Clue #13: Hell's Legionnaire (and The Solomon Key!)

Okay: Now it gets especially creepy.

.

Perhaps fittingly for the 13th Twitter clue, this was sent out at 8:08 a.m. PDT, Monday June 29th:

.

Hell's legionnaire can turn iron to gold.

.

The "turn iron to gold" part would seem to suggest that this tweet refers to alchemy, an esoteric discipline dealing with different types of transformation.

.

And this would be wrong.

.

More precisely, this would be misleading -- because this tweet has nothing at all to do with alchemy, a multifaceted discipline that can have very profound spiritual implications.

.

The thing to focus on in this tweet is the odd phrase, "hell's legionnaire." Who is that? And what would any of this have to do with The Lost Symbol?

.

"Hell's Legionnaire"

.

A legionnaire is simply anyone who is a member of a legion, which means a large collection, usually of soldiers. (Organizations like the French Foreign Legion, the American Legion, or the ancient Roman legions, come to mind.)

.

However, in scripture, one of the most famous uses of the term 'legion' has nothing to do with an army at all -- at least, not a human army. Perhaps you will remember the biblical interchange between Jesus and the man possessed with an unclean spirit in the land of the Gadarenes:

And he [Jesus] asked him [the man with the unclean spirit], What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. (Matthew 5:9)

.

This incident is so famous that when William Peter Blatty was thinking of a name for the (excellent) sequel to his blockbuster novel, The Exorcist, he chose this simple title: Legion.

.

So, when the tweet says "hell's legionnaire," it is referring to a demon: a demon associated with a legion of demons, a demon who has the power to turn iron into gold.

.

But which demon would that be?

.

It matters, you know. To the magical mindset of, say, the 16th and 17th centuries, demons were not all-powerful, supernatural beings; demons were, like humans, created beings -- very powerful, to be sure, but not omnipotent. In addition, in that mindset, demons were specialized to some extent, some having powers over one domain, some over another. So, who had power to turn iron into gold?

.

There is an answer to this question in a medieval manual of ceremonial magic -- a manual of a distinctly demonological variety. It is known as the Goetia, and it has a sub-title with a phrase that is probably known to every reader of this blog:

.

"The Lesser Key of Solomon the King."

.

That's right: The Solomon Key shows up after all!

.

A large part of the Goetia is devoted to detailed descriptions of six dozen demons who can be invoked to fulfill a variety of magical purposes. One of them is described as follows (alluding to the ancient apocryphal legend that the biblical King Solomon "bound" spirits to do work for him):

BERITH. -- The Twenty-eighth Spirit in Order, as Solomon bound them, is named Berith. He is a Mighty, great, and terrible Duke. ... He can turn all metals into Gold. ... He is a Great Liar, and not to be trusted unto. He governeth 26 Legions of Spirits. ... (From p. 40 of The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, 2nd ed., corrected 2nd printing, 1997, York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser.)

So: The demon Berith (whose magical "seal" is shown above) governs 26 legions of demons (and so is "Hell's legionnaire"), and can turn all metals (presumably including iron) into gold -- all as revealed in a centuries-old book that could reasonably be called The Solomon Key.

.

Dang.

.

(One little note of caution: Folks, not that you should need me to tell you this, but I must mention the following so that I can go to sleep with a clear conscience tonight: Do not go out and try to conjure up demons. This message brought to you by the Fellowship of the Right-Hand Path, protecting your karma for 40,000 years.)

.

Relevance to The Lost Symbol

.

How might all this work into The Lost Symbol? There are a couple of different ways that I see.

.

During the years of the Renaissance, as learned scholars across Europe were inventing experimental science in fits and starts, many early scientists were also avid practitioners of alchemy, ritual magic, or both esoteric disciplines. For example, although this is not well-known to the public at large, the scholarly community for years has known that Isaac Newton was a student of alchemy and esoteric spirituality; his writings in this area are more voluminous than his writings on optics and physics. Another scientist with alchemical leanings was our friend from Clue #7, Francis Bacon. Of course, both Bacon and Newton have been rumored for years to be Freemasons (although there is no strong evidence to support that conclusion for either of them).

.

What is fact, though, is that a number of Freemasons across the centuries (relatively small in any given generation) have had very strong interests in the esoteric. In the late 19th century, one of them, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, joined with a number of other like-minded Masonic brethren to form a group devoted to the practice of ritual magic: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, perhaps the most important magical group of the 19th and 20th centuries. He also translated a number of important magical texts -- including the Clavicula Salomonis, or The Key of Solomon the King, as well as the Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon, from the latter of which I quote above.

.

Dan Brown could take this sort of material in any number of directions: secret magical groups dating back to the Renaissance; Found Father-era magical conspiracies; even modern sorcery. It's all good, as far as I'm concerned. I only have one question: if anyone in The Lost Symbol conducts dark, hideous rites of necromancy and sorcery --

.

-- do they get to use a skull?

.

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