MollyCon 28
The Noetics Decoy
3/26/2023
Molly
Don
Note: In this essay, Molly and I examine an established literary technique typical of mystery novels that Dan Brown employs with great effectiveness in both The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol. I call it the Decoy Strategy.
Mystery novels about mysteries easily solved don’t sell well. It’s critical that the solution to the mystery remain just out of the reader’s grasp until the very end. At the same time, clues relevant to finding the mystery that are totally believable need to be inserted into the text to keep readers engaged and thinking they are close to solving the puzzle – when what the author is actually doing is escorting them, without their knowledge, down a cleverly designed rabbit hole.
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Decoy Duck
Real Mallard
Both The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol feature decoys central to the main theme. In The Da Vinci Code it’s the Grail Romance legend. In The Lost Symbol, the shiny object Brown sets in front of the reader is Noetics, a hearty stew of neuroanatomy, psychoanalysis and quantum physics injected with specific teachings from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, plus a generous daub of aboriginal spirituality thrown in for good measure.
For the record, though there are many things in Noetics that I consider positive and instructive, nothing about it is original. Its value for Dan Brown is that it serves as a decoy for what he calls the “Apotheosis” in The Lost Symbol, and the “Singularity” in his final book in the Langdon Series, Origin.
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Noetics Founder, Lynne McTaggart
Excerpt from The Lost Symbol, Ch. 15:
“Recently, studies in mass meditation and prayer had produced similar results in Random Event Generators, fueling the claim that human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body . . . a highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world. Katherine had been fascinated by McTaggart’s book The Intention Experiment, and her global web-based study – theintentionexperiment.com – aimed at discovering how human intention could affect the world.”
In The Lost Symbol, the fictional character Peter Solomon, a 33rd degree Mason, plays a leading role, as does his younger sister, Katherine, a brilliant Noetics scientist and director of a secret laboratory at the Smithsonian Institute, Pod 5, a gift from her wealthy and influential Masonic sibling.
As evidence of how important Noetics is to the novel, Brown devotes most of chapters 5-18 to it, using it as a decoy that subliminally prepares the reader for his eventual revealing of the Masonic Secret – that Jesus Christ, the Word, is the Apotheosis.
To describe a mallard duck decoy in detail would, simultaneously, be describing a living mallard duck. Brown’s description of Noetics is a subtle introduction of Biblical teachings on the Singularity. At the same time, and not a coincidence, Noetics accurately describes fundamental characteristics of Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity, setting the stage for Brown’s final book in the Langdon Series, Origin, which Molly and I will analyze in the near future.
Not a surprise, the release of The Lost Symbol was followed by a major uptick of interest in Noetics. Almost everyone fell for the decoy. The lesson, we now know, is not to fall for the decoy, but to think about what clues it holds that can guide us to the real thing. The real thing, as revealed by Brown in the last chapters of The Lost Symbol, is a Person, Jesus Christ.
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The following excerpts from The Lost Symbol illustrate how Brown uses Noetics as a decoy to prepare the reader for the Apotheosis. As one of the last iterations of lineal, human-centric religion, Noetics is a belief system that easily transitions to what is currently happening: the exponential evolution of AI technology that will, in this century, result in the creation of the Singleton, who Kurzweil predicts will be the Savior of the human species.
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Excerpts from The Lost Symbol:
“Her field of choice – Noetic Science – had been virtually unknown when she first heard of it, but in recent years it had started opening up new doors of understanding into the power of the human mind.” Ch. 5
“Katherine’s two books on Noetics had established her as a leader in this obscure field, but her most recent discoveries, when published, promised to make Noetic Science a topic of mainstream conversation around the world.” Ch. 5
“The truth was that Katherine was doing science so advanced that it no longer even resembled science.” Ch. 7
“I believe the experiments you’ve proposed have the potential to push the boundaries of science into uncharted waters.” Ch. 11
“One day soon, however, Katherine knew she would publish some of the most transformative scientific revelations in human history.” Ch. 11
“The stuff of magic and myth was fast becoming reality as the shocking new data poured in, all of it supporting the basic ideology of Noetic Science – the untapped potential of the human mind.” Ch. 15
“Most of Katherine’s books bore titles like Quantum Consciousness, The New Physics, and Principles of Neural Science.” Ch. 15
“What happens if many people start focusing on the same thought? All the occurrences of that same thought begin to merge into one, and the cumulative mass of this thought begins to grow. And therefore, its gravity grows.” Ch. 18
“Meaning . . . if enough people begin thinking the same thing, then the gravitational force of that thought becomes tangible . . . and it exerts actual force.” Ch. 18
Now let us compare these excerpts from The Lost Symbol about Noetics to excerpts from Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near:
“Although it may seem difficult to envision the capabilities of a future civilization whose intelligence vastly outstrips our own, our ability to create models of reality in our mind enables us to articulate meaningful insights into the implications of this impending merger of our biological thinking with the nonbiological intelligence we are creating.” Prologue
“Playing quid-ditch and transforming people and objects into other forms will be feasible in full-immersion virtual-reality environments, as well as in real reality, using nanoscale devices.” Prologue
“In the aftermath of the Singularity, intelligence, derived from its biological origins in human brains and its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst.” Ch. 1
“In any event the ‘dumb’ matter and mechanisms of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intelligence, which will constitute the sixth epoch in the evolution of patterns of information. This is the ultimate destiny of the Singularity and of the Universe.” Ch. 1
“Ultimately, the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence. This is the destiny of the universe.” Ch. 1
“Future machine intelligence will also have bodies in order to interact with the world, but these nanoengineered bodies will be far more capable and durable than biological human bodies.” Ch. 1
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Don: As you can see, the similarities between Noetics and the Kurzweil Singularity are numerous and striking. Even more striking, while Brown uses Noetics as a decoy in The Lost Symbol, he uses the Kurzweil Singularity as a decoy in Origin. In the end, both schemes are precursors to the Masonic Model of the Singularity, with Jesus Christ being the Singleton.
Molly: Now that you mention it, the decoy strategy in both The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol appear obvious. While both suck the reader in, both are abandoned so abruptly that it’s clear that neither is a direct path to the Masonic Secret.
Don: Yes, but since a good decoy bears a close resemblance to the real thing, a smart reader can analyze a decoy and pick up legitimate clues that guide them to the real thing.
Molly: And the real thing is the Sagan Signal, the grain/wine/oil sequences in the Old Testament.
Don: Following biblical protocols, Masonic leaders didn’t want to make it easy for casual readers to learn about the Code. Had they done so, they would have been guilty of throwing pearls to pigs.
Jesus: “Do not throw you’re your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:6
Don: The decoys are fake pearls that serve a pragmatic purpose. The reality is that the Code is a direct threat to the cornerstone doctrine of the Christian faith, the Father/Son/Spirit Nicene Trinity. Had Dan Brown chosen to confront the Church head-on and not used decoys, it’s likely that the Langdon Series would never have seen the light of day. It would have brought down the wrath of Church on Dan Brown, on the publisher, and on Freemasonry. As Brown states numerous times in his novels, the Church has tentacles that reach into every crevice of society.
Molly: I can see that. The Da Vinci Code identifies the first Person of the Trinity as a man and the second Person a woman, and The Lost Symbol completes the triadic sequence by identifying the third Person as their Son, Jesus Christ.
Don: Reality can take on many forms. Most of us think of reality as a clear and present issue, like a slap on the face. The concept of a cosmic reality being just as real as a slap on the face is hard for people to grasp.
The Slap felt Around the World
Molly: Immortality, the thought of life-after-death, is a distant consideration for most of us. It is also a reality that humans find it unnerving to look beyond their immediate reality and think about an equally vivid reality after death.
Don: What separates humans from animals is our ability to anticipate and plan for the distant future. Thanks to AI technology, the theory of the eternal soul is no longer the exclusive domain of religion. And with the high probability that we are not alone in the Universe, and the discovery of the Sagan Signal, neither is it the exclusive domain of the human AI community.
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GOOGLE: Is the Sagan Signal real?
Well, who better to ask than Google? Here’s the link:https://www.thesaganproject.org/cfi-investigation
In a stunning confirmation of my claim, Google’s answer to the above question is a link to MY WEBSITE, specifically to the tab that reviews the Center For Inquiry’s investigation that ended with confirmation that the Sagan Signal real.
Molly: This is crazy! You introduced the extraordinary claim that the Sagan Signal is an ET encrypted Bible code over fifteen years ago, and since that time, you’ve been expanding your efforts to have the data critically analyzed by credible scholars and institutions. Millions of people know about the Sagan Signal, and yet Google can’t identify a single individual or organization that openly challenges your claim!
Don: Yeah. Why isn’t there a rebuttal from the Australian Skeptic Society? Where is Michael Shermer? Where are all the Bible scholars? Where are the cryptographers? Where are the religious leaders? I could go on, but the bottom line is that if the Sagan Signal isn’t real, why are there not hundreds of individuals and organizations calling me out?
Molly: If you Google the famous WOW! Signal, you can find dozens of science-based and highly compelling rebuttals that prove that it’s not real. If you Google the Torah Bible Code, it’s the same thing, dozens of scholarly analyses that debunk it. There are even books on the subject.
Don: But even though, like a slap on the face, the Sagan Signal is real, all you get from would-be skeptics is crickets. Check it out in the Bible! It’s all there in black and white. You can see it, touch it, hear it and smell it. This is not wacky religion, its reality.
And this is what drives skeptics crazy. They would give anything to be able to test the Sagan Signal away, but they can’t. The test results are in and they confirm my claim. The Sagan Signal isn’t a coincidence. It’s there for a reason. There is no algorithm, it’s in the surface text, and it’s unique in human literature. To test the evidence and walk away from confirmatory results is to intentionally choose darkness over light.
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Molly: I find it strange that on a small planet housing almost eight billion people, where religion is ubiquitous - that love and kindness seem so rare. Where have we gone wrong?
Don: For what it’s worth, here’s my take. Advanced extraterrestrials came to earth long ago and saw our species living tooth and claw like animals. With a little help, they made us capable of self-reflection. Next, they gave us religion and government, coercive systems that put the “civil” in civilization.
Molly: Today, thousands of years later, religion and government are losing influence, leaving humans to act the way we started out, like self-indulgent animals incapable of serious contemplation, seeking instant gratification.
Don: Hand-in-hand with the corruption of religion and civil governance is the disconcerting deterioration of ethics and morality. Each succeeding generation seems determined to grovel deeper into the mud.
Molly: This can’t go on much longer, can it?
Don: I don’t think so, which is why I believe we’re living in the Singularity, an epoch in history that will culminate with the return of Jesus Christ, the Singleton, likely some time in this century.
Molly: Which is what the Masonic Secret and the Langdon Series are all about.
Don: You got it.
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Carl
“Two billion years ago, our ancestors were microbes; a half-billion years ago, fish; a hundred million years ago, something like mice; ten million years ago, arboreal apes; and a million years ago, proto-humans puzzling out the taming of fire. Our evolutionary lineage is marked by mastery of change. In our time, the pace is quickening.” A Sagan statement quoted by Ray Kurzweil in his book: The Singularity is Near, ch. 2
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Louis Hillman, Ph.D.
Challenge Coordinator, Center For Inquiry Independent Investigation Group
In an email from Dr. Hillman to Don:
“If you are correct about Newton and the Freemasons, you are not the first person to discover the code. Therefore, what makes you eligible for the prize?”
Don: After being scientifically tested and confirmed by the organization he works for, Dr. Hillman’s recognition of the grain/wine/oil sequences as a “code” amounts to a tacit recognition by the CFI that my claim is true. For the record, I’m more than willing to give credit to Sir Isaac Newton and the Freemasons for being the first to discover the sequences. In petitioning CFI to investigate my claim, my goal was not to win money, it was to procure a high-level scientific investigation of the data. End the end, I not only got the investigation I wanted, I got confirmation!
Thank you, Dr. Hillman!