Mark Koltko-Rivera on Masonic Central Podcast--Tonight!--Discussing His Dan Brown Book

Mark Koltko-Rivera will be on the Masonic Central podcast tonight, Sunday, December 13, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. (You can link to the podcast here.) Mark will be discussing his book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Freemasons, Magic, Mystery Religions, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. In the latter part of the broadcast, listeners can call in with live questions. See you then! (Well, not see you, exactly ...)

Last Chance! "Hunting The Lost Symbol" on Discovery Channel, Today

The documentary "Hunting The Lost Symbol" will be broadcast today, Sunday, November 1, on Discovery Channel, from 4 pm to 6 pm (Eastern time; check your local listings).

Of course, this documentary focuses on Dan Brown's new novel, The Lost Symbol. There are prominent segments about George Washington, the missing cornerstone to the U.S. Capitol building, Freemasonry, noetic science, Aleister Crowley (mentioned in the novel as an inspiration for the villain), and other topics related to the novel. I myself am one of several experts who are interviewed for the documentary. Enjoy.

Two Salt Lake Tribune Articles on The Lost Symbol

Two articles by Peggy Fletcher Stack in the Friday, October 16, 2009 issue of The Salt Lake Tribune discuss The Lost Symbol.


In one article, “Psst! Let’s Talk About Masons,” Ms. Stack writes about Freemasonry as it is depicted in The Lost Symbol, and describes aspects of her visit to the Salt Lake City Masonic Temple. She quotes John Liley (Grand Senior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Utah), Dan Burstein (editor of Secrets of The Lost Symbol), and myself.

In another article, “Mormons Off the Hook in Brown’s Book,” Ms. Stack notes that a major theme of The Lost Symbol, apotheosis, or the potential for human beings to become gods, is an echo of the Latter-day Saint (‘Mormon’) doctrine of exaltation. (I consider this matter in some detail in an earlier post on this blog.) I am quoted in the article.

Shameless Plugs

Basic questions about Freemasonry can be addressed to the author, either through a comment here, or through the “Freemasonry 101” blog.

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through leaving me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com . I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry in The Lost Symbol in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol.

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Dan Brown Explains Why He Wrote About the Freemasons

[Click the image at left for a larger image of Dan Brown's letter.]

We interrupt our series regarding Maureen Dowd’s review of The Lost Symbol to report some late-breaking news.


The publication of Dan Brown’s novel, The Lost Symbol, provoked a wide range of reactions, judging from the comments left on the Dan Brown Facebook fan page. Many people who left comments were overjoyed, and really loved the book.

On the other hand, a significant fraction of commenters—I’ll call them ‘the star theorists’—were less than pleased. Several individuals had predicted for months that The Lost Symbol would address one or another theory regarding such topics as the line-up of Washington DC streets with certain stars, supposed charts with kabbalistic or other mystical significance encoded in the street layout of DC, the decoding of ancient mystical manuscripts associated with King Solomon, even the type of theories about ancient astronauts long linked to the name of Erich von Daniken.

But that’s not what they got.

Instead, readers of The Lost Symbol got an adventure story that was deeply steeped in the symbolism and values of Freemasonry. This bothered the star theorists no end, even though Brown had said for years that his book would involve Freemasonry.

And so the grumbling began. Some of these people said that the Masons must have ‘gotten’ to Brown somehow, to keep him from revealing the important star map secrets that are supposedly held by the Masons. Some used accusatory tones to claim that Dan Brown himself was a Mason, as though that were some kind of crime.

Well, now the mystery of Dan Brown’s choice is solved. As reported in a post on Christopher Hodapp’s excellent blog, “Freemasons for Dummies,” Dan Brown sent a letter that was read out at a gathering held in connection with the biennial session of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in the Southern Jurisdiction, held earlier this week in Washington, DC. (Some of the meetings were held in the very Temple Room at the House of the Temple that plays such an important part in the beginning and at the dramatic climax of The Lost Symbol.) As I understand it, the background of the letter is that Dan Brown had been invited to address the biennial session in person, but with Dan Brown having a heavy travel schedule, a personal appearance was impossible; he sent the letter instead.

In his letter of October 6, 2009 (photo above), Dan Brown said the following, in part:

In the past few weeks, as you might imagine, I have been repeatedly asked what attracted me to the Masons so strongly as to make it 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 the reason why Dan Brown made Freemasonry central to The Lost Symbol. He respects the fact that Freemasonry encourages tolerance of religious differences, that Masonry fosters fellowship and even friendship across the lines drawn by different religious affiliations. He expresses thanks for the “noble example” that he says Masonry sets “for humankind.” In a sense, by depicting this example, he is trying to improve the world.

So that’s the story, folks. Dan Brown is not engaged in some kind of rule-the-world conspiracy. I see no evidence that he deliberately suppressed evidence that would have supported or propagated the ideas of the star theorists. He had something more important in mind:

Encouraging peace in this world.

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Shameless Plugs

Basic questions about Freemasonry can be addressed to the author, either through a comment here, or through the “Freemasonry 101” blog.

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through sending me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com .

I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry as it is depicted by The Lost Symbol in two places:

• one of my two chapters in the forthcoming book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol, which you can read about here;

• my own forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masonry, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Publishers’ and agents’ inquiries are welcome!)

[The image of Dan Brown’s letter was obtained through a post, “Dan Brown and Why Freemasonry,” dated October 8, 2009, on the "Freemasons For Dummies" blog, which is authored by Christopher Hodapp.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

How Accurate Is the Contemporary Catholic Perception of Freemasonry?: One of a Series on Maureen Dowd’s Review of The Lost Symbol and the Truth About Freemasonry

On Sunday, October 11, 2009, The New York Times Book Review will publish a review by Maureen Dowd of Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol. That review is available on-line here. (The weekday edition of the Times previously published a review of The Lost Symbol by Janet Maslin; that review, which appeared on Monday, September 14, is available here.)


Ms. Dowd’s review contains much inaccurate or misleading information about Freemasonry. This blog post is one of a series in which I address the inaccuracies about Freemasonry that occur in Ms. Dowd’s review. Links to the rest of the posts in this series may be found here.

What Ms. Dowd Had to Say

In my immediately preceding post on this blog, I considered a statement that Ms. Dowd made regarding Freemasonry and the Roman Catholic Church:

My dad always said in his day that the Masons were not welcoming to Catholics. The Catholic Church once considered the Masons so anti-Catholic, Catholics who joined were threatened with excommunication.

In that earlier post, I addressed the matter of Freemasonry’s attitude towards Catholics. (As I explained there, Freemasonry is entirely welcoming to Catholics, and is not anti-Catholic at all.) In this post, I put the shoe on the other foot, and take up the matter of Catholicism’s attitude towards Freemasonry.

The Official Catholic Attitude Towards Freemasonry

The official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church has changed over time. Freemasonry has been addressed by the Vatican in a number of papal pronouncements over the last three centuries. The current official Catholic attitude towards Freemasonry is quite negative (as explained recently in a presentation made at a Masonic lodge by the Rev. Mr. John J. McManus, JD, JCL. There are two aspects of this attitude that are especially noteworthy for my purposes here today:

• The current official Catholic attitude towards Freemasonry is based on a wildly inaccurate image of Freemasonry.
  
• The classic papal statement on Freemasonry, Humanum Genus (1884), is based on a highly negative attitude towards values that are now commonly accepted, such as democracy and freedom of religion.

In this post, I shall focus on the contemporary Catholic attitude and its inaccuracies. I shall address the classic Catholic attitude, as expressed in Humanum Genus, in my next post.

The Inaccurate Contemporary View of Freemasonry Within Catholicism

Several Catholic writers who have addressed the Catholic position on Freemasonry make reference to an official statement made in about 1980 by the German [Roman Catholic] Bishops’ Conference. In turn, this statement is summarized in an article by Monsignor Ronny E. Jenkins, “The Evolution of the Church’s Prohibition Against Catholic Membership in Freemasonry” (The Jurist, vol. 56, pp. 735-755), which itself is summarized in the McManus presentation which I have mentioned above.

I was stunned by the degree to which the image of Freemasonry portrayed by the German Bishops varied from Freemasonry as I had studied for many years, and as I have known it from the inside for some time. Consequently, I began a series regarding the Roman Catholic Church and Freemasonry on another blog that I author, “Freemasonry: Reality, Myth, and Legend”; the first part of that series is here. Although incomplete, the seven parts of the series currently on the blog are very revealing concerning the inaccuracy of the German Bishops’ (and many other Catholic leaders’) perceptions of Freemasonry. To be specific:

• The German Bishops stated that Masonry promotes a relativistic approach to reality where one should avoid commitment “to any one set of revealed truths.” As I explain in Part 2 of my series, this is a serious distortion of Freemasonry. The Masonic practice is to give respect to a variety of religious positions, but Freemasonry does not teach that one should avoid committment to one!
  
  
  
• The German Bishops stated that “the Masons deny the possibility of an objective truth, placing every truth instead in a relative context.” As I explain in Part 3 of my series, this is simply false from beginning to end. In fact, the Masons teach a number of objective truths, although part of the genius of Freemasonry is that it does this while still maintaining respect for different religious positions. Somehow, it seems, the German Bishops made such respect into something bad.

• The German Bishops stated that “the Masonic teaching holds a relative notion of religion as all concurrently seeking the truth of the absolute”; they seem to imply that Masons teach that all religions hold equal value. As I explain in Part 4 of my series, no branch of Freemasonry of which I have any knowledge teaches anything like this.

• The German Bishops stated that “the Masons hold a deistic notion of God”—which includes the notion that God does not intervene in the human world—a notion which “precludes the possibility of God’s self-revelation to humankind,” thus undercutting any idea of biblically based religion. As I explain in Part 5 of my series, Freemasonry does not teach Deism. If anything, Freemasonry seems to have a prominent Theistic slant (tending towards the notion of the Divine Being as revealing important things to humankind). Although there were Deists (such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin) who were prominent Freemasons in the days of the American War of Independence, that has no relevance: Freemasonry welcomes Deists and Theists alike.

• The German Bishops stated that “the Masons promote a principle of toleration regarding ideas,” and that “such a principle … threatens the Catholic position of objective truth … [and] also threatens the respect due the Church’s teaching office.” As I explain in Part 6 of my series, yes, Masons actually do teach toleration of different ideas—but, for that matter, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does the same. (In essence, the Bishops exhibited an attitude that is outmoded even within their own church.)

• The German Bishops stated that “the rituals of [Freemasonry] have a clear sacramental character about them,” which of course would intrude on the mission of the Catholic Church as having, in the Catholic view, exclusive authority over the sacraments of grace. As I explain in Part 7 of my series, this is completely untrue, based on what the Catholic Church teaches about the sacraments, and what Freemasonry teaches about its own rituals.

• The German Bishops stated that Freemasonry claims to lead to the perfection of humankind, a position that would thus usurp the role of Christ in human life. However, the truth of the matter is that Freemasonry makes no such claim, and offers no program for the salvation of humankind.

• The German Bishops stated that “the Masonic Order makes a total claim on the life of the members.” This is nonsense; the existence of many clergy of Christian and other faiths who are Freemasons shows that the German Bishops are inaccurate.

• The German Bishops state that Masonic lodges “seek merely to adapt Christianity to the overall Masonic world-view.” This is simply inaccurate; Freemasonry teaches men to follow the precepts of their own religions, rather than adapting those religions to Freemasonry.

• The German Bishops state that Masonic lodges “are not compatible with Catholic teaching.” However, the Bishops demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of Masonic teaching and practice, and so entirely fail to make their case.

I have not yet completed the series on the Roman Catholic Church and Freemasonry. (After I posted Part #7 in the series, on June 6, 2009, I had to focus on moving my household to a different residence, after which I became caught up in the matter of interpreting Doubleday’s Dan Brown clues.) However, you can see where I am going with this. The current Catholic position on Freemasonry is based on an utterly inaccurate image of Freemasonry.

However, that is not the entire story.

There is, in addition to the contemporary Catholic position articulated by the German Bishops, a more classic Catholic position on Freemasonry, articulated in the papal pronouncement known as Humanum Genus (1884). That pronouncement criticizes Freemasonry on entirely different grounds from those used by the German Bishops, and it is to that pronouncement that I shall turn in my next post.

Conclusion

At least over the last 30 years or so, the Catholic position on Freemasonry has not been so much about a supposed anti-Catholic bias on the part of Masonry (as Ms. Dowd states), but has rather been about Freemasonry as a supposedly relativistic, deistic, alternative religion—none of which is true about Freemasonry at all. With all due respect to Catholicism and Catholics, the facts as I have described them above demonstrate that the contemporary Catholic position on Freemasonry is based on a perception of Masonry that is fundamentally and deeply flawed and inaccurate.

Basic questions about Freemasonry can be addressed to the author either as a comment on a post here, or through the "Freemasonry 101" blog.

Shameless Plugs

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through sending me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com .

I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry as it is depicted by The Lost Symbol in two places:

• one of my two chapters in the forthcoming book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol, which you can read about here;

• my own forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masonry, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Publishers’ and agents’ inquiries are welcome!)

[The photo of St. Peter’s Basilica in the early morning was taken on May 21, 2004 by Andreas Tille. It was obtained from Wikimedia Commons and is used here under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Are Freemasons Anti-Catholic? One of a Series on Maureen Dowd’s Review of The Lost Symbol and the Truth About Freemasonry

[The photo of Whitby Abbey was taken by Stephen McCulloch, and is used here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License. (For source details, see the end of this post.) Whitby Abbey was one of hundreds of Catholic monasteries destroyed in England during the Reformation. Is this what Freemasonry wants for Catholicism? No. Please read on.]



On Sunday, October 11, 2009, The New York Times Book Review will publish a review by Maureen Dowd of Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol. That review is available on-line here. (The weekday edition of the Times previously published a review of The Lost Symbol by Janet Maslin; that review, which appeared on Monday, September 14, is available here.)

Ms. Dowd’s review contains much inaccurate or misleading information about Freemasonry. This blog post is one of a series in which I address the inaccuracies about Freemasonry that occur in Ms. Dowd’s review. Links to the rest of the posts in the series may be found here.

What Ms. Dowd Has to Say

At one point in her review, Ms. Dowd states the following:

My dad always said in his day that the Masons were not welcoming to Catholics. The Catholic Church once considered the Masons so anti-Catholic, Catholics who joined were threatened with excommunication.

Is this true? Are Masons unwelcoming to Catholics? Are Masons anti-Catholic, in any way?

Masons Are Entirely Welcoming to Catholics

I would have a very hard time finding any evidence in my own experience for the proposition that Masons were somehow ‘unwelcoming’ to Catholics. This is because the Master of my home Lodge when I became a Master Mason—the senior executive officer, as it were, of my home Lodge—is himself a Roman Catholic. The Master in my home Lodge changes every year at the annual elections (often the case in Masonic lodges; some lodges do give two-year terms to their Masters). At least one of the Masters that my home Lodge has had in subsequent years is a Roman Catholic, as well.

Freemasonry forbids Masons to consider someone’s religious affiliation when deciding whether to admit that person to the Fraternity. In fact, in most Masonic jurisdictions (certainly every one with which I am familiar), it is actually forbidden for Masons even to ask about the religious affiliation of a candidate. Yes, it is a strict and absolute requirement that a successful candidate for Freemasonry must believe in a Supreme Being. (In many jurisdictions, the precise requirement is a belief in the existence of a Supreme Being, and a belief in the immortality of the human soul.) However, candidates are free to believe whatever they wish about that Supreme Being, without jeopardizing their candidacy for Freemasonry. Candidates are also free to hold any religious affiliation that they wish, or none at all—Freemasonry simply considers such things a matter of individual conscience.

Indeed, Freemasonry forbids any discussion of sectarian religion or partisan politics in the Lodge. (I am speaking of North American lodges; some Masonic organizations in other parts of the world have different practices.)

In sum: Freemasonry is entirely welcoming to Catholics, whether they seek to learn more about Freemasonry or not.

Masons Are Not Anti-Catholic in Any Way

What does it mean to be ‘anti-Catholic’? Let’s consider some possibilities.

• Would it be anti-Catholic to teach that Catholic doctrine is incorrect? That seems a bit harsh as a judgment, given that different people will have different beliefs, but it really does not matter: Freemasonry does not do this. Any discussion, pro or con, regarding sectarian religious doctrine is forbidden in the Lodge. Freemasonry takes no position on the truth or falsehood of specific religious doctrines, beyond a basic belief in the existence of a Supreme Being and a belief in the immortality of the human soul. (Of course, individual Freemasons are welcome to their own opinions—something that is the very essence of freedom of conscience—although they are to keep those opinions to themselves, in the Lodge.)

• Would it be anti-Catholic to try to restrict the freedom of Catholics to practice their faith? Would it be anti-Catholic to discriminate against Catholics in terms of civil rights? Certainly either of these practices would be anti-Catholic—but Freemasonry does not do either of these things. In an indirect way, 18th century American Freemasons—through their support of the Bill of Rights—showed a strong support for freedom of religion in the United States. That’s just the Masonic way.

• Would it be anti-Catholic to discriminate against Catholics who wish to become Masons? Sure it would be—but Freemasonry does not do this. As I mentioned in the previous section of this post, Freemasons are actually forbidden to consider a candidate’s religious affiliation in making decisions about admitting someone to the Fraternity.

• Would it be anti-Catholic to teach religious doctrine that is un-Catholic—that is, simply different than what Catholicism teaches? That also seems a bit harsh as a judgment, given that freedom of religion should not be considered a threat to Catholicism, but it really does not matter: Freemasonry does not do this, either. Freemasonry teaches no specific religious doctrines in the Lodge. Contrary to an opinion that one sometimes comes upon, Freemasonry does not teach Deism, which is a non-Catholic form of religion. This is a point I explain comprehensively in a post on another blog, which you may read here.

It is true that Freemasonry, by and large, has shown a great deal of support for public education. In both Europe and the United States, one can come up with several examples of either Masonic Lodges or prominent individual Freemasons founding or supporting institutions of public education. However, support for public education is a long way off from anti-Catholicism, by any rational measure.

In sum: Freemasonry is not anti-Catholic. Rather, Freemasonry is entirely neutral with regards to Catholicism. (Of course, if a person thinks that religious neutrality or freedom of conscience are somehow ‘anti-Catholic’—well, then, we all have a more serious problem to deal with than the religious stance of Freemasonry.)

Conclusion

Ms. Dowd is simply wrong, plain and simple, about the stance of Freemasonry towards Catholics and Catholicism. Although I mean no disrespect to Ms. Dowd’s father, it seems that he was poorly informed about Freemasonry to start with. It is unfortunate that Ms. Dowd—a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who, frankly, ought to know better—simply seems to have accepted her father’s statements at face value, without checking into the facts of the matter.

Of course, this all raises the question of why Ms. Dowd’s father would have had these misconceptions about Freemasonry to start with. I shall deal with that in my next post, in which I will discuss the roots of the inaccurate perceptions that some people have had over the years regarding Freemasonry, specifically in relation to Roman Catholicism.

Basic questions about Freemasonry can be addressed to the author through the "Freemasonry 101" blog.

Shameless Plugs

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through sending me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com .

I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry as it is depicted by The Lost Symbol in two places:

• one of my two chapters in the forthcoming book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol, which you can read about here;

• my own forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masonry, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Publishers’ and agents’ inquiries are welcome!)

[The photo of Whitby Abbey, at Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, was taken on January 28, 2008, by Stephen McCulloch. It was obtained from Wikimedia Commons, and is used here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

About Your Comments

I have gotten seriously behind in responding to comments--mea culpa. As of now, I have been through every post from September 15 to the present, and I shall try to stay on top of at least that much of the comments from here on.

The Oaths of Freemasonry: One of a Series on Maureen Dowd's Review of The Lost Symbol and the Truth About Freemasonry

On Sunday, October 11, 2009, The New York Times Book Review will publish a review by Maureen Dowd of Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol. That review is available on-line here. (The weekday edition of the Times previously published a review of The Lost Symbol by Janet Maslin; that review, which appeared on Monday, September 14, is available here.)


Ms. Dowd’s review contains much inaccurate or misleading information about Freemasonry. This blog post is the first of a series in which I address the inaccuracies about Freemasonry that occur in Ms. Dowd’s review. The rest of the posts in the series may be found here.

Freemasons Do Not Murder Those Who Expose Their Rituals

Ms. Dowd writes of Dan Brown, “During the five years he researched this book, did Brown begin to believe those sensational stories about how, if you expose the secrets of the Masons, they will slit your throat?”

If Masons actually murdered those who exposed their rituals or other secrets, Freemasons would do little else but murder people, and the body count would have reached into the thousands quite some time ago. The ritual secrets of Freemasonry have been exposed many times over the last three centuries. We Masons may think poorly of those who expose our rituals and secrets—yes, we will de-friend them from our Facebook accounts—but we do not murder them or do them other harm.

The Oaths of Freemasonry

Stories like the kind that Ms. Down mentions have their root in an aspect of the oaths involved in becoming a Freemason. As part of the process of initiation, a candidate takes several solemn oaths. For the most part, these oaths involve commitments to moral behavior. In addition, candidates swear not to reveal Masonic secrets, such as signs of recognition, and other ritual details. The candidate swears that he “binds” himself to various bloodcurdling penalties if he breaks these obligations.

Over the years, a lot of people have been put out by the fact that Freemasons bind themselves to these bloodcurdling penalties, However, very few of the people who have commented on these oaths over the centuries have pointed out certain basic truths:

• Masons are never put under oath or asked to carry out these penalties on anyone. Indeed, because Masons are committed to observing the civil law, it easily could be argued that Masons themselves are actually forbidden by Masonic ethics to inflict these penalties on anyone, Mason or not.

• Candidates for Freemasonry take their oaths and pronounce their obligations at sacred altars (depicted above) and in the presence of Almighty God, each man using a Volume of the Sacred Law that is sacred to him. (Some men use the Jewish Bible, some a version of the Christian Bible, some the Muslim Quran, and so on.) The obvious conclusion to draw is that the penalties to which Masons bind themselves are penalties that they expect Almighty God shall inflict on them for breaking their word.

The One Possible Time a Murder Might Have Been Committed

In all of history, there is only one instance in which it could credibly be the case that someone who exposed the secrets of Masonry might have been murdered by Masons. This was the famous Morgan incident of 1826, where William Morgan—a non-Mason who pretended to be a Mason, gained admission to lodges, and then published Masonic ritual—is alleged to have been murdered in upstate New York by Masons. This incident has a complicated history, the essentials of which are available here, courtesy of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon.

The occurrence of actual murder in the case of William Morgan is questionable. Morgan’s body was never recovered. Some have said that Morgan was paid to go into exile in Canada; some say that they sighted him, towards the end of his life, in the Caribbean. There are those, such as Stephen Dafoe in his recent book, Morgan: The Scandal That Shook Freemasonry, who maintain that Morgan was indeed murdered by Masons; for me, the jury on that case is still out.

If William Morgan was indeed murdered by Masons, this is a horrible thing that should never have occurred, and those who were responsible should have been punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, even if this murder had occurred, its very rarity proves that Masons do not make it a practice to murder, execute, or assassinate those who expose their rituals.

Conclusion

It is time to put to bed the “sensational story” that Ms. Dowd mentions, that “if you expose the secrets of the Masons, they will slit your throat.” This has never been true, as the most basic research by Ms. Dowd would have revealed to her. This is not just a sensational story, but an irresponsible one, even a libelous and prejudicial one, and she should have known better than to spread it around in her book review.

Basic questions about Freemasonry can be addressed to the author through the Freemasonry 101 blog.

Shameless Plugs

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through leaving me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com . I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry as it is depicted by The Lost Symbol in two places:

• one of my two chapters in the forthcoming book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol, which you can read about here;
• my own forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masonry, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Publishers’ and agents’ inquiries are welcome!)

[The image is a stylized depiction of a Masonic altar. It is available on the website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Introducing a Series: Maureen Dowd's Review of The Lost Symbol and the Truth About Freemasonry

On Sunday, October 11, 2009, The New York Times Book Review will publish a review by Maureen Dowd of Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol. That review is available on-line here. (The weekday edition of the Times previously published a review of The Lost Symbol by Janet Maslin; that review, which appeared on Monday, September 14, is available here.)

Ms. Dowd’s review contains much inaccurate or misleading information about Freemasonry. I am writing a series of blog posts to address the inaccuracies about Freemasonry that occur in Ms. Dowd’s review. The posts in this series are listed below. (The list will be updated as new posts become available.)

Posts in This Series

1. Masonic Oaths: Will Masons really "slit the throats of people who reveal Masonic secrets"? (October 5, 2009): post available here.
2. Are Freemasons Anti-Catholic? (October 8, 2009): post available here.
3. How Accurate is the Contemporary Catholic Perception of Freemasonry? (October 8, 2009): post available here.

Shameless Plugs

I discuss the basics of Freemasonry in my book, Freemasonry: An Introduction, which will shortly be available again through Amazon; interested readers may ask to be notified of this availability through leaving me an e-mail at freemasonrybook@yahoo.com . I shall have a great deal to say about Freemasonry as it is depicted by The Lost Symbol in two places:

• one of my two chapters in the forthcoming book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol, which you can read about here;
• my own forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masonry, Noetic Science, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Publishers’ and agents’ inquiries are welcome!)

[The image is a rare depiction of the Compasses with a Sector (a traditional symbol of a Past Master) with the All-Seeing Eye on a Disk. It was obtained on the website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Pyramids, Freemasonry, and The Lost Symbol

[Photo by Nina Aldin Thune.]

In The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown repeatedly brings up pyramid symbolism in connection with Freemasonry. This would seem to be a mistake, because the pyramid is not a Masonic symbol -- right?

Well -- it's not quite so clear cut.

Oh, I can hear the groans from here. Yes, I know: the various authors in our day who connect Freemasonry with pyramids are considered more than a little out on the fringe, especially by the more responsible Masonic historians of the so-called realistic school of Masonic history. It certainly is the case that, in the year 2009, Masonic ritual, symbolism, and mythic stories all have nothing to do with pyramids.

However, what is true of the early 21st century was not true of earlier days of Masonry, centuries ago.

The fact of the matter is that, at least as early as the 14th century, Masonic literature explicitly connected the Fraternity with Egypt, and (no later than the 18th century) even with the pyramids themselves. Controversial offshoots of Freemasonry in the 19th century associated Masonry with Egyptian initiatory practices.

Finally, the literature of the wilder regions of the conspiracy theory community connects Freemasonry with a very famous pyramid, a reproduction of which exists in virtually every home in America, and this connection should also be addressed when discussing pyramids and Freemasonry.

So, let's have at it.

Freemasonry and Egypt in
the Regius Manuscript

The Grand Lodge style of Freemasonry was established in London in 1717, with the founding of the premier Grand Lodge of England. However, Freemasonry existed before that time, in individual lodges scattered across Scotland, England, and Ireland, at the least -- perhaps for centuries. One of the earliest Masonic manuscripts in existence, the Regius (or Halliwell) Manuscript, dates from about 1390, and specifically draws a connection between Masonry and Egypt when describing the mythic history of Masonry -- in verse, no less. Beginning at line 55, the manuscript states:

The Clerk [i.e., cleric] Euclid in this wise founded
This Craft of geometry in Egyptian land,
In Egypt he taught it full wide,
In diverse lands on every side.

(This excerpt is taken from p. 293 of Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, rev. ed., 1995. The entire poem is available in a modern translation in Christopher Hodapp's excellent book, Freemasons for Dummies, Appendix A.)

So, Masons of over 600 years ago thought that the Greek mathematician Euclid was an ancient member of their fraternity, and taught geometry in Egypt. Being a Mason, of course, Euclid would have been busy building things. I don't think these would have been shopping malls or amusement parks, either. Thus, at least by implication, the Regius Manuscript leaves open the possibility of Freemasons being involved with pyramids.

Freemasonry and Pyramids in
Anderson's Constitutions

The Grand Lodge era of Freemasonry begins in 1717. The most authoritative document we have of that era is James Anderson's The Constitutions of the Free-Masons (original London edition 1723, republished in the United States by Benjamin Franklin himself in 1734). Anderson's Constitutions include a traditional history of Freemasonry, stretching back to Adam, the first man, as described in the Bible. In this traditional history, Anderson mentions the following, referring to biblical events after the Flood of Noah and the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel (Ben Franklin's edition, pages 10-11, modernizing the text a bit, omitting a footnote):

And, no doubt, the Royal Art [i.e., Freemasonry] was brought down to Egypt by Mitzraim, the second son of Ham [i.e., Ham being Noah's second son], about six years after the Confusion at Babel, and after the Flood 160 years, when he led thither his colony (for "Egypt" is Mitzraim in Hebrew); because we find the River Nile's overflowing of its banks soon caused an improvement in geometry, which consequently brought Masonry to be much in demand. For the ancient noble cities, with the other magnificent edifices of that country, and particularly the famous pyramids, demonstrate the early taste and genius of that ancient kingdom. Nay, one of those ancient Egyptian pyramids is reckoned the first of the Seven Wonders of the World, the account of which, by historians and travellers, is almost incredible.

Anderson, of course, was drawing on other source material concerning the mythic background of Freemasonry -- the legendary and hypothetical "Anderson Manuscript" -- of unknown age, and that is now lost to us. All we can tell for sure is that at least as far back as nearly 300 years ago, and possibly much earlier, Freemasons mentioned Freemasonry and the ancient Egyptian pyramids in the same breath.

(Incidentally, what did Anderson mean when he said that "we find the River Nile's overflowing of its banks soon caused an improvement in geometry"? The annual flood of the Nile washed away landmarks, and the land on both sides of the banks, for many miles, had to be resurveyed -- through the use of geometry, of course.)

Freemasonry and Egypt in
the Forbidden Rite of Memphis

The basic form of Freemasonry is a system of three degrees, or rituals of initiation. However, over the last three centuries or so, several systems of 'high degrees' have emerged, which offer additional sequences of degrees. In Masonic parlance, a system of degrees is called a Rite (as opposed to the common meaning of a "rite" as a specific ceremony). There are several such Rites in existence today.

In the United States, the main such systems are the Scottish Rite (which offers a system of numbered degrees up to the 33rd) and the York Rite (which offers about 10 degrees in a specific but unnumbered sequence). The York and Scottish Rites and a few other invitational organizations are each accepted by the Grand Lodge authorities in almost all of the 52 sovereign Masonic jurisdictions in the United States (comprising one Grand Lodge in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico).

But there are other Rites in Masonry -- literally forbidden Rites.

(Cue the creepy trumpet or organ music: DAA-DA-Da-dahhhhhhhhh.)

Over the last three centuries, many different systems of degrees have been put forth to Freemasons, some for the sake of propounding some esoteric knowledge, some for the sake of gathering initiation fees from gullible Masons. At present, in the United States, many Rites have been banned by the various Grand Lodges, although several such Rites have continued to exist on the fringes of Freemasonry for centuries. One such is the Rite of Memphis, originally established in Paris in 1814, a system of up to 100 degrees that has undergone many changes of name and administration and many incarnations over the last two centuries. Although condemned by American Grand Lodges, the Rite of Memphis is active in several parts of the United States today. (No, I am not a member.)

Even the name, "Rite of Memphis," shows some affinity for Egypt. Beyond that, the literature of the Rite of Memphis explicitly connects Freemasonry to Egypt and its wisdom. For example, in a lecture for one incarnation of the Rite, known as the "Antient and Primitive Rite," we find the following in the instruction for members between the 27th and 30th degrees, as published in London in 1882:

Q. What relation does Masonry hold to Egypt?

A. Masonry, considered as a secret society with peculiar ceremonies, having for its aim the conservation of knowledge, truth, and their laws, was received and perpetuated in Egypt by the Sages, who concealed attainments from the vulgar by clothing them in ingenious emblems; from the banks of the Nile the system was carried to the Greeks, Romans, and other ancient nations, where it more or less lost its character and primitive [i.e., original] aim. All the old operative constitutions of the Freemasons trace their origin to Egypt .... The wisdom of Egypt became the proverb of all nations. (Collectanea, 2000, vol. 17, part 2, pp. 85-86; published by the Grand College of Rites of the United States of America.)

A different group derived from the Rite of Memphis, Calvin C. Burt's Egyptian Masonic Rite of Memphis, similarly celebrated the connection between ancient Freemasonry and Egyptian wisdom. This is shown in a handbook published in Chicago in 1867, a portion of which focused in detail on supposed ceremonies of initiation in ancient Egypt, which the author considered Masonic in origin; the author then claimed that his own Rite was founded in France in 1694. (See pp. ix-xiii in Collectanea, 2001, vol. 17, part 3.)

The point here is that traditions on the outskirts or fringes of Freemasonry have connected Masonic initiation with the wisdom of Egypt.

Freemasonry and
the Pyramid
in Your Pocket

Things are so much simpler for the wild-eyed, undisciplined sector of the conspiracy theory community.* There is no need to consult ancient manuscripts, or the handbooks of off-ramp, qwinky forms of Freemasonry: one just needs to look at the paper money in one's wallet or purse, and that settles the matter. In the Anything Goes region of the conspiracy theory community, it is an article of faith that the pyramid shown on the back of the $1 bill, one side of the Grand Seal of the United States, is a Masonic symbol.

The fact of the matter is that this is simply untrue; I state the facts in my comments regarding Clue #35. However, the fact that the conspiracy community believes that the pyramid is a Masonic symbol may simply be enough for Dan Brown.

Conclusion

It is not entirely off-base for Dan Brown to connect Freemasonry with pyramids. In the 21st century, Masonry is not connected with pyramids. However, most of the association between Masonry and pyramids that is portrayed in The Lost Symbol is associated with events supposedly occuring during the days of the American Founding Fathers, roughly the 1770s to the 1790s or so. This was an era only about 60 years separated from the days of Anderson's Constitutions, the original publication of which was still (barely) in living memory. In that era, a connection between Freemasonry and pyramids seemed a bit more plausible.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Dan Brown is merely following the lead of the wilder regions of the conspiracy theory community, in attributing a connection between Freemasonry and pyramids.

I shall have more to say about Freemasonry and its symbolism, as well as the whole issue of pyramids, in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Mind of Dan Brown, the Truth About the Freemasons, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Agents' and publishers' inquiries are welcome. Please contact me through the e-mail portal on my Web Page: see my Blogger profile.)

I remind you that comments are welcome. Feel free to become a Follower of this blog, to forward posts by e-mail, and to subscribe to the RSS feed.

My thanks to an Anonymous commentor on an earlier post, who raised this question.

[The image of the Great Pyramid is Copyright 2005 Nina Aldin Thune. The image was obtained from the Wikimedia Commons through Wikipedia, and appears under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.]

*I recognize that there are rational, responsible, careful conspiracy theory researchers. I admire them greatly. However, I find it necessary to take their wild-eyed relatives to task at every turn.

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

"Dressed As a Master": Clothing in the First Three Degrees of Freemasonry

The Prologue to Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol takes place during a ceremony, the ritual of the 33rd degree of initiation into the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. We'll go into those matters -- the Scottish Rite, the 33rd degree -- in future posts. What I'll focus on in this post is the fact that the Prologue mentions that the unnamed central character in this Prologue has been through other, earlier initiations -- initiations with distinctive clothing.

As the story mentions:

As was tradition, he had begun this journey adorned in the ritualistic garb of a medieval heretic being led to the gallows .... Tonight, however, like the brethren bearing witness, he was dressed as a master. (Page 3 of the English language edition of The Lost Symbol)

What is he talking about?

The First Three Degrees of Freemasonry

Freemasonry, of course, is a fraternal organization that offers men the opportunity to receive ritual initiations focused on the higher values of life. (My post giving a brief introduction to Freemasonry is here.)

The basic unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. This is a group of men who meet at regular intervals for Masonic business and ritual. (For example, the Lodge where I became a Mason, Winter Park Lodge #239 Free and Accepted Masons, in Winter Park, Florida, meets on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, at 7:30 p.m.) This level of Freemasonry is sometimes referred to (for mysterious traditional reasons) as the "Blue Lodge." It is the foundation of all forms of Freemasonry.

The Blue Lodge offers the first three degrees of Freemasonry:

• The 1st degree, called "Entered Apprentice"


• The 2nd degree, called "Fellow Craft"


• The 3rd degree, called "Master Mason"

Some aspects of the initiation process are similar -- not identical -- across the degree rituals, including clothing.

The Candidate's Clothing

We'll have more to say about Masonic initiation in future posts. Today, it's all about the clothing.

The candidate for Masonic initiation appears in ceremonial clothing for the first three degrees. This is what Dan Brown alludes to as "the ritualistic garb of a medieval heretic being led to the gallows."

Brown is taking a page here from the fascinating book by the late John J. Robinson, Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry (now available in a new paperback edition from M. Evans). Robinson analyzed certain distinctive aspects in Masonic ritual language and practice, and came to the conclusion that Freemasonry had its origins in a society of men on the run: the medieval Knights Templar, who were condemned by the Papacy and subjected to mass arrests as heretics in 1307. The distinctive garb of the candidate in the first three degrees of Masonic initiation, in Robinson's view, would be a tradition to remember the Templars in their time of trial.

Robinson's conclusions are thought-provoking, although currently they are accepted neither by the mass of Masonic historians nor by most academic historians. Not that this would stop Dan Brown.

"Dressed like a master"

When Dan Brown writes that Mal'akh is "dressed like a master" during his ceremonial initiation into the 33rd degree, he means that Mal'akh was dressed the way a Master Mason dresses following his initiation. Masons typically come to lodge meetings formally dressed. Business suits are common; I know of Lodges that require black tie (that is, tuxedos). (Some Lodges are substantially less formal, but formality is a rising trend.)

Of course, a special apron is the badge of a Mason. The Masonic apron is a tradition that carries today's Masons back to the days of the medieval stonemasons. Today's Masonic aprons are done up rather more elaborately than a medieval stonemason's apron, though.

In the photo above, I am the fellow on the left. (Click on the photo for a larger image.) The occasion is my installation, in late December 2007, as the Marshal of the Lodge in Winter Park; for most lodges, like Winter Park, the annual installation of officers is a public event. (The Marshal is the most junior of Lodge officers.) I am here dressed in a tux, with the specific apron of my office. (Winter Park does not require black tie at its functions, but this was the formal installation, and all officers to be installed arrived in black tie.)

The regular member attending the Lodge would have a less elaborate apron. However, in most essentials, in the photo above I am "dressed like a master," in Dan Brown's phrase.

However, the novel purports to depict, not a Blue Lodge ceremony, but a Scottish Rite ceremony. Thus, I would expect that Mal'akh would be wearing a Scottish Rite cap and "jewel" (that is, a medal), probably the distinctive red cap and jewel of the Knight Commander of the Court of Honor.

So, that is what you should be envisioning Mal'akh wearing in the Prologue: black tie, with a red hat and ceremonial medal. (Head-to-toe tattoos under coverup makeup is entirely optional.)

[The photo above was taken by Ricardo Parente, the webmaster and photographer of Winter Park Lodge #239 F&AM. Thank you, Brother Ricardo, for making me look respectable.]

Mal'akh's Tattoos, Part 2: The Scottish Rite Double Eagle

In an earlier post, I described the tattoos on the legs of Dan Brown's horrifying villain in The Lost Symbol, Mal'akh. Today, we talk about the 'main event,' as it were: the tattoos on Mal'akh's chest:

[...] his powerful chest was emblazoned with the double-headed phoenix . . . each head in profile with its visible eye formed by one of Mal'akh's nipples. [The Lost Symbol, Chapter 2, pp. 11-12 in the English language edition]

This sounds to me like one of the most famous symbols of what is called "high degree" Masonry: the double-headed eagle on the seal of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (one version of which is illustrated above).

In an earlier post, I describe the degree structure of Freemasonry, and I explain how the Scottish Rite figures into that. Here, I'll just mention that the Scottish Rite offers a set of ritual initiatory ceremonies ("degrees" of initiation) to men who are already Master Masons, that is, men who have received the three foundational degrees of Freemasonry. (More about that in a future post--probably my next one.)

Internationally famous Masonic scholar, Arturo de Hoyos, describes the double-headed eagle in his excellent reference, The Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guide [2nd edition, 2009, available here]. (Incidentally, Scottish Rite brethren, this is the main text of the "Scottish Rite Master Craftsman" course of study.)

The double-headed eagle is the unique symbol of the Scottish Rite .... The motto of the Thirty-third Degree is Deus meumque jus (God and my right). [de Hoyos, 2009, p. 27]

As de Hoyos explains, the double-headed eagle was a symbol in the later degrees of now-extinct degree systems that were predecessors of the Scottish Rite (which was founded in 1801). The double-headed eagle appears on coats of arms, and so is an element or "device" of heraldry.

As a heraldic device its precise origin is unknown, but it is believed to be a modification of the [single-headed] Roman eagle, [a two-headed modification of] which was later used to suggest the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. This device was subsequently adopted by the German, Austrian, and Russian Empires. Some writers assert an even greater antiquity, equating it with the Storm Bird of Lagash, an ancient Babylonian symbol. [de Hoyos, 2009, p. 28]

So, there is a political meaning to the double-headed eagle: it represents the union of East and West. However, there is also an esoteric meaning, associated with the transformation of inner opposing tendencies into a unified balance or equilibrium within the individual. This is an aspect of alchemy, and the double-headed eagle is a potent alchemical symbol, which explains part of its appeal for Mal'akh.

The black double-headed eagle was a principal motif in early alchemical literature .... At times it is equated with the philosopher's stone, the goal of the alchemical transformation, and may be understood as a symbol of the Great Work of perfection. [de Hoyos, 2009, p. 29]

Of course, this opens up the entire matter of alchemy and the Great Work. Alchemy is one of the wisdom traditions that are incorporated into the degrees of the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction of the USA (the organization that has its headquarters at the House of the Temple in Washington, DC--the site of the Prologue of The Lost Symbol).

Alchemy is a vast subject. At a high level, alchemy has to do with the management and direction of transformation -- a subject that is near and dear to the heart of Mal'akh, as readers of The Lost Symbol observe throughout the novel. There is an aspect of alchemy that is concerned with transformation of outer reality. (This is where the whole turning-lead-into-gold thing comes up.)

There is also an aspect of alchemy that is concerned with transformation of inner reality. The point of alchemy is to bring the opposing tendencies of human nature into balance and under the control of the individual. Through alchemical processes, the individual is to refine human nature, thereby bringing the individual to a new level of human consciousness, and a more perfect state of being.

Mal'akh's tattoo is described as a double-headed phoenix, a mythical bird also associated with inner rebirth. Again, transformation is Mal'akh's thing.

I shall have more to say about alchemy, as well as its relation to Masonic symbolism, in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Mind of Dan Brown, the Truth About the Freemasons, and the Idea that We Can Become Gods. (Agents and publishers inquiries are welcome; I may be reached by e-mail through my Blogger profile.)

Learning More About Alchemy

A fine brief introduction to alchemy is the chapter by Richard Smoley, "Hermes and Alchemy: The Winged God and the Golden Word," pp. 19-30 in an excellent collection of essays edited by Jay Kinney, The Inner West: An Introduction to the Hidden Wisdom of the West (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2004). The notes to this chapter constitute good suggestions for further study.

The interest of Sir Isaac Newton in alchemy is little-known to the public at large, but Newton wrote more about esoteric subjects like alchemy than he ever wrote about physics or optics. One can read about this in Michael White's biography of Newton, Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

Alchemy from the point of view of a modern practitioner is described by Mark Stavish in The Path of Alchemy: Energetic Healing and the World of Natural Magic (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2006).

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in the concept that Masonic ritual somehow is connected to alchemy. The most detailed recent treatment of this idea can be found in Timothy Hogan's The Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual (2007), which is available through lulu.com, as shown here.

A Small Point of Masonic Etiquette

I removed a comment from one of the posts on this blog recently, because it ventured into the area of Masonic passwords, signs of recognition, and so forth.

The author of the comment has posted before, and seems to be a fine and upstanding individual, quite bright, even scholarly. The source cited was a fine, scholarly work, not anti-Masonic at all.

However, as a Mason, I have made a commitment not to reveal the Masonic passwords or signs of recognition. As I interpret that obligation, that includes not discussing purported passwords or signs of recognition, past or present, in a forum for which I have personal responsibility, such as this blog.

I realize that non-Masons typically do not know the contents of the Masonic obligations. I bear no ill will to the commentator. However, I do ask everyone who comments on this blog to steer clear of the matter of Masonic passwords and signs of recognition, out of courtesy to your blog author, a Mason. Thank you for your kind observance of this principle.

Mal'akh's Tattoos, Part 1: The Pillars, Boaz and Jachin

In Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, the magnificently creepy villain called Mal'akh is tattooed on almost every inch of his body, except for a spot on the crown of his head. But these are not just any old tattoos. Mal'akh's tattoos incorporate all kinds of esoteric and mystical symbolism -- some of it Masonic in nature. Mal'akh may be a torturer, he may be a criminal sociopath, he may be the human equivalent of a demon -- but he aspires to all sorts of spiritual knowledge, and he reflects his spiritual aspirations in his tattoos.

Two of Mal'akh's tattoos are on his legs. As described in Chapter 2 of The Lost Symbol (page 11 of the English edition):

... his muscular legs were tattooed as carved pillars -- his left leg spiraled and his right leg vertically striated, Boaz and Jachin.

So, what is this about?

For almost three hundred years, it has been public knowledge that two important symbols in Freemasonry are the pillars Boaz and Jachin. Anciently, pillars with these names were part of the Temple built by King Solomon. In the Bible, the construction of the Temple is described in a couple of places, one of which is the First Book of Kings. The 7th chapter, verses 15 through 22, describe the pillars, at the conclusion of which we read:

And he [Hiram, the master builder] set up the pillars in the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. (1 Kings 7:21)

The name Jachin translates to "God will establish"; Boaz translates to "in strength." Thus, one meaning of the pillars is that they signify that God established the Temple in strength.

There are ancient legends associated with the pillars, some of which have shown up in Masonic symbolism. One legend is that the pillars were topped with globes, one showing the globe of the Earth ("the terrestrial globe") and the other the globe of the heavens as seen from the Earth ("the celestial globe"). You can see these globes atop the pillars in the illustration above (from a 1920's edition of Albert Mackey's History of Freemasonry). Another legend is that there was secret wisdom written on records deposited within the pillars. Yet another legend (shown in Dan Brown's novel) is that one pillar was decorated with carvings horizontally, the other vertically.

What is the significance of the pillars in Masonic symbolism, and why are they of interest to Mal'akh? There is much that could be said about this, only a portion of which I can mention here.

The pillars Boaz and Jachin signify the entrance to the Temple built by Solomon and dedicated to God. Some representation of these pillars is found in most Masonic lodge rooms. Their presence helps to mark the Masonic lodge room as a sort of sacred space, where people take a different perspective on their lives than the everyday point of view. The "journey" of initiation into Freemasonry begins as the initiate symbolically enters the Temple built by Solomon.

The names of the pillars are a reminder to the Mason that, as the outward Temple was established in strength by God, so too the Mason invites God to establish his own life in strength. (Of course, if the Mason invites God to establish his life, he'd better be living the kind of life that God can support.)

As the globes atop the ancient pillars were representations of the heavens and the earth, so too the Mason seeks for knowledge of the natural universe, near and far.

As the ancient pillars were said to be repositories of wisdom, so too the Mason is on a journey in search of wisdom.

These are the values that Mal'akh was dedicating himself to: the search for wisdom. The tragedy of Mal'akh, in part, is that he did not understand that the search for higher wisdom requires kindness and respect for other human beings, in order to be a fully successful search.

I shall have a great deal more to say about Masonic symbolism as it appears in Dan Brown's novel in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Mind of Dan Brown, the Truth About the Freemasons, and the Idea That We Can Become Gods. (Agents' and publishers' inquiries are welcome.)

The Secret Behind the Final Secret of The Lost Symbol

[HEAVY DUTY SPOILER ALERT: In this blog post, I reveal the conclusion of The Lost Symbol. If you want the pleasure of experiencing the surprise of the conclusion, then do not read this post until after you have completed reading the novel.]

At the conclusion of The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown gives extended attention to a remarkable set of spiritual concepts. However, the casual reader might not know that there is a real-world group that espouses something very much like these concepts. Thus, in this post, I describe what I think is the unstated backstory to the conclusion of The Lost Symbol.

Early on in The Lost Symbol, Robert Langdon looks up from inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building, and sees the 1865 painting by Constantino Brumidi, The Apotheosis of Washington (shown above; click on the image for a larger depiction). The ancient Greek word "apotheosis" has no single-word equivalent in English; it indicates the event of a human being becoming a god. (See the last page of Chapter 20, and all of Chapter 21.)

Throughout the novel, one of the subplots is that the leading female character in the story, Dr. Katherine Solomon, is engaged in research involving a field called noetic science. In the novel, we learn that Dr. Solomon has uncovered a variety of paranormal, even godlike capacities in the human mind -- capacities that can be developed here and now.

Much later, at the conclusion of The Lost Symbol (Chapter 133 and the Epilogue), Robert Langdon is taught some fascinating philosophical, religious, and spiritual concepts by Dr. Solomon. One of these concepts is the idea that the destiny and birthright of human beings is to take on the role of divine Creators. We join these two in discussion in Chapter 133, with Dr. Solomon speaking:

" ... We've been reading the Bible too literally. We learn that God created us in his image, but it's not our physical bodies that resemble God, it's our minds. ... [O]nce we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be
Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential.

... Langdon gazed up again at the image of The Apotheosis of Washington--the symbolic ascent of man to deity. The created . . . becoming the Creator. (Page 501, American English edition.)

Langdon then reflects on the Hebrew word Elohim:

"Elohim," he repeated. "The Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament! I've always wondered about it."

Katherine gave a knowing smile. "Yes. The word is plural." ...

"God is plural," Katherine whispered, "because the minds of man are plural." (Page 505, American English edition)

In essence, Katherine Solomon is teaching Robert Langdon the ideas that (a) human beings have the potential within them to develop into gods, and (b) such a development would result in a plurality of gods. The "Lost Symbol" of the novel's title reflects the notion of God as a symbol for the highest potential of humankind. (By implication, Dan Brown is teaching the same ideas to his readers.)

Wow. This sure sounds different!

This is certainly going to make for controversy in this, the world outside the book, our world. As there were those who condemned The Da Vinci Code because they considered it heretical, so too there will be those who condemn The Lost Symbol for what they consider heretical teachings.

As it happens, there is a backstory to this concept, the idea of the human being becoming god. This concept is actually a religious doctrine of one of the largest religious organizations in the United States: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known popularly, if unofficially, as 'the Mormons'; their official website is here). It is not widely known in the general public that this doctrine is central to Latter-day Saint (LDS) belief. It is, however, a doctrine with which I am familiar.

That is because I am a Latter-day Saint.*

It is not my purpose here to go into a lengthy consideration or defense of this doctrine. (I have another blog for discussions of LDS doctrine.) However, for the benefit of the fans of Dan Brown, I shall just sketch out the broad outlines of this doctrine.

The LDS scriptures include not only the Bible but other sacred books as well. In one of these, the following is written concerning those who make sacred covenants with God and keep those covenants throughout their lives. After their deaths in this world, at some undefined time, the following happens:

Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. (The Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132, Verse 20)

Such individuals are permitted to maintain their family structure throughout the eternities. This is the highest blessing possible, and it is the essence of eternal life, the kind of life that God has. (Some further basic information about the LDS doctrine of exaltation is available here.)

The LDS doctrine of exaltation (as it is known) is certainly different from the concept that Dan Brown portrays in The Lost Symbol. For Dan Brown's characters, the notion that humanity is made in the image of God is figurative ("it's our minds" that resemble God, as Dr. Solomon says); for the LDS, it is both figurative and literal (that is, God has a body in whose image humans are made). In Dan Brown's novel (p. 79 of the American English edition), Robert Langdon also claims that the LDS account of the origin of the Book of Mormon, a distinctive LDS scripture, does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. (I beg to differ, but that discussion is for another time and place.)

However, for all that, it is worthwhile for the Dan Brown fan to realize that there is a body of spiritual doctrine that has remarkable similarities to the concept that Dan Brown portrays in his novel.

We could just stop here. However, surely this question arises: How can we account for these remarkable similarities?

Dan Brown visited Salt Lake City's Temple Square complex (the LDS equivalent of the Vatican in Roman Catholicism) in 2004 and 2006, as reported on local television. During his 2004 visit, as his host noted, Brown was specifically interested in the Masonic-like symbols on the Salt Lake LDS Temple: "He was ... very interested in the symbology on the Mormon temple ... the pentacles and the suns and the moons and the stars and all that. So, I gather his primary interest was to ... see the Mormon embellishment of Masonry as it exists, in his mind ...." (Of course, the LDS Temple is deeply connected with the LDS doctrine of exaltation; the purpose of LDS Temples is discussed here.) In 2006, as reported on TV, Brown was granted access to certain LDS historical archives.

Thus, for whatever reason and in whatever way, Dan Brown has had a certain interest in the Latter-day Saints and their most important and distinctive spiritual practices and doctrines. I think that he saw fit to adapt the LDS doctrine of exaltation for literary purposes in The Lost Symbol.

I will have more to say about the connections between (1) the concepts that Dan Brown puts forth in the conclusion to The Lost Symbol, (2) LDS belief and practice, and (3) Freemasonry in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Mind of Dan Brown and the Truth About the Freemasons. (Agents' and publishers' inquiries are welcome! My e-mail address is on my Blogger profile.)

{*I am an active, temple-attending Latter-day Saint. I am a returned missionary, and have served as a counselor in two bishoprics and as a stake high councillor. After several years teaching recently as the teacher of the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School, I now serve as a family history consultant. I have published articles in the two major organs of the independent LDS press, Sunstone and Dialogue, and a brief piece in the Ensign.}

[The image of Brumidi's "The Apotheosis of Washington" is from pictures taken by Raul654 in 2005. It was obtained from Wikimedia Commons and is shown here under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.]

Solution to the Puzzle on the Back Cover, Lower Left

I picked up my copy of The Lost Symbol at 12:01 a.m. at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble in Manhattan, here in New York City. Now, at a little after 2:00 a.m. Eastern time, I've dealt with a few other matters, and I am looking at something that many of us have been wondering about for months: the back cover, which does indeed have puzzles! This blog entry is the solution to one of them. (If you don't want to know, don't read on!)

[Incidentally, for those of you interested in the technical vocabulary and concepts of cryptography, the type of puzzle that we will be working with is a transposition cipher. This means that the letters of the message are all there in plain sight--but they are in a mixed-up order. How can one put them in the correct order? That is the challenge. I think you are seeing cryptographic history made here in The Lost Symbol; I think that forever afterward, this will be called a "magic square" or "Durer" cipher. Read on to see why.]

The lower left-hand corner of the back cover has a 4 x 4 grid of letters, like so:

Y U O E
M S T D
I I N H
R E K Y

This relates to a similar puzzle in The Lost Symbol that Robert Langdon struggles with. At one point, Langdon realizes that the solution to the puzzle is the magic square in the artwork, Melencolia I, produced during the German Renaissance by Albrecht Durer. (Durer was the subject of Clue #9; a reproduction of Melencolia I, magic square and all, is above.) Durer's magic square is a matrix of numbers:

16 3 2 13
5 10 11 8
9 6 7 12
4 15 14 1

The trick is to put the letters of the first matrix in the order indicated by the numbers of Durer's magic square. The lower right-hand corner of Durer's magic square is 1; this corresponds to the letter "Y" in the letter matrix, so "Y" should go in the first position (where there is already a "Y," no doubt just to confuse us all). But you get the idea. Sort the letters so that they fit into the following matrix of numbers:

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16

and when you do this, you get the following matrix of letters:

Y O U R
M I N D
I S T H
E K E Y

which leads to the phrase:

"YOUR MIND IS THE KEY."

What a powerful statement! But what might it mean, in the context of this book? I think it means two things.

Certainly all the many challenges that Robert Langdon has to face in his adventures have to be solved through the use of his mind. In this world, where the forces of irrationality and superstition fight for supremacy, where irrational arguments are used to mold global politics, it is important to remember that our minds are the key.

Secondly, the conclusion of the novel, Chapters 133 and the Epilogue (which I will not spoil here), have some interesting things to say regarding the potential of the human mind.

Finally, the phrase "YOUR MIND" is almost certainly the key in a Caesar shift cipher (a transposition cipher) using the Freemason's cipher (a substitution cipher) that is another puzzle on the back cover. But that is another blogpost.

You can read more about Caesar shift ciphers, transposition ciphers, the Freemasons cipher, and substitution ciphers, in one of my forthcoming books. Australian puzzlemaster Denise Sutherland and I are publishing Cracking Codes and Cryptograms for Dummies in October or November (Wiley Publishing). I'll say more about it in this blog later on, but if you enjoy cryptography, codes, and puzzles, you'll like this book.

Now on to that other puzzle on the back cover . . . .

[I dedicate the solution of this puzzle to my wonderful wife, Kathleen Koltko-Rivera, who encouraged me to go out to pick up The Lost Symbol tonight, and accompanied me on a lovely nocturnal walk to do so. I love you, sweetheart. L., M.]

After the Clues--Comes the Book! The Future of This Blog

The big event for which so many readers of this blog have waited is about to arrive: the official release of Dan Brown's novel, The Lost Symbol, for purchase by the general public.

As I write these words (7:21 p.m., EDT, Monday 14 Sept. 2009), the world is about 40 minutes away from the release of the book in England. In less than 5 hours, many bookstores on the East Coast of the United States will hold "12:01 a.m." sales events. Indeed, the Prologue and first two chapters of the book have already been released to the public through some news outlets.

With the publication of the book itself, it can be argued that the clues issued by Doubleday about the content of the book become something of a moot point. So, what is to become of this blog, which was established to investigate the clues?

The public release of The Lost Symbol is an occasion to reposition this blog, and redirect its mission. This blog is now focused on illuminating the contents of The Lost Symbol itself.

What do I mean by that controversial word, "illuminate"? For one thing, I will describe the meaning and context of the issues that Dan Brown brings up. For another, I will help the reader discern between the world as described in The Lost Symbol, and the real world.

Consider a few recent examples. Dan Brown's novel addresses a host of subjects, many of them quite controversial. In the Prologue, Dan Brown describes what is supposed to be the ritual of the 33rd Degree of initiation in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Of course, this raises the question of what the Scottish Rite is, and what the 33rd Degree is, as well -- subjects that I address in an earlier post. The matter of drinking out of a skull during the ceremony marks this depiction as the portrayal of a ritual, not of the legitimate Scottish Rite, but of a renegade Masonic group -- which I explain in another post.

The review of Dan Brown's novel published in today's New York Times (see the link in another post) indicates that the female lead in The Lost Symbol is involved in the study of a subject called "noetics." This is a real field of study, but one that is little known by the general public, one that is not widely understood even by most professionals or academics in psychology -- and that means I will be describing it in this blog.

Chapter 2 (available in yesterday's British newspaper, The Mail) indicates that the villain in The Lost Symbol calls himself "Mal'akh." This raises questions about the meaning of this name, and its connotations -- and I will address that in this blog.

And on and on it will go. Dan Brown will touch on many arcane areas: the history, symbolism, and philosophy of Freemasonry; little-known incidents of the American Revolutionary War; the significance of the architecture and layout of Washington, DC; Rupert Sheldrake's principle of morphic resonance -- and dozens of other such fascinating items of knowledge, rumor, lore, and legend.

In brief, the public release of The Lost Symbol means that I now have more to blog about than ever before. And that is exactly what I plan to do.

Please feel free to return to this blog frequently as you read The Lost Symbol. You may become an official "follower" of the blog, or subscribe to its RSS feed. You should also feel free to submit questions through the Comments section of each post, which are open to all. I can't promise to answer each question, but I will answer a lot of them -- quite a few, I think, with individual blog posts.

So it is that this blog, originally titled "Key to The Lost Symbol Clues," now takes on a larger mission, reflected in its new title: "Discovering The Lost Symbol." It's one thing to read a book; it is another thing altogether to discover the depths of its meaning. That's what I hope to help you do.

In addition to blogging about many subjects here, I will be addressing much of this at greater length in my forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Mind of Dan Brown and the Truth About the Freemasons. (Agents and publishers are welcome to inquire! My personal e-mail is found on my Blogger Profile.) I'll tell you more about this book and its availability through this blog.

Here we go. Thanks for joining me on this ride.

[The image above was obtained from Wikimedia Commons, and is in the public domain.]