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Book Review: Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol -Christian Mysticism and the message of The Lost Symbol

Posted September 28th, 2009 by Peter Haas in Christian Mysticisim

 

Book Review: Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol -Christian Mysticism and the message of The Lost Symbol
© 2009, Peter T. Haas

I finished Dan Brown’s new novel The Lost Symbol last week. Truth be told, I couldn’t put it down and finished it in two days. To my taste, it is his best book yet. The texture of the antagonist’s character, Mal’akh, was nuanced and vivid. His mutated, hedonistic spirituality completely overshadows Langdon’s prosaic and professorial steadiness. Like the Dark Night’s Joker, The Lost Symbol’s Mal’akh steals the show – darkly.

 

 I delighted in the plot development, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that this novel is not just about the secrets of the Freemasons and the cryptic symbology in Washington D.C. – as has been pushed by the book’s publicity blitz. Curiously, The Lost Symbol is also a theological story, one which articulates some of the profound insights conveyed by Christian mysticism, which are now just being confirmed by science, such as the interconnectedness of reality (the Trinity and the Soul); the influence of intentional thought upon matter (prayer and meditation); and the transformation of human beings through wisdom into higher levels of being (salvation and theosis).
 
It is the presence of theosis in The Lost Symbol thatshocked me the most, not because it is a shocking idea, but because it seems that the message of the book is theosis! I was stunned that Brown essentially begins and ends the novel at the Apotheosis of George Washington in the United States Capital Rotunda, a relief painting on the Capital dome that Brown says teaches that the Freemason Founding Fathers wanted to convey the principle idea of the Ancient Mysteries – that humans can become gods! This is one version of theosis, a version whose purpose or means is not spelled out in the novel. But its mere presence is theologically provocative indeed!
 
While The Lost Symbol draws upon a soup of Gnostic, mystic, alchemical, astrological and ancient symbolism to spin its tale, that does not diminish the historical and generally accurate reflection of these systems of belief. The novel also delves into alternative and emerging fields of science, like Noetic and Consciousness studies, two fields of studies that are fascinating and keep pace with the advances of quantum and string theories at the human level. Indeed, Katherine, the scientific damsel in distress in the story line, offers her own unique plot development that could easily be a separate novel. Her secret, scientific studies were compelling on their own, without the added drama of the spiritualistic connections driving Mal’akh and entangling professor Langdon, Katherine and her brother Solomon, the wise, open-hearted believer in the ancient mysteries, who represents the antithesis to Mal’akh own hard-hearted approach to darker mysteries of the human quest for power, spiritually or scientifically.
 
Where I found myself most delighted in the book was in the hope that such novels begin to prepare the general populous with a higher-level mindset, one that begins to open readers up to the interconnected relationality of all reality. One of the messages of The Lost Symbol  is that at the deepest levels, reality is ultimately spiritual. This is a bridge for religious dialogue and connects us to the ancient Christian knowledge of the Church Fathers who sought to convey this with their very high Christology articulated by St. Paul in such passages as: “that Christ might be all in all” (Colossians 3.11), and the luminous prayer in Ephesians chapter 3, from which I quote just verses 18 – 19: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” And of course, we must recall here the important doxological formula in the book of Romans: “For from God and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11.36).
 
While it was probably not Brown’s intention to write a systematic articulation of Christian mysticism, he did include important elements of the Christian tradition useful for conversation. For example, there are vast distinctions between the power of human will bent toward self-transcendence to become as gods represented by Mal’akh, versus the Christian self-surrender to love through a union with Christ – which is the journey into theosis. Theosis is an important Christian doctrine rooted deeply in the Christian tradition and teachings of the church fathers. While theosis has been historically neglected by the Western church, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, the Eastern Orthodox Church has kept this doctrine at the center of their views of salvation, and rightly so.
 
For the Church Fathers, salvation was not just about “getting saved” or “going to heaven.” Salvation was the totality of transformation of one’s life in and through Christ by the power of the Spirit to such an extent that the fullness of what a human being could be was demonstrated by Jesus the Christ, not just to be worshipped as Lord and Savior, but to be followed, that is to say, to give one’s life to God through an ever deepening union with Christ by the Word, Sacrament and Spirit so to become, in the words of the Protestant C.S. Lewis, little Christs, or in the words of St. Peter, “that we become participants in the divine nature” (2 Peter 2.4). This is the mystery of God revealed in Christ.
 
The Lost Symbol is a fun and fantastic read. But don’t build your theology on it. Let it inspire you to search the deeper truths of the Christian Tradition. There is much to explore to great profit.  When you do, you will discover that there are two forces at work in this world: the way of gravity toward the earth, and the way of attraction to heaven. In Brown’s story, Mal’akh represents the self-gratifying, sacrificing, will to power that is empowered by the forces of this earth, under the demonic influence of sin, death and evil. Langdon, represents the self-giving, surrendering, love of wisdom and neighbor empowered by the forces of heaven, under the divine influence of life, light and love. This distinction is captured in the Lord’s Prayer where we pray for God’s kingdom not our own. And for God’s will to be done, not our own.
 
For Christians, Jesus Christ represents light, life and love. He is the way, truth and life. Jesus Christ is the living relationship demonstrating that God is the Relationship of Relationships, whom we call Father-Son-Holy Spirit, or even Being-Beloved-Becoming, or St. Augustine’s, Love-Loved-Loving.  That is, at the heart of the reality, we confess a loving interrelated, life-giving generative source whom we call Father, and know through the Son and partake in by the Spirit. This is the spiritual life – life loving and longing and becoming God through union with Christ by the Spirit. It is also the source of worship and wonder.
 
If you feel inspired to search and wonder about the deep meaning of Christianity, I commend to you Andrew Louth’s excellent and authoritative book The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, or Bernard McGinn’s five volume opus The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. There are many other helpful resources also that articulate how the new science is impacting our theology such as: Clestus Wessels’, Jesus in the New Universe Story; Ilia Delio’s, Christ in Evolution; andRaimon Panikkar’s Christophany: The Fullness of Man. For a useful history of consciousness studies see Gary Lachman’s, A Secret History of Consciousness. And finally, for a softer approach to the Christian mystic/contemplative tradition see the excellent new book by Inter Varsity Press, Longing for God by Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe.
 
The Eastern Orthodox tradition is also a very rich and historical Christian community to help discern the distinctions between Christian spirituality and the many divergent mystical and esoteric schools. There are vast and important differences to be mindful of. Some of the best work on Orthodox Christian spirituality is published by Cistercian Publications, especially the Cistercian Studies Series, such as volume seventy-nine, The Spirituality of the Christian East by Tomas Spidlik. For those who prefer web-resources, I have found the following link especially helpful on the doctrine of theosis: http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf.
 
Whatever symbols might be found in the unfolding drama of human imagination and questing for meaning, I remind the reader that Jesus came to seek and to find that which was lost. Indeed, Jesus, as the good shepherd, seeks after the one lost sheep. When I realized that I was the lost one in need of being found, my life was transformed and I began a journey from one degree of glory to another and it continues today.
Every blessing in the love of God,
Peter T. Haas
 

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Beautiful Review

Posted September 30th, 2009 by Mary Linda Landauer

Peter you have written a great review.....I read this in several days too, just couldn't put it down. But it was torment, for me, through the darkness of Mal'akh. And the twists and turns kept my stomach in knots. And, I agree that this is his best work yet.....the polarity of light and dark is so evident today, and my hope is this book will open the hearts and minds of many on the edge of  greater consciousness awareness...that it will be made into a movie to reach an even greater audience......this book, to me, really captures our humanity's stuggle with the energies of darkness, much like this Mal-akh, concurrent with those moving closer to an awakened God realization.....and I just loved the role of Katherine, couldn't agree with you more that his next book, hopefully, will bring more of this character and work to the world. 

Did you just love the ending.....my lips are sealed.......

Kindness always,

Mary Linda