Second, this specific passage of Psalms uses “gods”—elohim () in Hebrew. While Elohim is one of the many names for God, the fact that it is a plural form has been interpreted to mean “kings,” “angels,” or, commonly, “judges.”
Charles H. Spurgeon, a nineteenth-century Baptist preacher and author of the Treasury of David, explained: “To the people of Israel this kind of appellation would not seem over bold: for it was applied to judges in well-known texts of the Law of Moses.” The British Methodist theologian Adam Clarke argued that elohim refers to man as God’s representative on earth imbued with his “power and authority to dispense judgment and justice.”
In other words, according to religious scholars, Psalm 82 may refer to man’s responsibility on earth to act as a judge, not the Hermetic meaning that divinity lies within man.
Finally, at least some Freemasons have taken issue with Brown’s assertion that the inherent divinity of man is a Masonic belief. According to a report on Beliefnet, Most Worshipful Brother Reverend Terry Tilton, a retired Masonic leader from Minnesota, points out, “There can be no real substitute for perfection, the infinite and divine truth. And that is why just because God is God and we are not, human beings can never fully bridge the gulf of understanding and perfection in this world.”
As readers of The Da Vinci Code know, Dan Brown has a great interest in alternative histories and alternative interpretations. He emphasizes the importance of the Gnostic Gospels over the traditional Gospels. In particular, he has previously called readers’ attention to the Gnostic principle that God is interior to us, not exterior, and that through various mystical means, journeys, and truth-seeking, men and women can realize their inner divinity.
While this is, indeed, a view found in some of the Gnostic Gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas (see the outstanding book by Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief), it is not the traditionally expressed view of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. But a Gnostic reading of “Ye are gods” does converge snugly with Dan Brown’s plotlines in The Lost Symbol. From a Gnostic perspective we are all divine and human at the same time; we are all gods.
Chapter Seven
Mystery City on the Hill
A Masonic Pilgrimage Around Washington, D.C.
by David A. Shugarts
Like The Da Vinci Code, which could be read as a tour of Paris, and Angels & Demons, which could be read as a tour of Rome, The Lost Symbol is, among many other things, a tour of Washington, D.C. The locations visited by the book’s characters—the Capitol Rotunda, the Library of Congress, the House of the Temple, the National Cathedral, the Washington Monument—are all noticing an upswing in visitors making their own Lost Symbol pilgrimages. David Shugarts, who correctly predicted Dan Brown’s use of every single one of these locations in his 2005 book Secrets of the Widow’s Son, explains what Brown does and does not tell us about these places, all rich with their own mysteries, symbols, and Masonic connections.
Quick, look at the architecture of Washington!
In The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown takes us on an extremely abbreviated tour of Washington. The plot-driven novel affords hero Robert Langdon only a few seconds to pause and absorb the significance of any given painting, sculpture, or massive building. Luckily, Langdon always recognizes the meaning and history of everything he sees. Or does he?
In a city full of art and architectural treasures, it’s a very short list of stops. Disregarding the Smithsonian Museum Support Center in Maryland, which isn’t open for public tours, the action of The Lost Symbol is confined to just a handful of cinematic settings in public buildings in the District: the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Botanical Garden, the National Cathedral. And there’s one building owned by the Freemasons: the House of the Temple.
The Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, the “Castle” that is the original home of the Smithsonian Institution, are merely covered in quick descriptions from afar. Langdon and the book’s female lead, Katherine Solomon, never actually visit any of these places. And there are innumerable fascinating places that Dan Brown might have utilized but didn’t—the Albert Pike statue in Judiciary Square, honoring the prime mover of Freemasonry in the nineteenth century, being a notable example.
A Masonic connection ties together most of the buildings they do visit. In 1793, George Washington led a parade up to the site of the new Capitol Building and laid its cornerstone. Washington presided in the ceremony in his Freemason’s apron; offered the Masonic libations of corn, wine, and oil; and used a special trowel to spread the mortar. The silver trowel, with an ivory handle, had been specially made for the occasion by Masons.
The same silver trowel would be used on many, many similar occasions for the next two centuries. It was used to lay the cornerstones of the Washington Monument, the National Cathedral, the Library of Congress, and the House of the Temple. The trowel was also used at the George Washington National Masonic Memorial, in Alexandria, Virginia, a spot that Robert Langdon uses as a diversion but didn’t visit in the story. That’s in fact where the trowel resides today, kept by Washington’s old lodge, Alexandria Lodge 22. (A tour guide at this location acknowledges that the museum staff wish they had received an actual visit from Langdon in the story, instead of being used as a mere diversion, although they were initially worried that their 333-foot-tall tower might have been used as a backdrop for a murder.)
Washington’s trowel was also used at the Jefferson Memorial, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department of Commerce, the National Education Building, the U.S Post Office Building, and the State Department Building, just to name the highlights. (There was also a Masonic ceremony in 1790 for the cornerstone of the White House, called the President’s House at the time, but Washington was not present and the trowel hadn’t been created yet.) Thus, it seems as though the Masons did have an ever-present hand in building the nation’s capital, even if it was only a ceremonial hand.
But the real question is, what is Masonic about the architecture? Since there are so many Masonic forms and symbols that come from other traditions, it’s hard to say which are exclusively Masonic. There are a lot of great architects who turn out to be Masons, and the role of geometric principles, the use of light, and allusions to classic Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations in Masonry certainly play a role in their thinking.
Masons often use motifs of squares and circles, for instance, and a checkerboard floor is one of the most common features of a Masonic lodge. There are lots of squares, circles, and checkerboards in the floors of Washington’s great buildings. Masons love shapes like triangles (right triangles or equilateral) and stars. They love stars with five points or six (or seven or eight or nine). They like spheres and cubes, or almost any geometric shape, including pyramids, which do show up in a lot of Masonic buildings. But they also admire the classical orders of columns, such as the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, which are found throughout Washington. Symbols of light, of illuminating knowledge, and of enlightenment, are greatly cherished by Masons, but also good use of light is a technique employed by most architects.
There are lots of symbols and symbolic references in the architecture of Washington. But these symbols are very old, and, in most cases, the Masons did not create them but merely adopted or chose to emphasize them. The signs of the Zodiac, as well as depictions of Greek and Roman gods, can be found all over Washington’s architecture and art, but these are not the exclusive work of Masonic architects and artists.
One of the archetypal classical structures to keep in mind is the Pantheon of Rome, built as a temple where the people could worship multiple gods, rather than just one. A feature of the Pantheon is a round hole in the dome called an oculus that lets in light from above. It literally represents the all-seeing eye of heaven. In Angels & Demons, the Pantheon in Rome figured as a stop on that plot’s tour. And in TLS, Dan Brown refers (often in a factually muddled
way) to oculi eleven times and pantheons ten times.
One of the themes held in common by Freemasonry and by the architecture of Washington is an attempt to go beyond differences between religions by tolerating all religions. Freemasons accept any man who believes in a supreme being but they avoid debate about specific deities. By avoiding overtly religious symbols (e.g., a crucifix), but accepting classical Greek and Roman gods, the architectural tradition of Washington aims to achieve the same thing. Separation of church and state is an American inheritance from the deists who were the Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment. Not all deists are Masons and not all Masons are deists, but there is a strong connection and frequent overlap.
Amid his scurrying to different stops in TLS, Langdon slowly peels the layers of this onion.
In TLS, Langdon is told first to report to the Capitol. His entry comes through the new Capitol Visitor Center, still under construction, which takes him underground and thus he cannot take any note of dozens of sculptures and reliefs on the east face of the building. He does get a glimpse of the dome towering above, and remarks on the Statue of Freedom that adorns the dome. There is a vast wealth of art in the Capitol, but Langdon is in a rush to report to the National Statuary Hall, and doesn’t stop to gaze. “Normally, Langdon would have taken a full hour in here to admire the architecture,” writes Dan Brown in TLS.
Langdon recollects correctly that the National Statuary Hall was once the Hall of the House of Representatives, but doesn’t remark on the specifics of the many statues there. The statues are a collection that was assembled over the years from 1864 onward, when each state was invited to send two statues of their favorite sons. Statues of William Jennings Bryant, or Sam Houston, or even Will Rogers were sent. But the hall was not large enough to hold so many statues, so in 1933, when it was already overcrowded with sixty-five of them and their weight was endangering the structure, they were distributed to various other rooms and corridors. Today, only about thirty-five statues, out of a full collection of one hundred, remain in the hall itself. Interestingly, states are allowed to make substitutions, so in 2003 Kansas put in President Dwight Eisenhower instead of George Washington Glick, and in 2009, California swapped President Ronald Reagan for Thomas Starr King. A few favorite daughters have begun to show up as well.
But Langdon can’t tarry in the Statuary Hall; he must hurry to the next scene, in the Capitol Rotunda.
Dan Brown abbreviates the Rotunda to emphasize its high and low points. He basically directs the reader’s attention to the floor and to the ceiling, missing out on the rest of the art-filled room. He reveals that there was once a hole in the floor, and he focuses on the fresco overhead, Constantino Brumidi’s Apotheosis of Washington, with its collection of Roman goddesses in odd contexts, accompanying George Washington as he ascends to become a deity.
“There are symbols all over this room that reflect a belief in the Ancient Mysteries,” Langdon instructs Sato and Anderson early in the book. And Sato, on cue, replies that what Langdon is highlighting “hardly fits with the Christian underpinnings of this country” (for more detail on the Apotheosis of Washington, see “The Clues Hidden in Circles and Squares” in chapter 8).
But Brown is being highly selective in what he chooses to reveal to readers about the Rotunda. What is being overlooked? Well, the walls are lined with eight giant paintings, including the Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull, and others depicting scenes from American history. Each painting is eighteen feet wide and twelve feet tall. There are many statues of Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, not to mention James Garfield and Ulysses S. Grant; there is a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The visitor eager to get the broader Masonic tour of the Capitol will want to know that Vinnie Ream is the sculptor of the Lincoln statue—Ream was a friend and disciple of Albert Pike and was the first woman to receive a commission for a sculpture from the U.S. Congress.
Above the paintings and entrances are stone sculpture reliefs, representing early explorers and historic American events. In a band that is fifty-eight feet above the floor, an eight-foot-high frieze circles beneath the dome’s windows. The frieze is almost three hundred feet in circumference and includes nineteen scenes, such as “The Landing of Columbus,” “William Penn and the Indians,” and “The Birth of Aviation.”
Thus, even though Dan Brown only uses the Rotunda to underline certain pagan allusions, such as goddesses on the ceiling and the notion of apotheosis—man becoming god—the real sense and purpose of the room is to depict the march of American history.
Brown is also inventive about the room’s own history. He says the Rotunda was designed as a tribute to the Temple of Vesta in Rome. (Vesta, goddess of the hearth, had an eternal hearth fire burning in her temple.) Brown says there was a hole in the center of the Rotunda floor in order for visitors to see an eternal flame in the crypt below, which he implies was kept burning for fifty years.
However, most authorities say the Rotunda was actually modeled after the Pantheon of Rome, not the Temple of Vesta. The spurious reference to Vesta, however, allows Brown to work in an allusion to the vestal virgins, important priestesses in ancient Rome, and a throwback to Brown’s emphasis on the role of the sacred feminine in The Da Vinci Code. Also, the details of the Rotunda’s construction phases do not bear out the notion that it had the hole and the flame for fifty years. In the early stages of the Capitol construction, it was planned that George Washington’s remains would rest in the crypt. A hole was constructed when the Rotunda was first completed in 1827, so that visitors could (someday) gaze upon his tomb. But the Washington family would not consent to move his remains there, and the plan was abandoned.
By 1832, the hole was filled in, because of a new plan to place a statue of Washington in the center of the Rotunda. This statue, the rather amazing Horatio Greenough sculpture of Washington as Zeus, was eventually installed in 1841. But it was unpopular and its weight of twelve tons began to crack the floor, so it was moved out onto the Capitol’s lawn and then became a white elephant. Eventually, it ended up in its current home, the National Museum of American History.
Langdon pauses to relate the tale of the Washington/Zeus statue. Then Langdon is descending into the labyrinthine Capitol basement via the crypt, with the book noting in passing the statues there, as well as the compass set into the floor that marks the center of the numbered street system for the District of Columbia.
In short order, Langdon is rushing through underground corridors and tunnels to the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress (LOC) originally occupied a portion of the Capitol building and was funded in 1800 by an appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of books for Congress to use. In the War of 1812, the British burned the Capitol, along with the library, and it was retired President Thomas Jefferson who saved the day, offering his own very large library of 6,487 books to restart the Library of Congress. Even though the LOC by the 1870s was clearly outgrowing the space available in the Capitol, it was not until 1897 that the grand new LOC building was opened to the public. This is now called the Thomas Jefferson Building and two others have been added to the LOC campus, the John Adams Building a block east, and the James Madison Building a block south.
Dan Brown gives a pretty good account of the Great Hall and the Main Reading Room of the LOC. It is incredibly ornate, a rich tapestry of sculpture, paintings, and architectural details. Brown pokes a bit of fun at the odd sculpted cherubs, or putti, in the banisters of the staircases of the Great Hall. One is an electrician holding a telephone and another is an entomologist capturing butterflies. Fanciful cherubs were the specialty of the sculptor, Philip Martiny, and his cherubs were part of a theme representing “the various occupations.” But Martiny was only a minor artist among some forty or fifty who were commissioned to fill the LOC with hundreds of pieces of art.
Above the Main Reading Room, along the balustrade of the galleries, are si
xteen bronze statues, paired to represent eight categories of knowledge. They include everything from Plato and Francis Bacon (“Philosophy”) to Beethoven and Michelangelo (“Art”). In a rush, of course, Langdon can only muster a flick of the eyes toward these statues, not even remarking on what they represent. (For more detail on the Library of Congress, see “Hiding Out in Jefferson’s Palace of the Book,” later in this chapter.)
Getting a very quick passing mention in TLS is the Folger Shakespeare Library, just north of the Adams Building. Langdon recognizes that it has a copy of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. The Folger Library has more than 250,000 books, many copies of Shakespeare’s plays, manuscripts dating back to Elizabethan times, and even an Elizabethan Theatre. As Dan Brown knows, the library is administered under a trust arrangement by Amherst College, Dan Brown’s alma mater. It was a bequest from Henry Clay Folger, a Standard Oil chairman and Amherst graduate.
There’s a diversionary reference to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, across the river in Alexandria, Virginia. The Memorial was created by Freemasons in the twentieth century to honor George Washington’s role as the foremost Freemason in American history. Dan Brown gives an extensive description of this structure, even though it does not figure into the plot. Rising 333 feet and crowned by a pyramid with a flamelike finial, it is partially based on the legendary lighthouse in Alexandria, Egypt. The columns of the three major sections of the tower denote the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders admired by the Freemasons. There are actually ten stories within the Memorial, containing many specialized rooms with allegorical scenes dear to Freemasons, including the Temple of Solomon and the Ark of the Covenant. The main floor’s Memorial Hall contains a seventeen-foot-tall bronze statue of Washington in Masonic regalia.
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