The Lost Symbol by Dan BrownFor once, picture a religious cult in your imagination. A cult that follows secret rites and rituals. Then picture a man joining the cult and masquerading as the member of the cult but only to infiltrate it and dig out its mystical secrets to become powerful.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown is a fiction novel depicting the story of a cult named as the Masons cult. Robert Langdon, a professor of symbology and Dan Brown’s signature protagonist character stumbles upon this cult quite all of a sudden.
Robert’s friend, Peter Soloman, is the head of the Masonic cult. One day Robert received a call from Peter’s assistant inviting him to give a lecture in an event going to be held in the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
He also requested Robert to bring a package with him, a package which he entrusted to him many years earlier.
But as soon as Robert reached the venue, he came to know that the call was a hoax and the man posing as Peter’s assistant had lured him to find the secret Lost Word and the ancient pyramid owned & hidden by the Masonic cult, or else he would kill old Peter to death. This man named Mal’akh, tattoos carved throughout his entire body, had kidnapped Peter and was seeking to unfold the secrets of the cult in order to become more powerful. And so, he charged Robert for doing this work for him.
On the other side, led by the trail of clues Robert became more and more puzzled at every step.
When he reached the hall where he was asked to give his lecture, in place of an audience he found a hand displayed at the center of the hall. The hand had been severed from the body of his friend Peter by his kidnapper. The hand was tattooed with the symbols of the Hand of Mysteries.
Examining Soloman’s hand, along with the police officials, he discovered a clue which led them to a room in the building which was the masonic altar comprising several symbolic objects and a pyramid with inscriptions engraved on it. The pyramid’s capstone was missing.
The capstone was later discovered in the small package Robert had brought, when the police official named Sato examined his bag under the x-ray machine. Robert explained to her that he was unaware of the contents of the package. However, still, he was taken into custody by Sato. He was rescued by another man named Warren Bellamy who was the architect of the building. He too belonged to the Masons cult and was seeking Robert’s help in rescuing Peter from his kidnapper.
Meanwhile, the kidnapper man Mal’akh destroyed the Noetic Science laboratory of Peter’s sister Katherine by tricking and drowning her assistant in an animal pod of ethanol.
To save herself, Katherine united with Robert and Bellamy. Katherine and Robert reach Mal’akh’s house, where they were gagged and left to die in sensory deprivation tank and through needles respectively. Leaving both of them, Mal’akh fled away from the house with a weak Peter, arriving at the House of the Temple, where he threatened him to reveal the ancient secret to him.
Why was this man Mal’akh so vengeful towards Robert, Peter and the cult? Well, the answer lied in his history. Mal’akh actually was Soloman’s son Zachary. He was carrying wrath and revenge in his heart because many years ago he had been abandoned by his father in the jail as he had been spoiling his wealth in drugs and luxury.
By the time, his true identity became revealed, the police official Sato had reached Mal’akh’s house where she saved both Katherine and Robert. Thereupon, the entire crew moved towards the House of the Temple where one of their helicopters shatters the skylight of the temple, the shards of which killed Malakh to death.
In the end, Peter revealed that the Lost Word, the Word of God lay in the cornerstone of the monument where they were, buried in the ground beneath monument’s staircase.
He also told that the words inscribed in the base of the pyramid were Laus Deo meaning Praise God.
Masons had buried and hid the pyramid with the thought that when the time was right, the pyramid would be discovered and would usher a new era of enlightenment, which, apparently, had arrived, by means of Robert.
The novel mentions ideas of ‘mind over matter’, spirituality & enlightenment, ancient symbology & Noetic Science. Like other parts of this series, this book too is quite entertaining and immersive. I totally enjoyed reading it!
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