Clue #98: Pope Boniface VIII

Posted at 1:18 p.m. (PDT) on Wed., August 5th:




MCCCIII The death of this foe of Dante.



This is clearly a reference to Pope Boniface VIII born about 1235, died in 1303 ("MCCCIII," in Roman numerals). Why would he be of interest to The Lost Symbol? As it happens, there is a reason, and mentioning Dante's name in the clue pins that reason down.

Pope Boniface VIII had very strong opinions concerning the separation of church and state -- a concept to which he was utterly opposed. In his papal bull, Unam Sanctam (1302), he declared that "it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff." In another papal bull, Ausculta Fili (1301), he declared that "God has set popes over kings and kingdoms."

Today, Dante Alighieri is best remembered for writing his magnificent fictional trilogy, "The Divine Comedy" (the Inferno, the Purgatoria, and the Paradiso). However, Dante wrote other works, including a political treatise, De Monarchia ("On Monarchy"), composed at some time between 1308 and 1318. In this book, he argued against theocracy (that is, government by religious authorities), and essentially made a case for the separation of church and state. This position led to conflict between him and Pope Boniface VIII.

What might any of this have to do with The Lost Symbol? There are a couple of ways in which all of this might be relevant.

In his Langdon novels, Dan Brown likes to consider issues dealing with the Catholic Church, issues both centuries-old and contemporary (in Angels & Demons, the relationship of science and religion; in The Da Vinci Code, the nature of Jesus, and the divine Feminine). The issue of separation of church and state has always been a touchy one; indeed, it has been a hot-button issue in American politics for almost 30 years, although not by any means exclusively involving the Catholic Church. I expect that one of the plot devices to appear in The Lost Symbol will be a conspiracy to exert religious influence over the political process -- maybe even a full-blown theocratic conspiracy.

There is an interesting aspect on this theme that involves another facet of The Lost Symbol. We do know that the novel is set within the world of Freemasonry. The separation of church and state has long been embraced by Freemasonry, which has long had a policy of not discussing sectarian religion or politics in their lodge rooms, and who are generally forbidden to consider a candidate's religion or politics when considering someone for membership.

It is not generally known these days that Freemasonry has been condemned for taking these positions -- by a Roman Catholic pope in the 19th century. Pope Leo XIII promulgated the papal encyclical Humanum Genus, which specifically criticized the Masons' support for the separation of church and state. The encyclical also criticizes Masonry for its support of public education and the right to civil (as opposed to solely religious) marriages.

(Humanum Genus also condemns Freemasonry for a variety of other reasons that betray a profound misunderstanding of Freemasonry, but that is a story for another time and place; my book on the subject is in process. I am in the midst of a series on my Masonic blog regarding Catholicism and Freemasonry; the most recent post, which links to earlier posts, is available here.)

At the time Humanum Genus was published in 1884, a response was issued on behalf of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by its famous leader, Albert Pike. The Scottish Rite has long emphasized several principles in its dramatic degree rituals that are relevant to resistance to theocratic rule. Prominent among these are such principles as:

• a resistance to tyranny of all types, including religious tyranny;
• support for religious and political freedom;
• support for public education and free inquiry.

(One can find this described in detail in some books written for Scottish Rite Freemasons, including Rex R. Hutchens' A Bridge to Light and Arturo de Hoyos' Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guide. No, I don't make a dime off sales of either book. Yes, I am a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Freemason.)

Thus, it is possible that, in The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown will feature a face-off between a theocratic conspiracy, on the one hand, and some component of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, on the other.

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

Clue #34: The Sons of Liberty -- and the Knights of the Golden Circle

The 34th Twitter clue, sent about 12:04 p.m. PDT on Wed. July 8th:
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http://twitpic.com/9ph81 - Who flew this rebellious banner?
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The URL is a hot link to a TwitPic showing a flag with 9 alternating red and white stripes. I'm sure a lot of people thought this was some just the right-hand edge of some kind of Colonial-era flag.
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No. It was the whole thing, as a really careful inspection of the TwitPic showed.
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In fact, this was the nine-striped flag of the Sons of Liberty, a Revolutionary War-era group (really, an association of local resistance groups given a common name) responsible for such activities as the Boston Tea Party. Their 9-striped flag (shown above) was called the "rebellious stripes flag," echoing the clue.
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However, this is not all. (Come on, guys -- this is Dan Brown. The surface answer is almost never enough.) There are two more connections to make with the Sons of Liberty, one of which is just devious, the other of which is downright inflammatory.
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First, there is a connection to Freemasonry. For over two centuries, the myth has been that a lodge of Freemasons, St. Andrew's Lodge of Boston, was behind the Boston Tea Party. The actual story is a bit more complicated. (Read the details in S. Brent Morris' excellent The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry.) Overall, my opinion is that a number of Masonic brethren discussed the upcoming demonstration, perhaps even in lodge, and then participated in it; thus, the Boston Tea Party was a production of Masons (and many others), but was not itself a Masonic activity.
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Now for the inflammatory part. The name, "Sons of Liberty," was appropriated over 80 years after the Revolutionary War by another group that is almost certain to appear in The Lost Symbol: the Knights of the Golden Circle.
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During the Civil War, some of Lincoln's political opponents also opposed the war itself. Such groups and individuals were derisively labelled Copperheads (for the snake) by Lincoln's supporters. Copperheads wanted an immediate truce to the war; some encouraged resistance to the Union draft, shielded Union Army deserters, and sometimes planned to help Confederate prisoners of war take over their prison camps.
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A large Copperhead group, the Knights of the Golden Circle, was actually organized in Cincinnati, Ohio, almost a decade before the war, in 1854. Gaining much sympathy in the South, their agenda was to take over Mexico as a slave-owning state of the Union; they raised armed groups to do so, although their attacks on Mexico were unsuccessful. With the outbreak of the Civil War, they changed agenda to work to help the Confederacy. The Golden Circle reorganized in 1863 as the Order of the Sons of Liberty, just before they officially dissolved as their support in the North evaporated the following year in the face of Union military victories.
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But did they really dissolve? Or did they just disappear from sight?
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Before the war, the Knights of the Golden Circle were very interested in bringing the territories of what is now in the Southwest into the U.S. as slave states. They had operatives in those territories, part of which was obtained for the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase (a name we met in Clue #28; perhaps that clue was just left to put the name Gadsden out there).
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There have been rumors for years that the Knights of the Golden Circle endured as a totally secret society after the Civil War, and amassed a fortune in gold that they hid--and that is still out there somewhere, held in secrecy to help finance the rise of the Old South again, some day. (A commenter on this blog says he is Warren Getler, co-author of a book investigating these rumors, for which Getler is convinced he's found evidence. Getler is also convinced that Albert Pike of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry was a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle.)
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So, here's where this might all go in The Lost Symbol: one piece of the puzzle would involve a conspiracy dating from before the Civil War, as the Knights of the Golden Circle, underground as the Sons of Liberty, have hidden the Confederate gold for a century, with the help of Albert Pike of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Now, in our era, someone plans to use that gold -- but for some sinister purpose, no doubt . . .
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[The image of the flag was obtained from Wikimedia Commons through Wikipedia, and is in the public domain.]
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(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)
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Bonus "Clue 31 1/2": Facebook Post: The Six-Pointed Star

Posted, not on Twitter, but on Facebook, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT) on Tues., July 7th:

Dan Brown's publisher invites you to solve this:

43.027239, -85.634995

44.309355, -105.493126

30.335547, -97.711716

43.027239, -85.634995

47.960962, -97.021637

33.706063, -111.939697

33.819089, -84.355774

47.460962, -97.021637

To the best of my knowledge, it was one of this blog's followers, "Bad News," who originally came up with the interpretation that these were paired geographical coordinates of latitude and longitude (in decimal format), each pair of coordinates thus defining a point.

You will note that the first and fourth pairs (or points) are identical; this suggests to me that the reader is meant to draw a line from the first point to the second, from the second to the third, and from the third to the fourth (which is the same as the first point). In the same way, the fact that the fifth and eight pairs of coordinates are identical suggests to me that the reader is meant to draw a line from the fifth point to the sixth, from the sixth to the seventh, and from the seventh to the eighth (same as the fifth).

Connecting up the points in this fashion creates two intersecting triangles on the map of the United States, illustrated above. The first, downward-pointing triangle connects Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Gillette, Wyoming, and Austin, Texas. The second, upward-pointing triangle connects Grand Forks, North Dakota to Phoenix, Arizona and Atlanta, Georgia. The resulting shape, of course, looks like the largest Star of David or Seal of Solomon in the world.

Wow. Where do we go with this? There are at least two interpretations for this clue, one Masonic, and one technological. (Of course, with Dan Brown, these may both be correct.)

The Masonic Interpretation

It is worth pointing out that this shape recalls Clue #1, part of the solution of which is the phrase, "6 points of the Star of David" -- a shape shown here on a continental scale. In that clue, the phrase was encoded in an initial-letter cipher, a traditional Masonic code in use in the real world for almost three centuries.

Thus, perhaps the six points of the Star of David shown here are meant to have some sort of significance in the context of Freemasonry. Of course, all of these cities have at least one Masonic lodge in it, but that is nothing distinctive; almost every American city of any size has at least one Masonic lodge in it.

As it happens, The Lost Symbol clues indicate that the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry has a special place in the novel. The Scottish Rite offers an additional set of degrees beyond the three degrees of initiation in basic Freemasonry. Scottish Rite facilities are far fewer in number than the lodges of basic Freemasonry, although each of these meeting places ("valleys" in Scottish Rite vocabulary) has a much larger number of members than the typical lodge. We see the seal of the Supreme Council, 33rd Degree, of the Scottish Rite shown in the seal in the center of the cover of The Lost Symbol (Clue #31). In addition, some important symbolism of the Scottish Rite rituals of initiation are evident in some of the Twitter clues, such as the "Christogram" clue (Clue #18).

So, what might the Scottish Rite have to do with these six points of the map? As it happens, 4 of the points (Grand Rapids, Austin, Atlanta, and Phoenix) lie within a 15-minute drive of a Scottish Rite meeting place. A fifth point (Grand Forks) lies within a 45-minute drive. Only one point (Gillette, WY) lies a great distance from a Scottish Rite facility.

It also is noteworthy that 5 of the 6 points are in the territory of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. (Only Grand Rapids, MI, is in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.) This is important because of a quirk in the Dan Brown universe.

Dan Brown uses a great deal of research and background sources to create the world of his novels. For example, in writing The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown created his world on the basis of ideas reported as fact in a work of alternative history: Holy Blood, Holy Grail (by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln). In writing The Lost Symbol, some Brown-watchers believe that Dan Brown is leaning on at least two other works of alternative or speculative history:

• David Ovason, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital: The Masons and the Building of Washington, DC (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).
• Warren Getler and Bob Brewer, Shadow of the sentinel: One man's quest to find the hidden treasure of the confederacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003; the 2005 paperback is titled Rebel Gold).

Each of these books makes claims about a man named Albert Pike, who led the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction for many years in the 19th century. In particular, the Getler and Brewer book claims that Albert Pike was secretly in league with the Knights of the Golden Circle (Clue #34) a group that supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. According to Getler and Brewer, Pike helped conceal billions of dollars in Confederate gold for use in a future Civil War.

Getler and Brewer write that they build their case on evidence that is circumstantial. I do not think that this is true. In my estimate, their case does not ascend to the level of the circumstantial. Rather, as I see it, their case is essentially built on speculation, even fantasy. They present not a shred of actual evidence to support their case regarding Pike and his allegiances.

However, this might not matter to Dan Brown. Thus, what we may see in The Lost Symbol is a backstory like the following: During the 19th century, there was a conspiracy where Albert Pike helped the Knights of the Golden Circle to hide billions of dollars in Confederate gold at facilities of the Scottish Rite, especially of the Southern Jurisdiction, facilities that were widely scattered about the United States. In the current day, these billions are now about to be put at the disposal of some contemporary Conspiracy, no doubt for nefarious purposes.

The Technological Interpretation

Flashing forward to Clue #97, we find a reference to a classified hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft, the Aurora, described as a "Black Triangle." On our map above, we have two black triangles. How might these be connected?

The Aurora is estimated at being capable of speeds between Mach 5 and Mach 6 (roughly 3,300 to 4000 mph). If one is going to test fly a hypersonic aircraft like this, one must fly it over immense distances. Each of the triangles on the map above could be traversed in roughly an hour by the Aurora, flying at top speed; this would be a good period of time for a test flight.

Thus, it may be that the map is meant to show the flight paths of two test flights for the Aurora aircraft. In The Lost Symbol, the Aurora might be involved in high-tech surveillance -- or, perhaps in something that was more materially destructive. (How could you shoot down a hypersonic bomber that could outrun any missile sent against it?)

High stakes -- that's what I think will find in The Lost Symbol: the highest of stakes.

[The image of the United States with the intersecting triangles was created by the blog author, working with a public domain image of the map of the U.S. located by Kathleen Koltko-Rivera.]