The Dan Brown Enigma (27 page)

Perhaps one of the most telling revelations by Brown is that the symbols and ancient mysteries come from a book called
The Secret Teachings of All Ages
. ‘That really is a core book for a lot of what I research and a lot of what I believe,’ Brown said.

Written by Manly P. Hall in the 1920s, the book studies the wisdom of the ancients. Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles to take these studies further, to look at how a person can become more fully human through reaching a higher level of consciousness. ‘The ancient mysteries deal in the concept of the power of the human mind,’ explained Brown. ‘The Masons celebrate mankind and the power of the human mind. In fact, in the Second Degree ritual there’s actually a line where they say, “Here you will learn the mysteries of human science.”’
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This human science is noetic science, which Brown said was the reason it took him so long to write
The Lost Symbol
. ‘I’m a sceptic and I hear about these experiments that are being done that categorically and scientifically prove that the human mind has power over matter.’

Marilyn Schlitz, Director of the California Institute of Noetic Sciences, told the
Today
programme that the Institute’s researchers are running experiments where people through thought alone can affect how ice crystals are formed. Researchers in this field have put machines called random generators in many countries. ‘These are essentially electronic coin flippers. So if you imagine flipping a coin 100 times, you would expect based on a normal probability distribution, that you’d get an equal number of heads and tails.’
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But perhaps there’s another way to find out more about Dan Brown and his version of the truth. TV presenter Tony Robinson of
Time Team
fame followed in Langdon’s and Brown’s footsteps to decode the mysteries of
The Lost Symbol
for Channel 4. At the beginning of his quest Robinson asked if there are ‘ancient secrets that turn men into gods and can you really move objects through the power of thought alone?’
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Robinson’s impression on reading the book was that Dan Brown ‘absolutely loves Masons. He says they are the most trustworthy people in the world.’ They should be, because according to Brown they are the keepers of secret knowledge that could be incredibly dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. ‘According to Brown, this secret ancient knowledge can unlock godlike powers that lie dormant within us but only a handful of people can do this, those who are deemed worthy,’ Robinson explained.

First Robinson visited the United Grand Lodge in England. The first surprise was that the doors to the lodge were not locked, as one would expect if the Freemasons did really hold such powerful ancient knowledge. He also discovered that there is no Chamber of Reflection in this lodge. Could it be that the English Masons don’t use these chambers but others do?

Robinson next found out that initiates are blindfolded at first because the ceremony of initiation is meant to represent rebirth. He also finds out that on the first ceremony the masons roll up a trouser leg, which in the old days was done ‘to show the state of your leg, if you were diseased or weak. Then you wouldn’t have the strength to work in the quarry.’

Of course Masons don’t have their trouser legs rolled up all the time, just in this ceremony. ‘Stone masonry is the source of the symbols rituals and language of freemasonry today. It is also the source of its secrecy,’ Robinson explained. ‘Once builders of fabulous castles and cathedrals, stone masons were considered to be masters of a magical art. They were important members of society answerable to kings and bishops. The skills they passed onto their apprentices were jealously guarded. In a period of mass illiteracy it’s likely that elaborate secret handshakes and passwords identified members of the stone mason fraternity.’
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Robinson was next taken into a room adorned with ancient symbols and icons, and where the ceiling was covered with symbols and images from the ancient world. But he discovered, at this lodge at least, the Freemasons are not the guardians of secret ancient mysteries.

As he couldn’t find what he was looking for in England, Robinson continued his quest overseas, in Washington DC. ‘The men who created Washington were political idealists. Revolutionary and democratic ideas were common to the enlightened 18th century and to Freemasons, whose core values included fraternity, equality and liberty,’ Robinson explained.

To find out if the Founding Fathers of America had a Masonic agenda, Robinson went to the Pennsylvania Statehouse in Philadelphia, where in the summer of 1776 the United States came into being when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Many of the Founding Fathers were Masons and Robinson stated in the programme that their Masonic influence should be seen in the Declaration of Independence.

Meeting up with a high-ranking Mason, Akram Enlias, Robinson asked him if he thought the creation of America was a Masonic experiment. The second line in the Declaration of Independence – ‘the law of nature and of nature is God’ – is at the heart of Masonic philosophy, Robinson was told. ‘The Founding Fathers believed in the natural order of the universe and if you look at the rituals of Freemasonry, this part of the teachings in the Second Degree, which says it is part of the endeavour, is to imitate the divine plan which manifests itself in nature,’ Enlias told him.

Next stop on his epic quest was the Library of Congress in Washington DC. ‘Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and his idealistic words are deeply woven into the fabric of the US. If America was anyone’s vision it was his,’ Robinson told the viewing audience. ‘The progressive values that Jefferson championed – liberty, equality and progressive democracy – were in tune with Freemasonry, as were his calls for universal education. This ideal was set in stone in the Library of Congress, which grew out of his collection of books.’

In
The Lost Symbol
, Langdon takes refuge in the reading room of the Library of Congress and marvels at its architecture. The Founding Fathers created the building because they realised that members of Congress would need information on virtually any subject. Robinson asked the curator if the building was Masonic because of its ornate symbols and architecture. The answer was disappointing. It isn’t a Masonic building, despite the fact that it shares some images. ‘Dan Brown says it is the most beautiful room in the world and it’s hard to argue with that.’

Robinson learned that the Masons did not hold a monopoly on enlightened ideas. Thomas Jefferson promoted similar values. ‘He shared many of the same ideas as the Masons – liberty, equality, justice for all and that sort of thing – but he saw them as commonsense values,’ explained Robinson. ‘So while a handful of Founding Fathers were Masons, America wasn’t their creation. There was no Masonic masterplan.’

Robinson next claimed that Brown explored ideas in his novel that ‘George Washington and his friends adorned their capital city with Masonic symbolism, architecture and art. So what’s the reality?’

George Washington hired French-born architect Pierre L’Enfant to design the new capital city as one that would rival the great European capitals. Brown, Robinson said, claims that L’Enfant was a Mason. Part of L’Enfant’s design included an elaborate street plan. ‘The original plan was designed in a grid shape. There are lots of stars exploding all over it,’ Robinson said. ‘In addition there are all these diagonal lines crisscrossing the grid as well. And if you look at it very closely shapes start to emerge out of it. Above the White House is a pentagram – Masonic. Between the White House and the Capitol a set square – really Masonic. Apex from the Capitol – super-Masonic. Some people say it is a deliberate attempt to imprint Masonic symbols onto the city.’

Robinson next went to a top Washington architect to discuss the street plan and discovered that there is no hidden Masonic design at all. ‘Dan Brown got it wrong,’ Robinson said. ‘L’Enfant wasn’t a Mason and his plan for the city didn’t hide any Masonic secrets.’

Robinson then turned his attention to the Washington Monument, the world’s tallest stone structure and supposedly a very potent Masonic symbol. ‘It harks back to ancient Egypt, as do so many Masonic rituals and myths.’ The architect of the Monument was a Mason, Robert Mills. The number five figures prominently in the obelisk and that is a very important Masonic number, Robinson told his viewers. The obelisk is 550 feet high with a base that is 55 feet by 55 feet.

In the book Langdon and Katherine are in a cab tearing through the streets of Washington when Katherine shows Langdon the dollar bill ‘which is absolutely riddled with Masonic symbols. This unfinished pyramid is a massive Masonic symbol and above it an all-seeing eye that was such a big Masonic symbol that George Washington had one of these on his Masonic apron,’ Robinson continued. Brown, he said, claims the image of the pyramid is probably the most famous in the world. ‘The pyramid is one half of the Great Seal, America’s national emblem.’ The other side of the dollar shows an eagle that has 13 olive branches in its talons behind 13 stars and stripes.

But when he went looking for answers Robinson was disappointed again. The 13, for example, stood for the 13 states of the time rather than being a Masonic symbol. The images on the dollar bill are not specifically Masonic but common images that could have been used by anyone. ‘While there is no doubt that DC was founded by a Freemason, most of the symbols in the city are nothing of the sort,’ said Robinson.

The next stop on his quest was to investigate the claim by Brown that everyone has god-like powers but they are all dormant within us. In the book, Brown has the severed hand pointing up to a mural on the ceiling of the Rotunda. Known as
The Apotheosis
, it depicts a mythical moment when George Washington is transformed from man to god. ‘This could simply be veneration for the father of a new nation but Dan Brown thinks it’s much, much bigger,’ says Robinson.

According to Robinson, Brown thinks the ancient mysteries can unlock vast untapped powers in the human mind. ‘This is the theme he returns to again and again,’ Robinson said. But this ancient knowledge, passed down through the generations, was lodged with a group of 17th-century British scientists such as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle. Brown claims the knowledge was so dangerous that these men were forced to create an underground society they called The Invisible College. So Robinson went from DC to the Oxford Museum of Physical Science, where the men of the Invisible College met.

What Robinson discovered was that these highly intelligent, highly educated and high profile men were discussing medicine, astronomy, engineering, chemistry, microscopy and meteorology. ‘There was no occult tradition in them.’

The more Robinson dug, the more he discovered that the Invisible College were not discussing the ancient mysteries or keeping ancient secrets, and that what Brown was offering was ‘a trainload of fantasy and a thimble full of fact’.

Disappointed but in search of evidence of the power of thought, Robinson continued by looking at noetic science. ‘Dan Brown says that people can move solid objects just through their mind alone. Brown says that a focused thought can affect anything – the direction that fish swim round in a bowl, the manner cells split up in a Petri dish, the way a plant grows – but is this true or a little far-fetched?’

To find out Robinson visited a research institute studying parapsychology. Brown claims in his book that this science is on the verge of a breakthrough, but Robinson found this science is only just scratching the surface.

The institute has one random event generator and Robinson tested his mental abilities by pushing a needle into a green zone on the computer screen using just the power of his mind. The generator creates random numbers that move the needle in the direction of the number. Without using the computer, Robinson had to try to push the needle to the highest number using his mind, to try to override the computer. He is connected to the computer with diodes but the computer generates the numbers which Robinson has to change. He is told he will have to try this many times, probably more than a hundred.

Sure enough he did have to do it more than a hundred times and his results were average. But Robinson knew that there have been some remarkable results in this area but nobody can explain why. ‘At the moment, they are just in the foothills and not about to come up with something world-shattering like Einstein, Newton or Galileo did,’ Robinson said. ‘That is the exact opposite of the way Dan Brown describes this science in his book. His noetic science just doesn’t stack up.’

Next up was a trip back to Washington DC to investigate Brown’s claim that the laboratories of the Smithsonian Institute Support Centre, where Katherine Solomon did her work, are real. Brown claims in his book that the Support Centre is the cutting edge of noetic research, that it is a complex that houses the museum’s overspill collection and is located on the outskirts of Washington DC.

Brown portrays Katherine Solomon as working in a sterile hangar known as Pod 5, which is ‘full of amazing machines like random event generators that help her to understand the incredibly powerful forces that lie latent in the human mind,’ Robinson said. ‘While Katherine is about to make some important scientific announcements that will change the course of human history, the baddie is outside trying to get in, determined to destroy her work at any cost.’

What’s the reality? Robinson discovered that there is a Pod 5 and that inside there is a canoe, just as Brown mentions, and that the collection has a giant squid, but it is in another Pod. In the book Mal’akh attacks Katherine’s assistant, Trish, and throws her alive into a giant tank full of ethanol where the squid is. But the real tank in Pod 5 has an octopus, and the Pod is completely full, housing 25 million specimens.

When Robinson asked the curator where the cube was that Katherine did her work in, he was told that there is no cube in Pod 5 and to make matters worse, the curator also tells him they do not do any research on noetic science. ‘This is a disaster,’ said Robinson. ‘It would seem that almost none of the things in Dan Brown’s book that we’ve investigated are not quite as factual as he makes out.’