The Lost Symbol
I have added a Misc Footnotes section at the bottom of the page, where I will put comments about individual words and phrase (or ideas) in The Da Vinci Code and the Lost Symbol.
To get the most out of Brown's books, you will need to do, or need to have done a lot of reading. You can start with Dante's Purgatory (see page 38). No one escapes the academy without reading Dante, Langdon says.
When he says that the lecture for tonight was on pagan symbols hidden in the stones of Chartres Cathedral (on page 7 of the Da Vinci Code), we immediately think of Fulcanelli's Le Mysteries des Cathedrales. That book is more about alchemy than about pagan symbols. You may note that there is a treatise on a cross in that book. Notice that he mentions the lecture on Cathedral symbols again on page 77.
In relationship to the notion of 'crossing' that is used in the book; interested students need to read Schwaller de Lubicz book The Temple of Man on 'the principle of crossing' in Egypt. The introduction written bhttp://dcsymbols.com/metaphor/index.htm y Robert Lawler is excellent reading as Brown background. This is a sexual metaphor, just like the rose cross. I deal with that on the Cathedral builders page below. The vesica and rose were female and the cross was the masculine symbol. We call this the 'lesser mysteries' about the continuance of life.
On page 145 in The Da Vinci Code he is speaking of the equal-armed cross, and how their balanced vertical and horizontal elements convey "a natural union of male and female". These are Templar crosses, and the end of this argument is that Templar were into Tantric rituals; which if that were true, you would have expected to hear stories about them with women, which I have not. To complicate matters, Brown characterizes the equal-armed cross as a peaceful cross worn by knight warriors.
The logic is that "their square configurations made them impractical for use in crucifixion" (p 145). Can I point out that the St Andrews cross features this square configuration. The configuration is not what matters on a 'cross'. The fact is that it was an instrument of execution, and the original Greek word for "cross" (stauros) is generally understood to indicate a simple upright pole or stake, a phallic symbol.
The second meaning of crossing that is used in the book pertains to the journey through the darkness, as in, "I hope he handles the crossing OK". The sun is said to cross the night sky in a boat, from west to east by the north, meaning the point of darkness.
The character Leigh Teabing, is the letters of the names Baigent and Leah who wrote The Temple and the Lodge and Holy Blood Holy Grail. When the subject of pyramids comes up with the name Peter, we think of Peter Tompkins who wrote Secrets of the Great Pyramid and The Magic of Obelisks.
In relationship to the ideas about sacrifice, I point you to We Are All Dancing in a Ring Around the Sun.
You should note that in the Masonic ritual, the three candles represent three stations of the sun; sunrise, noon, and sunset. Where the sun is at midnight is the point of darkness. After reading the book, you will see that Brown has used the opposite stations, those being sunset, midnight and sunrise, and he has emphasized the moon instead of the sun; the book takes place on the full moon. He is depicting a reverse image of the Masonic ritual. (You know like Angels&Demons? Like Christopher Abaddon. See Revelation 9:11.)
When David Ovason suggests in Secret Architectutre of Our Nation's Capital, that the the symbols that he is dealing with are Christian, as well as Egyptian, Greek and Roman, he is of course speaking of Mystic Christianity that Katherine speaks of on page 257, calling it "a fusion of early Christianity, alchemy, astrology and science". This is what is called The Mysteries, and it need not be Christian. What Brown is calling the Mysteries can also be described as the Kaballah.
On page 358, when the congregation says "Amen", Mal'akh corrects, "Amon, Egypt is the cradle of your religion. Amon was the prototype for every modern face of God". I follow this assertion with a page called Moses Was an Egyptian. In regards to Arabic numbers and Magic Squares, I direct you to a page called Islamic Influences. (Note that in an introduction to Dan Brown, NPR called his book a treatise on magic squares and the number 33, which is nutz. Brown doesn't say enough words about anything in order to convey a whole idea, much less a treatise on anything.)
On page 164 Langdon speaks of requests for help deciphering some of history's gereat unresolved codes. One that he mentions is the Phaistos Disk. On a set of pages about Design Principles, I look at that and other geometric art and architectural objects.
The characters in Brown's books are always having 'gnostic moments' where their thoughts snap into focus and the fog is lifted. Of these moments John Michell writes, "The tradition of the kabbalists and gnostics is not merely a collection of facts or beliefs jealously guarded by masonic and other hermetic groups, but consists of a method whereby certain incommunicable knowledge can be gained through a course of study in preparation for induced moments of perception, in which aspects of the hidden universe stand out clear and orderly to the inner mind... Revelation comes to those who invoke it through intense studies and a lively curiosity of mind". G also stands for Gnosis.
And the more you study, the more pieces of the puzzle makes sense to you, especially since things are so inter-connected. Katherine called it 'entanglement theory', describing all matter as being interconnected in a single unified mesh (page 58). This reminds us of the notion of Indra's Net of strings with a jewel where they crossed, and each jewel reflected all the others. This idea leads to the notion of a holograph. Brown comes closer to the idea of the net on page 384 where he describes Katherine looking around the room-
"Mixed in were photographs, drawings, maps and schematics; all of them appeared to have been glued on the wall. A spiderweb of strings (think Simple Minds the movie) had been thumbtacked across them, interconnecting them in limitless chaotic possiblities." We are reminded of page 26 and "If you draw enough lines on a map, you're bound to find all kinds of shapes". Note that he is demonzing this activity, and making me a little nervous - you should see my study! And God knows how I like to draw lines on the DC map.
Let me give you an example from the map. Katherine reminds us that the body equals earth and the mind equals heaven symbolically, to which I would add that Egypt represents the body and Israel the spirit, in the same way. Coming out of Egypt refers to spiritual aspirations. In the planning map we see a pyramid representing Egypt, and the Tree of Life representing Israel. Over the top of the tree, we see Metatron's Cube that has been shortened so that what were equilateral triangles now have 52 degree base angle like the Great Pyramid. Layers of meaning, in other words.
Brown's plot centers around the Washington Monument and depends on making it appear (mentally) that the monument lies at a center of some sort, at a crossroads, the crossroads of America. Page 507, the great circumpunct had been embedded in the circular plaza beneath the monument at the crossroads of America. (That's enough sugary sweetness to make your face break out. Bring out the jets and fireworks and the tears.) Unfortunatley there is the same amount of Truth in those words as in "freedom" and "democracy" that we hear so often.
This idea is connected to the notion of a (perfect) cross, the circumpunct, and Laus Deo. He attempts to make the monument seem due south of the House of the Temple. This is Brown's attempt at adding map geometry to the book. Note that directly after talking about the crossroads of America he has the priest kneeling "at the Grand Crossing of the National Cathedral" praying for America. Again, the illusion that is being created is one of a grand crossing. (Don't forget the idea that deals are made with the Devil at crossroads.)
If you had been reading DC literature for ten years you would have seen this theme a lot. The idea is that the 'cross' at the center of the map was a result of religous (Christian) intent. Brown's language of "on full display, yet invisible to all" comes straight from the internet and Umberto Eco. The idea is while you can see where it is (on top of the momument), you would never know it was there, unless someone told you. The very same idea is in The Da Vinci Code where the keystone was an encoded map. "The hiding placed seemed diabolically simple". Re-read Eco's book where a map was encoded on a pyramid..
You should look at this page: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/monument.asp since that is where the ideas about Laus Deo and the cross and crossroads came from. (Brown is a notorious borrower. Consider this that I found while doing a search for ' Andros Dareios'. "DARIUS ANDROS, an Ancient Greek immortal shape-shifting Satyr...")
On that page you see a quote - "a perfect cross imposed upon the landscape ... with the White House to the North, the Jefferson Memorial to the South, the Capitol to the East, and the Lincoln Memorial to the West." Do a web search for that string and see how many pages have that quote, exactly. The quote comes from a Christian suggesting that these five form a perfect cross. This assertion is usually accompanied by a copy of the 1901 McMillan Plan. On page 245 of United Symbolisms Robert Hieronymus writes of critics of the Masons, "Why do they never point out that the five prominent monuments on the Mall can be connected to form a cross? America's cross". (Like America's crossraods.)
Looking at the plan, you should note that this was never carried through in this form. Take a look at a current DC map (below) and see; I'll wait. The Mall looks nothing like this today. Note especially that the Washington Monument does NOT lie where the lines cross. The monument is the object to the right of that. It is NOT at a cross roads. It is also NOT due south of the House of the Temple as it sits 321 feet off the center line of 16th St.
"Although many of the inscriptions associated with the Washington Monument do indeed include religious references and sentiments, they reflect the tenor of public thought in mid-19th century America, not the America of George Washington's time. Washington died in 1799, and the country he helped found was a very different place half a century later", or earlier if you prefer.
Remember that the monument had been planned to be located directly south of the WH and west of the CB, but along the way, both the location and design were changed; yet people who know nothing of the move continue to suggest that five monuments form a a perfect cross. In The Sacred Geometry of Washington, DC, Nicholas Mann writes that the problem of the 'mislocation' of the Washington Monument was resolved by realigning the entire Mall. Looking at the map above, you can see that since the Mall runs downhill, the cross can't be perfect (square). The Lincoln Memorial simply continues the line generated by the placement of the Washington Monument.
Next the Jefferson Memorial was positioned on the 16th Stree axis, extending the geometry of L'Enfant's original plan. Looking at the map you can see that Maryland Avenue points to the Jefferson Memorial location. Looking west from the CB, the WH is down Penn Ave to the right and the Jeff Mml is down Maryland to the left.
Mann's concern is that the map be centered on the Capitol Building in order to emphasize the democratic process rather than the presidency. He writes that after the McMillan Plan, "The main north-south axis was now through the White House and Jefferson Memorial instead of through the Capitol". Please look at a map and tell me what lies north and south of the Capitol Building that would warrant an axis there? Now look at 16th St. 16th is the N/S axis and Capitol Street is the E/W axis, that doesn't work in the Mall since the memorial was moved.
Next, even after having described the monument as moving both south AND east, Mann shows an image of the McMillan Plan (page 146), and writes, "The two axes made a great cross through the Washington Monument, and this new focal point was enhanced by formal construction and planting schemes". He is describing the plan that was never instituted (probably a cut and paste about the McMillan Plan). There is nothing around the monument like that today! And the monument DOES NOT lie on the line between the WH and Jefferson Memorial. He never looked at a current map.
At one point Brown suggests that the 555 foot obelisk "marked the nation's heart". Next he writes, "All around the spire, the meticulous geometry of streets and monuments radiated outward". Please point to the monument on the map and name some of the streets that radiate from there, and the monuments that are on those streets? My point is that it doesn't look like a hub that he is describing the way the WH and CB do; which is the mental image that he and others are trying to create; and it works if you never look at the map. Or rather, it only works if you don't look at the DC map, just like David Ovason's triangles. (More on those below.)
You may not know it, but an equestrian monument (Washington on a horse) had been planned where the red lines cross (above), but both the design and position were 'changed'. As you can see, when the monument location was moved, it was done so as to stay close to Virginia Avenue in two directions, Virginia being the only street aligned to there now. The monument is 371 feet east and 123 feet south of where the red lines cross.
The image above is the 1901 McMillan plan that has west at the top now. As you can see, the Lincoln Memorial was built on the end of the line from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, one degree south of due west. You can also see that the monument is not in line with the WH and Jefferson Memorial. The McMillan plan was to put a monument on the spot where the monument line crossed the 16th Street line thereby making a cross. (Remember that this spot was more than 120 feet south of the initial crossing.)
That part of the plan was never put into place, yet people today use this very image to show how the Founding Fathers planned a cross in the map. You can read various descriptions of how the five points of a cross are marked by the White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. It's a pretty rugged cross.
Now look at page 485 where he suggests that the Washington Monument stands at the crossroads of America. "Langdon now thought about the aerial photos that he had seen of the National mall - her four arms ourstretched from the Washington Monument toward the cardinal points of the compass". Remember that he had opened the book by having Langdon fly in with just the slightest mention of the city from the air; because he wanted to avoid dealing with the map itself, I believe.
Look at the map again and notice that there isn't really an 'arm' pointing to the Jefferson Memorial, like there is in the McMillan plan. He does everything that he can to create an 'illusion' of a cross, short of including the picture of the 1901 plan.
So, if the Washington Monument doesn't work for the crossing what does? What do you suggest?
If you review Langdon's clues, they include a cube, a cross, a crossing, a pyramid, a circumpunct, a star of david. He only mentions triangle twice in the book. I suggest a look at the vesica piscis, which is a crossing.
As Euclid tells us, the vesica generates the equilateral triangle first, then the hexagon and hexagram, then the cube from that. The cube is created by the crossing of three axes. This also produces Metatron's Cube. The upper circle shows that projecting the top sides of the hexagon in the middle circle, bisects the sides of the triangle in the upper circle generating 30 degree angles. We see an overhead view of a tetrahedron.
A horizontal line creates a truncated pyramid and capstone. Two lines to the center generate a pentagram, but more importantly, an ovelapping pentagon and hexagon, symbols of the microcosm and macrocosm.
The Great Pyramid is located just south of 30 degrees north latitude, and has base angles of ~52 degrees. A hexagon locates the pyramid on the globe. If we shorten the vesica to 75% of its original height, the base angles become ~52 degrees, and the diagonals 23+ degrees like the tropics. This is how they got the template for the DC map and the Milan Cathedral.
In the map, New Hampshire Ave. is the left side of the triangle on top. The top points of the pentagram are DuPont and Logan Circles. (DuPont Cr is a point in a circle. Logan Circle is represented as a vesica on my map.) The White House is at the center, the Jefferson Memorial at the bottom. The House of the Temple occupies the top triangle. The point where the diagonals of the triangle cross; Daath's location on the Tree of Life is occupied by Scott Circle (seen below).
At Scott Circle you see a shortened point in a circle and hexagram. The three axes form 23 degree diagonals like the tropics. Scott Circle is suurounded by a triangle with the base angles the same as the Great Pyramid - a literal pyramid. There isn't a ladder or stairs going down into the earth, but there is not one at the Washington Monument either. If anything it is set up on the earth like in Jacob's dream.
Early in occult training people learn that a ladder or stairs are symbols of metempsychosis where the initiate ascends from the "mundane sphere to the empyrian of the wise". A ladder is used to represent the seven yogic centers of the body, and the seven planetary spheres. The Tree of Life uses 10 spheres rather than 7 or 9 rungs or steps on a ladder; that is the seven planetary spheres, the stars, the earth, and the Throne of God. In terms of the map/tree, Scott Circle lies at Daath, the Abyss. While Brown uses the words Zohar, kaballists and Sepheroth, he never explicitly mentions the Tree of Life; probably as that would lead to looking at the map.
He does, however mention Dante's Purgatory (page 38 Lost Symbol). If you get your copy of that out you wil see that it is all about ascending steps. Notice that the first figure you meet there is "The lovely planet that is the patroness of love". Soon we read, "Allow our journey through your seven realms". Brown directs us to read the Purgatory, yet fails to mention the seven step journey described there. Instead he chooses to introduce the seven symbolism on page 301 with a seven by seven table that reflects the seven steps of the Temple and the seals of Revelation.
The implication of Brown's description is that the Temple and altar should bespeak seven symbologies. If you look at a picture of the House of the Temple's Temple Room, you count five steps not seven. If you read of the altar in front of the Tabernacle, you see that it was a 5x5 square. 5 and 25 come up in descriptions of the Oblation and sanctuary in Ezekiel. The altar and sanctuary are depicted as squares associated with the number 5.
In an attempt to show his expertise, or that he had read David Ovason's book, Brown/Langdon, after suggesting that all the same shapes in the DC map can be found in the Detroit map, begins a discussion of astrology and cornerstone ceremonies. He writes that the time of the setting of the cornerstone of the Capitol was chosen because "the auspicious Caput Draconis was in Virgo". The Caput Draconis, head of the dragon, is one of the points where the moon's plane crosses the sun's plane (the ecliptic). Later he writes that the Capitol, White House and Washington Monument were all laid in different years under this exact same astrological condition.
If you know anything about the moon's orbit, you know that it has a 19 year precession cycle which produces eclipses on a regular schedule. As there are 12 zodiac signs, the moon's node stays in the same sign for over a year. The node in Virgo covers a lot of territory, in other words. The WH and Capitol were begun a year apart, with the node in the same sign still. The White House cornerstone cermony was in Oct 1792 and the capitol ceremony in Sept 1793. The beginning of the Washington Monument fell within a 15 month period that was a multiple of 19 years later. Not a cause for alarm, unless you paid good money for the book and were looking for something more about the map, not a rehash of Ovason.
I have generated the charts for these dates so you can see what I mean. First we see October 13, 1792, the laying of the cornerstone for the White House. Both the moon and the node are in Virgo then. Next we show September 18, 1793, the Capitol ceremony. Then the node was at 4 Virgo and the sun was at 27. In 92, the moon was at 26 and the node was at 23 degrees. The cornerstone for the Washington Monument was laid on July 4th, 1848. This time the node is at 25 and the moon is at 4 degrees.
I recommend a look at the dates themselves. If you know anything about Templar history, you know that Friday October 13th, 1307 was when the Templars were gathered up. (Notice Venus at 23 Virgo.) July 4th, 1187 was the date of the defeat of the Templars by the Saricen forces at Jerusalem. In 324, Constantine sealed his defeat of Roman forces with victories on July 3 and September 18th. The cornestone for the House of the Temple was laid on October 18th in 1911. I believe that they would have used October 13 again, but that they couldn't pass up the chart for the 18th. Have a look. The moon conjoins Venus in Virgo among other things.
By now you know that originally the Washington equestrian statue was to occupy the corner of a traingle that had the White House and the Capitol Building at the other two corners, but that both the design and location were changed. Ovason refers to this triangle as the L'Enfant triangle (page 253). On that page he mentions that the triangular block has been condensed by the Federal Traingle formed by the Mall and 15th St. On page 29, Langdon/Brown writes that it is the CB, WH and Wash Mmt that make up Federal Triangle. He didn't read closely, or enough times. That is about as near as he gets to discussing the map in his book.
There is also a third triangle that is not a right triangle, and that is the one formed after the Washington Monument is moved. In that triangle, what was 90 degrees is now about 97 degrees. Ovason attempts to map both of them to a triangle in the sky. On page 255 he writes that the L'Enfant triangle is almost the same as a right angled triangle around the constellation Virgo. See this page, and scroll down to the images of triangles. The angle at the Captiol Building is 19.5 degrees. That angle in the sky chart is over 30 degrees.
Now do a search for the word 'exact' on that page. You will find: "Ovasonís contention is that either Washington or Ellicott had, by setting the exact angle of Pennsylvania Avenue, worked into the map of Washington, DC a triangle which reflected a stellar triangle linked with the three first-magnitude stars that enclose most of the constellation Virgo". Then this:
"The triangular pattern of this group of stars is reflected exactly in the shape of the Federal Triangle, of which Pennsylvania Avenue is the hypotenuse. The Federal Triangle is a residue of the original map-making, whereby the plan of the three major public buildings, the White House, Capitol and Washington Monument, was intended to reflect the plan in the skies. Neither the White House nor the Monument were built where the original designers intended, however, which is why Ovason now refers the stellar triangle to the Federal Triangle, rather than to the three major public buildings."
But if you compare the images, you see that the angle IS NOT exact!! One triangle is long and thin, while the other is short and stubby. None the less Robert is saying, that Ovason now uses the Federal Triangle as the model, as it has a right triangle. This is NOT what Langdon calls Federal Triangle, that is the altered triangle.
Ovason's point (page 256) is that, "The undeniable fact (?) is that this triangle of stars seems to reflect the central triangle in the plan of Washington, DC.", but do they? On page 261 he points out that the monument was moved so that the three buildings "are not united in a perfect triangle at all. (meaning 90 degree). Then on 262 he writes the, "the truth is that the stars that I have used (for 260 pages) to symbolize this triangle are not themselves arranged in a right angled-triangle".
His thesis comes down to this: The final placing of the Washington Monument was in order to establish a closer correcpondence between the earthly and the stellar triangle around Virgo. When the sky triangle is measured against the earth triangle, the correspondence between the two is almost exact Robert didn't read close enough, or long enough.
Please notice that he ties the cornerstone ceremonies to Peter on page 434, by making him Master of Potomac Lodge 5 in Georgetown, whcih he calls the oldest Masonic lodge in DC and the home of George Washington and the Masonic forefathers who laid the cornerstones of the White House and the Capitol Building. If you check you will find that Lodge No. 5 was chartered as Potomac Lodge No 9 on April 21, 1789, just before Washington was inaugurated. He is said to have stopped there on his way to New York from Mt Vernon.
Georgetown was named after King George in 1751. The Fredricksburg Maryland Lodge No 4 was chartered in 1752. George Washington was initiated there in 1752, and raised to the degree of Master in 1753 there. He was a life long member. The reason he was living at Mt Vernon is that he inherited family farms there when his half brother Lawrence died.
While a lot has been made of the timing of these cornerstone ceremonies, not much is said about the fact that they were made to coincide with auctions to sell lots in the new city. The hope was that a little theater might bring in buyers. Bob Arnebeck writes of the October 1792 auction, "On the 13th all who remained in the city laid the cornerstone of the President's House in accordance with Masonic ritual". As Lodge No 9 was formed in 1789, before there was a District, you could argue that it is the oldest in the distirct land area only.
The Alexandria Lodge N0 39 was chartered Dec 23, 1783 under a warrant from the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. The following June the General visited his Masonic Brethren in Alexandria and, according to the minutes, still extant, "was unanimously elected an honorary member of the Lodge." In 1788 the Lodge surrendered its Pennsylvania charter, and applied to the Grand Lodge of Virginia for a new warrant. General Washington became the first Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22, under the Virginia Charter. This is the group that Washington marched with at the capitol cornerstone ceremonies.
Those were on September 18th. On September 12th, James Hoban and eight other people working on the Capitol Building chartered Federal Lodge No 15. Hoban designed the White House and part of the Capitol Building after working in Charleston, South Carolina. Hoban was from Ireland, and the American Lodges which favored the so-called higher degrees like the Royal Arch Degree were chartered by Irish Grand Lodge. Also, the first American lodge know to offer the Royal Arch was the Fredricksburg lodge where Washington was a member.
In 1801, what had been the Rite of Perfection with 25 degrees became the Scottish Rites with 33 degrees. The first 33 degree ceremony took place in Charleston SC at 33 degrees latitude. The group later moves to DC and is led by Albert Pike for 33 years. I recommend that Hoban is the person who linked South carolina Masonry with the Kaballistic faction housed at Fredricksburg which produces the DC branch of the Scottish Rites. Note that since GW died in 1799, he was not a 33 degree SR Mason.
In the Tree of Life, the sun is at sphere 6 and the moon is at sphere 9. In the DC map/tree, the Washington Monument occcupies sphere 9, the moon's position. At the top of the monument there is a nine-inch tall aluminum pyramid. At sun rise, the sunlight reflects off the silver point on top of the monument. But, at sunrise on the full moon, the moon is behind the monument as seen from the Capitol.
Brown writes, "Across the Mall, a tiny speck of golden sunlight was glinting off the highest tip of the towering obelisk". You and I know that since the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, and since the tip of the pyramid on top of the monument has a steep angle, the sunlight is projected to the sky and not back to the top of the Capitol Building. And not being an astronomer, he failed to include the full moon. Doh!
On page 508, at the very end of the book, Langdon, speaking of the glinting tip of the 'obelisk', says, "This is why the forefathers built the monument so high". I recommend that there is another reason for the height of the structure.
In Genesis 28 we read where Jacob dreamed of a ladder set up on the earth that reached to heaven with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Jacob sets up a stone as a pillar, and renames the place that was Luz at first (Light) to Bethel (house of God), saying that the pillar "shall be God's house and all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth to thee".
Egyptian obelisks were built in a 1:10 ratio, with the base being 1/10th the height. The first ten numbers total 55. The Washington Monument is 55.5 feet wide and 555.5 feet tall. Two 555.5 foot diameter circles overlapping produce a vesica 481 feet tall, the height of the Great Pyramid. (5/9 = .555) St Paul's Cathedral by Christopher Wren is 555 feet long including the steps. The diameter of the circular nave in the Templar Church in London has a diametr of 55 feet.
See page 33 of the Da Vinci Code where he says that the gallery is around 1500 feet long, or the length of three Washington Monuments laid end to end. He is off by 167 feet, over half a football field. The monument is 55.5 feet wide at the base and has 36,000 stones. The magic square of the sun consists of the first 36 numbers in a 6x6 grid where the rows, columns and diagonals add to 111, or 55.5x2.
The two scenes in the Temple Room take place three months apart, we are told; one of those days was a winter day, the other was a fall day. Even with the moon at maximum declination recently, it can only be 5 degrees north of the sun, which in the fall and winter is below the equator, and DC is located at 39 degrees north latitude. The June solstice sun is at 31 degrees north of due east there.
In the scene with the knife, he is said to lift it up into the moonlight on a winter's night. Page 455, "The ancient blade glinted in the moonlight as it arched over him". Unfortunately, the ceiling is described as 100 feet high, and the moon would be low in the sky. On page 457 he writes, "The helicopter was gone now, it its place a silent, wintry moon", presumably straight up?
Also it wouldn't be any where near where it had been at the ceremony three months earlier and be shining in almost the same place. On page 110 he writes of a "winter moon", calling it "The same moon that had shone down on him through the oculus of the House of the Temple three months ago during his initiation".
Page 436, "Beneath the oculus, the black marble altar shone in the moon light". It is winter so the sun has passed its low point and is heading north again but has not yet reached the equator. At the full moon, the moon is opposite to the sun and is higher in the sky, but still not high enough to shine on the altar or a raised knife.
Consider that the Church used 'meridianas' for years to track an image of the sun across floors as time keeping systems, but they put their aperatures high on a wall not in the ceiling. Try using a stick 100 feet long, and see where the tip of the shadow projects to at your house or jobsite. Also note where the sun would have to be for that to be focused directly below the tip, or how big a window you would need to be able to catch the winter sun, moon and planets on the floor?
Reread what Brown says about Rose Lines in the Da Vinci Code. "Embedded in the floor a thin polished strip of brass...a golden line slanting across the church's floor. The line bore graduated markings like a ruler. It was a gnomon, a pagan astronomical device like a sundial. The sun's rays, shining through the oculus on the south wall, moved farther down the line every day indicating the passage of time from solstice to solstice."
In a dramatic moment (like Ovason), he calls this north-south line Paris's ancient Rose Line. The first zero latitude line of the world. The earth's original prime meridian. The line leads to the ancient Paris Observatory. On page 106 he suggests that the Paris meridian was established "long before" the Greenwich meridian. He always did have a flair for the dramatic and like to generate his own legends.
Concerning the Paris Meridian, we read, "In 1666, Louis XIV of France had authorized the building of an observatory in Paris to measure longitude. On Midsummer's Day 1667, members of the Academy of Sciences traced the future building's outline on a plot outside town near the Port Royal abbey, with Picard's meridian exactly bisecting the site north-south. French cartographers would use it as their prime meridian for more than 200 years".
You will recall that London had a fire Sept 2nd 1666, so they were preoccupied with cleaning up and rebuilding for a bit, but the oldest scientific institution in Britain, was founded for navigational purposes in 1675 by Charles II at Greenwich, England. You could not call either ancient, and the Paris line was NOT instituted LONG before the Greenwich line, and could in no way be considered the world's first meridian line. That is equivalent to saying that the Egyptian and Chaldeans never used a meridian line.
Those people didn't invent longitude and latitude in the 17th century, there was just a great deal of scientific interest in earth measure at the time. Surveying and astronomy was part of a liberal education. In the 1630's John Greaves goes from Oxford University, on behalf of Isaac Newton to survey the Great Pyramid, to help with a paper that Newton was writing about the 'cubit'- the unit of measure.
In terms of latitude, we know that if we divide 90 by seven then multiply by 2 we get the location of Thebes, by 3 we get Delphi's latitude, and by 4 we arrived at Greenwich. Delphi sits at 38.5 degrees north. Jefferson's Monticello sits at 38, and the top point of the District of Coulmbia boundary lies at just about 39 degrees north. This one degree straddles the Delphi latitude line (3/7). Also 38.5 x 2 is 77. We find that 77 degrees west is one half mile east of the White House. Half way to Lincoln Square, on mile away - where a 'mile marker' had been planned.
Consider his claim that Rosslyn falls on the north-south line through Glastonbury. Rosslyn is at 3 09 degrees, while Glastonbury is at 2.7 degrees.
If you study HPH Bromwell's Book Restorations of Masonic Geometry, you will see that he associates the first degree of Masonry with the June solstice, and the second degree with the December solstice. The symbolic point of darkness is reversed in the two ceremonies to reflect this, according to Bromwell. If you look you will see that the cornerstone of the White House was laid in the northeast, while the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid in the southeast. We presume that the House of the Temple is associated with the Master's degree, on the center.
The Holy of Holies is said to consist of 24 stones around a central foundation stone, forming a 5x5 floor. The 'cornerstone' is on the center there. In the Bible there is a cornerstone on the center too. I'll explain -
The Templars were defeated on July 4, 1187, and the Holy Land was returned to the Saricens completely in 1188. In 1188, the Knights Templar reportedly split from the Priory of Sion. In 1188, an event called the cutting of the Elm occured. The Elm tree is the female counter part to the male oak in Norse mythology. The Bible has 1188 total chapters. The central chapters are Psalms 117, 118, and 119. 117 is the shortest chapter in the Bible. Psalm 119 is the longest, and the verses are all headed by one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alephbet.
The center of the Bible is Psalm 118:8 (1188) and reads, "It is better to trust in the lord than to put confidence in man." Psalm 118:22 reads, "The stone which the builder refused is become the head stone of the corner". The only mention of a cornerstone is in the middle of the Bible.
Exod.27  "And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits.  And thou shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof: his horns shall be of the same." As you can see the altar below fits this description. The five by five square is Mars' square. Mars was the male fertility god associated with the earth at number ten by virtue of their squares. Quartering the 25 cells in the Mars square gives you the earth square with 100 cells. (DC is a 10 by 10 grid.) The four and eight squares that Brown uses relate in the same way.
Note that the side view of the altar is 5x3. Consider the dimensions given for the Ark of the Covenant of 2.5x1.5x1.5 cubits. If we double this proportion we get 5x3x3. Next Noah's Ark at 300x50x30, the end of which reduces to 5x3.
Skylight from Manitoba Legislative Bldg.
Saturn's Square is 3x3 and contains the first 9 numbers which total to 45. The columns, rows and diagonals add to 15. Three cubed is 27. Looking at the Ark dimensions of 3x3x5 we get 3x3=9, 3x5 = 15, and 3x3x5 = 45, all Saturn's numbers. The water in the flood rose to 15 cubits and stayed for 150 days.
The sun moves from 23 degrees north of due east to 23 degrees south of due east at sunrise throughout the year, as viewed from the equator. The moon, in its 19 year cycle, moves as much as 5 degrees beyond that. Mercury, the most erratic of the planets moves more than seven degrees beyond the ecliptic, or the sun's apparent path across the sky. Mercury moves as far as 31 degrees north and south of the equator in it's orbit; the 31 degree lines 'bound' all the planets.
If we inscribe a hexagon (Star of David) in a circle, the points touch at 0, 30, 60 and 90 degrees. Heliopolis and the Great Pyramid are located near 30 degrees. If we inscribe a 3x5 rectangle in a square we find that it touches at 31 degrees. The diagonals of the rectangle are the same. We find Jerusalem just north of 31 degrees. The dimensions of the coffer in the King's Camber in the GP produce 23 degree diagonals like the tropics.
First a square, level platform is prepared. Next the pillar is balanced on that, and finally the cap stone is added. You can imagine the oblisk to be the core of a pyramid, if you like. The reason that the bottom on this one is beat up is that people could never dismantle them without ruining the bottom corners and edges. As a result different people put different supports uder them when they repositioned them. Romans used crabs. The one in front of St. Peter's in Rome uses lions (seen below).
The construction was originally an expression of the notion of Balance. I direct you to page 858 of Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike, where we read, "The Royal Secret is that which the Sohar terms the Mystery of Balance. It is the Secret of Universal Equilibrium". The two headed eagle symbolizes the same thing, balanced or balancing opposite forces.
It should be pointed out that when Osiris is sealed in the coffin and put into the Nile, he comes to shore at Byblos, also in Lebanon. One of the things that Solomon asked Hiram for was cedar trees. In the Osiris story, we see him being called the 'one in the tree', because when his coffin comes to shore it is encased by a tree (2 layers). Next the tree is turned into a pillar in a palace or temple. Remember that Osiris represents the sun, indicated alchemically by gold, and that when he was sealed in his coffin, it was sealed with lead, symbol of Saturn.
On page 434 he describes Potomac Lodge No. 5 as the oldest Masonic lodge in DC and as the "home of George Washington and the Masonic forefathers who laid the cornerstone for the White House and the Capitol Building. The lodge is stil active today". On a page from the No.5 lodge we read, "It has been well authenticated that President Washington, President Thomas Jefferson, Marquis de LaFayette and Major Pierre L'Enfant have visited this Lodge which met at Suter's Fountain Inn for several years after it was chartered".
Suter's Inn was where Washington made some comments about L'Enfant's first draft of the map on June 22, 1791, but as you can see, it was not his 'home' lodge, as he was a life-long member of the Fredricksburg, Maryland Lodge.
"Don't be disheartened," Langdon (Brown) said. "Washington does have some incredible secrets... just none on this street map." No secrets in the map? That is, it appears, a not so coded message to readers that Brown does not intend to discuss the symbols in the map layout itself. He never shows a copy of the map, which would have been useful in places.
Curiuosly he writes on page 27, that he talks alot about DC in a course called Occult Symbols that he teaches each spring. I presume that he does so without mentioning the map. I will also presume that is what he inteded to do in his book.
Consider the end of the book, when they are on S Street at 16th, and Langdon tells the driver to cross that and turn right on 15th Street, which runs 'behind' the House of the Temple, that 'fronts' on 16th St. (To the east, by way of the north.) The oculus spoken of in the book is the little square at the top of the building, which is right above the altar in the picture above. Consider the angle of the shadows and green trees. This is a mid-morning summer picture. They were there at night so the moon replaced the sun then.
I am still having trouble with page 13 where he drives into DC from Dulles Airport west of the city. We read, "Memorial Bridge already?", but we aren't told which memorial bridge? There are three. We are told that the Lincoln Memorial is directly in front of the car, but farther away, the Washington Monument loomed dead ahead, and yet Langdon gazed left across the Tidal basin toward the Jefferson Memorial?
Notice that he fails to put the Capitol (which would be located behind the Washingon Monument) in his verbal picture. He also fails to mention the full moon. The book essentially takes place between just after sunset and the next sunrise on the night of the full moon. On the full moon, the sun and moon lie opposite one another at sunrise and sundown.
Look at the picture below, and read the ridiculous narrative from Brown suggesting that even though the sun had set, Langdon could still make out the Washington Monument. Are you kidding me? The whole place is lit from head to toe. You can plainly see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building - and the full moon. He opens at sunset, and closes at dawn on the full moon, yet only mentions the moon high in the sky.
Where do you get the Jefferson Memorial on the left, with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument in front of you? If he means the Memorial Bridge from Arlington Cemetery, then he should have said the Jefferson Memorial was on the right. Notice below that the Pentagon is closer than the CB.
When I first read the book, I missed that he said Dulles, and presumed that he was coming from Ronald Reagan Airport; but I was still having trouble with the description. The next question is, how does a writer take you that close to the Pentagon Building and not mention it in the book? I suggest that he did that because he didn't want to have to deal with the pentagram in the map, and mention of the Pentagon would lead to that. can you look at the map and not see a pentagram?
Like Ovason, he never ever mentions the pentagram. On page 26 he speaks of various shapes - satanic pentacles; he doesn't even use the word.
The idea of a map in a pyramid is not new either. Recall what Umberto Eco writes in "Foucault's Pendulum" (p 455, 1989):
"It's suprising; you can't imagine how simple the solution is... the map was within everyone's grasp, in full view, why, thousands of people have passed it every day, for centuries. So simple and so unexpected... A masterpiece of innocence. And fiendish cunning.
Imagine- it's as if the map were inscribed in the Pyramid of Cheops, it's elements displayed for everyone to see, and for centuries people have read and reread, and deciphered the pyramid, seeking other allusions, other calculations, completely overlooking it's incredible, splendid simplicity. And the method of orientation is so elementary that you just have to memorize the pattern and the map can be reproduced on the spot, anywhere."
On pages 173 and 4 Brown speaks of a pyramid and a map. "You're saying this pyramid is ... a map?" "A grid of sixteen symbols doesn't look like much of a map to me." "I suggest you get to work on the map immidately." We are reminded of a theme in Foucault's Pendulum the book. "Into their computer they feed manuscript pages on Satanic initiation rites, Rosicrucianism, the measurements of the Great Pyramid - & out comes a map indicating a point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled, a point located at Foucault's Pendulum in Paris."
On page 131 Langdon suggests that, "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that our Masonic Forefathers built any kind of pyramid in Ameirca, much less in DC". David Ovason had written, "These few examples of pyramids in Washington, DC, prove that while the eagle is everywhere in the city, the pyramid is obscured". (page 225) The examples that we are directed to are the House of the Temple and the top of the Washington Monument.
If you measure the angle created by New Hampshire Avenue, you will see that is about 52 degrees like the base angles of the Great Pyramid. Looking at the pyramid cross section you can see that elements in the map correlate to features in the pyramid. As the Queen's Chamber is offset from the King's Chamber, the map pyramid only 'works' if the Washington Monument is also offset.
The Washington Monument is aligned with the back of the House of the Temple, between 16th and 15th Streets. The HOT occupies the capstone area of the DC map pyramid.
Brown uses the word 'talisman' in two senses in this book. On page 103, he says that by definition, a talisman is an object with magical powers, then on page 167 he suggest an older meaning of the word than the magical connotation. Complete, completion, the finishing element, a capstone symbolically speaking, which transforms the Unfinished Pyramid into a symbol of completed perfection. To which I add 'crown(ing) jewel'.
Looking at the map, you see that connecting the top points of the pentagram forms a small triangle and a large unfinished pyramid, each with 52 degree base angles. The House of the Temple is in the top triangle, and is shaped like an unfinished pyramid (like a fractal).
Again, the top of the tree depicted in the Washington DC map, is marked by the home of the Southern Jourisdiction of the Scottish Rites Masons. The last three monuments that make up the tree were designed by John Russle Pope; the Jefferson Memorial (10), the National Archives (7) and the House of the Temple (sphere 1). Nicholas Mann rejects the idea of such long range planning on page 162 of his book, where speaking of the HOT he says, "I have found no evidence that this temple was intentionally related to the design of the city. What was more, it was built long after L'Enfant's work".
You will recall that the thesis of The Canon, is that the philosophical notions underlying the building secrets were ideas taken from the ancient mystery religions, which were passed to Kaballists who represented their world view by the graphic image called the Tree of Life. Looking at former SR Commander Henry Clausen's "Commentaries on Morals and Dogma", we see:
"Our teachings and symbols preceed our formal organization by thousands of years. We reveal truly the wisdom of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries and their symbols of words and phrases. Our House of the Temple in Washington, an awe inspiring monumental structure, is the nerve center of our organization."
"To me, the Scottish Rites can be likened to a tree of sparkling symbolic jewels, surmounted by a Blazing Star of Truth that displays the dazzling splendor of the Mystic Doctrine of the Universe, and the reflected glory of the Deity." BTW the Tree of Life represents the 'reflected glory of the deity', and Clausen is describing the SR as a tree with a star on the top.
The DC map can also be likened to a tree of jewels surmounted by the HOT. If you have any doubts about the conection to the Kaballah, you can read about the 28th degree, in the text, where he states: "This is a Kabbalistic and Hermetic Degree of the greatest antiquity, dealing with the primal matter of all things (alchemy). It teaches a doctrine on natural religion as part of the mystery. In accordance with the philosophical approach, there are seven stations representing the planets that anciently explained the passage of souls betwen heaven and earth."
Looking at the original text from "Morals and Dogma" we see, "Masonry is a search for light. That search leads us directly to the Kabalah. In that ancient philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines. All truly dogmatic religions have issued from it and return to it."
While some people will tell you that the third degree is the hightest degree in Freemasonry, many will tell you that the 'talisman' of the craft is the Royal Arch Degree, the thirteenth degree in the Scottish Rite. You will recall that in the Master's Degree, work is suspended due to the death of the Master. The Royal Arch Degree is about completing the work, placing the capstone.
Consider this from the front page of my website:
"The Scottish Rites is a branch of Masonry that is based in DC and embraces both the ancient mysteries and the kaballah. The Royal Arch Degree, the crown jewel of the Scottish Rite, is the the thirteenth SR degree, and was first conferred (1753) in the US in the Fredericksburg, Va. Lodge where George Washington was a member. Here we see President Washington with an apron trimmed in red, as well as the red sash and triangle jewel that deonotes the Royal Arch Degree."
Brown never talks about the Tree of Life, and I presume that is to avoid getting drawn into a real discussion of the elements in the map layout. He does mention the Zohar and a ten-dimensional universe, and how six dimensions act as one, which is a descrtiption of the Tree of life. But what interested me was the wording on the top of page 423 where we read, "The House of the Temple had always been the crown jewel of the Masonic Scottish Rite in America". Not always since the building wasn't completed until 1915.
Looking at the House of the Temple, you can see that it is composed of a pyramid on a cube, instead of a dome on a cylinder like the Pantheon. If you remember the story of the Royal Arch legend you will recall that it involves a cube, a triangle, and the name of god. In the story, Enoch is given 'the True Name of God' which he inscribes in a golden triangle on a white cube. The cube is hidden at the last of nine excavated chambers, or arches (deep in the earth, in other words). Enoch's story does not use a stairway, but the rest of Brown's elements fit. The cube, the golden pyramid, and the circumpunct. That is the degree that I call the crown jewel of the Scottish Rite.
The cube represents nature, man and the world, while the triangle represents the divine (golden) spark in all nature. In the Enoch story, they eventually had to go down into the earth to retreive the stone (cube). That is, the divine nature is hidden in ordinary matter; alchemists say dung.
That line comes from page 457 where the helicopter comes through the oculus. It refers to Revelation 6:13, "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth". Verse 12 mentions the sun and the moon and earlier verse mention Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury in code, as horse/man with a bow and a crown, a red horse with a sword, a black horse with scales and a pale horse followed by Death and Hell. Jupiter (crown) rules Sagittairius, a horse/man wih a bow. The sword indicates Mars. The scales indicate Libra ruled by Venus, and Mercury rules Virgo.
The idea comes from a legend that says the soul lives in the Milky Way, that it comes to the earth via seven planetary spheres, and that it returns to the stars the same way. The Tree of Life depicts this descent. The stars falling from heaven have been called 'divine sparks', pieces of the divine fire. Everything that exists has a divine spark in it, according to the legend. Alchemy and Hasidism have meditations that depend on the idea of gathering up these divine sparks. In Ezekiel is says that the priest's job is to insrtuct the people in the difference betwen the sacred and the profane. In Alchemy and Hasidism, there is no difference.
Things and actions are made sacred by our thought, intentions, and ceremonies. Alchemists conceptually extract the gold from the gross matter. For Masons, it is a prfect ashlar drawn from a rough one. Hasidics practice making things sacred by realizing the divine in them. Brown mentions 'at-one-ment' and gathering what is scattered as a way of getting to E Pluribus Unum on pages 504 and 5, but he does so via 'ordo ab chao'?
Note to students, the gathering together of divine sparks can only happen after they have been scattered. This occurs half way through evolution. Order from chaos is the very first act of cration, the conceptual division of he undifferentiated. That is why the pyramid was a symbol of the order, because the inital chaos is seen as a flood (the womb obviously), and the primal hillock was the first thing that you see when the water abates. As the water lowers in a flood, hills are the first thing to appear. This does not have anything to do with gathering up divine sparks.
I know that in this situation he was trying to suggesting 'social' order from chaos as in the image below; still order from chaos belongs with creation stories, not reunion stories. Here we see the bottom of the pyramid deciphered. Inside the pyramid shape we see symbols from different philosophies. The 3, 4, 5 triangle represent Pythagoraeans.
Note that the pyramid has 45 degree base angles like the top of the House of the Temple, yet the slope of the stairway is 26.5 degrees like the passages in the Great Pyrmid. This is supposed to be a vertical metaphor with the earth at the bottom and the Throne of God at the top. The zodiac signs belong above the planets and below the Throne of God. They DO NOT belong at the bottom. Notice that he has thes sun and moon more than once each. The moon belongs either beside the sun, or between it and the earth. The moon is the last gate before reaching the earth, as Saturn is the last gate before the stars on the return journey.
51.4534644 kg was his weight when he went in; it was less after he died. 360/7 is 51.428571, which is the latitude where Greenwich is located. Our Grand Crossing for longitude and latitude.
In Hebrew cosmology, Creation entails separations, light from the dark, land from water, God from the wordl, God from Man and man from Woman. The Creation entails exile; making an opening for reunion myths. This reminds us of the moon conjoining and separating. In Egypt, things come into being by 'the principle of crossing'. "All birth into nature requires a crossing of opposites; it can be crossing lines, or it can be male and female". Crossing, in this sense, is clearly a sexual metaphor." Brown writes of the cross that Egyptians used it to represent the intersection of two dimensions; the human and the celstial, as above so below. It was a visual representation of the place where man and God become one. He fails to mention the part about the man and woman in this book. The Rose Cross represents what is called the Royal Wedding. No matter what symbols you use to depict the notion of 'dualism', sexual symbolism is one of the first the comes to mind.
If you revisit Commander Clausen's comments, you note that he speaks of the lesser and the greater mysteries; a distinction that Brown never approaches. The lesser mysteries were open to all but criminals, and dealt with the cause and continance of life. These entailed stories about the eternal return of the vegetative world, and the sun, etc. We used to refer to the birds and the bees.
The greater mysteries dealt with things like 'the kingdom of God', and as Jesus said, that story is told in parables when in the presence of those on the outside. You might get away with calling the circumpunct THE symbol of the greater mysteries, but Enoch's cube with the inscribed triangle and the name of God does a much better job. As to the lesser mysteries, there is no way that you can represent them by that symbol alone.
On page 320 he talks about the cross, and about the cross with the circumpunct in the middle; suggesting that the latter is two symbols fused to create one. As everything in the plane of space-time is dual, the symbol of the lesser mysteries needs to be dualistic. He establishes this with the cross, saying that it represented the intersection of two dimensions to the Egyptians. He skips the obvious sexual component, and recommends that meant God and man, instead of man and woman.
Next he equates the circumpunct with a rose and puts it in the middle of the cross (crucifies it), suggesting that to be the Rose Cross. It doesn't take much digging to find that a rose (and flowers in general) indicate female genetalia, and that the cross was an ancient phallic symbol. (Didn't Jenny tell 'ya?) I am having a hard time making the symbol for Ra, gold and the sun into a rose. I challenge this interpretation.
In the image on the right above, I show how the Tree of Life fits this cross. As the symbol of the sun, the circumpunct is right where it needs to be, at sphere 6. Note that on page 316 he recommends that Kabbalists use that to symbolize Kether, the highest Sepheroth. Sphere One.
Note that in the DC map, the Washington Monument is at sphere nine, representing the moon, so it has a silver tip on the top, yet it has a phallic shape. In the same manner, we place the feminine rose on the solar center in the Rosy Cross, but the circumpunct is not a rose. With the circumpunct at the center of this symbol you have two male elements, instead of a male an female. After the 'crossing', the cross becomes a cube, the womb. (Read Fulcanelli on the cross as crucible.)
Next he jumps to Rosicrucians for long enough say two key words and quits, as usual. If you want to understand the business about crossing and the rose cross, I suggest that you read Robert Lawler's introduction to Schwaller de Lubicz's Temple of Man, about Luxor, and Peter Topmkins's Magic of Obelisks.
Brown calls the circumpunct a symbol of the monad, but the monad is undifferentiated, like a point. As we imagine being to be round, we imagine the monad (the mathematical point) to round too. An image of a circumscribed point is actually concentric circles. This is another compound symbol like the cross. To make his 'rose' and cross, Brown uses the dual cross and dual circumpunct. Because he wants to form a derivative symbol, he fails to mention the dual aspect of the other two symbols in this book.
Looking at the Washington Monument from above, we don't see a circumpunct, we see a circumsquare, as the base of the monument is square. The earth at the center, is represented by a square and a cube and Cartesian coordinates. The heavens are represnted by a circle, by compasses used to draw the circles, and by the triangle formed by the compasses. A house or a temple begins with a square and is topped with a circle or triangle.
On page 125 he mentions "Eve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge", but if you search the KJV you will see that apple is not mentioned there; the word that is used is fruit. He connects Eve to the apple again on page 425, calling the apple the symbol of the fall of the sacred feminine. I suggest that the story that Brown is using as a basis for that book is the legend of the wedding party that is disrupted by an apple.
The story is the essentially the legend of the begining of the Trojan war. At an ancient wedding party hosted by the gods, Discordia, who was not invited, throws a golden apple in, that is engraved with the words "For the Most Beautiful". From here out, it is a story of vanity. Note that Discordia is the opposite of Harmony.
Three goddesses end up in a contest being Judged by PARIS. By promising him Helen of Troy, the most beautiful Human Woman, VENUS won the contest (Greek style). In the end, Paris gives Venus the APPLE. In one version, the apple is divided among the goddesses. The key is that when you disect an apple you reveal a pentagram.
The Greek story has Paris, Venus, the apple, and the Royal Wedding. The notions of harmony, proportion and geometry that derive from the shape of the pentagram flow directly from the Greek version. The Bible story is not about Harmony it is about Morality. Brown is suggesting that these stories are somehow parallel symbolically.
I think that it is funny that he almost completely avoided the pentagram in the Lost Symbol, after having made such a big deal of it earlier. It sort of clashes with what he said about artist and architects of old using proportions and all; when he comes to the DC map, he wasn't up to that challenge. It's OK, I got it covered for you Dan.
Brown attempts to make the pentagram, the symbol of the sacred feminine, the same way he tries to make the circumpunct the symbol of the mysteries. My first question is, if the pentagram symbolizes the female, what symbolizes the sacred male? One answer is the phallic cross, but I mean polygons. What polygon is the mirror of a female pentagram? You occultists know that the pentagram is paired with the hexagram.
The hexagram connotes the macrocosm, while the pentagram connotes the microcosm. If the pentagram were a feminine symbol, why does he move to the Vitruvian man and the pentagram. Why is Mars associated with a pentagram and located at sphere 5 on the Tree of Life?
Occultists will tell you that the geometric numbers used to point to male and female are 3 and 4, as we see in the Rebis. The compasses indicate the 'circles' of the heavens, and in recent times have been male. The square tool is half a square polygon, reminding us of the cube, both of which symbolize the divine feminine to my knowledge.
See pages 44 and 45 of The Da Vinci Code where he desribes a circle around the man with the pentagram on his stomach. The circle, he says, is the missing element; the feminine circle of protection completed the message. We are forced to ask what era he is speaking of, since in the Rebis the woman is associated with a square.
He suggests that a man with a pentagram and a circle indicates male and female harmony. Mars is at sphere five on the tree, and the rebis shows the man with compasses which indicate circles. There is no duality here to indicate a harmony. The idea doesn't make sense.
You will recall that Osiris mother was the sky goddess and his father the earth god, so the roles were reversed. In that system, the square is associated with the phallic cross, and the triangle, rhombus, and vesica symbolize the... female. The ad triangulum was female and the quadratum male. The cross was used for floors and foundations and the triangle grid was used for elevations.
Looking at the Gates of Light version of the Tree of Life which is featured in the Milan Cathedral Plan and the DC plan, we see an overlapping pentagram and hexagram, as symbols of the macrocosm and the microcosm, not male and female. Looking at the hexagram we see that it is composed of two interlaced equilateral triangles, similar to the vesica which is two equal circles; that symbolizes the union of male and female.
See page 263 where it reads thirty four. Every direction adds to thirty four. That is the 4x4 Jupiter square that she is talking about. All rows columns and diagonals add to 34 in that. The 8x8 square that he associates with Franklin is Mercury's square.