At Religion Dispatches, Samuel Biagetti argues that Dan Brown’s new novel reveals the ways in which the Freemasons’ old intellectual habits remain relevant in contemporary culture:
[…]
For better or worse, after two runaway bestsellers that claim to upend the traditional story of Christianity, he has become America’s most important pop philosopher and historian. In the earlier books, he hatched a version of the faith that spoke to many people in ways that churches no longer seem able to. Now, by turning to Freemasonry in The Lost Symbol, he exposes the deep stratum of mystical thinking that underlies modern rationalism. However naive the novel may be, it testifies to the myths that helped to make the modern world, myths in which Brown places zealous faith. In so doing, it reads like a love letter to Masonry.
The book reflects not the fear and suspicion often directed towards the Masonic mysteries but rather the continuing strength of the mindset—the mix of hope and terror surrounding the advance of human knowledge—that gave rise to the Masons in the first place and that set the stage for the modern imagination.
Continue reading at Religion Dispatches.