The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon) (56 page)

She shrugged. “Then you’re not looking hard enough.”

“Come on, I want a real answer. That’s the answer of a
priest
. I want the answer of a
scientist
.”

“You want a real answer? Here it is. If I hand you a violin and say you have the capability to use it to make incredible music, I am not lying. You
do
have the capability, but you’ll need enormous amounts of practice to manifest it. This is no different from learning to use your mind, Robert. Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires laserlike focus, full sensory visualization, and a profound belief. We have proven this in a lab. And just like playing a violin, there are people who exhibit greater natural ability than others. Look to history. Look to the stories of those enlightened minds who performed miraculous feats.”

“Katherine, please don’t tell me you actually
believe
in the miracles. I mean, seriously . . . turning water into wine, healing the sick with the touch of a hand?”

Katherine took a long breath and blew it out slowly. “I have witnessed people transform cancer cells into healthy cells simply by
thinking
about them. I have witnessed human minds affecting the physical world in myriad ways. And once you see that happen, Robert, once this becomes part of your reality, then some of the miracles you read about become simply a matter of degree.”

Langdon was pensive. “It’s an inspiring way to see the world, Katherine, but for me, it just feels like an impossible leap of faith. And as you know, faith has never come easily for me.”

“Then don’t think of it as
faith
. Think of it simply as changing your perspective, accepting that the world is not precisely as you imagine. Historically, every major scientific breakthrough began with a simple idea that threatened to overturn all of our beliefs. The simple statement ‘the earth is round’ was mocked as utterly impossible because most people believed the oceans would flow off the planet. Heliocentricity was called heresy. Small minds have always lashed out at what they don’t understand. There are those who create . . . and those who tear down. That dynamic has existed for all time. But eventually the creators find believers, and the number of believers reaches a critical mass, and suddenly the world becomes round, or the solar system becomes heliocentric. Perception is transformed, and a new reality is born.”

Langdon nodded, his thoughts drifting now.

“You have a funny look on your face,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know. For some reason I was just remembering how I used to canoe out into the middle of the lake late at night, lie down under the stars, and think about stuff like this.”

She nodded knowingly. “I think we all have a similar memory. Something about lying on our backs staring up at the heavens . . . opens the mind.” She glanced up at the ceiling and then said, “Give me your jacket.”

“What?” He took it off and gave it to her.

She folded it twice and laid it down on the catwalk like a long pillow. “Lie down.”

Langdon lay on his back, and Katherine positioned his head on half of the folded jacket. Then she lay down beside him—two kids, shoulder to shoulder on the narrow catwalk, staring up at Brumidi’s enormous fresco.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Put yourself in that same mind-set . . . a kid lying out in a canoe . . . looking up at the stars . . . his mind open and full of wonder.”

Langdon tried to obey, although at the moment, prone and comfortable, he was feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion. As his vision blurred, he perceived a muted shape overhead that immediately woke him.
Is that possible?
He could not believe he hadn’t noticed it before, but the figures in
The Apotheosis of Washington
were clearly arranged in two concentric rings—a circle within a circle.
The
Apotheosis
is also a circumpunct?
Langdon wondered what else he had missed tonight.

“There’s something important I want to tell you, Robert. There’s another piece to all this . . . a piece that I believe is the single most astonishing aspect of my research.”

There’s more?

Katherine propped herself on her elbow. “And I promise . . . if we as humans can honestly grasp this
one
simple truth . . . the world will change overnight.”

She now had his full attention.

“I should preface this,” she said, “by reminding you of the Masonic mantras to ‘gather what is scattered’ . . . to bring ‘order from chaos’ . . . to find ‘at-one-ment.’ ”

“Go on.” Langdon was intrigued.

Katherine smiled down at him. “We have scientifically proven that the power of human thought grows
exponentially
with the number of minds that share that thought.”

Langdon remained silent, wondering where she was going with this idea.

“What I’m saying is this . . . two heads are better than one . . . and yet two heads are not
twice
better, they are many,
many
times better. Multiple minds working in unison magnify a thought’s effect . . .
exponentially
. This is the inherent power of prayer groups, healing circles, singing in unison, and worshipping en masse. The idea of
universal consciousness
is no ethereal New Age concept. It’s a hard-core scientific reality . . . and harnessing it has the potential to transform our world. This is the underlying discovery of Noetic Science. What’s more, it’s happening right now. You can feel it all around you. Technology is linking us in ways we never imagined possible: Twitter, Google, Wikipedia, and others—all blend to create a web of interconnected minds.” She laughed. “And I guarantee you, as soon as I publish my work, the Twitterati will all be sending tweets that say, ‘
learning about Noetics,
’ and interest in this science will explode exponentially.”

Langdon’s eyelids felt impossibly heavy. “You know, I still haven’t learned how to send a twitter.”

“A
tweet
,” she corrected, laughing.

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind. Close your eyes. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

Langdon realized he had all but forgotten the old key the Architect had given them . . . and why they had come up here. As a new wave of exhaustion engulfed him, Langdon shut his eyes. In the darkness of his mind, he found himself thinking about
universal consciousness . . .
about Plato’s writings on “the mind of the world” and “gathering God” . . . Jung’s “collective unconscious.” The notion was as simple as it was startling.

God is found in the collection of Many . . . rather than in the One.

“Elohim,” Langdon said suddenly, his eyes flying open again as he made an unexpected connection.

“I’m sorry?” Katherine was still gazing down at him.

“Elohim,” he repeated. “The Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament! I’ve always wondered about it.”

Katherine gave a knowing smile. “Yes. The word is
plural
.”

Exactly!
Langdon had never understood why the very first passages of the Bible referred to God as a
plural
being.
Elohim
. The Almighty God in Genesis was described not as One . . . but as Many.

“God is plural,” Katherine whispered, “because the minds of man are plural.”

Langdon’s thoughts were spiraling now . . . dreams, memories, hopes, fears, revelations . . . all swirling above him in the Rotunda dome. As his eyes began to close again, he found himself staring at three words in Latin, painted within the
Apotheosis.

E PLURIBUS UNUM.

“Out of many, one,”
he thought, slipping off into sleep.

Epilogue

Robert Langdon
awoke slowly.

Faces gazed down at him.
Where am I?

A moment later, he recalled where he was. He sat up slowly beneath the
Apotheosis
. His back felt stiff from lying on the hard catwalk.

Where’s Katherine?

Langdon checked his Mickey Mouse watch.
It’s almost time.
He pulled himself to his feet, peering cautiously over the banister into the gaping space below.

“Katherine?” he called out.

The word echoed back in the silence of the deserted Rotunda.

Retrieving his tweed jacket from the floor, he brushed it off and put it back on. He checked his pockets. The iron key the Architect had given him was gone.

Making his way back around the walkway, Langdon headed for the opening the Architect had shown them . . . steep metal stairs ascending into cramped darkness. He began to climb. Higher and higher he ascended. Gradually the stairway became more narrow and more inclined. Still Langdon pushed on.

Just a little farther.

The steps had become almost ladderlike now, the passage frighteningly constricted. Finally, the stairs ended, and Langdon stepped up onto a small landing. Before him was a heavy metal door. The iron key was in the lock, and the door hung slightly ajar. He pushed, and the door creaked open. The air beyond felt cold. As Langdon stepped across the threshold into murky darkness, he realized he was now outside.

“I was just coming to get you,” Katherine said, smiling at him. “It’s almost time.”

When Langdon recognized his surroundings, he drew a startled breath. He was standing on a tiny skywalk that encircled the pinnacle of the U.S. Capitol Dome. Directly above him, the bronze Statue of Freedom gazed
out over the sleeping capital city. She faced the east, where the first crimson splashes of dawn had begun to paint the horizon.

Katherine guided Langdon around the balcony until they were facing west, perfectly aligned with the National Mall. In the distance, the silhouette of the Washington Monument stood in the early-morning light. From this vantage point, the towering obelisk looked even more impressive than it had before.

“When it was built,” Katherine whispered, “it was the tallest structure on the entire planet.”

Langdon pictured the old sepia photographs of stonemasons on scaffolding, more than five hundred feet in the air, laying each block by hand, one by one.

We are builders,
he thought.
We are creators.

Since the beginning of time, man had sensed there was something special about himself . . . something more. He had longed for powers he did not possess. He had dreamed of flying, of healing, and of transforming his world in every way imaginable.

And he had done just that.

Today, the shrines to man’s accomplishments adorned the National Mall. The Smithsonian museums burgeoned with our inventions, our art, our science, and the ideas of our great thinkers. They told the history of man as creator—from the stone tools in the Native American History Museum to the jets and rockets in the National Air and Space Museum.

If our ancestors could see us today, surely they would think us gods.

As Langdon peered through the predawn mist at the sprawling geometry of museums and monuments before him, his eyes returned to the Washington Monument
.
He pictured the lone Bible in the buried cornerstone and thought of how the Word of God was really the word of
man
.

He thought about the great circumpunct, and how it had been embedded in the circular plaza beneath the monument at the crossroads of America. Langdon thought suddenly of the little stone box Peter had entrusted to him. The cube, he now realized, had unhinged and opened to form the same exact geometrical form—a cross with a circumpunct at its center. Langdon had to laugh.
Even that little box was hinting at this crossroads.

“Robert, look!” Katherine pointed to the top of the monument.

Langdon lifted his gaze but saw nothing.

Then, staring more intently, he glimpsed it.

Across the Mall, a tiny speck of golden sunlight was glinting off the highest tip of the towering obelisk. The shining pinpoint grew quickly
brighter, more radiant, gleaming on the capstone’s aluminum peak. Langdon watched in wonder as the light transformed into a beacon that hovered above the shadowed city. He pictured the tiny engraving on the east-facing side of the aluminum tip and realized to his amazement that the first ray of sunlight to hit the nation’s capital, every single day, did so by illuminating two words:

Laus Deo.

“Robert,” Katherine whispered. “Nobody ever gets to come up here at sunrise. This is what Peter wanted us to witness.”

Langdon could feel his pulse quickening as the glow atop the monument intensified.

“He said he believes this is why the forefathers built the monument so tall. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know
this
—there’s a very old law decreeing that nothing taller can be built in our capital city.
Ever
.”

The light inched farther down the capstone as the sun crept over the horizon behind them. As Langdon watched, he could almost sense, all around him, the celestial spheres tracing their eternal orbits through the void of space. He thought of the Great Architect of the Universe and how Peter had said specifically that the treasure he wanted to show Langdon could be unveiled
only
by the Architect. Langdon had assumed this meant Warren Bellamy.
Wrong Architect
.

As the rays of sunlight strengthened, the golden glow engulfed the entirety of the thirty-three-hundred-pound capstone.
The mind of man . . . receiving enlightenment.
The light then began inching down the monument, commencing the same descent it performed every morning.
Heaven moving toward earth . . . God connecting to man.
This process, Langdon realized, would reverse come evening. The sun would dip in the west, and the light would climb again from earth back to heaven . . . preparing for a new day.

Beside him, Katherine shivered and inched closer. Langdon put his arm around her. As the two of them stood side by side in silence, Langdon thought about all he had learned tonight. He thought of Katherine’s belief that everything was about to change. He thought of Peter’s faith that an age of enlightenment was imminent. And he thought of the words of a great prophet who had boldly declared:
Nothing is hidden that will not be made known; nothing is secret that will not come to light.

As the sun rose over Washington, Langdon looked to the heavens, where the last of the nighttime stars were fading out. He thought about science, about faith, about man. He thought about how every culture, in every country, in every time, had always shared one thing. We all had the
Creator. We used different names, different faces, and different prayers, but God was the universal constant for man. God was the symbol we all shared . . . the symbol of all the mysteries of life that we could not understand. The ancients had praised God as a symbol of our limitless human potential, but that ancient symbol had been lost over time. Until now.

In that moment, standing atop the Capitol, with the warmth of the sun streaming down all around him, Robert Langdon felt a powerful upwelling deep within himself. It was an emotion he had never felt this profoundly in his entire life.

Hope.