When artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun were exhibited at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1976, it sparked a wave of Egyptomania that rekindled one of the century’s most fascinating phenomena, known as ‘Pyramid Power.’ Forty years earlier, a French ironmonger had promulgated the theory that the very shape of the pyramid held special, life-sustaining powers. Now, alloyed with New Age mysticism, and speculation connecting ancient civilizations to extra-terrestrial intelligence, Americans were at last ready to believe that pyramid-shaped enclosures could keep vegetables fresh, knives sharp, and more. When the pyramid craze at last subsided, a former medical technician named Alex Andrysiak was ready to supply its replacement for the decade ahead: Cube Power. Like Pyramid Power, which had been energized by the excavation of King Tut’s tomb, Cube Power would have its own archaeological backstory: that vanished, otherworldly structure where the earthly had once intersected the divine, the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York.

Designed in 1903 for the Larkin Soap Company, the mysterious spiritual nexus was demolished in 1950 under unclear circumstances. The proportions of the structure were said to precisely match the sacred geometries of the great temples of the ancient world; the site itself was aligned with celestial bodies, designed to channel cosmic energies into the halls within. Its most deeply shrouded chambers, located between the second floor typing pool and the fourth floor mailroom, were accessible only by the most powerful and exalted members of the company’s clandestine leadership, such as the enigmatic Darwin D. Martin, corporate secretary. Andrysiak was quick to point out that Martin, like King Tut, had taken the unusual step of choosing not to have his employees buried with him, to serve as his attendants in the afterlife. This strange and unexplained departure from tradition only magnified the mystique of the supernatural shrine that had once stood at 680 Seneca Street, whose awesome powers Andrysiak resurrected in his Cube Power™ Psychic Amplifiers, marketed through remnant ads in Playboy and Rolling Stone, and sixty-second spots on late night television. Though Andrysiak’s devices failed to catch on, subsequent investigation did support his claim that because of its fifth polyhedral face, Cube Power was indeed 20% more effective than Pyramid Power had proven to be.

Published December 15, 2023. Copyright © 2023 Jonathan Hoefler.