Here the right side of the pentagram points to the ideal location of the CB on the straightened Penn Ave. Had the CB been here, the Jefferson Memorial and Maryland Ave would have both been further to the south. Where the red line is, as a matter of fact! And when you look at that red line, you see that it is aiming in the 'front' door of the Pentagon. When the Pentagon and Lincoln Memorials were built, they were positioned so that Memorial Drive and the alignment of the Pentagon matched the bearings of New York and Rhode Island Avenues.

Below we see circles centered on the Ellipse, where the line from Arlington Cemetery through the Lincoln Memorial is pointing. The inner circle falls on the ideal location of the CB, where the line from the right side of the pentagram crosses Penn Ave, and it touches the top of the triangle. The outer circle crosses the center of the Pentagon and the point where Memorial and the line from New Hampshire meet.

Pentagrams, hexagrams, triangles, crosses and circles.

Note that the bearings of all those diagonal streets from the pentagram are forming about 23 degree angles with east-west streets, that is the angle of the tropics. At the latitude of DC, that is the location of the sunrises and sunset on cross quarter days, half-way between the equinoxes and solstices.

 

When David Ovason talks about the sunset over Pennsylvania Avenue on August the 10th every year, he recommends that Penn Ave and the city were aligned to that one sunset on that one day; but if you know anything about astronomy and the movements of the sun, you know that is sets there twice each year. He never mentions the fact that Maryland Ave is symmetrical to Penn Ave at the Capitol Building, so that looking west you see the cross quarter sunsets down Penn and Maryland Ave's in Aug, May, Feb and Nov.

Some of you will recognize these as what are called Witches Sabbaths. Archaeologists have pointed out that before the year was reckoned from solstice to solstice, it was reckoned by cross-quarter days half way between solstices and equinoxes. At the time there was what has been called a May/November year. The May celebration coincides with or May Day and Cinco de Mayo festivals, while the November date is our Halloween.

 

Above we see Charles Westbrook label three sets of line 'solstice'. The problem is that the lines are not all parallel. Also, at the equator, the solstice occurs 23.5 degrees from the equator, at the latitude of D.C., the equinox occurs 31 degrees from there.

 

Ancient and Modern

Looking at the map we don't see the solstices emphasized (they would occur 31 degrees from due east/west), but rather we see the quarter days marked. This appears to a nod to the pagan Celtic traditions. We are reminded of the 1753 schism in English Masonry between the moderns and the ancients that turned mainly around the idea of whether or not to make the Royal Arch Degree a part of 'blue' Masonry.

The ancients were suggesting that the moderns were straying from the old traditions, and were insisting upon the inclusion of the Royal Arch Degree which features the Patriarch Enoch. The moderns were insisting on limiting the number of degrees to three. As a result eventually see the formation of the York Rite and Scottish Rite, each with there own version of the Royal Arch Degree, and a compromise and reunion in 1813 in England. In the reunified version , the RAD is a sort of merit badge.

But back to the map; the Royal Arch was first conferred in the US in the Fredrickburg Lodge where George Washington was a member. Lodges that supported the higher degrees were affiliated with the ancients and were getting their charters from the Grand Lodge of Ireland which was promoting them. We also see that the stone masons doing much of the work in D.C. were Irish and formed their own lodge there. The choice of the Celtic quarter days as aligment points seems a logical symbolic choice for that group.

You should note that the York Rite is open to Christians, while the Scottish Rite only insists on the belief in a Supreme Being; in other words, they are Deists. When it comes down to it, the difference is that the Scottish Rite sees scripture as allegorical teaching tools, while the York Rite insist on a historical interpretation of the Bible. Which brings us back to Ed Decker's question about the compatibility of Masonry and Christianity.

The short answer is that there are certain groups that allow any 'believers' and there are those aimed at Christians. Unfortunately for the discussion, Decker doesn't pinpoint this distinction, but aims his anti-Masonic attack at Albert Pike and the Scottish Rite. After listening to him you get the feeling that there is no Christian Masonic Rite, which is not true.

I will have to say that from the perspective of people who are intolerant of those who do not adopt their religous point of view, that the Scottish Rite would be the ones to attack, as the hallmark of the rite is Religous Freedom and Tolerance. Every one knows that the last thing that fundamentalists of any kind can stand is freedom of religion and tolerance for the views of others. You also know that they are the very first to volunteer as judge, jury and executioner.

Let me put it another way, it is not likely that a Scottish Rite Mason will disrupt your meeting by shouting "God is great", and then shooting people. But, if you hear that the shooter was Islamic, or a fundamentalist Jew or Christian, you don't think about it for a minute, and it seems 'natural' then.

[The Deity is not an object of Knowledge, but of faith, not to be appraoched by understanding. The Divine Nature is a theme on which man is little entitled to dogmatize, and yet it is here that man most dogmatizes, classifies and describes God's attributes, maps out God's nature, and his inventories of God's qualities, feelings, impulses and passions; and then hangs and burns his brother, who as dogmatically as he, makes out a different map and inventory." Albert Pike p 222 Morals and Dogma]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking further down the page you can see another animated image where I overlay the pyramid cross section onto the map to measure the 'fit'. In the image above we see that connecting the points of the pentagram also produces a grid of parallel (red) lines. Projecting Pennsylvania and Mass. Avenues as straight lines to the southeast show both of those to be bent. Penn Ave is bent because the Capitol has been located so far north. It was moved because the planned location fell on the steep side of Jenkins Heights.

Had the CB been a few hundred feet to the south Penn Ave would be straight there and match the pentagram grid. A (red) line connecting the points on the right side of the pentagram helps locate the ideal position of the CB. The last frame of the animation shows the map after 1943 when the Pentagon Building was built. There we see that New Hampshire Avenue is extended to Arlington Cemetery, then is reflected back to the Ellipse via Memorial Drive and the Lincoln Memorial, at the same angle as the pentagram grid. We also see the front side of the Pentagon directed to the ideal CB location at this same angle.

We conclude from this that the pentagram produces a grid of lines which serve as the regulating lines for the design of the DC map. Also that Pennsylvania Ave is bent for topographic reasons. Since the designed location fell on the side of a steep hill, it was moved north a bit, so that two segments of PA don't match the grid. The new location produces a 19.5 degree angle with the WH; and the sine of 19.5 is .3333. Elements in the post 1943 map were designed so as to bring parts of the map back into alignment with the pentagram grid.

 

Scott Circle and the Tree of Life

 

If you focus your attention on Scott Circle north of the White House, where Massachusetts and Rhode Island Avenues cross, you can see that it represents the center of a triangle with crossing diagonals. The designers of the map began with the figure of an equilateral triangle, including the diagonals which bisect both the internal angles and the opposite sides, and they shortened it, so as to represent the pyramid cross-section. If the image were not shortened, it would represent a 'top' view of a tetrahedron; or conversely, you can see a shortened version of a top view of a tetrahedron.

 

That is, the pentagram and the triangle are intimately related, and all the elements in the map are short and wide, like the Ellipse located south of the White House. Notice how extending the sides of the hexagon inscribed in the circle below locates the top points of the pentagram.

 

Lines which bisect the angles of an equilateral triangle also bisect the opposite sides. As the angles are all 60 degrees in that triangle, the diagonals generate 30 degree angles. When an equilateral triangle (with its diagonals) is shortened so that the base angles are ~52 degrees, the diagonals become 23+ degrees like the tropics. The Great Pyramid is located at 30 degrees north latitutde and has 52 degree base angles.

Scott Circle was a point in a circle in a hexagram before it was shortened. The fact that the McMillan plan was drawn with a circle south of the WH indicates that they were not 'in' on the symbolism. The image above compares the 1522 Milan Cathedral plan (including regulating lines) and the DC planning map. Both can be seen to be based on the triangular Gates of Light form of the Tree of Life; the Kircher tree does not work here. The cathedral plan uses an equilateral triangle and the map uses an isosceles triangle with ~52 degree base angles. See once again how extending the sides of the hexagon inscribed in the circle locates the top points of the pentagram, and how this form of the tree features an overlapping hexagram and pentagram.

 

The Ideal Template for the Map

 

Displacing the CB bends both Penn and Maryland Aves

The pentagram not only defines the regulating lines, but it also sets the scale for the map plan. The wide points of the pentagram are the same distance east-west from each other as the WH and CB are. The point where Penn Ave meets the East Branch is the same distance east of the CB. Penn Ave and N St intersect in Georgetown that distance west of the WH. If the Capitol had been 600 feet south, the development of the 23 degree rhombus grid containing the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and Metatron's Cube in the map would have looked like this.

I recommend that the image on the right below is the ideal template used by the map planners, with a few changes, like the large triangle was reduced so that the base angles were ~ 52 degrees like the Great Pyramid; this is why the figures in the map (pentagram and hexagram and triangles) are short and wide. This figure uses three overlapping circles to produce a circle centered on the central circle but twice its size. The upper and lower circles with the outer circle figure to us the yin/yang emblem.

 

The Tree of Life on the Dodecahedron on Metatron's Cube

We can also see the tetractys, the vesica, the rhombus, the cube, the Star of David, the Tree of Life (10 spheres) and Metatron's Cube (13 points), which is itself related to the platonic solids. Note again, that the tree shape that works here is the A-shaped Tree of Life and not the H-shaped Kircher version of the tree. The image on the left shows the relationship between this form of the tree and the dodecahedron and Metatron's Cube. Note how the pentagonal faces triangulate and form the illusion of the hexagon and cube.

The Tree of Life represents the relationship of the One to the Many (Essence to Existence) and is here composed of a pentagon overlapping a hexagon. The hexagon, which can be seen as a cube, represents the macrocosm and the pentagram, associated with the dodecahedron, represents the microcosm. Here we see the same idea developed by M.C. Escher.

 

3, 4, 5, 6 and 7

Below we see this template on the western half of the DC map, shortened so that the triangle simulates the pyramid cross-section. We also know that the Washington Monument is east and south of its ideal location, in order to better represent the Queen's Chamber in the map/pyramid. The Capitol Building is also about 600 feet north of its ideal location, for topographic reasons. The only major point that appears to be missing is the one opposite to the Capitol on the west bank of the Potomac.

 

Note the pentagonal fractals that double in height.

 

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No Pentagram

 

Concerning the pentagram in the map, you will note that it consists of 5 crossing lines that produce a total of 15 segments. One of those line segments is missing, but it does not keep us from recognizing the pentagram, just as having only half the triangle does not keep us from visualizing that as complete. The lamest of all the arguments concerning the map, is that that one missing segment (of 15) invalidates the pentagram in the map; and the lamest presentation of that argument is delivered here by Robert Hieronymus, where he suggests that the pentagram 'doesn't have laygs'. Click the image for sound.

 

He talks about drawing his own lines? Why would you need to do that? If you look at this image, you can see that the section that was left out ran in the low area of Rock Creek there (for what that's worth). No legs? What the heck does that even mean? Its missing one segment of fifteen. It is hard to conduct serious scholarship in this environment Robert, but you can tell us about the 'seven layers of meaning' again if you want. :-(

 

The image that you see above comes from page 169 of Chris Hodap's book "Solomon's Builder's", and illustrates how Rhode Island Avenue does not run all the way to Washington Circle. [You will note that Chris has chosen to use the June 1791 map as an illustration. That map was revised and never used. Compare the image here with the one at the top of the page, and see "DC Map Timeline" above.] Above that it reads, the question is whether the pentagram really appears at all and the answer is not really. What is sad is that this is about all these two have to say about the geometry of Washington DC between the two of them, and this is just silliness.

Brent Morris, who pretends to be a scholar too, chimes in with the idea that to his recollection magical signs and sigil needed to be complete to work, and since the pentagram wasn't complete it couldn't be a magical or satantic sign, therefore Masons are not Satanic or magicians. Actually he puts it in the form of a question, which is: if magical signs need to be complete to work, and if Masons are supposed to be so all powerful, why couldn't they make a complete pentagram?

If you look you will see that Mason Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published a partial printing his play "Faustus" in 1790; a play that the earliest forms of which, known as the Urfaust, were developed between 1772 and 1775. In Goethe's Faust, the pentagram prevents Mephistopheles from leaving a room -

Mephistopheles: Let me own up! I cannot go away; a little hindrance bids me stay. The Witch's foot upon your sill I see.
Faust: The pentagram? That's in your way? You son of Hell explain to me, if that stays you, how came you in today? And how was such a spirit so betrayed?
Mephistopheles: Observe it closely! It is not well made; one angle, on the outer side of it, is just a little open, as you see.

This suggests that while the pentagram is generally understood to be a tool for protection, to ward off, or keep evil at bay, the broken pentagram is a symbol of magical invocation, of capturing or containment; a symbolic means of a controlling ensnarement. The open pentagram is a snare.

 

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Emblems with Symbolic Significance

 

Herein I suggest that the appearance of symbols in the Washington, D.C. landscape as well as in the U.S. Great Seal (seen on the back of the one dollar bill) is neither accidental nor coincidental, but is a strategem illustrating Allegories Rich in Coded Messages composed by and addressed to a few knowledgeable individuals, just as we see in the Bible.

 

Remember that it is the ability to interpret the esoteric symbolism that separates members from non-members, and masters from apprentices. Encoding the esoteric (secret) teachings as a means of segregating the inner circle from 'them that are without' is not an uncommon practice, and is referred to as 'the doctrine of exclusion'.

From "The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry" by AE Waite:

"Masonry is described as belonging to the realm of Allegory and Symbolism from which it should follow that it has one meaning on the surface and another beneath, while in the logic of this world of images it is held that things which are within are greater than those without, some secret matter not imparted ligthly or some vital truth which is capable of illustration and adornment by recourse to images and types. We deal in Scripture with substitutes and veilings everywhere."

One part of the ancient mysteries (the so-called lesser ones) was astronomical as we see in the Hiram legend, while the other (the greater mysteries) was theosophical as in the Royal Arch stories which feature Enoch. Theosophy is concerned with "the mystery of the kingdom of God', which like mathematics, geometry and symbolic thinking is beyond the capabilties of some people.

"And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables... Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?" The suggestion is clearly that the message has been composed on at least two levels as some of the content is not meant for everybody. Remember that when you read the exoteric official explanations of the symbols in the Great Seal; or when you read that the thirteen step pyramid signifies Strength and Duration and that's all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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