MollyCon 22
Carl Sagan’s Secret
1/1/2023
Molly
Don
NOTE: In this essay I will introduce specific evidence from The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol that support my theory that the grain/wine/oil Sagan Signal was preserved by the Masonic Lodge in its Laying of the Cornerstone ritual. I will also prove that the Masons, though they had the Code, didn’t have the decryption key that unlocks its symbolic value. That critical knowledge was held by an inner circle of the Invisible College who passed it forward, generation to generation, until the end of the second millennium. In 2001, according to The Lost Symbol, the Invisible College chain of knowledge and the Masonic chain of custody were forged together that resulted in the five volume Robert Langdon Series. Known to only a few, including Carl Sagan, the greatest secret in the world, direct evidence that we are not alone, was released at the dawn of the third millennium, the Age of Aquarius.
Chain of Custody/Chain of Knowledge
“I never imagined I would live to witness this moment. For generations, the pieces of the symbolon map had been kept safely apart from one another. Now they were united at last. Galloway wondered if this was the foretold time.” From: The Lost Symbol, Ch. 84.
How do you keep a buried treasure from being found? One way is to tear the treasure map apart and give one half to Party A, and the other half to Party B, which is what Isaac Newton did with the Sagan Signal.
Party A was the London Grand Lodge. Newton had the Sagan Signal written into their Laying of the Cornerstone ritual. What he didn’t share with the Masons was the key, the knowledge of the symbolic significance of grain, wine, and oil.
That privileged information belonged to Party B, a small inner circle of non-Masons associated with the Invisible College, men who knew that grain, wine, and oil symbolized, respectively, the Father/Mother/Son Singularity.
Grand Lodge Freemasonry, with chain of custody, had one half of the map, and non-Masons, with chain of knowledge, had the other half, portrayed on the American dollar as a segmented pyramid, a symbolon:
The story line of The Da Vinci Code is about the larger part of the pyramid at the bottom, the bread and wine. The story line of The Lost Symbol is different. It’s about the smaller top half, the All-Seeing Eye, and how the two parts were brought together:
“Strangely, fate had selected two non-Masons to assemble the pyramid. Somehow, this seemed fitting. The Mysteries are moving out of the inner circles . . . out of darkness . . . into the light.” From: The Lost Symbol, Ch. 84.
In The Lost Symbol, the two non-Masons are Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon, who I believe in real life are Carl Sagan and Dan Brown.
With this as my introduction, let’s start the conversation.
*****
Don: Molly, Isaac Newton, being a mathematics genius, was aware that the grain/wine/oil sequences in the Old Testament are a code encrypted by “Ancient Adepts,” god-like beings that today we call extraterrestrials. His next goal would have been to determine what, or who, grain, wine, and oil symbolize.
Molly: In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown reveals that the second symbol, wine, symbolizes the sacred feminine.
Don: Right, that’s what the whole book is about, the sacred feminine.
Molly: But I have a question, why isn’t anything said about the bread?
Don: That’s a great point. I think it’s because in the world’s three great patriarchal religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, there is no feminine representation in the Godhead. It’s God, the Dude/Father. Period.
Molly: Yeah, God the Father and no God the Mother, like men can get pregnant all by themselves.
Don: Knowing that to openly attack, or even question the Nicaean Trinity formula of Father/Son/Spirit in the novel would have made it too controversial for broad public appeal, Dan Brown makes no mention of the bread at the Last Supper. The sole focus is on the cup and the wine as symbols of the sacred feminine.
Molly: He makes wine a symbol of Mary Magdalene, who, as the wife Jesus, becomes a symbol of the Goddess, Sophia.
Don: Its literary sleight-of-hand. In spuriously making Jesus and Mary Magdalene husband and wife, Dan disguises the real truth: the marital relationship of Yahweh and Sophia.
Molly: And the ploy is extended by claiming that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child, creating a royal bloodline.
Don: The truth is that the bloodline is spiritual, not physical. In French, “Sophie Neveu,” Langdon’s partner, means “New Wisdom,” a reference to the Goddess Sophia, not Mary Magdalene.
Molly: Which is where Christ, symbolized by oil, comes in.
Don: Dan knew that the Grail Romance narrative would be soundly debunked by scholars, which it was, but that “the worthy” would be able to figure out that wine, because it goes naturally with bread, is a symbol of Yahweh’s wife, not the wife of Jesus, who, as the Anointed One, was their Son.
It was an ingenious tactic, but it worked too well, because, until now, no one saw what Brown was doing. It’s significant that The Lost Symbol, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code, makes no mention of the Jesus/Mary Magdalene relationship. Like a bright shiny object, the Magdalene myth was a cunning way to divert casual readers and experts away from the Code.
Molly: Yeah, focus on the wine and forget the bread.
Don: Millions of readers of The Da Vinci Code, including tens of thousands who booked Da Vinci Code tours, plus a variety of scholars and investigative journalists who claimed to have “cracked” the Code, went down Dan Brown’s rabbit hole, totally missing the real Code.
Don: The universal failure to solve the mystery of The Da Vinci Code doesn’t suggest ignorance or stupidity, it’s simply that there weren’t enough legitimate leads in the book to stay on track. Six years later, in 2009, The Lost Symbol filled the void, but by that time everyone had moved on, errantly thinking that The Da Vinci Code was all a made-up story.
Molly: I have a question. The Masonic ritual says “corn, wine, and oil” and the Last Supper has “bread, wine, and oil.” Bread isn’t the same as corn. Is this a problem?
Don: Corn is a crop native to the Americas and unknown to the people of the Ancient Near East. In 17th century England, corn was a catch-all word that referred to all cereal grains that could be ground up into flour to make bread. That’s why the King James Bible, the version Newton preferred, uses “corn.” The bread at the Last Supper was likely made from wheat or barley flour.
Digging a little deeper, the word “seed” also appears in the Sagan Signal. In Greek, it’s “sperma,” from which we get our word sperm, the male reproductive cell. In the field, the “sperma,” or seed, is located at the top of the shaft of wheat or barley. Early on, the shaft is soft and pliable and not able to reproduce, but as it matures it becomes hard.
When fully mature, the seed loosens from the head, falls to the ground, and new life begins. Without going into salacious detail, corn and its derivatives are symbols of masculinity, just as wine symbolizes the feminine.
Molly: So if seed represents semen, what does wine represent, menstrual blood?
Don: No, it symbolizes the placental blood that nourishes the embryo in the womb, although it is true that certain groups of Gnostic Christians drank menstrual blood at communion. Personally, I think I’d pass the cup on that one.
Molly: You’re showing your male chauvinist side.
Don: Whatever.
Molly: Is this another reason why Dan describes the Code as a segmented cipher, with marriage coming first, then children?
Don: You got it. The Son, who always existed as potential, became physical reality at the birth of Jesus, and spiritual reality when, at his baptism by John, he became Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Molly: Okay, I got it. But how does this affect Ray Kurzweil’s version of the Singularity?
Don: Let’s talk about that.
*****
Bread and Wine
Husband and Wife
Don: In his books on the Singularity, Ray makes a lot of references to sex, but nothing that I can recall about a male Singleton being married to a female Singleton and having a Singleton child. Even though he feels strongly that the Singleton should reflect human values, the most basic of all human values, the nuclear family, doesn’t seem to be a high priority.
Molly: I suppose it’s a sign of the times. The traditional family unit doesn’t seem like such a cherished human value anymore. It seems to be going the way of the dinosaurs.
Don: I know I sound like a preacher, but you start messing with the family and bad things are likely to happen. Recreational sex may be fun at the outset, but down the line there’s hell to pay.
Molly: So the Sagan Signal is the Singleton’s endorsement of the nuclear family, have I got that right?
Don: You do, because part of what being created in ET/God’s image entails is that the Superintelligence is three Persons, a nuclear family.
Molly: In Ray’s Singularity I can be married and have kids, but he struggles with the details of how that all plays out.
Don: Ray appears to favor the Mormon Plan – a guy living on his own planetary paradise surrounded by voluptuous women.
*****
Carl
Dan
Don: I now want to change course and drop two bombshells: The first is that the book pictured above, featuring Dan Brown as author, was not written by Dan Brown, it was written by Carl Sagan! The second bombshell, far more significant, is that Dan Brown didn’t write the Langdon Series. It was Carl Sagan!
Molly: I read your book, The Sagan Conspiracy, so I know that there were good reasons why Carl would not have wanted to have any of these six books published under his name.
Don: Throughout his entire career, Carl was tailed by the CIA, the FBI, and only God knows how many other intelligence agencies, foreign and domestic. He knew that he was a marked man, and they knew that he had secrets. Internal evidence within these six books suggest that there were even members of the Invisible College who were violently opposed to him releasing the secret of the Code. But Carl, the “brilliant, daring and complex” genius, was determined to fulfill his charge, even if it ended up costing him his life.
There is abundant evidence in all six books of Carl’s authorship that I will address in time, but let me limit this essay to Deception Point:
Deception Point is a mystery/thriller, released in 2001 between Angels & Demons (2000), the first book in the Langdon Series, and The Da Vinci Code (2003), the second book. It makes no mention of Robert Langdon.
The style and verbiage of Deception Point is distinctly that of Carl Sagan, a world-class expert on the subjects covered in the storyline: NASA, SETI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and secret military capabilities of the United States government.
Following are a few of many examples I could cite for why I believe Carl, not Dan, is the true author:
Exhibit 1:
“The Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence was NASA’s most abysmal money pit ever. Although NASA had tried to give the project a facelift by renaming it ‘Origins’ and shuffling some of its objectives, it was still the same losing gamble.’”
And:
“Sexton cleared his throat. ‘Most people are not aware that NASA has been looking for ET for thirty-five years now. And it’s a pricy treasure hunt – satellite dish arrays, huge transceivers, millions in salaries to scientists who sit in the dark and listen to blank tape. It’s an embarrassing waste of resources.” Ch. 23
Note: SETI started in 1960. From its inception, Carl never believed that an attempt to intercept an alien signal by radio telescopes would succeed. This imaginary dialogue took place in 1995, one year before Carl died.
Exhibit 2:
“When Rachel glanced up at the newcomer, her feet froze in place. She knew the man’s handsome face in an instant. Everyone in America did.
‘Oh,” she said, blushing as the man shook her hand. “You’re that Michael Tolland.’”
“One of the best known science celebrities in America today, Tolland hosted a weekly documentary called Amazing Seas, during which he brought viewers face-to-face with spellbinding oceanic phenomena . . .”The media hailed Tolland as a cross between Jacques Cousteau and Carl Sagan . . . “
“Of course, most critics admitted, Tolland’s rugged good looks and self-effacing charisma probably didn’t hurt his popularity with the female audience.” Ch. 21
Note: “Rachel,” a key figure throughout the novel, was the name of Carl’s mother, by far the most important person in his life until he met Ann Druyan. In Deception Point, at the end, Michael (Carl) and Rachel (Ann) fall madly in love, just like Carl and Ann.
Exhibit 3:
Note: In a typical Sagan gender shift, Carl appears in Ch. 38 as“Celia,” Tolland’s deceased wife, with Tolland playing the role of Ann Druyan in Carl’s last days:
“Six months later, Celia and Tolland were sailing near Catalina when Celia began complaining of a pain in her side. They ignored it for a few weeks, but finally it got too much. Celia went in to have it checked out.
In an instant, Tolland’s dream life shattered into a hellish nightmare. Celia was ill. Very Ill.
Advanced stages of lymphoma, the doctors explained. Rare in people her age, but certainly not unheard of.
Celia and Tolland visited countless clinics and hospitals, consulting with specialists. The answer was always the same. Incurable.
I will not accept that! Tolland immediately quit his job at Scripps Institute, forgot all about the NBC documentary, and focused all of his energy and love on helping Celia get well. She fought hard too, bearing the pain with grace that only made him love her more. He took her for long walks on Kingman Beach,* made her healthy meals, and told her stories of the things they would do when she got better.
But it was not to be.
Only seven months had passed when Michael Tolland found himself sitting beside his dying wife in a stark hospital ward. He no longer recognized her face. The savageness of the cancer was rivaled only be the brutality of the chemotherapy. She was left a ravaged skeleton. The final hours were the hardest.” Ch. 38
*Note: “Kingman Beach” is a reference to King County, where Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are located – where Carl died thirty-two minutes after midnight, December 20, 1996.
By volume, timing, and content, it’s clear that Dan Brown is not the author of Deception Point. Carl Sagan, possibly with Ann’s help, wrote the book as he was nearing the end of his life. Dan Brown may have played a role in the final product in this and the five volume Langdon Series as an amanuensis.
Comparing Resumes:
Who was most qualified to write Deception Point and the Langdon Series, Carl or Dan?
Born in 1964, Dan was trained as a teacher and musician. In 1993, after reading a mystery novel by Sidney Sheldon, Dan was inspired to write two novels, both with modest sales. That’s the extent of his literary experience.
Contrast this with Carl Sagan, an astronomer and astrobiologist who had written numerous bestselling books, including Contact, a mystery thriller about an alien code intercepted and decrypted by NASA that instructed humans how to build a machine capable of transporting humans to Paradise. Contact was later turned into a blockbuster movie starring Jody Foster and Matthew McConaughey. The code, based on three primary numbers, has three layers. Sound familiar? The Sagan Signal has three primary commodities: grain, wine, and oil, and three layers of symbolism.
A deeper analysis of Contact will be presented in a future essay.
I contend that, without question, Carl Sagan was the more qualified.
I challenge scholars of comparative literature to conduct an in-depth study of Deception Point and the Langdon Series - and either confirm or disprove my claim that they are the work of Carl Sagan, not Dan Brown.
As a side note, I suspect a significant percentage of the massive book and film royalties generated by the Langdon Series ended up in the Sagan estate.
*****
Carl
Ray
Another area that I believe worthy of study is the relationship between Carl Sagan and Ray Kurzweil. If Robert Langdon is, in fact, Carl, and Edmond Kirsch in Origin is Ray, then the following excerpt from Origin is telling:
“Some twenty years ago, young Eddie Kirsch had been one of Langdon’s first students at Harvard University – a mop-haired computer geek whose interest in codes had led him to Langdon’s freshman seminar: Codes, Ciphers, and the Language of Symbols. The sophistication of Kirsch’s intellect had impressed Langdon deeply, and although Kirsch eventually abandoned the dusty world of semiotics for the shining promise of computers, he and Langdon had developed a student-teacher bond that had kept them in contact over the past two decades since Kirsch’s graduation.” From: Origin, Ch. 1
Ray attended MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, not Harvard, but both schools are located in the same town, Cambridge. In 1967, the last year Carl worked as a Harvard professor, Ray was an MIT freshman.
Marvin Minsky 1927-2016
Ray was recruited to MIT by Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the MIT AI laboratory and considered by many at the time as the most intelligent man in the world. Minsky, both a pioneer in AI and a strong believer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, became Ray’s mentor. In 1971, Carl invited Minsky to participate in the first international SETI conference at the Byrukan Astronomical Observatory in Soviet Armenia.
Ray, surrounded by world-class thinkers who believed that humans are not alone in the Universe, knows that the Sagan Signal was encrypted into the Bible by a Superintelligence, making it all the more incumbent on him to test the sequences and publish the results.
Please Ray, do us all a big favor and settle the controversy: Just do it!
*****
We have four men: Dan Brown, Carl Sagan, Ray Kurzweil, and Marvin Minsky, whose lives and careers interlock and overlap in strange and mysterious ways. While we will likely never know the full depth of their various relationships and engagements, there is compelling evidence of crosscurrents of mutual interest regarding ET and the Singularity.
With this as background information, my next essay will get into the nuts and bolts of Isaac Newton’s plan to have the Sagan Signal released to the world at the start of the third millennium.
*****
Carl
“Carl Sagan, too, believed in superior beings in space, creatures so intelligent, so powerful as to resemble gods. They are superior partly because their civilizations are millions of years old and have developed technologies unimaginable to us. They have evolved far enough to outgrow their warlike ways. And they are benevolent; they will even share the secrets of the cosmos with us, if we’ll simply tune in to their radio transmissions. In short, they are all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving.” From: Carl Sagan, A Life by Keay Davidson, Ch. 9