(Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Posted on 01/20/2006 10:28:11 AM PST by TFFKAMM
Dan Brown clearly enjoys playing with legends, history, symbols and secrets. And readers' minds. In his best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, Brown wove all these - real and imagined - into a breathless mystery about Christianity, Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine that has spawned an industry of de-coders eager to separate fact from fiction.
Now that he has turned his attention to the mysteries of Freemasonry, the centuries-old fraternal order, the new book also might deal with Mormonism.
But rather than announce the Da Vinci sequel in a news release, Brown embedded tantalizing clues to its subject on the book's jacket. Written in typeface that is slightly larger and bolder than the rest (it requires a magnifying glass to find them all) are the words: is there no help for the widows son.
"O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son?" was used historically as a Masonic distress call, but when journalist David Shugarts plugged it into Google, the first hit was a 1974 speech given by an LDS Institute of Religion teacher, Reed C. Durham, at the University of Utah.
Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reportedly began to utter the call as he fell from a second story window after being fatally shot by a mob in a Carthage, Ill., jail in 1844, Durham said.
In an electrifying presidential address to the Mormon History Association meeting in Nauvoo, Ill., he traced close parallels between Smith's account of digging gold plates out of a New York hillside and Masonic tales of Enoch and buried treasure. Smith wore a "Jupiter talisman," or what his wife called "his Masonic jewel," and LDS temple ceremonies bear a striking resemblance to Masonic rituals, he said.
The
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The Winding Staircase, like all Masonic symbols, is illustrative of discipline and doctrine, and opens to us a wide field of moral and speculative inquiry. (Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)
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speech was so controversial that Durham's superiors in the LDS Educational System forced him to issue a public apology.
The speech was never published but was surreptitiously taped and has floated around on the Internet for years.
It may have also caught Brown's attention, Shugarts speculates, and may provide one plot twist in Brown's next book, tentatively titled The Solomon Key. Brown confirmed in a speech last year that the book's mystery will be set in Washington, D.C., where many architectural features were drawn from Masonry, and will feature the same lead character, Harvard-professor-turned-detective Robert Langdom.
Getting a jump on the novel's historical context, Shugarts has written Secrets of the Widow's Son: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
He provides a broad history of Mormonism, including its brush with Masonry in the 19th century. It also offers nuggets about Masonic history such as these: At least eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons, as were 13 U.S. presidents including George Washington. A Freemason released Paul Revere from British custody on the night of his famous ride, after he determined that Revere was a Mason. Mozart's "Magic Flute" and Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King were written as Masonic allegories.
The Washington Monument and a similar monument on Bunker Hill in Boston, were not just coincidentally shaped like an Egyptian obelisks, but intentionally designed to honor Masonic allusions to ancient Egyptian mystical wisdom.
Much of the symbolism is mathematical, even geometrical, which could explain why the fraternity has attracted rationalists such as Voltaire, Goethe, Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain.
"We've heard from Masons
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One of the rooms in the Temple. The Salt Lake Masonic Temple was completed in 1927 and was built in 1 year, 3 months, and 22 days. The architect of the temple was Carl W. Scott and George W Welch. (Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)
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that they feel that [Brown is] going to do them justice," says Dan Burstein, who wrote the introduction to Shugarts' book. "He seems to be favorably disposed to thinking of Masons as an important historical underground movement, pushing the world towards democracy and enlightenment."
Today there are nearly 2 million Masons in the United States, with 2,250 members in 29 Utah lodges.
"We have a lot of Mormons who are Masons in this state, but we don't know exactly how many," says Ridgley Gilmour, Grand Master of Utah Masonic Lodge. "Anyone with a belief in God can petition to join but we don't ask what religion they are."
Gilmour was adamant the Masonry is not a "secret society," but a fraternal order with large-scale charitable giving built on deeply held American values of family, God and country.
"The only secrets we have are little signs and passwords which we use because it's an ancient custom, and, frankly, it's fun,'' Gilmour says.
It remains to be seen how much Mormon history will feature in the novel, (Brown's wife reportedly was raised in the LDS Church) but if the reaction to Durham's 1974 speech is any indication, any link between the two could be controversial in Utah.
For his part, Nicholas S. Literski, an active Mormon and Mason living in Nauvoo, thinks Latter-day Saints misunderstand the similarities. But they are significant.
"Everybody wants to obsess over supposed similarities in ritual," he says. "But that's just one aspect. Everything about Joseph and his family was tied into Masonic legends."
The Mormon connection: Smith's father, Joseph Smith Sr. joined a Masonic lodge when the family moved to Palmyra,
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N.Y., in 1816. Later, Smith's brother Hyrum also joined. From them, Smith heard the story of a lost sacred word that was engraved upon a triangular plate of pure gold. The word was the name of God.
It makes sense that he would go searching for such treasure in the large American Indian burial mounds near his home, says Literski, author of the forthcoming book, Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration.
And when Smith reported finding an ancient record written on plates of gold, he used "distinctively Masonic language to describe the experience," Literski says.
The church, which claimed to restore ancient truths of Christianity lost through the ages, attracted many members of the Masonic fraternity who traced their own roots back centuries and had similar esoteric teachings.
By the 1840s, many Mormon leaders in Nauvoo, including Smith and apostles Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, became Masons and organized a lodge there under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of Illinois. It wasn't long before nearly every male member of the church in the area had joined. At the same time, Smith introduced LDS temple rituals that included secret handshakes, signs and symbols like the all-seeing eye, the compass and square (tools of the mason's trade) and the sun, moon and stars that echoed Masonry.
Soon, though, other Masons felt that the Mormons were dominating the fraternity. In 1842, the Nauvoo Lodge was suspended. Many Mormons believed that Masons contributed to the murder of their prophet.
Antagonisms built up between the two groups. In Utah in 1860, Masonic lodges were established but they prohibited Mormons from joining. At the same time, Young forbade Mormons from joining and refused to allow any Mason to hold
priesthood leadership positions in the church, Literski says.
It wasn't until 1984 that LDS President Spencer W. Kimball removed the prohibition against Latter-day Saints becoming Freemasons. Later that year, the Grand Lodge of Utah removed its own ban on Mormon membership so that, in the ensuing years, many Latter-day Saint men have returned to this part of their heritage.
In the novelist's mind: Shugarts says it was not his intention to be a plot spoiler for Brown's sequel. He couldn't do that if he wanted. But he did offer a primer on Masonry and Mormonism for those who will want to explore, as they did with Da Vinci, just how much of what Brown writes is really history.
"I had to push out in every direction possible," Shugarts said in a phone interview from his Connecticut home. "I read five books about Mormon history and thousands of Internet Web sites. I tried to be thorough and fair."
Though he only dedicated four or five pages to Mormons in a 200-page book, he's already heard from unhappy Latter-day Saints who accuse him of misreading or a biased approach to LDS history, a charge he rejects.
"Prior to embarking on my research, I had no particular opinion of Joseph Smith or the details of the founding of the [LDS ]Church," he wrote to one critic. "But I had met a few Mormons and they always impressed me as fine people. After delving into the story of Joseph Smith, I understood a lot more about LDS. I remain impressed that Mormons are fine people."
It will be interesting to see if Brown sees them that way as well. Literski isn't worried.
"He'll weave a good conspiracy," Literski says, "but no matter how inventive Dan Brown gets in terms of the connection, he will fall short of just how deep
that story does go."
Even in Smith's day, there were Masons who believed the legends were historical truth and saw Freemasonry as a deeply spiritual, mystical quest. Other, more sophisticated members, discounted the old stories, wanting to refocus it along the lines of a charitable and benevolent institution.
The Smiths were about as far into mysticism as you can get, Literski says. "Joseph was rebuilding Solomon's temple with all the legendary baggage that came along with that."
Seeing the relationship between the two groups forces Mormons like Literski to revise his ideas about how God interacts with a prophet.
"You cannot understand what is going on in Joseph's mind unless you can know what he is seeing, hearing, feeling and touching," he says. "That gives me a stronger position of faith than would this idea that revelation is ex nihilo. Joseph was not a puppet."
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Contact Peggy Fletcher Stack at pstack@sltrib.com or 801-257-8725. Send comments on this article to religioneditor@sltrib.com.
n 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published a new theory stating the earth revolves around the sun. This is known as the Copernican theory. This theory was considered a serious challenge to the Ptolemaic theory and the Roman Catholic Church. Copernicus died before he could prove his theory.
Maybe I have it backwards. Mormons might consider themselves Christians but Catholics and most Protestant churches do not consider them Christians.
At the time the Ptolemaic theory was adopted, there was another guy who had it right. Ptolemy was politically connected, so he won the argument. That was the start of being PC or Politically Correct.
The Politically Correct version was not changed until Galileo. That's 1500 years or so.
Doesn't hold much hope that the present PC crowd is going away soon.
See the posts on being politically correct.
Just because you are Politically Correct does not mean you are right.
You can talk until you are blue in your face no way will any exchange a Schizoid version for real thing!
FM
Some people take it as more than a fairy tale and that is dangerous.
I actually talked with such a person this morning, so the issue of this being new age humanism is indeed a fact for some people LL.
He doesn't as far as I know. I only was responding to another poster concerning some historical allegations. It was totally unrelated.
If Joseph was influence by Masons it would be equal to say that he was influenced by Methodists, Baptists, Presbeterians, etc as well.
That being said, it just goes to show the Mormon belief that many religions teach some correct doctrines and principles. If they are correct, they are correct, and no use arguing about them.
Likewise that fits right in with the Mormon view of the Apostasy, which says there was only one Jesus, he had 12 Apostles and one religion/faith.
After the Apostles died or otherwise were killed there came a massive splintering resulting in hundreds of churches that all proclaim the same Jesus but have different teachings.
Joseph was called as a prophet by the Lord to assist in restoring the original order of things.
With that being said, since almost all had some root in the original Christianity there is a lot that we Mormons agree with whole heartedly. So, to say Joseph was influenced by any or all of the groups isn't that far fetched.
A work of fiction yes, but the author's intentions are to give legitimacy to the Gnostics and the Gnostic Bible which are real works of heresey. The Gnostics believe that Christ was a rather lewd person who, lived through his crucifiction, absconded to France with Mary Magdeline and fathered two chlidren. Christ also comes across as a sort of proto-feminist when reading the works of the Gnostics and Dan Brown. The book is nothing more than the wild fantasies of a liberal Gnostic who supports paganism, eroticism, and the feminist cults. Read the book, then come back and tell us if you see it any differently. The book is Gnostic, feminist propagana period.
We are not Protestant, but definately Christian.
My question would be who are you or any other church to define "Christianity"? Where did one obtain authority to declare what is or isn't?
The old "legend has it ... " again.
My Wife and I were married in the temple, and the wedding ceremony in the Temple bares no resemblance to any Masonic ceremony --- Unless they get married in the Masonic Lodge.
I have never been to a Masonic Wedding though.
Still rambling on without a clue. At least you admit to it with the "maybe". You have to ask yourself the meaning of Christian. Without looking it up it is most likely one who follows that teachinigs of Jesus Christ. That would indeed make us Christians. The only thing in contention is which interpertations of his teaching e.g., beliefs, doctrine, are correct. All christian religions have some variations in their doctrine hence the many denominstions of Christianity. To single out Mormons is to say that you KNOW which doctrine are correct. In that case you would have to exlcude everyone from being Christians except yourself and your denomination. You have the logic of a Democrat. Doode
The Godmakers is hardly a source of any credibility. Thats about like reading the National Enquirer of religion.
you may consider yourselfs to be followers of anything, but the truth is, your Mormon doctrince is held higher than the Word of God in your mindset...otherwise known as the bible..... it seems no discussion can precede unless it reflects the Mormon view.....
I know there has been a big push to make everyone think that Mormons are true Christians, as if its a selling point to the great unwashed......
but I think its only a convinience to do so..
admittedly, many Mormon teachings or practices are Christian based.....but when you come right down to it, Christ is not the center of their religion.......
it does seem that the Mormon church has "evolved" as the need arose.....
Thats an utter lie. EVERYTHING in LDS doctrines and teachings revolves around Christ.
PM here as well...
Which Christ is that? The one that was born in Jerusalem or Bethlehem? The one that came to America? I think you follow a differant Christ.
There is only one Christ.
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