The Lost Symbol

發 Dan Brown 熱, 乘熱買了剛上市的 The Lost Symbol, 二天看完...

仍是 DaVinci Code 般的結構人物描述, 詭異的鬼符 symbolism 配上現代美國背景, 格外奇特誘引, 秘密組織是Freemason (共濟會), 仍然是宗教科學間的互動, 結局卻趨向於天人合一的 enlightenment, 別有其對"上天" God 的見解...

"忠"的除主角外加了 CIA, "奸"人Mal'akh 仍是一貫地自殘, 這次更自閹, 有東方不敗葵花寶典的味道了... 描述得引經據典地確切震撼, 祇能抄原文原汁去欣賞 (給有自殘意念的姐妹從另一角度參照
... ):


Ch 71 (pp268-269)
... He stood naked before the mirror and admired his form ... perhaps the last time he would see himself as a mere mortal.
His feet were talons of a hawk. His legs - Boaz and Jachin - were the ancient pillars of wisdom. His hips and abdomen were the archways of mystical power. Hanging beneath the archway, his massive sex organ bore the tattooed symbols of his destiny. In another life, this heavy shaft of flesh had been his source of carnal pleasure. But no longer.
I have been purified.
Like the mystical eunuch monks of Katharoi, Mal'akh had removed his testicles. He had sacrificed his physical potency for a more worthy one. Gods have no gender. Having shed the human imperfection of gender along with the earthly pull of sexual temptation, Mal'akh had become like Ouranos, Attis, Sporus, and the great castrati magicians of Arthurian legend. Every spiritual metamorphosis is preceded by a physical one. Such was the lesson of all the great gods... from Osiris, to Tammuz, to Jesus, to Siva, to the Buddha himself.
I must shed the man who clothes me.
Abruptly, Mal'akh drew his gaze upward, past the double-headed phoenix on his chest, past the collage of ancient sigils adorning his face, and directly to the top of his head. He tipped his head toward the mirror, barely able to see the circle of bare flesh that waited there. This location on the body was sacred. Known as the fontanel, it was the one area of the human skull that remained open at birth. An oculus to the brain. Although this physiological portal closes within a matter of months, it remains a symbolic vestige of the lost connection between the outer and inner worlds.
Mal'akh studied the sacred patch of virginal skin, which was enclosed by the crownlike circle of an ouroboros - a mystical snake devouring its own tail. The bare flesh seemed to stare back at him ... bright with promise.

Ch 86 (pp324-325)
...
Transformation requires sacrifice.
Like many of history's most spiritually evolved men, Mal'akh had committed to his path by making the noblest of flesh sacrifices. Castration had been less painful than he had imagined. And, he had learned, far more common. Every year, thousands of men underwent surgical gelding --- orchiectomy, as the process was known --- thier motivations ranging from transgender issues, to curbing sexual addictions, to deep-seated spiritual beliefs. For Mal'akh, the reasons were of the highest nature. Like the mythological self-castrated Attis, Mal'akh knew that achieving immortality required a clean break with the material world of male and female.
The androgyne is one.
Nowadays eunuchs were shunned, although the ancients understood the inherent power of this transmutational sacrifice. Even the early Christians had heard Jesus Himself extol its virtues in Matthew 19:12: "there are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."
...
In order to create, I must destroy.
Such was the nature of polarity.
...