I made a point of describing the House of the Temple, which turned out to be a very important setting for TLS. The House of the Temple, or headquarters of Freemasonry’s Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, is not on the beaten path of tourist stops in Washington. But it will attract a bit more traffic now due to TLS. Far from being a secret place, it is open for regular public tours.
In TLS, Robert Langdon recognizes Albert Pike’s bust in a niche at the House of the Temple, and notices a famous quote of his inscribed there. I devoted many pages to the legendary Pike, a lawyer, scholar, poet, and Confederate general who led Freemasonry’s Scottish Rite in Reconstruction days. Pike wrote many of the rituals of the Scottish Rite and a famous tome, Morals and Dogma, amalgamating a lot of esoteric philosophies, including Egyptian, Hebrew, Babylonian, Gnostic, and Hindu legends and more. Pike, for Dan Brown, would clearly be a kindred spirit, an intellect willing to seek the connections among these seemingly disparate traditions. The Pike history is clearly in the background in TLS—but it is there.
Mathematics and Other Mysteries
There is a special way of arranging numbers, known as the magic square, that has fascinated mankind for millennia. This is a square array of numbers that add up in rows and columns to the same sum. Since ancient alphabets equated numbers with characters, there are magic squares of letters as well. Magic squares traditionally have been symbols of protective deities, such as Jupiter or Venus, and could be inscribed into amulets or talismans.
I correctly called attention to magic squares and devoted considerable space in SOWS to explaining their many instances in history. Dan Brown had often used Caesar squares in codes in his other books, so it seemed very logical to me that he would be attracted to magic squares. In particular, I mentioned both the Albrecht Dürer square (a modified Jupiter square) from Melencolia I, and Benjamin Franklin’s mastery of magic squares, as items that might be of interest to Brown. Both of these turned out, four years later, to be integral to the plot of TLS.
Dürer created Melencolia I in 1514 and gave the engraving a wealth of hidden meaning, which has remained puzzling to scholars for the last five hundred years. Freemasons later were drawn to it because it appears to allude to ancient secrets in a veil of symbols. Masons see the stone objects and the tools of the “craft,” such as a compass, as well as an hourglass (to show that time is running out on one’s life). One of Dan Brown’s writing quirks is to keep an hourglass on his desk, to remind him to break for exercise.
Geometric objects in the image hearken back to ancient Greek principles, as carried forward by the neo-Platonists, again of interest to Freemasons, and there are biblical allusions as well, such as Jacob’s ladder (again often found in a Masonic context). While scholars have detected the influence of occult writers such as Cornelius Agrippa, the full meaning of the image remains a mystery. The apparent subject of the engraving is melancholy, which comes under the sway of Saturn, but Saturn’s influence can be warded off by the sign of Jupiter in the form of the four-by-four magic square, which Dürer used in a modified way.
In TLS, Dan Brown made excellent use of an eight-by-eight magic square created by Ben Franklin as a decoding device for the symbols on the bottom of the Masonic Pyramid. Franklin enjoyed creating magic squares as a form of doodling while listening to the boring parts of the Pennsylvania General Assembly deliberations. Franklin didn’t ascribe a lot of magical meaning to it. He was what today would be called a “recreational mathematics” enthusiast.
While TLS lauds Franklin’s eight-by-eight magic square, Franklin actually created a very complex sixty-four-by-sixty-four magic square and then proceeded to invent the world’s first magic circle, as I mentioned in my book.
I correctly called attention to the Kabbalah, to the many correspondences between ancient alphabets and symbols, whether it be astrology or Tarot or Hebrew. Prior to our current Roman alphabet, many alphabets not only equated their letters with numbers, but sometimes with other meanings, such as deities, astrological figures, alchemical substances, even trees. By gematria, the numeral equivalents of various words and phrases can be added and then compared in order to find striking coincidences. It seemed to me that Dan Brown, by highlighting gematria in DVC, had already tapped into this realm of symbols and subtexts, and would explore it further in TLS. In explaining the numerology of the Kabbalah, I mentioned that malakh means “angel.” Dan Brown named his villain Mal’akh in TLS, while relating the name also to Moloch, the Canaanite god who required child sacrifice, and who figures prominently in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
I called attention to myths about George Washington and especially the tendency of Americans to want to make him into a deity after his death. Triggered by the lurid passage in Mason Locke Weems’s Life of Washington, the description of George Washington ascending into heaven eventually emerged, years later, as the painting on the ceiling of the Capitol Rotunda, the Apotheosis of Washington. I singled out for discussion in SOWS Constantino Brumidi’s amazing fresco. One could write a book just on the ideas behind this artwork, and in particular, the interaction of the secular and the sacred, and what it said about Washington’s transformation into a kind of American god. I was pleased but not surprised to discover Dan Brown used this artwork in important ways in TLS, especially toward the end, as Peter, Robert, and Katherine consider the idea that man is capable of becoming his own god.
I also pointed out that the tendency to deify Washington had been expressed in other works of art, including the Horatio Greenough statue of Washington in the odd pose of bare-chested Zeus, which had been given the central spot in the Rotunda and then was banished to other places. Robert Langdon pointed to this statue in TLS.
I called attention to the National Cathedral as a possible setting for the plot and this was indeed used in TLS by Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon as a refuge. I mentioned the cathedral’s gargoyle (or rather, grotesque) of Darth Vader, which Dan Brown also mentioned in TLS.
I covered the Masonic cornerstone ceremonies for the Capitol (led by George Washington in 1793) and the Washington Monument (in 1848). Freemasons carry on an ancient tradition of offering libations in these ceremonies. In American rituals they anoint the cornerstone with corn, wine, and oil, and in some European rituals, they add a fourth substance, salt. The grain represents “plenty,” the wine symbolizes “joy and cheerfulness,” the oil is “peace and unanimity,” and the salt is “fidelity and friendship.” But there’s a further connection, back to times when it was crucial in such ceremonies to appease the four winds, and the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. These are connected to the ancient principles of divination and cosmology such as astrology.
I called attention to the stories of ghosts in the Capitol, including the famous ghost cat, which Dan Brown also mentioned. I called attention to the many subterranean places in our nation’s capital, including the tunnels connecting the House and Senate office buildings. Having reflected on how Dan Brown used the passetto between the Vatican and the Castel Sant’Angelo in Angels & Demons, I thought it a good guess that he would find similar passageways in Washington of interest. Sure enough, tunnels beneath the Capitol going to the Library of Congress proved to be important in TLS. Dan Brown discovered that the basements of the Capitol are riddled with hundreds of small rooms in which any number of secrets may be hidden. And there are many other tunnels and corridors lacing the underground spaces of Capitol Hill.
I related that among the very earliest plans for Washington’s monument there would have been a pyramid where the obelisk now stands. I mentioned in SOWS that the current Washington Monument’s cornerstone had disappeared somehow—a bit of trivia that becomes central to the plot of TLS.
I mentioned the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, in Alexandria, Virginia, which (as a diversion) ended up figuring in TLS, just as I had assumed. Dan Brown forgot to mention that it is
333 feet tall, another instance of the special number 33, which gets a lot of attention elsewhere in TLS. The significance of this number, important to Freemasons, begins with the “33” on Peter Solomon’s ring, a mark of his ascent to the thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite and continues throughout TLS, which itself has 133 chapters.
Due to very specific clues left by Dan Brown on the cover of The Da Vinci Code, I gave an account in Secrets of the Widow’s Son of the sculpture of Kryptos, the enigmatic coded collection of objects that stands outside the CIA headquarters. It has stood in mute challenge to the world’s best code breakers since 1990, when it was created by sculptor Jim Sanborn. Several of its secrets have been revealed, but one part of the coded message remains unbroken even today. TLS hints at an “ancient portal,” and part of the known Kryptos message relates to the 1922 description by archaeologist Howard Carter when he first peered into King Tut’s tomb through a small opening. This is apparently the “portal.”
But TLS also plays around with Kryptos references. Dan Brown notes that part of the decoded message says, “It’s buried out there somewhere. Who knows the exact location? Only WW.” As I reported in my book, the “WW” in question has been confirmed by Sanborn as being William Webster, director of the CIA at the time the sculpture was commissioned. As part of his agreement, Sanborn handed Webster an envelope containing the decryption. (However, Sanborn later revealed that he had not given the entire solution to Webster.)
In TLS, Dan Brown tosses in a different idea about who “WW” is, obliquely suggesting William Whiston, whom he calls “a Royal Society theologian.” It could be a mere red herring, but it also could be a clue to the next Dan Brown novel. Whiston is famous for his translation of the works of the Jewish historian Josephus, and for a dispute over theological matters with Isaac Newton, the president of the Royal Society in the early 1700s. Whiston also had a theory that comets were responsible for certain cataclysms on earth.
Further, TLS has a weird addendum on the “Kryptos forum” that says, “Jim and Dave had better decipher this ENGRAVED SYMBOLON to unveil its final secret before the world ends in 2012.” This at first blush would seem to refer to the well-known urban legend that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts an apocalypse on December 21, 2012. In TLS, Brown mentions but debunks this idea, suggesting that Peter Solomon had correctly predicted that there would be considerable public and media attention devoted to the presumed 2012 end of the world but that it would be for the wrong reasons. Like the Christian sense of apocalypse and revelation, Solomon and Langdon seem to think the Mayan calendar, too, references only the end of the world as we know it, and the beginning of a new era of enlightenment. However, I wonder if Dan Brown has something different in mind as a plot device for his next book.
My research has already begun.
Caught Between Dan Brown and Umberto Eco
Mysteries of Science and Religion, Secret Societies, and the Battle for Priority over New Literary Genres
by Amir D. Aczel
Amir Aczel, scientist and mathematician, is the rare science writer who combines a mastery of his subject with a lightness of touch that make his books at once compelling and accessible. He also never separates scientific accomplishment from the innovative ideas and forceful personalities behind them, which is why we asked him to share his thoughts on The Lost Symbol.
The result was vintage Aczel: not so much an analysis of the book as a virtual encounter with its author. Along the way, Aczel introduces us to Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit priest who invented the discipline of noetics; the Vatican’s often touchy relationship with scientists going back to the days of Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, and others; the thought-to-be-missing Rosicrucian texts; and Umberto Eco, professor of semiotics and author of Foucault’s Pendulum, who feels Dan Brown has taken his ideas and stripped them of their cultural and intellectual value in order to “squeeze money out of fools”—the same charge he once leveled against Aczel (they have since become good friends).
Amir Aczel has written fifteen books, of which Fermat’s Last Theorem became an international bestseller. His most recent book is Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age. He was also a contributor to Secrets of Angels & Demons, where he untangled entanglement theory. The prolific Aczel shows no signs of slowing down. “I’ve got quite a few more ideas that beg exploration,” he told us. We can’t wait. In the meantime, we have his journey into the mind of Dan Brown.
I’m a science writer. But everywhere I go, every book I write, every research project I undertake, I find that Dan Brown and his ideas are there, too. My first encounter with Brown’s ubiquity took place in Italy.
In the summer of 2006, I flew to Rome. I had a meeting with the director of the Jesuit Archives, as part of my research for my book The Jesuit and the Skull, about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a fabulously prodigious French paleontologist, a deep mystic, and an ordained Jesuit priest who happened to believe in evolution and whose ultimate punishment for this belief was twenty years of exile in China. Teilhard was also the inventor of the concept of the noosphere—the sphere of ideas, which he believed to surround our early biosphere—and the discipline of noetics.
I was thinking of Teilhard, who in 1947 came to Rome to plead his case with the Jesuits, as I walked down the Via della Conciliazione, the wide, elegant avenue, flanked by marble statues, leading from the Tiber right into Saint Peter’s Square. This was clearly Dan Brown territory. The very landscape had been the setting for his book Angels & Demons.
I continued onto a stately bridge over the Tiber, and a block after I crossed it, I passed by a bookstore. In its window I noticed a prominent display of books by Dan Brown. This was no surprise given that some of Dan Brown’s topics have revolved around the Vatican. But what I saw next made me stop dead in my tracks: framed by Dan Brown’s novels I recognized the Italian edition of my own book of nonfiction, Descartes’ Secret Notebook. This was certainly a pleasant surprise—but I found it puzzling. Why would my mathematical-scientific biography of Descartes be displayed right between Dan Brown’s novels? I would not have considered my book to have much appeal here. But I smiled and continued on my way.
I didn’t have an easy time at the Jesuit Archives. Father Thomas K. Reddy, the head archivist of the Society of Jesus, was evasive. My visit had been arranged months in advance, and I had been led to believe that I would be able to see any document I wanted.
At the end of our interview, Father Reddy said, “You know, he was very controversial . . . I have some material here on Teilhard de Chardin.”
“May I see it?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “it is confidential.” Then he added, “But you can see other things. My assistant will take you into the stacks now.”
Pondering this setback, I proceeded to the reading room, and ordered the first Teilhard item from the archive’s catalog. A short time later, a dusty pile of documents, bound with faded string, was placed on my table. I untied the knot—clearly no one had looked at this collection in many years—and began to examine the contents. These were Teilhard’s manuscripts, which I knew had been typed in China in the 1930s by his intimate friend the American sculptor Lucile Swan, and which he sent here in hopes of gaining approval from the Jesuits to publish. But as I lifted the untied pile of manuscripts, what looked like a folded letter of several pages fell out.
I picked it up, opened it, and scrutinized the yellowing sheets. What I held in my hands was a curious ten-page document, carefully handwritten in Latin, and dated March 23, 1944. I was engrossed in reading it when I suddenly looked up to see Father Reddy standing right in front of my table, looking at me intently. “What is that?” he demanded, “What is the date?” I told him. He turned pale and said: “This is exactly what I didn’t want you to see.”
I knew that in 1925 Teilhard had been forced to sign six confidential propositions demanded
by Rome and aimed at curtailing his freedoms of speech and expression, and that these documents were kept locked in a vault somewhere in the city. Teilhard scholars—even those within the Society of Jesus—have been barred from seeing them. But the document now in front of me dated from 1944. What was contained in these pages that the Jesuits considered so important to hide?
In his frustration that I had now inadvertently seen the document, Father Reddy decided to seek an immediate meeting with the Jesuit father general, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, to discuss what could be done about my discovery. The Jesuit headquarters, the Curia Generalizia, was next door, at 4 Borgo Santo Spirito, and as Reddy left the room in a hurry to go there, he turned to me and said: “You are a writer: be careful with what you write! Don’t get us in trouble with the Vatican.”
Teilhard de Chardin was a reformer. He believed that science and spirituality were equally valid attempts to reveal to us the work of God. His thought was like a breath of fresh air within a stagnant religious establishment: here was a devout priest who actually believed in science, and many of the younger Jesuits in his native France flocked to learn from him. But Teilhard’s ideas were flatly rejected by the Catholic Church, and when he refused to recant them, he was punished.
Three centuries earlier, Galileo, who was one of Teilhard’s heroes and whose picture the priest kept by his bedside throughout his life, had desired a similar revision of Catholic thinking by urging the church to accept the Copernican theory that the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun. And Galileo, too, was punished severely for his belief. But two decades before Galileo’s infamous 1633 trial by the Roman Inquisition, a series of books that no one had expected—for they dealt with science and its relation to religion—suddenly appeared in print in Germany.
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