An Illustrated Guide to The Lost Symbol

John Weber

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781439180655
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Rich in world history and political power, veiled in secrecy, and rife with rituals and arcane symbols -- from art and architecture to the images that adorn our currency -- the Freemasons arose from ambiguous origins centuries ago to play a major role in drafting the initial documents of the United States, and even in constructing the intricate landscape of Washington, D.C., itself a virtual mystery by design. These puzzles lay the foundation for Dan Brown's serpentine thriller, The Lost Symbol, and also raise provocative questions. Why do some Masonic symbols remain obscured, while others are hidden in plain sight? Which presidents were the embodiments of Masonic ideals? What is the significance of the construction of the Library of Congress, Washington National Cathedral, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and the physical layout of Washington, D.C.'s roadways and cul-de-sacs? And to what secretive end do they all lead? Now millions of curious fans can follow Robert Langdon step-by-step, and discover for themselves the answers to the absorbing conundrums posed by The Lost Symbol in this comprehensive, fully illustrated, and intricately detailed tour of the arcana of Washington, D.C. It takes readers through the enigmatic codes, captivating trivia, unfathomable riddles, intriguing records, historic maps, ciphers, and conspiracies of the phenomenal bestseller. What's more, it reveals the fascinating details of a world of unknown locales, mysticism, intrigue, and secret societies -- all of which lie in the shadow of The Lost Symbol.

FINDING THE LOST SYMBOLS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

The House of the Temple

Dan Brown opens The Lost Symbol in the Temple Room of the House of the Temple, with Dr. Christopher Abaddon being raised to a 33rd-degree Mason, and returns there for its denouement.

Located at 1733 Sixteenth Street, N.W. (Sixteenth Street is referred to as “The Corridor of Light” by Masons), the House of the Temple is headquarters for the Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and

Sphinx, eyes open.

Sphinx, eyes closed

Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America. (Yes, there is also a Northern Jurisdiction, which has its headquarters at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts.)

Visitors (both Masons and non-Masons) are welcome and tours are conducted on the hour or half hour. The hours of operation are in flux owing to the Dan Brown effect, so it’s best to call before visiting: [phone]. Photography is permitted—and encouraged.

The name “House of the Temple” refers to the Temple of Solomon, the building that is central to Masonic ritual and symbolism.

The cornerstone for the House of the Temple was laid in 1911 and the building was completed in 1915. It is modeled after the Mausoleum of Halicarnasses, one of the original Seven Wonders of the World.

Unfinished pyramid roof of the House of the Temple.

John Russell Pope was the architect for the House of the Temple. He subsequently designed the Jefferson Memorial, the National Archives, and the National Gallery of Art.

A visitor must pass between two massive sphinxes to enter the front door, one with its eyes open (perhaps representing thought, perception or engagement with the outer world) and one with its eyes closed (perhaps suggesting meditation, contemplation or “soul-building”). Thirty-three columns—each thirty-three feet high—surround the building. And there are thirty-three seats in the Temple Room.

The roof of the House of the Temple is an “unfinished” pyramid, consisting of thirteen steps. Although difficult to see from the street, visitors to Washington, D.C., can view this pyramid “floating in the air” looking south from Meridian Hill Park—in the foreground of the Washington Monument.

Temple entrance.

The First Inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1787

by John D. Melius

This painting and its companion, George Washington Laying the Cornerstone of the United States Capitol, September 18, 1793, both reside in the George Washington Memorial Banquet Hall of the House of the Temple.

The building in the background is Federal Hall, in New York City. After swearing the oath of office, President Washington famously kissed the Holy Bible, which was on loan from the St. John’s Lodge, also located in New York.

The historical figures participating in the ceremony include quite a few prominent Freemasons. The twelve men depicted are, left to right:

1. Frederick William von Steuben, a Mason, was an army officer and aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great of Prussia. Von Steuben became a Major General during the Revolution and was known as the “drill master of the Continental Army.”

2. John Jay, right and in the foreground, then Secretary of State, later became a Supreme Court Justice.

3. John Adams was the first Vice President and became the second President of the United States.

4. Henry Lee, a Mason, was known as “Light Horse Harry Lee” because of his brilliant cavalry operations in the Revolutionary War. He was also the father of General Robert E. Lee.

5. Robert R. Livingston, a Mason, was Chancellor of the State of New York and Grand Master of New York Masons from 1784 to 1800. He is to Lee’s right, by the railing.

6. Samuel Otis, Secretary of the Senate, holds the Bible from St. John’s Lodge No. 1, New York City.

7. George Washington, a Mason, stands with his right hand placed on the Bible.

8. Morgan Lewis, a Mason, was Grand Marshall during this ceremony and later became a Major General in the War of 1812. He was elected Grand Master of New York Masons in 1830.

9. Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg, a Mason, appears in a gold-colored coat. Born in Pennsylvania, he was educated in Germany as a Lutheran clergyman and was the elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.

10. Arthur St. Clair, a Mason, is dressed in military uniform. He was born in Scotland and came to America with the British Army in 1757 only to become a Major General in the Continental Army. At the time of the inauguration, he was the Governor of the Northwest Territory.

11. George Clinton, next to St. Clair, was Governor of New York at the time of the inauguration.

12. Henry Knox, a Mason, was a close adviser to Washington and a Major General and Chief of Artillery in the Revolutionary Army. He is to the far right in the painting and was Secretary of War at the time of Washington’s first inauguration.

The Temple Room

The Oculus.

Interior view of the Temple Room Photo by Maxwell Mackenzie

CHAPTER ONE
Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries

“The origin of Freemasonry is one of the most debated, and debatable, subjects in the whole realm of historical enquiry.”

—Frances A. Yates

God Father measuring the universe. Bible Moralisé, perhaps from Reims, France, mid-13th century. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria.

The Mysteries

by W. L. Wilmshurst

W. L. Wilmshurst is the author of The Meaning of Masonry, from which this is excerpted.

In all the periods of the world’s history, and in every part of the globe, secret orders and societies have existed outside the limits of the official churches for the purpose of teaching what are called “the Mysteries”: for imparting to suitable and prepared minds certain truths of human life, certain instructions about divine things, about the things that belong to our peace, about human nature and human destiny, which it would be undesirable to publish to the multitude who would but profane those teachings and apply the esoteric knowledge that was communicated to perverse and perhaps to disastrous ends.

These Mysteries were formerly taught, we are told, “on the highest hills and in the lowest valleys,” which is merely a figure of speech for saying, first, that they have been taught in circumstances of the greatest seclusion and secrecy, and secondly, that they have been taught in both advanced and simple forms according to the understanding of their disciples. It is, of course, common knowledge that the great systems of the Mysteries (referred to in our lectures as “noble orders of architecture,” i.e. of soul-building) existed in the East, in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, amongst the Hebrews, amongst Mahommedans and amongst Christians. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Moses, Aristotle, Virgil, the author of the Homeric poems, and the great Greek tragedians, along with St. John, St. Paul and innumerable other great names—were initiates of the Sacred Mysteries. The form of the teaching communicated varies considerably from age to age; it has been expressed under different veils; but since the ultimate truth the Mysteries aim at teaching is always one and the same, there has always been taught, and can only be taught, one and the same doctrine—for the moment let me merely say that behind all the official religious systems of the world, and be-hind all the great moral movements and developments in the history of humanity, have stood what St. Paul called the keepers or “stewards of the Mysteries.” From that source Christianity itself came into the world. From them originated the great school of Kabalism, that marvelous system of secret, oral tradition of the Hebrews, a strong element of which has been introduced into our Masonic system. From them, too, also issued many fraternities and orders. Such for instance, as the great orders of Chivalry and of the Rosicrucians, and the school of spiritual alchemy. Lastly, from them too also issued, in the seventeenth century, modern speculative Freemasonry.

To trace the genesis of the movement, which came into activity some 250 years ago (our rituals and ceremonies having been compiled round the year 1700), is beyond the purpose of my present remarks. It may merely be stated that the movement itself incorporated the slender ritual and the elementary symbolism that, for centuries previously, had been employed in connection with the medieval Building Guilds, but it gave to them a far fuller meaning and a far wider scope. It has always been the custom from Trade Guilds, and even for modern Friendly Societies, to spiritualize their trades, and to make the tools of their trade point to some simple moral. No trade, perhaps, lends itself more readily to such treatment than the builder’s trade; but wherever a great industry has flourished, there you will find traces of that industry becoming allegorized, and of the allegory being employed for the simple moral instruction of those who were operative members of the industry. I am acquainted, for instance with an Egyptian ceremonial system, some 5,000 years old, which taught precisely the same things as Masonry does, but in terms of shipbuilding instead of in terms of architecture. But the terms of archite cture were employed by those who originated modern Masonry because they were ready to hand; because they were in use among certain trade-guilds then in existence; and lastly, because they are extremely effective and significant from the symbolic point of view.

All that I wish to emphasize at this stage is that our present system is not one coming from remote antiquity: that there is no direct continuity between us and the Egyptians, or even the ancient Hebrews who built, in the reign of King Solomon, a certain Temple at Jerusalem. What is extremely ancient in Freemasonry is the spiritual doc-trine concealed within the architectural phraseology; for this doctrine is an elementary form of the doctrine that has been taught in all ages, no matter in what garb.

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HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Freemasonry is “a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.”

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the honor of kings is to search out a matter. —Proverbs 25.2

Langdon smiled. “Sorry, but the word occult, despite conjuring images of devil worship, actually means ‘hidden’ or ‘obscured.’ In times of religious oppression, knowledge that was counterdoctrinal had to be kept hidden or ‘occult,’ and because the church felt threatened by this, they redefined anything ‘occult’ as evil, and the prejudice survived.” —The Lost Symbol

“As above, so below.” These words, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, lie at the heart of the Western esoteric tradition. In brief, they mean that the universe and all it contains is reflected in some manner not only on Earth, but also in man and his works. The chief quest of all ages has been man’s attempt to understand the mystery of existence and to find his place in it.

—C. Fred Kleinknecht, 33rd Degree, Sovereign Grand Commander, The Supreme Council

After the collapse of the pagan cultural institutions, it was unlawful to teach classical learning or to advance scientific knowledge contrary to the prevailing scholasticism. To avoid persecution and at the same time perpetuate for the benefit of qualified disciples the more advanced formulas of the ancient wisdom, the sacred truths were presented symbolically. —Manly P. Hall

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Speculative Masonry

by Jasper Ridley

Jasper Ridley is a historian and biographer. His works include biographies of Mussolini, Tito, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Garibaldi, and Napoleon III and his wife, Eugenie. This excerpt comes from The Freemasons.

Between about 1550 and 1700, the Freemasons changed. They ceased to be an illegal trade union of working masons who accepted all the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and became an organization of intellectual gentlemen who favored religious toleration and friendship between men of different religions, and thought that a simple belief in God should replace controversial theological doctrines. In the language of the time, the “operative masons” were replaced by “admitted masons” or “gentlemen masons” as they were usually called in Scotland. In later times these admitted masons were called speculative masons, but this term was not used before 1757.¹

No one really knows how this change came about. Masonic historians have written long and learned books giving their explanations, which have been refuted by other Masonic historians in equally long and learned books, while the anti-Masonic writers, with their popular best-sellers, have put forward their own theories. Some of the explanations have been far-fetched and almost ridiculous. Others have been very convincing and are supported by a great deal of plausible evidence, but there is equally strong evidence which suggests that the explanation is wrong.

There is a long tradition of trade guilds accepting as members men who had no connection with the trade. The livery companies of the City of London—the oldest one was the Weavers, which was founded in 1155—originally consisted of members of the trade. But from the earliest times the liverymen’s sons, if they had been born after their father joined the livery, could become liverymen by patrimony. In the Middle Ages a man usually followed his father’s trade, but sometimes he did not; and this did not prevent him from joining the livery. Apart from this, the livery companies could admit as liverymen men who had no connection with the company, either by birth or occupation; and they often did so.

By the fourteenth century the great livery company, the Taylors and Linen Armorers (who later changed their name to “the Merchant Taylors”) were admitting as liverymen country gentlemen who sold them wool for export to the Netherlands. They even admitted King Edward III as a liveryman, after they had lent him money to pay for his wars which they knew he would never repay. For the gentlemen, it was an advantage to become more closely associated with the City of London, while for the livery company there was great social prestige in having gentlemen members in the very regimented society of fourteenth-century England with its class distinctions—gentlemen who, unlike their social inferiors, were allowed, if they owned land worth 20 pounds a year, to wear a gold ring, a silk shirt, and red or velvet garments.

In Scotland, it was very usual for influential gentlemen to be invited to join a trade guild. It became so common for the Scottish masons to invite the gentlemen of the St. Clair family at Rosslyn to join their guild, that the St. Clairs wrongly claimed that they had a hereditary right to exercise authority over the masons of Scotland. King James IV joined the Edinburgh Guild of Merchants in 1505; and sixty years later the Earl of Moray, the illegitimate half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots, when Regent for the infant King James VI, joined the Bakers’ Company in Glasgow.²

By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was reading the Bible which made so many gentlemen wish to join the masonic lodges. The Catholic Church had rightly regarded the translation of the Bible into English, and the reading of the English Bible by the people, as the greatest threat to its authority. Sir Thomas More and other official persecutors had been zealous in burning copies of the Engli...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Finding the Lost Symbols in Washington, D.C.
• A Note from the Editor
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Notes, Sources, and Permissions
• About the Editors
• Notes