Friday.....America....."Hope"

I watched most of an NBC special on Dan Brown's book The Lost Symbol and these are my impressions. Mr. Brown was presented as somewhat of an expert on Freemasonry but appeared more to me as having a novelist's research knowledge on the subject. There are numerous books on the subject of the Masons and the interesting secret architecture of our capitol. I mentioned before the occult (hidden) origins of the city landscape and architecture, but Freemasons are not the topic of this blog, Dan Brown's book is. I was in Barnes and Noble tonight and there is, as I would expect, a table up front promoting The Lost Symbol and the whole topic in general. America will eat up anything on a mysterious issue much like I did when researching it 25 years ago and there will be a new mysterious topic next year. The sad part about phenomenons like this is when Christians join in. Why in the world would a Christian want to read The Da Vinci Code or The Lost Symbol if not for research in talking to their friends? With a rapidly dying world and weakening church, is there no more productive way that time could be spent? Even if the time is there, is enjoying the blasphemy of The Da Vinci Code something we would want to do? Brown made some interesting comments at the end of the show? He has a new, related, mystery ready for his next book and you will just have to wait to hear what it is; a good and often used promotional tool. He believes that there are powers of the mind yet to be tapped and his great concern is that evil will find them. Apparently he hasn't related this to Nazism, Communism and..well...other movements that sought to dominate the minds of men eventually leading to the deaths of tens, upon tens of millions of people in the last century alone. It's not that I disagree with him on powers lying beneath the surface of humankind, rather we differ in that he sees a potential for evil and I don't need the word potential. This fear he has that this innate dark side will be used for evil is rather ironic since that is what his books are. There is a self-fulfilling prophesy here. Now, evil, is not a word that I would normally use in describing his books for they are just pawns in occultism (supernatural, religious definition.) I'm not even highlighting them for in the general sense that I'm using the word evil, of anything in opposition to God, then I am not free of condemnation. His books (Da Vinci Code, 80 million copies in 44 languages) lead Christians into this area and that is unfortunate. Apparently, the last word in the 500 page The Lost Symbol is Hope. Mr. Brown, like a devotee in the powers of the mind saving the world, ended his book, in his words, with a call to action. To his readers, concerning the message of his book, just what (do) they want to do with it.