During a summer afternoon in 2017, Los Angeles-based photographer Ian James was at the Pain Reliever Bar & Grill, the sole operating venue in Nekoma, North Dakota.
Lingering until late night, while striving not to look too much like a West Coast resident in a village of fewer than three dozen inhabitants, James struck up a discussion with a residents who explained how to gain access the Stanley R Mickelsen Safeguard Complex.
The previous cold war installation, built during the Cold War era and only operational for a brief period before being closed, was his destination: especially, its brutalist cement monitoring facility similar to an ancient structure without an apex.
For the following 48 hours, while James car-camped in a field to document the pyramid structure in different natural light with his professional gear, he became mesmerized by the building's uncanny nature as a "intentionally decaying structure … timeless".
It was here, among the pyramid's spiritual vibrations, that James understood the images of pyramid-shaped structures he'd been recording – from an business center in Indianapolis to a place of worship in Utah, a educational facility in Colorado, a shopping center in Canada, and numerous dwellings – were a collection that would result in a publication.
A decade – and over seventy-five triangular buildings in almost 20 American regions – later James has released Pyramids: Special Economic Vortex Zones of North America.
The Quest Commences
James's interest to record US triangular buildings was born out of a spiritual sound radio show he ran on broadcasting network featuring self-made tapes adorned with geometric patterns that would have first been found in spiritual retailers or therapy locations – before he sourced them from digital marketplace.
During his expeditions on a veritable quest route to these locations, James theorized that the relationship between spiritual practices and pyramid-buildings around the US is reflective of what he labels "economic spirituality" – the urge to harness the structure's timeless, Asian, spiritual vibrations toward the manifestation of American values and, as he states, create a "space for the 'belief system' of free market economics in the US".
Notable Examples
The sporting goods pyramid in Memphis, which James captured for multiple days but avoided entering – despite its offer of "an immersive retail adventure" complete with a hotel, inside marshland, shooting area, dining establishment and observation platform – is a key instance.
Designed in the fifties as a group of 3 edifices named the American monuments, in a acknowledgment to the municipality's ancient title, the single building was erected in the early nineties and has operated as many functions: including a concert venue opened by the musical group and a stadium for the NBA franchise.
It's also earned the moniker "eerie building" due to powerful acoustics of spectator applause and the particularly unfortunate extraction of a spiritual object positioned in its peak by the owner of the Hard Rock Cafe to harness spiritual energy.
Empty for approximately a decade, the controller of the retail chain reluctantly made a agreement with the city in two thousand eight to restore the site (utilizing $one hundred million of government revenue in exchange for two percent of the business's total revenue or, at bare minimum, $1m paid to the government in annual fees each year), but on condition that he found a freshwater species in the waterway.
The cosmos gave him the creature, but doubts continue as to whether the local government has ever received their complete small percentage.
The superstitious events and very flexible governmental-fiscal policies that have permitted the retailer to flourish are an perfect example of a "structure which has been stripped of meaning" and instead become, what James describes "the pure combination of the life force of US economics".
Spiritual Aspects
Paradoxically, he comments, even when pyramid sites are committed solely to spiritual rituals "we find these divine edifices in the United States but they have to be producing income or admission fees or financial sustainability."
The United States metaphysical journey is largely commercially motivated.
In order to capture the pyramid at the Buddhist monastery in the state's northern region, James experienced "spiritual treatment" procedures in 2019 – during which he rested inside a sizable plastic pyramid surrounded with metallic thread while a female monk aimed brightly colored illumination at various body parts in his body.
Run by the religious figure, who declares himself the reappearance of the religious figure and the historic forecast Medicine Buddha, the monastery is home to monks and religious women.
They operate Shambhala Healing Tools, which sells personal structures, divination tools, meditation systems, geometric shapes and spiritual implements to tourists and devotees, sustaining their communal lifestyle – which is accompanied by the continuous musical background of the religious figure's music.
Private Encounters
Property holders that James has visited also believe in the metaphysical energy of their structures and likewise, he says, "{aspire|aim|str
