However, the phoenix does turn out to be a fitting symbol for Brown’s story in a different way. The phoenix was a mythical bird that was reborn from its own ashes, and may represent the “transformation” that Mal’akh seeks. According to Adam McLean’s Hermetic Journal No. 5 (1979), “The Phoenix completes this process of soul development. The Phoenix bird builds its nest which at the same time is its funeral pyre, and then setting it alight cremates itself. But it arises anew from the ashes transformed. Here we have captured the alchemist’s experience of spiritualization. He has integrated his being so much, that he is no longer dependent upon his physical body as a foundation for his being.”
• It may help the plot of TLS, but the “Lost Word” is not that mysterious. According to Masonic legend, King Solomon’s Temple was built by three classes of craftsmen: apprentices, fellow crafts, and master masons. Each class was paid according to its skill, and each possessed a password that identified his class. All were under the direction of Hiram Abiff, who was a widow’s son, of the tribe of Naphtali (see 1 Kings 7:14). Three rebellious fellow crafts, dissatisfied with their pay, tried to extort the “master’s Word” from the chief architect, who refused to submit and died a martyr to his integrity.
The word that Hiram Abiff refused to divulge became known as the “Lost Word.” A variety of Masonic legends have grown up around this word—some of which depict it as a mere word, while others describe it as a symbol for philosophical truth. Robert Langdon’s description of the Lost Word as “a single word, written in an arcane language that man could no longer decipher” is extreme and not Masonic. Neither does Freemasonry assert that the word possesses “hidden power,” or that knowledge of it will make “the Ancient Mysteries . . . clear to you.” And it is certainly never claimed that “when the Lost Word is written on the mind of man, he is then ready to receive unimaginable power.” Such statements make great fiction, but are gross exaggerations. And yet, because Freemasonry is symbolic, there are people, including some Masons, who have made extravagant and outlandish claims about the Lost Word and its “hidden meaning” even when the official rituals do not.
• The Akedah knife is given an importance that it does not have in modern Masonry. The biblical story found in Genesis 22:1–19 of the binding of Isaac by Abraham (called the akedah in Hebrew) is briefly mentioned in some versions of Masonic ritual, but it is virtually unknown in the United States, and is not a part of the Scottish Rite rituals. This small mention is developed into a major theme when in chapter 119 it is declared that “the Akedah had always been sacred in Masonic ritual.” Mal’akh believes that his own ritual killing will be the means of his transformation, something that is never taught in Freemasonry.
• The ashlar is explained to Robert Langdon by Dean Galloway, dean of the National Cathedral, as a shape venerated by Masons because “it is a three-dimensional representation of another symbol,” which happens to be a cross when unfolded. In Symbolic Masonry there are actually two types of ashlars: one, a rough stone; the other, squared and dressed. According to Masonic ritual, “The rough ashlar represents man in his rude and imperfect state by nature; the perfect ashlar represents man in the state of perfection to which we all hope to arrive by means of a virtuous life and education, our own endeavors and the blessings of God.” The stone that unfolds into a cross is known as the cubic stone.
• The description of the House of the Temple is fairly accurate, but errs in some points. For example, the Temple Room’s square skylight is not an oculus (which would be round). Its green granite columns are not “monolithic” (they’re each built of five sections). The back elevator does not open “in full view of the Temple Room”; it opens to the library, on the right side of the Grand Staircase, which leads to the Temple Room. One of the more interesting features of the building is that it actually does have two sealed burial vaults in which the remains of two former Grand Commanders of the Scottish Rite, Albert Pike (1809–91) and John Henry Cowles (1863–1954), are entombed.
• The term Heredom is not commonly used for the House of the Temple, as Robert Langdon would have it, although some Scottish Rite publications bear the word on the title page. I was mildly amused when I read the so-called encyclopedia entry for Heredom in chapter 114. The definition that appears there was actually coauthored by S. Brent Morris and myself for inclusion in the annual transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, a publication that happens to be entitled Heredom. Our definition does not appear in encyclopedias.
• Finally, in chapter 117 we learn that Mal’akh secretly videotaped his initiation as a 1° Entered Apprentice: “He was dressed in the garb of a medieval heretic being led to the gallows—noose around his neck, left pant leg rolled up to the knee, right sleeve rolled up to the elbow, and his shirt gaping open to reveal his bare chest.” Dan Brown’s description is actually borrowed from Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key (2001), an overly dramatic fiction; Masonic scholars dismiss the “medieval heretic” notion.
Mal’akh also manages to videotape a 33° initiation and in so doing captures the faces of prominent members, including two Supreme Court justices, the Speaker of the House, three prominent senators, and the secretary of homeland security. Langdon fears that if the video is uploaded onto the Internet it will “create chaos.” He wonders what the leaders of foreign nations would think if they saw the ritual and concludes that “[t]he global outcry would be instantaneous and overwhelming.” In today’s world it is difficult to believe that the rituals described would upset “prominent leaders of Russia or the Islamic world,” when they have actual human atrocities with which to contend.
It is true that the social fabric of America was once shaken by the revelation of Masonic rites. In 1826, it was alleged that William Morgan, of Batavia, New York, was “murdered by the Masons” for preparing an exposure of Masonic ritual. The public outcry dealt a severe blow to the fraternity. The event resulted in public exhibitions of Masonic ritual, and dozens of books revealing the “secrets” of Freemasonry were published. Most of the lodges in the United States ceased operating, and mass defections were commonplace, at least until about 1842. Yet, ironically, during the height of the “Morgan affair,” a Mason was elected president of the United States! Andrew Jackson, the hero of the battle of New Orleans, president from 1829 to 1837, had served as Grand Master of Masons of Tennessee from 1822 to 1824, and remained a strong supporter of the fraternity.
These and other examples of what Dan Brown would undoubtedly call simple literary license should not detract from the many things that are reflected accurately about the Masonic tradition in The Lost Symbol. As Robert Langdon finds out in the course of his adventure, American Freemasonry provided the framework within which the Old World could evolve into the New with its promise of the free exchange of ideas, religious tolerance, ethical development, and the importance of a spiritual search for universal truth.
A Mason Reveals His “Journey to Light”
by Mark E. Koltko-Rivera
Who are the Masons? What are their symbols and values? Why did Brown choose to make Freemasonry central to his novel?
Mark Koltko-Rivera, Ph.D., a specialist in the psychology of religion, is a Master Mason, holding the third and highest degree in regular Freemasonry. Additionally, in the world of “high-degree” Freemasonry, he is (technically speaking) a Master of the Royal Secret, that is, a holder of the 32° within the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (the oldest division of which—the Southern Jurisdiction of the USA—is actually headquartered in the House of the Temple featured in The Lost Symbol). Koltko-Rivera is also a member of the Masonic version of the Knights Templar in the York Rite of Freemasonry. He is one of a small group of authors and bloggers who have followed developments involving Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol for several years before it appeared in print. Here he begins by asking the question: What kind of journey does one undertake to become a Mason?
Eve
ry Mason undertakes his own ritual “journey to light,” where each ceremony constitutes a “degree” of initiation. In basic Masonry, there are three such degrees, each named for a stage in the imagined professional development of a medieval stonemason: Entered Apprentice (“the first degree,” written “1°”), Fellow Craft (2°), and Master Mason (3°). As part of the journey to light, there are ritual challenges and trials, the imparting of information and the testing of knowledge, and the presentation of symbolism and the interpretation thereof. Virtually everything in the ritual—the clothing, the actions, the words, the placement of the officers, even one’s path around the lodge room—has symbolic significance.
Let’s consider what Mal’akh, the villain of The Lost Symbol, would have undergone to become a Mason (a process Brown only hints at in the prologue). First, in an anteroom outside the actual lodge meeting room, the candidate is asked to declare, upon his honor, that he is prompted to enter Masonry because of a favorable view of the fraternity; that his desire is both to obtain knowledge and to be of service to his fellow man, and that he does so without any mercenary objectives. No doubt Mal’akh would have lied and said yes, as he did in the 33° ceremony in the prologue. Mal’akh had no intention of being of service to others; rather, his objective was to block human progress.
For ritual purposes, the lodge room is symbolically transformed into one portion or another of what the Bible holds as the most venerable of all ancient stone buildings: the temple built by King Solomon. At the lodge room’s center is an altar, upon which sits a Volume of the Sacred Law (usually represented by a copy of the King James version of the Holy Bible). At this altar, the candidate takes upon himself the Obligation of the degree he is receiving. (Each candidate is entitled to have a Volume of the Sacred Law that is sacred to him on the altar at his Obligation.)
To what do Masons obligate themselves, by solemn oath, at each degree? Ethical injunctions regarding honesty, charity, benevolence, and the giving of aid and assistance are prominent. In addition, Masons swear that they will keep secret certain signs of recognition (such as passwords and hand grips) by which two men, otherwise strangers to each other, may confirm that each is a Mason. Masons do indeed bind themselves under oath to endure bloodcurdling penalties for transgressing these obligations—penalties, it should be understood, meted out by God, not other Masons.
Within each of the first three degrees of Freemasonry, the candidate encounters symbols, some of them tools of the stonemason trade that Masons have endowed with moral meanings. The morality taught here starts off with the very practical (for example, exhorting the Mason to allow time for charitable work and religious devotion), and moves on to encourage such interpersonal virtues as honesty, egalitarianism, and the need to put effort into the building of fellowship. Even the famous Masonic secrecy has a moral point: a man who cannot be trusted with little secrets (like a password or a grip) cannot be trusted with the greater secrets of life either; keep your word, Masonry says to its candidates (a test that Mal’akh fails spectacularly).
A man is never more of a Freemason than when he has received the third degree of initiation and become a Master Mason in a basic or “Blue” Lodge. However, from the earliest days of modern Masonry in early eighteenth-century Europe, other degrees of initiation have been developed to enhance the Masonic experience and provoke the Mason to further consider his intellectual, spiritual, and moral development. These are the province of so-called high-degree organizations, or Rites, which offer their ritual initiations only to Master Masons.
One such organization is the Scottish Rite, which offers numbered degrees from the 4°, Secret Master, to the 32°, Master (or Sublime Prince) of the Royal Secret. These involve exposure to various spiritual traditions and both mythic and historic events to teach yet more principles of morality and philosophy. A very few Scottish Rite Masons receive the final 33° as an honor—the honor that Mal’akh receives in the prologue to The Lost Symbol.
The Lost Word of Freemasonry
One common mythic theme across the various Rites of Masonry is the search for the Lost Word. This is a legendary password connected with the building of the temple by Solomon—a password that, the candidate learns, has been lost through villainy.
Like so much else in Masonry, the Lost Word is a symbol that can be understood in several ways: as an especially sacred word; as a principle necessary for enlightenment; as a secret that cannot even be expressed in words; as the secret of human destiny. Knowing this about the Lost Word gives a special significance to the title of Dan Brown’s novel The Lost Symbol, and special insight into the quest that drives much of the novel’s plot.
The ritual structure of Freemasonry and the central importance of the Lost Word are illustrated in the very tattoos that cover Mal’akh’s body (TLS, chapter 2). His feet are tattooed with a hawk’s talons, perhaps symbolizing the ancient Hermetic mysteries from which some suppose Masonry sprang. Mal’akh’s legs are tattooed with the pillars, Boaz and Jachin, that the Bible says were set up in front of the temple built by Solomon. One will see these pillars reproduced in every lodge room. Thus, Mal’akh’s legs claim a progression from the ancient Hermetic mysteries to the mysteries of the Blue Lodge of Freemasonry.
Mal’akh’s abdomen is tattooed with a decorated archway. Mal’akh refers here to the traditional completion of the Master Mason degree, in the Royal Arch degree of the York Rite (another high-degree organization).
Mal’akh’s chest tattoo, while called a double-headed phoenix by Dan Brown, is the double-headed eagle on the seal of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite. (Readers of the American edition of The Lost Symbol see a version of this seal impressed in wax in the middle of the front-cover dust jacket.)
Every inch of Mal’akh’s body is tattooed, except for a small circle at the very crown of his head. It is here that Mal’akh plans to tattoo the Lost Word of Freemasonry. Herein lies a profound contrast between Mal’akh and the honest Mason. In Freemasonry, the search for the Lost Word is part of an ongoing program to transcend the self in the service of humanity. For Mal’akh, who has entered the fraternity under false pretences, the search for the Lost Word is the centerpiece of his program to gain immense personal power. Mal’akh’s intent is to use the Lost Word to achieve a kind of dark godhood in Hades: he sees the Lost Word as a Word of Power, a device that a practitioner of true magic would use to exercise power over the demons of the netherworld.
The search for the Lost Word is the MacGuffin that drives the plot of the entire novel. This search leads Mal’akh to kidnap, torture, and mutilate Peter Solomon. It is the reason Mal’akh deceitfully lures to Washington, D.C., the world-renowned symbologist and expert on esoteric lore, Robert Langdon, whose efforts to find the Lost Word for Mal’akh, and thereby rescue Peter Solomon, comprise the story of the novel.
The Lost Word of Freemasonry (at least as Dan Brown defines it) is also the key to understanding the novel’s conclusion. As Mal’akh lays dying on the altar where he had falsely sworn his Masonic oath, he learns that the Word he has received is as fake as his journey through Freemasonry; having lied and murdered his way through his bogus journey to light, at the moment of his death Mal’akh feels himself hurtling into what it seems will be an eternity of darkness and terror.
As a counterbalance, Peter Solomon teaches Robert Langdon the nature of the true Word, as a symbol—the Lost Symbol of the novel’s title—of the divine potential inherent in each human being. As the ignominious death of Mal’akh is the dramatic climax of the novel, so Robert Langdon’s discovery of the true Lost Word and its meaning is its emotional and intellectual climax.
Why Dan Brown Focused on Freemasonry
Within the realm of Masonic values, we find the answer to a mystery, not within the novel, but rather about it: why did Brown choose to focus on Freemasonry?
By coincidence, the publication of The Lost Symbol on September 15, 2009, was followed three weeks la
ter by the biennial session of the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. The Supreme Council invited Dan Brown to speak at this meeting. Having a heavy schedule of commitments, Brown sent in his place a letter (dated October 6) that addressed his authorial choices. Brown wrote, in part:
In the past few weeks, . . . I have been repeatedly asked what attracted me to the Masons so strongly as to make it [i.e., Freemasonry] a central point of my new book. My reply is always the same: “In a world where men do battle over whose definition of God is most accurate, I cannot adequately express the deep respect and admiration I feel toward an organization in which men of differing faiths are able to ‘break bread together’ in a bond of brotherhood, friendship, and camaraderie.” Please accept my humble thanks for the noble example you set for humankind. It is my sincere hope that the Masonic community recognizes The Lost Symbol for what it truly is . . . an earnest attempt to reverentially explore the history and beauty of Masonic Philosophy.
This is why Dan Brown made Freemasonry central to The Lost Symbol. He admires the fact that Freemasonry encourages tolerance of religious differences, that Masonry fosters fellowship and even friendship across the lines drawn by different religious affiliations. (Questions about religious affiliation, and discussions of sectarian religion, are strictly prohibited in the lodges.) He expressed thanks for the “noble example” that he says Masonry sets “for humankind.” By holding up this example, Dan Brown is trying to change the world—which is his ultimate objective as an author.
There is a very real sense in which Dan Brown’s true vocation is that of a philosopher of religion. Each of his Langdon novels can be seen as an attempt to outline the characteristics of an improved approach to religion—Dan Brown’s Religion 2.0, as it were. In Angels & Demons, Brown promotes the idea that religion and science need not be in conflict, that the best form of religion would recognize and even consecrate the discoveries of science. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown tries to reform conventional notions of God to create a point of entry for Western religion to celebrate the divine feminine. Now, in The Lost Symbol, Brown promotes the notion that a good religion reaches across denominational and sectarian boundaries to unite people of goodwill from all backgrounds, into a celebration of the divine potential within every human being.
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