The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown’s follow-up to The DaVinci Code, is fast-paced and filled with mega spiritual/esoteric references. Brown doesn’t stray from his best-selling formula that made The DaVinci Code so popular, and despite the entire story being highly implausible, it’s still a fun read. But this is not a review of Brown’s book. It’s an exploration of how various mystical topics he covers in both The DaVinci Code and The Lost Symbol are tied to my spiritual awakening with a famous rock band.
Part of my wild and crazy journey is chronicled in the book, I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll, and I thought it would be fun to write a few blogs about how intuition, symbols and spirituality aren’t just relevant in the world of fiction, but became intertwined with my “real” life.
Let’s start with something simple: how about the colors black and white? The main female character in The DaVinci Code, Sophie, recalled watching men and women wearing white and black masks perform a strange sexual ritual called Hieros Gamos. In alchemical and Hermetic sciences, Hieros Gamos is a marriage whereby physical union with a female was the only way through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis; direct knowledge of the divine. Basically, it’s orgasm as a way to connect with the Big Cheese. The masks represent duality: masculine (black) and feminine (white).
The black and white duality theme connects to my favorite band, and hit me upside the head one night shortly after I started working with my Universal Rider Waite Tarot deck in Spring 2002. I asked to understand how a certain card karmically related to The Band I Followed (referred to as TBIF since I don’t reveal their name in my book…a little mystery easily solved by rock music fans). Two cards in the spread were the High Priestess and the 10 of Pentacles.
I stared at the 10 of Pentacles for several minutes, and suddenly noticed a black and white perpendicular checkerboard along the left side, slightly inward from the edge of the card. See it?
My first reaction was, “What’s that doing there in the picture? What does that have to do with anything?” Within two seconds, one of the largest metaphoric 2×4′s ever hit me between the eyes. “OH MY GOD, THAT’S MY FAVORITE ROCK BAND’S LOGO!” They’ve used the checkerboard as part of their motif and merchandise for decades.
My heart raced. Suddenly, an overwhelming knowing went through my entire being. This was a huge clue. After doing some on-line searches for the words checkerboard, chessboard and alchemy, I discovered the Tarot had its origins in alchemy, and the checkerboard pattern was frequently seen in old alchemical texts. The alternating black and white squares represent duality: Light/dark, good/evil, conscious/unconscious, masculine/feminine. A checkerboard adorns the Freemason First Degree Tracing board.
This prompted me to question if the band was attracted to the black/white squares because it was a universal archetype? Was my soul involved in alchemy in another lifetime? Maybe, maybe not. But the black and white theme would guide me along my rock ‘n’ roll mystical adventure, and deeper meanings would be revealed.
In The Lost Symbol, the words “Boaz” and “Jachin” are inscribed on the insane bad guy’s tattooed right and left legs, often representing the eternal balancing of dark and light. Boaz and Jachin (or Joachim) are usually depicted as black and white pillars, and the first time I came across them was during my study of the Tarot in the High Priestess card. Notice the black and white pillars and the letters B and J.
This card sparked a major connection to an album from TBIF. The High Priestess is in color and sits between black and white pillars. She’s the 2nd numbered card in the Major Arcana, and the band’s 2nd album way back when is titled In Color…and Black and White. But that’s not the only association. Ultimately, I connected all 22 Major Arcana cards in the Tarot to TBIF’s 22 album titles at that time (the number of titles in 2003). Since the Tarot represents universal archetypes, the strange coincidence between the cards and album titles implied (in my twisted mind) that even rock bands can unwittingly tap into archetypes and the collective unconscious.
I’ll discuss synchronicities between a 17th century alchemist, TBIF and The DaVinici Code and The Lost Symbol in my next blog.