Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Friday, September 18, 2009 - Index

Friday, September 18, 2009 Page 3-D
Freemasons await Dan Brown’s new novel
Hillel Italie
The inside of the Naval Masonic Hall in Washington is pictured. – AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN
WASHINGTON — The lodge
room of the Naval Masonic Hall
is a colorful and somewhat
inscrutable sight for the nonmember,
with its blue walls,
Egyptian symbols, checkered
floor in the center and high
ceiling painted with gold stars.
Countless secrets supposedly
have been shared in this and
thousands of similar rooms of
the Masons around the world.
Facts of life have been debated,
honors bestowed, rituals
enacted. You would need to
belong to a lodge to learn what
really goes on.
Or you could simply ask.
“The emphasis on secrecy is
something that disturbs people,”
says Joseph Crociata, a
burly, deep-voiced man who is
a trial attorney by profession
but otherwise a Junior Grand
Warden at the Grand Lodge of
Free and Accepted Masons of
the District of Columbia.
“But it’s not a problem getting
Masons to talk about
Masonry. Sometimes, it’s a
problem getting them to stop.”
Despite all the books and
Web sites dedicated to
Freemasons, the Masonic
Order has been defined by
mystery, alluring enough to
claim Mozart and George
Washington as members, dark
enough to be feared by the
Vatican, Islamic officials, Nazis
and Communists. In the
United States, candidates in
the 19th-century ran for office
on anti-Mason platforms and
John Quincy Adams declared
that “Masonry ought forever to
be abolished.”
And now arrives Dan
Brown.
Six years after Brown
intrigued millions of readers,
and infuriated scholars and
religious officials, with “The Da
Vinci Code,” he has set his new
novel, “The Lost Symbol,” in
Washington and probed the
fraternal order that well suits
his passion for secrets, signs
and puzzles.
Brown’s book, released
Tuesday, has an announced
first printing of 5 million
copies and topped the bestseller
lists of Amazon.com and
Barnes & Noble online. At
Kramerbooks in Washington,
about two dozen copies were
purchased the morning it went
on sale and the store expects
to easily sell out its order of
150 books.
In “The Lost Symbol,” symbolist
Robert Langdon is on a
mission to find a Masonic
pyramid containing a code that
unlocks an ancient secret to
“unfathomable power.” It’s a
story of hidden history in the
nation’s capital, with Masons
the greatest puzzle of all.
Brown’s research for “The
Da Vinci Code” was highly criticized
by some Catholics for
suggesting that Jesus and
Mary Magdalene conceived a
child and for portraying Opus
Dei — the conservative religious
order — as a murderous,
power-hungry sect.
The Mason response could
well be milder. Brown goes out
of his way in “The Lost
Symbol” to present the lodge
as essentially benign and misunderstood.
Masons are
praised for their religious tolerance
and their elaborate rituals
are seen as no more
unusual than those of formal
religions. The plot centers in
part on an “unfair” anti-
Masonic video that “conspiracy
theorists would feed on ... like
sharks,” Langdon says.
“I have enormous respect for
the Masons,” Brown told The
Associated Press during a
recent interview. “In the most
fundamental terms, with different
cultures killing each
other over whose version of
God is correct, here is a worldwide
organization that essentially
says, ‘We don’t care what
you call God, or what you
think about God, only that you
believe in a god and let’s all
stand together as brothers and
look in the same direction.’
“I think there will be an
enormous number of people
who will be interested in the
Masons after this book (comes
out),” Brown said.
Crociata and other
Washington Masons expressed
amusement, concern, resignation
and excitement about
Brown’s novel. Crociata anticipates
a “page-turner,” like “The
Da Vinci Code,” and assumes,
for the sake of a “good read,”
that Brown will make the
Masons seem more interesting
than they actually are.
Fellow Mason Kirk McNulty
can’t wait to read the novel:
“Dan Brown is a writer of fiction;
he’s not writing an article
for the Encyclopedia
Britannica. Whatever he says
is OK. But it would be better if
he says something nice about
Freemasonry.”
Mason Michael Seay says
some members are “not
pleased about all the hoopla,”
but sees the attention as a
chance to “get our story
across.” Lodge member Darryl
Carter says he expects some
“artistic license” and senses
from conversations with other
Masons that they expect to
benefit from the attention.
“We welcome Dan Brown
doing his work because
Masonry has not had the kind
of popularity that it once did
and that a work by somebody
of Dan Brown’s caliber could
really attract people to
Masonry,” Carter says.
The Freemasons date back
to the Middle Ages, to associations
of workmen who built
cathedrals in Britain, though
some also believe in a connection
to ancient times with the
mines where King Solomon
took material for his Temple.
Freemasonry has endured,
and transformed. The British
began to accept members who
were not stonemasons and by
the 1700s, lodges were being
called “speculative,” philosophical
societies rather than
worker guilds.
The Masons, Crociata and
others emphasize, are not a
political or religious organization.
No theology beyond the
belief in a divine being is
required and no causes are
advocated beyond millions of
dollars in annual contributions
to children’s hospitals,
cancer wards and other charities.
“This is the world’s oldest
fraternity and it has an old and
distinguished history,”
Crociata says. “There’s much
beauty to be found in its ritual.
On the other hand, it’s a fraternity,
not a religion. It’s a
place to get together with guys
that you know, that you trust,
that you are willing to trust. A
place where you can speak
from the heart, if you want.”
No official gathering is taking
place at the hall on this
recent afternoon, so it’s all
right for a reporter to have a
look around. The Naval
Masonic room has features
common to other lodges, such
as the Mason emblem, a set
square and compass and letter
“G’’ (for both God and
Geometry), and some decorative
images, such as the
Egyptian-styled eyes and
snakes painted throughout.
Brown’s book moves quickly
among such Washington landmarks
as the Library of
Congress and the Washington
Monument and draws upon
the Masons’ very public presence
in Washington, dating
back more than 200 years.
George Washington used a
Masonic gavel and trowel in
1793 as he lay the cornerstone
of the U.S. Capitol. The same
trowel would be included 55
years later when President
James K. Polk, a Mason,
presided over the laying of the
cornerstone of the Washington
Monument, and again in 1907
when President Theodore
Roosevelt, also a Mason, laid a
cornerstone for a Masonic temple.
According to “Freemasons
for Dummies” author
Christopher Hodapp (his book
is so well regarded at the Naval
lodge in Washington that it’s
kept in a glass cabinet outside
the meeting room), membership
peaked in the United
States just after World War II,
when there were close to 5 million
Masons.
The number dropped in the
1960s, when the Masons
seemed hopelessly antiquated
to a rebellious generation, and
dropped again in the late
1980s as older members died.
Hodapp, himself a Mason
based in Indianapolis, says
there are now around 1.5 million
in the U.S. and 3 million
worldwide.
“But it’s picking up again, in
part because of people like
Brown and (novelist) Brad
Meltzer (‘Book of Lies,’ ‘Book of
Fate’). Younger men are seeing
popular references to it. We’re
also seeing people from singleparent
households who don’t
have that kind of brotherhood
feeling you get in the lodge,”
Hodapp says.
Meetings at the Naval
Masonic room are presided
over by a Master who sits in a
high-backed chair on the East
A card with member information from 1919 is seen inside the
Naval Masonic Hall in Washington. – AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MA
side of the room, in honor of
where the sun rises. On the
South and West are chairs for
the top aides, the senior warden
and the junior warden.
Only the North, “a place of
Masonic darkness” (a belief
related to the lighting of
Solomon’s Temple) is not represented.
Every lodge has an altar on
which is placed a holy book, or
books. A Bible is usually there,
but because only a belief in a
higher being is required, a Quran
or other religious text might be
found, depending on the religious
faith of the members present.
The black and white squares of
the checkered floor below the
altar represent “good” and “evil,”
terms the Masons resist defining
too closely.
“As far as what is good and
bad for any individual ... the
idea is to inspire thought on
some of the important questions
of life on the minds of our
members so that they can go
home and think about them
and draw their own conclusions,”
Crociata says.
Would-be members pass
through three degrees of
acceptance:
Entered
Apprentice, Fellow Craft and
Master Mason. In “The Lost
Symbol,” Brown describes an
initiation ceremony that
Hodapp says is essentially
accurate. A man is blindfolded,
has a dagger pressed against
his chest and is instructed to
vow that, “uninfluenced by
mercenary or any other
unworthy motive,” he will offer
himself as “a candidate for the
mysteries and privileges of this
brotherhood.”
Brown is not a Mason, but
said that working on the novel
helped him imagine a time
when religious prejudice would
disappear and added that he
found the Masonic philosophy
a “beautiful blueprint for
human spirituality.” –(AP)