Michael Barkun is a professor of political science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Barkun is an expert on conspiracy thinking, a respected scholar, and a former FBI consultant. He has written extensively about marginalized groups and their cultural and historical roots. He is the author of A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America.
Before we start talking specifically about The Lost Symbol, could you give us a quick overview on conspiracy theory as it might relate to this novel?
For those who already believe in conspiracies, the novel can be read within the generic theory that some secret cabal is planning to seize power in the U.S.—and ultimately the world—and completely dismantle the institutions of democratic governance. It’s the so-called New World Order theory that has been around since at least the early 1970s. It takes different forms. Sometimes it involves UN troops moving into the U.S. to establish concentration camps, run by FEMA, to hold dissenters and gun holders. Sometimes it involves the Trilateral Commission, a cabal of industrialists and other people in the highest levels of government in several countries with the professed, dangerous aim of fostering world cooperation. The conspiracy scenarios often involve the Federal Reserve and Jewish international bankers. The personnel tend to vary depending on whose version of the theory one is looking at.
Most directly relevant to the novel is the conspiracists’ fear that there is a plot to substitute a New Age religion for Christianity. Versions of this among evangelicals usually involve the rise of the Antichrist, but secular versions have also risen among militia circles.
The Lost Symbol doesn’t appear to be a conspiracy novel and it has a very upbeat ending. What are most of us missing?
Some people will make the case that there is a conspiracy hidden in plain sight in a couple of respects. One is that in at least two points in the novel, characters speak about circles within circles, and you’re left with the feeling that, regardless of the sense of closure at the end of the story, there’s still the possibility that some kind of hidden plot has yet to be revealed, one that the characters themselves might be unaware of. Plus, of course, the novel is largely structured as a succession of puzzles that have to be solved and messages that have to be decoded. The subtext is that there may be meanings that remain unrevealed in the book and that have to be supplied by the reader (or, perhaps, in a sequel?).
The other interesting element is the strange role of the CIA. They’re running around Washington in a law enforcement capacity, which is in direct contravention of the statutes that govern them. And they’re showing up in black helicopters. Conspiracy theorists often speak of black helicopters hovering over America as a sign of an imminent military takeover, and it’s hard to believe Dan Brown included this symbol accidentally. Black helicopters occupy a conspicuous role in virtually every iteration of New World Order conspiracy theories. Their placement in The Lost Symbol looks like a message from Brown that New World Order conspirators are involved, even though he says nothing explicit about it. In addition, we never learn how the CIA knows about the video that Mal’akh has taken of Masonic rites, which suggests there’s another conspiracy out there that hasn’t yet been revealed.
Another plot element that points to the darker side for conspiracy theorists is Brown’s focus on the Great Seal: the pyramid with the eye on top, and particularly the words “novus ordo seclorum” there, which in contemporary conspiracy theory is always mistranslated as “new world order” but that more accurately translates as “new order of the ages.”
All of this makes The Lost Symbol enormous grist for the mill for any conspiracy theorist. They would pay absolutely no attention to the New Age message at the end of the book. That would be utterly meaningless to them, a diversion from what really matters. They would zero in on all of the earlier material: the Washington street map, the Great Seal, the notion of circles within circles and brotherhoods within brotherhoods, the role of the CIA, and so on.
And on top of that you never quite know what motivates the CIA to take up the chase.
Right. The CIA’s surface story is that they’re acting on a matter of national security, that if the public were to see government officials participating in Masonic rites it would somehow be enormously destabilizing. But then there’s the other possibility: if the New Age knowledge that Brown suggests the Masons possess were somehow to be revealed, this, too, would threaten the holders of power.
All of which suggest that there is a lot more going on here than most readers might suspect.
Yes, it’s got the Masonic conspiracy element that you can read as confirming the conspiracy or debunking it. It’s also got a kind of New Age millenarian element that is somewhat tied to the Masonic part and somewhat independent of it. Which part is be emphasized varies by the audience. This plays off of the expectation of an apocalyptic event at the end of 2012. So there’s a lot going on here, a lot that he’s trying to synthesize.
It seems Dan Brown is also throwing in an extra curve that helps feed suspicion. His other books involve conspiracies centered around plots and organizations with which the vast majority of readers are likely to have been previously unfamiliar—for example, Opus Dei and the Illuminati. Therefore, readers don’t have preconceived notions about the character of the alleged conspirators. The Lost Symbol is different because the conspiracy is so familiar. Even today when you mention “Mason,” people are likely to associate the word with secret rites and nefarious activities. We’re not talking about a group like the Illuminati in Angels & Demons. Readers of The Lost Symbol may already be programmed with a set of attitudes.
I’ve found that even though Brown gives a very positive spin to the Masons at the end of the book, conspiracy theorists read this book and say, “This isn’t a positive book at all. This is a book about Masonic conspiracy.”
To cite one example, if you go to the Web site of major American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (www.infowars.com), Jones claims that the book confirms everything that has always been claimed about the Masons: their blood-soaked oaths, their street plans for Washington, the obsession with ancient mysteries, and the raising of political figures to the level of demigods as represented by the painting The Apotheosis of Washington. There’s a whole list of these things on the Web site, accompanied by page references to The Lost Symbol.
In my book A Culture of Conspiracy, I talk about what I call fact-fiction reversal, in which conspiracy theorists will often say that what purports to be nonfictional accounts are untrue, and what purports to be fiction is actually veiled fact. What they’re saying about the Dan Brown book is that while it claims to be just a story, if you decode it the right way, it is in fact a true account of Masonic conspiracy. Whether it has to do with the CIA or the substitution of a New Age religion for Christianity, they will read this book and say, “Ah-ha! This is another proof that we were right,” because they’re going to read this book as fact rather than fiction.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the novel is that Brown seems to be lobbying us to embrace noetics as a legitimate science and embrace the notion that ancient wisdom has given us everything we need to know.
Interestingly, even though that’s a very strong New Age motif, it is also a motif that a lot of conspiracy theorists accept. The reason is that they tend to reject mainstream sources of authority. They reject the authority of government, obviously, but they also tend to reject the authority of mainstream science, mainstream medicine, mainstream universities, and so on. Therefore, much conspiracy literature shows them to be very receptive to the notion that the ancients had made extraordinary scientific discoveries that have been lost, ignored, or suppressed and can somehow be rediscovered. So, oddly, conspiracy theorists, who may be talking about plots by the Masons, the Trilateral Commission, or international bankers, will often also talk about the scientific feats that were accomplished by ancient people. So there’s a funny link between conspi
racy theorists and New Age followers. The link is a rejection of authority.
Then there is Dan Brown’s inclusion of references to 2012.
The 2012 business started some years ago, based on Jose Arguelles’s claim that his study of the ancient Mayan calendar had led him to the conclusion that there would be a great transformative event on December 21, 2012. For quite a while, the interest in 2012 was limited to New Age circles. And then there was a point where it began to go mainstream. For me, the indicator was the publication of The Idiot’s Guide to 2012. Then there is the movie 2012 released this year by Sony. When you get a book or a movie like that, these kinds of conspiracies have gone mainstream.
Believers are convinced that something tremendous is going to happen but, depending on the perspective, this will either be something immensely positive or something absolutely horrible. This gets picked up in The Lost Symbol in a scene where Peter Solomon is with students. One student links December 21, 2012, with his notion of world enlightenment, presenting it with a positive spin. But then there’s mention that Langdon has correctly predicted the spate of television specials connecting 2012 with the end of the world. I take it that the point Brown is making is that whatever secrets the Masons and Katherine Solomon have access to are the same secrets of enlightenment that are somehow linked to 2012. Brown is coy and indirect when he talks about 2012, but fundamentally I think he sees it in very positive terms, just as New Age writers tend to.
The conclusion of The Da Vinci Code shocked people with its interpretations about one of our deeply held cultural beliefs. What about The Lost Symbol? Do you think the ideas expressed—such as noetics and other New Age concepts—which look ahead instead of backward, will have a similar impact?
It depends on who reads it and what they bring to it. I think conspiracy theorists are going to read this book as a confirmation of the views they already hold. They’re going to see all kinds of concealed meaning. However, I think for people who don’t already hold those views, it’s possible that some of them are going to be introduced to a kind of New Age mythology.
I’ve been wondering ever since Dan Brown became a cultural phenomenon if his popularity makes the subjects he writes about become legitimate and important or if it ends up trivializing them because he uses these subjects as elements in popular novels. I’m inclined to believe the former rather than the latter. I think that even though at one level people will just read The Lost Symbol as a story, they will absorb some content. In this case, it leaves readers questioning whether they’ve understood everything that is there, a sense heightened by Dan Brown’s clever use of puzzles, esoteric symbols, and hidden messages. It certainly legitimizes the conspiracy novel.
It is fascinating that a thriller writer can have such a profound impact on the discourse.
I wonder if in this case it may unintentionally be heightened by the release date of the novel. It is widely reported that The Lost Symbol was supposed to come out in 2006. Instead it comes out in 2009 at the tail end of the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, a period of greatly heightened anxiety when people are far more disturbed emotionally and intellectually, far more confused about how the world is organized than they were in 2006. They want to know where the power lies and who makes the decisions. Again, I think that affects the way you read a book like this. The suggestion that some kind of inner circle of the powerful meets in secret always has resonance. But it surely will resonate even more in this environment. A perfect climate for conspiracy theories.
—Interviewed by Lou Aronica
The Politics of The Lost Symbol
by Paul Berger
Within days of The Lost Symbol’s release, conservative readers began to complain that Dan Brown’s latest novel was anti-CIA, anti-Bush, and pro-Obama. Those charges quickly melted into the background as Brown’s tribute to Freemasonry and his popularization of noetic science came to the fore. But is it possible that their view of The Lost Symbol as a liberal-leaning book is correct? Certainly, it would be almost impossible for a book set in Washington not to have a political slant. And if a reader was inclined toward hidden meanings, subtexts, codes, and ciphers, he or she wouldn’t have far to look for evidence:
1. Negative portrayal of the CIA. Langdon solves the mystery of The Lost Symbol and rescues Peter Solomon despite the intervention of the CIA’s Inoue Sato rather than because of her. Indeed, far from being an efficient, evil-fighting organization, the Agency, as personified by Sato, is stubborn, authoritarian, and always two steps behind Langdon. Brown chooses his historical terms carefully. So it is notable that in chapter 48, after Langdon and architect Warren Bellamy escape, Sato threatens Capitol police chief Trent Anderson and security guard Alfonso Nuñez with a “CIA inquisition.”
2. Torture. Torture was on the minds of Americans during a significant portion of the Bush administration and will forever be entangled with America’s controversial interrogation techniques following the invasions of Afghanistan and, particularly, Iraq. Torture plays a significant role in The Lost Symbol as well. Katherine Solomon’s assistant, Trish Dunne, is tortured to reveal her PIN code. Robert Langdon is tortured to force him to translate the symbols on the bottom of a pyramid. And Katherine endures the gruesome torture of being slowly bled to death to force her brother, Peter, to help Mal’akh complete his quest. Unlike other pop-culture tales of this decade—such as the TV series 24—there is no ambiguity here about the evil of torture.
3. Water as a means of torture. Mal’akh’s method of securing information from Robert Langdon—nearly drowning him in a sensory-deprivation tank filled with a watery liquid—immediately suggests the years of recent debate over waterboarding. The standard American waterboarding technique involves laying a hooded prisoner on a board with his head slightly lower than his heart, covering his face with towels, and slowly pouring water over the towels to simulate drowning. Mal’akh’s props may be different—a glass crate slowly filled with (unknown to Langdon at the time) “breathable” water—but the effect is almost the same.
4. Religious fundamentalism. Mal’akh is clearly his own uniquely mad character, not part of any known group or movement. But he is certainly a religious fundamentalist and in his literal reading of the Ancient Mysteries, he is remarkably similar to what a liberal might describe as a biblical literalist.
5. “Rush to war.” When Langdon, Sato, and Anderson discover the Masonic Chamber of Reflection hidden in the subbasement of the Capitol building, Langdon explains that it could be a room where a powerful lawmaker might “reflect before making decisions that affect his fellow man.” He then imagines “how different a world it might be if more leaders took time to ponder the finality of death before racing off to war.” This might easily be read as Brown implying a lack of such reflection when it came to the Bush administration’s war plans for Iraq and Afghanistan.
6. Hope. Dan Brown ends his novel with a one-word paragraph: Hope. In a book that has been devoted throughout to a discussion about “the Word,” the very last word just happens to match Barack Obama’s campaign slogan and the single word that will forever be associated with Shepard Fairey’s iconic poster. Given the usual six- to nine-month gap between the submission of a manuscript and publication, it’s a fair guess that Brown was tweaking, and perhaps even writing, the conclusion to The Lost Symbol while the 2008 presidential election was reaching its peak. Was “Hope” sitting at the end of the manuscript before Barack Obama’s campaign began? Did it find its way, subconsciously, into Dan Brown’s brain during the campaign? Or did he place it there on purpose, one final, powerful message for our times?
Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
an interview with Jeff Sharlet
At the climax of The Lost Symbol plot, Dan Brown asks readers to believe that the dissemination of a video showing Washington power brokers performing Masonic initiation rites would create
chaos. “The government would be thrown into upheaval,” Langdon fears. “The airwaves would be filled with the voice of anti-Masonic groups, fundamentalists, and conspiracy theorists spewing hatred and fear . . .” The jeopardy is so great that Langdon could “barely get his mind around” how bad things might become. The very future of the American government would be in doubt.
Really? One of Dan Brown’s biggest plot problems in TLS may be that most readers don’t get the sense that exposure of the secret videotape Mal’akh has made is likely to bring the government down or have any dire consequences at all. The days of anti-Masonic hysteria are history. Today, it would take a lot more than learning that politicians belonged to a secret brotherhood with weird practices to galvanize Americans into bringing the government down.
Jeff Sharlet, a contributing editor for Harper’s and Rolling Stone knows this all too well from recent firsthand experience. In 2001, Sharlet briefly moved in with the Family, one of the oldest and most influential religious conservative organizations in the United States. His 2008 exposé, The Family: Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, revealed senators, congressmen, and governors motivated by a cultlike zeal to spread a particularly strange version of Jesus’ gospel, emphasizing an extreme form of capitalism, and a cultlike reverence for men in power. The Family’s leader, Doug Coe, points to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as models for how a small group of men can effect enormous change. This group is involved in organizing the National Prayer Breakfast at which every president since Eisenhower has spoken.
Secrets of The Lost Symbol Page 37
