me, except that at the end it quotes one “Xen Neal, Vermont street resident,” and therein lies the real story.

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The Crown Towers Apartment building on Post Street manages to command one’s attention by it’s striking blood red color alone, but this color choice also tends to raise a few eyebrows when viewed in context with the address: 666 Post St. This has led to the Crown Towers being alternately referred to as “The Devil’s Tower,” but rest assured, the uncanny number and color symbolism was accidental, and any connection to Satan is purely in the mind of the beholder.

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The number 49 is found all over San Francisco, which is seven miles by seven miles, or 49 square miles.  San Francisco was born during the Gold Rush of 1849, and her first wave of immigrants are known as “49’ers.”  San Francisco’s football team, which is named after these pioneers, joined the NFL in 1949.  The highway which runs through Gold Country is Highway 49, and the most famous route through San Francisco is the 49 Mile scenic drive.  San Francisco’s symbol, the phoenix, rises from the ashes “seven times seven,” or 49 times.  San Francisco’s founding Mission Church is devoted to “Our Lady of Seven Sorrows,” who is depicted with seven swords piercing her heart.  The Mater Delorosa’s litanies are sung in 49 voices, and her rosary has 49 beads.

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Due to its geopolitical location, San Francisco is known as the “Gateway City.” It is commonly referred to as the “Gateway to the West,” the “Gate of the Pacific,” the “Gateway to the Orient” and the “City of the Golden Gate.” John C. Fremont, who named the Golden Gate, referred to it as “that great passage and union between hemispheres.”

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In 1897, San Francisco journalist Frona Wait Colburn, published her first work of fiction, “The Dorado,” in which she imagines that the lost race of Atlantis once inhabited San Francisco 11,000 years ago. In her mythical ancient capital city of “Tlamco,” the seven hills of San Francisco were carefully constructed to precisely mark the orbits and diameters of the planets, as well as map out the seven stars of the Pleiades, and align with the three stars of Orion’s belt.

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