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The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown to write the Screenplay of The Lost Symbol

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From the Hollywood Reporter –

Mega-selling mystery author Dan Brown has taken over writing duties on the film adaptation of The Lost Symbol.

This is the first time Brown has taken on the job as screen writer as Akiva Goldsman adapted Da Vinci Code and co-wrote, with David Koepp, Angels and Demons.

Based on fan feedback, its dubious of the job Brown will do, given the track record of past autor-turned-screen writers as the film becomes more derritive than true to form given the constraints of time and medium.

One look at the last in the Harry Potter films, the Deathly Hallows, will tell you that to truly adapt a work necessitates a much longer running time of film as the Rowling adaptation has been split into two movies and close to 7 total hours of screen time.

The Lost Symbol film is anticipated for Summer (or later) of 2013 with no word if Hanks will reprise his role or Howard its direction.

The Lost Symbol in paperback, have you found yours?

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At last, the paperback edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol hits store shelves on October 19th.

The sleeper hit that sent us head long into the adventures of Professor Robert Langdon in, under,and above the greater Washington D.C. capitol to save his mentor and close friend 33rd degree Mason Peter Solomon from the clutches of his son Zachary (aka Mal’akh) who also happens to be a 33rd degree Mason bent on the destruction of his father in the quest for the ancient mystery of the fraternity.

While the book was long awaited for its release in 2009, the paper back edition now opens the subject matter up to a wider audience to question the symbolic significance within it. More than a book that injects Noetics into the mainstream, Brown touches on a few topics of interest to those in the mystery school field, including the Kybalion, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, the Sanctum Sanctorum, and the Hand of Mysteries, just to name a few. Plus, if the esoteric aspects of the mystery schools were not enough of a plot device, Brown employs some of the more sacred Masonic sites to add in as a kicker.

The book, while unlike the Da Vinci Code, reads more as a swan song to the 300 year old fraternity than it does a mystery thriller. Unlike the Code where the Catholic Church’s Opus Dei was the villain at large, in The Lost Symbol its less institutional villain and more mental insanity as the protagonist which leaves less of that secret society conspiratorial taste and more of a complicated question of who to cheer for since its all around bad news for all involved, the fraternity that is compromised by a mad man, the Oedipus complex of secrets (not mother), or the video extortion plot. Its complex to say the least and a riveting story line right up to the very end.

If your still on the fence, give a read to some of the reviews posted here from its release last year:

The Lost Symbol – a review
The Lost Symbol – it’s the symbol of the symbolism. – The Masonic Perspective
The Lost Symbol – The Road Best Not Travelled
Masonic Central Pod Cast with Mark Koltko-Rivera on the Lost Symbol

Or, if the original hefty $29.95 price of the hard bound was a deterrent, you can give the paperback edition of The Lost Symbol on Amazon a read for the low low price of $9.99 and catch up on what the post Da Vinci Code – Freemasonry – Dan Brown buzz was all about.

Mark Koltko-Rivera on Masonic Central

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lostsymbolThis week on Masonic Central:

With the release of The Lost Symbol, many have had the opportunity to read though the work and see the results of Dan Brown’s non-Masonic contribution to the mythology of the fraternity.  Like his past work, Without a doubt The Lost Symbol is a layered thriller that can be analyzed on many different levels to find a variety of different meanings, not surprisingly, not unlike Freemasonry itself.

Missed the Live Program? Listen Now!

This week we welcome Brother Mark Koltko-Rivera, author of the forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol to help us deconstruct some of the underlying ideas of Brown’s book and to look at some of the things that Brown got wrong.  Specifically we plan to look at evidence for an actual Masonic

The Apotheosis of Washington
The Apotheosis of Washington

message encoded into Brumidi’s famous fresco, “The Apotheosis of Washington”, a message that it appears Dan Brown missed; the round about source of Brown’s idea about apotheosis (humanity becoming gods), and the Masonic connection to that source; Further, we plan to talk about the psychological underpinnings for Dan Brown’s immense popularity, and the implications that has for both Freemasonry as a whole and individual Freemasons.

Br. Mark Koltko-Rivera is the author of the forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Masons, Magic, Mystery Religions, and the Thought that We Could Become Gods. He holds a doctoral degree in counseling psychology from New York University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and has been recognized for his scholarship regarding the psychology of worldviews, humanistic psychology, and the psychology of religion. Within Freemasonry, Brother Koltko-Rivera is an active member of the Blue Lodge, the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite. His papers on Freemasonry have appeared in The Philalethes, the Scottish Rite Journal, and Heredom. He provided the Masonic content (and the conspiracy fiction) for the recent Wiley publication, Cracking Codes and Cryptograms For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies))
. A second edition of his Freemasonry: An Introduction should also appear in 2010. He also writes the blogs “Freemasonry: Reality, Myth, and Legend” and “Freemasonry 101.”

Join us as we talk to Br. Mark Koltko-Rivera this Sunday, December 13th, starting at 6pm PDT / 9pm EST. We encourage your questions and comments to the show by calling (347) 677-0936 during the program.

The show goes live promptly at the hour. On Blog Talk Radio at 6pm PST/9pm EST.

Download the program.

Listen to Masonic Central on Blog Talk Radio

Dateline NBC’s “To catch a Freemason”

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Sorry, the title is a play on the “other” shows that Dateline puts out.

In case you missed it, Dateline NBC and Matt Lauer spent some quality time with Dan Brown in the house of the temple to talk all things Masonic, oh, and the Lost Symbol too.

I can’t find the full video of the episode yet, but you can find clips at the Dateline site, and a transcript of the program here.

I did want to say nice work to friends of FmI Br.’s Cliff Porter and Tim Hogan, nicely done brothers.  Late in the program Br. Cliff came on to support the idea that Freemasonry does in fact hold some secrets, though not of the nefarious type.

Another shout out to Br. Arturo DeHoyas from the house of the temple.  He did a spectacular job in defining Freemasonry and laying out the history of the fraternity in the short clips that they were edited into.

All in all, the dateline program was flattering to Freemasonry and really seemed to paint Brown as the reluctant spokesman for the fraternity, his way of writing a letter of fictional recommendation for it.  Even more interesting recently was his letter to the Scottish Rite, acknowledging their invitation, tanking them, but declining an appearance.

All interesting stuff.

In the mean time, here’s a clip about the Dateline special, and when the final episode makes it onto the web, I recommend you check it out.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The secret is how to die.

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An excerpt from the “The Lost Symbol” in Parade Magazine…
House of the Temple
8:33 P.M.

Since the beginning of time, the secret had always been how to die.

The thirty-four-year-old initiate gazed down at the human skull cradled in his palms. The skull was hollow, like a bowl, filled with bloodred wine.

Drink it, he told himself. You have nothing to fear.

As was tradition, he had begun this journey adorned in the ritualistic garb of a medieval heretic being led to the gallows, his loose-fitting shirt gaping open to reveal his pale chest, his left pant leg rolled up to the knee, and his right sleeve rolled up to the elbow. Around his neck hung a heavy rope noose—a “cable-tow” as the brethren called it. Tonight, however, like the brethren bearing witness, he was dressed as a master.

The assembly of brothers encircling him all were adorned in their full regalia of lambskin aprons, sashes, and white gloves. Around their necks hung ceremonial jewels that glistened like ghostly eyes in the muted light. Many of these men held powerful stations in life, and yet the initiate knew their worldly ranks meant nothing within these walls. Here all men were equals, sworn brothers sharing a mystical bond.

Read more of the pro-log and chapter 1 here.

Beliefnet.com weighs in on the Lost Symbol and its potential Masonic connections.

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Some quick excerpts from the article on Belienet.com titled New Dan Brown Novel Means Extra Scrutiny for Masons.  You’ll notice a few comments from our friends and brothers Br. Mark Koltko-Rivera, and Br. Chris Hodapp.

As members of a secretive brotherhood, Freemasons are no strangers to conspiracy theories. They’ve heard it all before: that they’re child-sacrificing cult members, or religious zealots plotting aNew World Order with the Jews, or satanic anti-religious alien spies.

With Dan Brown’s newest novel, “The Lost Symbol,” hitting bookstores on Sept. 15, — much of it rumored to center around Masonic myths — the Masons are in preemptive damage-control mode. Even though Brown (of “The Da Vinci Code” fame) and his publisher, Doubleday, are being tight-lipped about the book’s contents, some Masons are preparing for an onslaught of negative press. And because Brown is known for tying religious themes to his thrillers’ plots, Masons are carefully addressing common misconceptions about their religious affiliations.

You can read the entire article on Beliefnet.com here.

Reading the article made me wonder if its “scrutiny” that Freemasonry is really what comes to mind or concern of the results of that scrutiny.

I’m not sure its so much a concern on how Freemasonry will be treated, but how Brown will approach the fraternity.  He villinazed the Illuminait in the last film (even if it was just a minor plot point), so is it the Fraternity that he plans to leverage the story on, or a character who happens to be a Mason.

A very common misconception is that Freemasonry acts and breaths as one voice, when in reality, it has one principal philosophy of initiation (inner awakening) but comprised by many different blocks (cubes) of common members of society.  In other words, being a Mason does not imply that each and every one acts under a particular rule as say those of a particular faith, but rather Freemasons are taught to live and contribute to society as they can or able, keeping in mind (and heart) a philosophy of why they do so.  Like individual contractors each with a role in life.

I do hope Brown’s book bodes well for the fraternity, otherwise, he may do it more of a disservice and cause the still living and breathing institution irreparable harm.

Have you reserved your copy?

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lostsymbol

Have you reserved your copy of the literary version of “National Treasure” yet? The Lost Symbol“Dan Brown’s next installment of the Da Vinci Code solving, Illuminati chasing symboligist Robert Langdon is due on shelves in about 2 weeks.

I think Freemasonry is already past hype having waited a couple of years for the Da Vinci Code follow up, but it doesn’t change the fact that the new book “The Lost Symbol” will have some net effect on the fraternity.

Why will the book have an impact?  Rumor has it that this new adventure has a story line that includes Freemasonry (and possibly Washington, the geometry of Washington D.C., and the Scottish Rite).

The end result for fraternity: a reawakened curiosity about the Freemasonry thanks to this high literary drama.

Maybe.

I pre-ordered my copy of “The Lost Symbol” yesterday so that I get it on the day it comes out.  I wonder if will live up to the hype that the last 5 years have built into it.

Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” is available for pre-order on on Amazon now.