Secrets of The Lost Symbol

by Daniel Burstein

  And this is the first great secret of the American republic. We are a nation of sovereign entities—individuals—willing to cede a limited amount of personal autonomy so that we may benefit from the common alliance we have chosen to form. The best prescription for modern Americans is that we remain as jealous of our individual liberty as our Founders were of theirs.

  The profound Masonic principle of consent of the governed, proclaimed in the Revolution of 1776 and by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, transformed subsequent human history. However, we must understand today—perhaps more than ever—that the Founders were realists who refused to engage in pipe dreams of the perfectibility of human nature, or the longing for “what might be.” Instead they faced human nature exactly as it is, with all its flaws and imperfections.

  Let’s look at another example of Masonic symbolism on which Dan Brown lavishes attention (just as David Shugarts predicted in 2005 in Secrets of the Widow’s Son). The Washington Monument is an obelisk honoring Freemason and Founding Father George Washington. It is the central focus of the National Mall. Authorized by Congress in 1833, it was designed by Freemason and architect Robert Mills. Masonic lodges throughout America contributed to its cost. Finally on July 4, 1848, the cornerstone was laid in a Masonic ceremony. Brown mentions that a Bible was placed within that cornerstone. Twenty-two marked Masonic stones are included in the monument, contributed by various lodges and Grand Lodges.

  The obelisk is an Egyptian symbol. Egypt had the most elevated spiritual teaching of the ancient world and has often been identified as the homeland of Freemasonry. Its architects, builders, and artists were responsible for some of the most timeless and enduring works in history. By choosing an Egyptian symbol to honor President Washington, the Masons were proclaiming that the eternal truths he represents would span millennia.

  The design of the Washington Monument offers a profound statement of impersonality. It blends the most austere severity with the most elegant symmetry. While Washington was our first president, the victorious general who led Americans to a dramatic victory, his monument asserts that liberty is not for those who worship at the altar of man. It is a stark reminder that we, as conscious citizens, are to concern ourselves with principles rather than personalities.

  The obelisk has been described as a frozen ray of the sun. And here we have another clue to the behavior expected of Americans. The solar ray represents the penetration of the celestial domain on earth. Thus we are taught that our behavior should reflect that magnificent realm of the spirit. Langdon’s awakening takes place as he observes the obelisk at sunrise, finding himself flooded with solar radiance from within and without.

  Symbolically, when discussing the sun, we are not merely speaking of a fiery astronomical phenomenon. In the language of sacred symbolism, the sun is a reminder of God Himself: omnipresent, the open eye, ever watchful over human behavior. Fructifying, light-giving, creative radiance, nourishing the crops, and lighting our way through the day. Its brilliant displays begin and end each day with the holy, psychedelic light shows of sunrise and sunset.

  The sun represents a further spiritual truth. Swallowed by the dragon of night, he wanders far from our ability to see, illuminating hidden parts of the world of which we remain ignorant through the senses. Ancient peoples feared that he had perished and died. Yet the morning resurrection assured them of the continuity of existence; the survival of the soul after the death of the body; the impermanence of darkness; and the optimism of existence that penetrates the heart of Robert Langdon on top of the Rotunda.

  The sun is ever a savior God. Jesus, Ra, Krishna, and Buddha are all identified with the sun. And if we look closer at the ceiling of the Capitol Rotunda, Brumidi’s magnificent fresco The Apotheosis of Washington depicts President Washington in his celestial ascent as an embodied solar deity—an intercessor between God and America.

  Brown’s portrayal of Katherine Solomon is also worthy of note. Her scientific research is not only compatible with the spiritual teachings at the center of all religions, it will reveal those truths in scientific terms. She will help create a more glorious future for the human race through the wedding of science and spirit. Katherine is a high priestess of sacred science. In chapter 133, she reveals to Robert, “What my research has brought me to believe is this, God is very real . . .” And, “The same science that eroded our faith in the miraculous is now building a bridge back across the chasm it created.” This is a far cry from the bitterness of Maximilian Kohler of CERN, the creator of antimatter in Brown’s Angels & Demons who highlights the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between science and religion that runs throughout that earlier book. Further, unlike Sophie’s revelations in The Da Vinci Code that would have destroyed religion, Katherine’s truth hymns the sacred through the scientific. She walks in the footsteps of her illustrious predecessors—Pythagoras, Newton, Copernicus, and Bacon.

  I was delighted by the character of Peter Solomon. For Solomon is truly the rock (Peter) on which the temple of Freemasonry is erected. The story of Solomon’s Temple is a compelling ancient account of the conjoining of science and spirit, man and God, heaven and earth. It reveals a path of integration between sacred and profane—initiation—the illumination produced by the internalization of spiritual reality within consciousness, direct participation in gnosis. Peter Solomon is the visible superintendent of religious doctrine in The Lost Symbol. Contrast him with his counterparts as doctrinal authorities in Brown’s previous two novels: the delusional, if sincere, camerlengo of Angels & Demons and the hapless Bishop Aringarosa of The Da Vinci Code. The other figure of spiritual leadership in The Lost Symbol is, of course, the Reverend Colin Galloway, a beneficent and wise anchorite who bears witness to both the highest reaches of true religion and the Masonic creed of making good men better.

  I thought the fearsome character Mal’akh was well crafted. The most interesting part of his portrait to me was when he stood on his island—with all the wealth and sensual gratification one could wish for—and compared the state of his soul with his condition in the Turkish prison. This experience, known as the trance of sorrow, is the essential first step on the spiritual path. Although Mal’akh chose the “wrong side,” the fact that the full satisfaction of his earthly desires proved inadequate to the nourishment of his psyche is indicative of his soul’s quest for truth. Perhaps, in successive incarnations, he will learn to make better choices.

  In Secrets of Masonic Washington, after discussing some of the archetypal teachings of The Apotheosis of Washington, I write that our nation’s capital is “simultaneously a hymnal and a history book, a shrine and a university, a prayer and a symphony. It is a memorial to truth in a culture of lies, a beacon of freedom in a world of tyranny, and a ray of hope in the darkness of despair.” The vision of America as a temple of liberty is perfectly reflected in those hallowed words inscribed at the highest point of Washington, D.C.: Laus Deo, Praise God.

  Occult America

  an interview with Mitch Horowitz

  Mitch Horowitz is a writer and publisher with a lifelong interest in man’s search for meaning. In his book, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, he shows that mystical traditions are not just an artifact of history but have been an integral part of America’s complex national narrative, a much-neglected and misunderstood force in the formation of our cultural and spiritual identity.

  For example, the nineteenth-century practice of spiritualism—or talking to the dead—helped ignite the suffragette movement by placing women in roles of religious leadership, in this case as trance mediums. The “mental healing” movement of the mid-nineteenth century began the drive toward a therapeutic spirituality that eventually swept the American religious landscape. And the worldview of a surprising range of notable Americans—from Frederick Douglass and Mary Todd Lincoln to Henry A. Wallace and Marcus Garvey—took a leaf from occult and esoteric ideas
.

  Why do mystery traditions and occult beliefs endure in modern America? Because, Horowitz says, “part of the foundation of our liberal religious outlook and self-help spirituality are built on occult traditions. And a critical mass of people has found a piece of the truth in these ideas.” Dan Brown among them, of course, whose novel relishes Freemasonry’s secret symbols and their ties to ethical development, as well as the “noetic” search for the scientific proof of thought-induced personal and societal change. No matter the vehicle, many of us are engaged in our own personal search for The Word that can give us “hope” . . . the last word, literally, in the novel.

  Interviewed by Arne de Keijzer, here is Mitch Horowitz’s unique take on The Lost Symbol. Along the way the reader will learn about the esoteric teachings behind Robert Langdon’s thinking at the near moment of his death, the Rosicrucians and their subtle ties to Freemasonry, the dominant role of women in the occult movement in America, the Masons’ connections to Mormonism, and our general expectation that religion should be therapeutic. He also tells us about Manly P. Hall, the self-educated scholar of esoteric religion and symbolism whose book, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, clearly influenced Dan Brown, who used his words both at the beginning and end of The Lost Symbol.

  In The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown suggests that Freemasonry played a key role in the founding of the nation. As the author of Occult America, do you think Dan Brown got it right?

  Yes, I think Brown has a very good understanding of Freemasonry’s influence on early American society. Freemasonry helped introduce principles of religious toleration and ecumenism into the American colonies. In certain respects, Brown sees that more completely and thoughtfully than many historians of American religion.

  To appreciate the nature of Masonry’s influence, it is necessary to have a sense of just how sparsely populated and agrarian a place colonial America was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There were few seminaries, universities, libraries, or schools. Even the city of Philadelphia amounted to no more than about five hundred houses on the cusp of the 1700s. People absorbed most of their ideas and philosophies through church and civic affiliations. This is why the presence of the tightly knit fraternity of Masonry—whose members ranked among the leading figures in colonial society—was so influential. American Freemasons extolled the liberal principle that people of different faiths could successfully coexist within a single organization or nation. This principle, as promoted by a relatively small number of educated, civically active men, produced an outsized impact on early American life and helped shape some of the founding documents of our country.

  Today we think of “liberal principles” as rooted in “reason.” That is, the science, political thought, and humanism of the Enlightenment. But you tie that principle to a group steeped in the occult traditions.

  The Masons were classically liberal insofar as their approach to religion was nonsectarian. Early Masonry saw itself as a link in the chain of great civilizations and seekers throughout the ages who were engaged in a search for truth and meaning—one that was larger than any individual congregation or doctrine. British Masons of the 1600s—some of whom were influenced by Renaissance-era occultism—were enamored of ancient Egyptian symbolism, Hellenic mystery religions, and alchemy. They regarded alchemy not as the transformation of metals but as a metaphor for the refinement of the psyche.

  Some of the imagery that Freemasons embraced looks very mysterious today, such as the pyramids, obelisks, zodiac signs, all-seeing eyes, and alchemical glyphs. Masons also used symbols of death and mortality—skulls, hangmen’s nooses, and mausoleums. But these images had a spiritual purpose. As Brown indicates in his book, there exists an esoteric teaching based around the practice of trying to remember one’s mortality and trying to consider the unknown hour of one’s death. This can help us see ourselves in a different way. Masons were working with this idea. Freemasonry had an ethos not only of religious tolerance but self-refinement.

  In TLS Dan Brown also ties the Masons to the Rosicrucians, that mysterious seventeenth-century brotherhood that also preoccupied him in The Da Vinci Code.

  Rosicrucianism is an important and misunderstood topic. Beginning in 1614, elements of the European intelligentsia became enthralled with manuscripts authored by an invisible fraternity of adepts called the Rosicrucians. This clandestine brotherhood extolled mysticism, social help for the poor, and higher learning, while prophesying the dawn of a new era in education and spiritual enlightenment (themes that reemerged in America’s alternative spiritual culture). There is doubt over whether the Rosicrucians actually existed. The whole episode may have been the provocation of a few people, such as devotees of British mathematician and occultist John Dee, who had suffered persecution after the death of Queen Elizabeth, his patron. Regardless, the Rosicrucian writings gave powerful expression to the principle of ecumenism—a nearly unthinkable ideal at the time and one that likely influenced the religious pluralism later espoused by Freemasonry in America.

  In a subtle way, the drama of the Rosicrucians formed the backdrop for the appearance of Freemasonry. One of the earliest and clearest references to modern Masonry appears in the diary of British scholar and antiquarian Elias Ashmole, who in October 1646 recorded his initiation into a lodge as “a Freemason.” And here the Rosicrucian connection suggests itself. Ashmole and his contemporaries were among the founders of the British Royal Society, a bastion of Enlightenment thought in the late-Renaissance era. The Ashmole circle professed a serious interest in the Rosicrucian manuscripts and sometimes referred to itself as an “invisible college”—a suggestive allusion to Rosicrucianism. Whether any “invisible college” of Rosicrucians had ever existed, the alchemical symbolism and radical ecumenism of the Rosicrucian manuscripts inspired Ashmole’s circle and, hence, quite possibly, early Freemasonry.

  Indeed, it is not difficult to conceive of a group of religiously liberal English educators, merchants, and courtiers, their identities concealed for reasons of political protection, seeking to build a fraternity of civic and commercial clout outside the reach of papal authority abroad and those forces at home that had condemned John Dee. In this sense, Freemasonry may be seen as one of the most radical thought movements to emerge from the Reformation.

  But it wasn’t just Freemasonry that introduced esoteric ideas into the early American scene. What were some of the other influences?

  For one thing, there existed a very rich folklore in early American life. Before the Revolutionary War, the area of central New York state that was later called the “Burned-over District” (for its fiery religious passions) was home to the Iroquois nation. Just after the war, the colonial government pushed most of the Iroquois off that land. New American settlers in the area, many of them only marginally aware of the Indian lives that had been forced out, crafted folklore about the region once being home to a mysterious tribe, older than the oldest of the Indian tribes, maybe even a lost tribe of Israel. These ancient beings, so the story went, had been wiped out in a confrontation with the Native Americans. This story had a surprisingly widespread influence, and many Americans believed that the young nation possessed its own ancient religious mysteries and lost history. In 1830, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith embraced this theme in his Book of Mormon, which depicted ancient lost tribes of Israel settling the American continent.

  Speaking of the Mormons, Dan Brown never mentions in them in TLS. Talk about the connection between Masonry and Mormonism.

  By the early 1840s, Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, had grown fascinated with Freemason rites, which he believed contained rituals dating back to the tabernacle of the ancient Hebrews. According to surviving records, Smith believed he could revive these rites, incorporate them into Mormonism, and connect his new religion with the practices of the ancient past. He blended some of Masonry’s ceremonies, symbols, secret passwords, handshakes, initiation rites, and religious plays into the Mo
rmon faith. That is one of several ways that Masonic rituals became woven into other American traditions, often to the point where the initial Masonic influence became forgotten.

  Speaking more broadly, what were the most enduring themes in American occult thought and traditions?

  Today, Americans widely believe that religion ought to be therapeutic. Many Americans expect religion to provide practical ideas for coping with the problems of daily life. That attitude was very foreign about 150 years ago; it was unheard of in Calvinist Protestantism. Many of the self-help ideas found today within American religion first entered our culture in the mid-nineteenth century. At that time the nation hosted a wide array of esoteric, mystical, or occult religious experiments.

  One of the most important of these experiments was the “mental-healing” movement that emerged in the 1840s. In Maine, a clockmaker named Phineas Quimby began to experiment with how people’s moods could influence their physical well-being. He attracted influential students, including Mary Baker Eddy, who went on to found the religion of Christian Science. Likewise, by the late 1840s, America saw the birth of Spiritualism, in which everyday people would gather around séance tables to contact departed loved ones. Again, the healing impulse was at work: American families were straining under the grief of child mortality, and people had no way to relieve their suffering. There was no pastoral counseling, no support groups, and no therapy. Hence, many people began seeking solace at the séance table. The letters and diaries of the era attest to educated people experiencing some of the most moving episodes of their lives in that way. People testified to having this experience of catharsis. You can see the stirrings of a therapeutic spirituality arising from both mental healing and Spiritualism.