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Search Encyclopaedia Britannica for the word Freemasons and an unusual though not entirely unexpected result pops up: the entry for scapegoats. The secretive organization that once counted George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire among its ranks has been a favorite target for conspiracy theorists since the 17th century, when Masonic lodges first spread across Europe. Now best-selling novelist Dan Brown has taken aim at the group's cultlike reputation in his latest book, The Lost Symbol - a fact that comes as no surprise to author Jay Kinney. In his own new book, The Masonic Myth, Kinney attempts to dispel...
...novels, The Lost Symbol (Doubleday; 509 pages) doesn't deal with the history of the Christian church. The mythology Langdon is decoding is that of the Freemasons (whose motto ordo ab chao, order out of chaos, could be Brown's). Langdon is summoned - dude is always getting summoned - to Washington, D.C., by a mysterious phone call that he thinks is coming from his old friend and mentor Peter Solomon, head of the Smithsonian. Langdon thinks he's going to give a speech at a Smithsonian fundraiser at the Capitol building. But when he shows up, there's no fundraiser...
...Christian and pagan, sacred and secular, ancient and modern - are actually extraordinarily messy. Langdon points out, for example, that the U.S. Capitol "was designed as a tribute to one of Rome's most venerated mystical shrines," the Temple of Vesta, and that it prominently features a painting of George Washington in the guise of Zeus. ("That hardly fits with the Christian underpinnings of this country," harrumphs Langdon's skeptical audience.) Power is power, and it flows from religious vessels to political ones with disturbing ease. This may or not be obvious, but it is true, and deeply weird...
...Brown has another agenda in The Lost Symbol, which is to rehabilitate Washington, D.C., as one of the great world capitals of gothic mystery, one that can hold its own with Paris or London or Rome. "America has a hidden past," Langdon thinks, italically. "Every time Langdon lectured on the symbology of America, his students were confounded to hear that the true intentions of our nation's forefathers had absolutely nothing to do with what so many politicians now claimed. America's intended destiny has been lost to history...
...Islam deems them heretics.) But Pakistan's response to Iran will ultimately be determined by the all-powerful military establishment. And, analysts say, the army is a great deal more wary of Iran's regional aspirations. "They are not really allies," says Christine Fair of the RAND Corp. in Washington. "There is a misguided assumption that just because Pakistan gave Iran nuclear technology that they have some kind of strategic alliance." That deal, analysts say, arose out of former army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg's wish to "create problems for the U.S." (See pictures of terrorism in Tehran...