The Lost Symbol

One night, he was in Greenwich Village buying drugs from a man whose forearm had been tattooed with a long, jagged lightning bolt. Andros asked him about it, and the man told him the tattoo was covering a long scar he had gotten in a car accident. “Seeing the scar every day reminded me of the accident,” the dealer said, “and so I tattooed over it with a symbol of personal power. I took back control.”

That night, high on his new stash of drugs, Andros staggered into a local tattoo parlor and took off his shirt. “I want to hide these scars,” he announced. I want to take back control.

“Hide them?” The tattoo artist eyed his chest. “With what?”

“Tattoos.”

“Yes. I mean tattoos of what?”

Andros shrugged, wanting nothing more than to hide the ugly reminders of his past. “I don’t know. You choose.”

The artist shook his head and handed Andros a pamphlet on the ancient and sacred tradition of tattooing. “Come back when you’re ready.”

Andros discovered that the New York Public Library had in its collection fifty-three books on tattooing, and within a few weeks, he had read them all. Having rediscovered his passion for reading, he began carrying entire backpacks of books back and forth between the library and his apartment, where he voraciously devoured them while overlooking Central Park.

These books on tattoos had opened a door to a strange world Andros had never known existed — a world of symbols, mysticism, mythology, and the magical arts. The more he read, the more he realized how blind he had been. He began keeping notebooks of his ideas, his sketches, and his strange dreams. When he could no longer find what he wanted at the library, he paid rare-book dealers to purchase for him some of the most esoteric texts on earth.

De Praestigiis Daemonum. Lemegeton. Ars Almadel. Grimorium Verum. Ars Notoria. and on and on. He read them all, becoming more and more certain that the world still had many treasures yet to offer him. There are secrets out there that transcend human understanding.

Then he discovered the writings of Aleister Crowley — a visionary mystic from the early 1900s — whom the church had deemed “the most evil man who ever lived.” Great minds are always feared by lesser minds. Andros learned about the power of ritual and incantation. He learned that sacred words, if properly spoken, functioned like keys that opened gateways to other worlds. There is a shadow universe beyond this one. a world from which I can draw power. And although Andros longed to harness that power, he knew there were rules and tasks to be completed beforehand.

Become something holy, Crowley wrote. Make yourself sacred.

The ancient rite of “sacred making” had once been the law of the land. From the early Hebrews who made burnt offerings at the Temple, to the Mayans who beheaded humans atop the pyramids of Chichén Itzá, to Jesus Christ, who offered his body on the cross, the ancients understood God’s requirement for sacrifice. Sacrifice was the original ritual by which humans drew favor from the gods and made themselves holy.

Sacra — sacred.

Face — make.

Even though the rite of sacrifice had been abandoned eons ago, its power remained. There had been a handful of modern mystics, including Aleister Crowley, who practiced the Art, perfecting it over time, and transforming themselves gradually into something more. Andros craved to transform himself as they had. And yet he knew he would have to cross a dangerous bridge to do so.

Blood is all that separates the light from the dark.

One night, a crow flew through Andros’s open bathroom window and got trapped in his apartment. Andros watched the bird flutter around for a while and then finally stop, apparently accepting its inability to escape. Andros had learned enough to recognize a sign. I am being urged onward.

Clutching the bird in one hand, he stood at the makeshift altar in his kitchen and raised a sharp knife, speaking aloud the incantation he had memorized.

“Camiach, Eomiahe, Emial, Macbal, Emoii, Zazean. by the most holy names of the angels in the Book of Assamaian, I conjure thee that thou assist me in this operation by the power of the One True God.”