The Lost Symbol

The traditional layout of this Lodge Room could have been anywhere in the world, but the powder-blue triangular pediment above the master’s chair revealed it as the oldest Masonic lodge in D.C. — Potomac Lodge No. 5 — home of George Washington and the Masonic forefathers who laid the cornerstone for the White House and the Capitol Building.

The lodge was still active today.

Peter Solomon, in addition to overseeing the House of the Temple, was the master of his local lodge. And it was at lodges like this one that a Masonic initiate’s journey always began. where he underwent the first three degrees of Freemasonry.

“Brethren,” Peter’s familiar voice declared, “in the name of the Great Architect of the Universe, I open this lodge for the practice of Masonry in the first degree!”

A gavel rapped loudly.

Langdon watched in utter disbelief as the video progressed through a quick series of dissolves featuring Peter Solomon performing some of the ritual’s starker moments.

Pressing a shining dagger to the initiate’s bare chest. threatening impalement should the initiate “inappropriately reveal the Mysteries of Masonry”. describing the black-and-white floor as representing “the living and the dead”. outlining punishments that included “having one’s throat cut across, one’s tongue torn out by its roots, and one’s body buried in the rough sands of the sea. ”

Langdon stared. Am I really witnessing this? Masonic initiation rites had remained shrouded in secrecy for centuries. The only descriptions that had ever been leaked were written by a handful of estranged brothers. Langdon had read those accounts, of course, and yet to see an initiation with his own eyes. this was a much different story.

Especially edited this way. Langdon could already tell that the video was an unfair piece of propaganda, omitting all the noblest aspects of the initiation and highlighting only the most disconcerting. If this video were released, Langdon knew it would become an Internet sensation over night. The anti-Masonic conspiracy theorists would feed on this like sharks. The Masonic organization, and especially Peter Solomon, would find themselves embroiled in a firestorm of controversy and a desperate effort at damage control. even though the ritual was innocuous and purely symbolic.

Eerily, the video included a biblical reference to human sacrifice. “the submission of Abraham to the Supreme Being by proffering Isaac, his firstborn son.” Langdon thought of Peter and willed the helicopter to fly faster.

The video footage shifted now.

Same room. Different night. A larger group of Masons looking on. Peter Solomon was observing from the master’s chair. This was the second degree. More intense now. Kneeling at the altar. vowing to “forever conceal the enigmas existing within Freemasonry”. consenting to the penalty of “having one’s chest cavity ripped open and pulsing heart cast upon the surface of the earth as offal for the ravenous beasts”.

Langdon’s own heart was pulsing wildly now as the video shifted yet again. Another night. A much larger crowd. A coffin-shaped “tracing board” on the floor.

The third degree.

This was the death ritual — the most rigorous of all the degrees — the moment in which the initiate was forced “to face the final challenge of personal extinction.” This grueling interrogation was in fact the source of the common phrase to give someone the third degree. And although Langdon was very familiar with academic accounts of it, he was in no way prepared for what he now saw.

The murder.

In violent, rapid intercuts, the video displayed a chilling, victim’s point-of-view account of the initiate’s brutal murder. There were simulated blows to his head, including one with a Mason’s stone maul. All the while, a deacon mournfully told the story of “the widow’s son” — Hiram Abiff — the master Architect of King Solomon’s temple, who chose to die rather than reveal the secret wisdom he possessed.