(4-5-2008)
In the 1959 social-psychological classic The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman focuses on the moral character of projected
definitions of situations, specifically on what he calls mis-representations. Goffman points out that we recognize that the impression that performers
seek to give may be true or false, genuine or spurious, valid of phony, and that since they have ample capacity and motive to misrepresent the facts
we are always ready to pounce on chinks in his symbolic armor in order to discredit his pretension. It's just natural to critique the public personas
that other present.
Goffman notes a difference between the cynical performer and one who believes in his presentation, and reminds us that, "A representation made with an
honest belief in its truth may still be negligent because of lack of reasonable care in ascertaing the facts, or in manner of expression, or absence of
skill and competence" (page 63), meaning that sincerity is no guage of the truth.
In 1992, in The Question of Freemasonry, Ed Decker writes, "If Freemasonry is truly what it professes publically, then Bravo!; it is a welcome
fellowship. If it is being deceiving then it should be exposed". [Tear down the wall.] Next he quotes Albert Pike who says that "Masonry like all
religions and mysteries conceals it's secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages", to which Decker says, "See there". In this case Decker fails to remember
the stories in the Bible about parables, and how Jesus says that to you it is given to understand but to them that are without these things are said in
parables. This is called the doctrine of exclusion and is pretty common in organizations in general.
If we interpret parables to be deceiving, then by Decker's standards Jesus should be exposed. His arguement is undercut by the non-disclosure of the secrecy
in the Church's own doctrine. It is probably safe to say that those with one dimensional viewpoints like Ed Decker are probably not the inner circle to whom
Jesus refers. While he is trying to uncover the esoteric meanings in Freemasonry, he appears to want to ignore the esoteric tradition in Christianity.
The words that we use are exoteric and esoteric, for the interpretations that are given to the outer and inner circles respectively. Parables are viewed
differently when we know the esoteric interpretations. This holds true for govenmental organizations as well. The official definition of national symbols
differs from the esoteric notions held by the inner circle. That is, just like in the Bible, we cannot expect that the exoteric explanation is the only
explanation.
In United Symbolisms, Robert Hieronimus, after pointing out that symbols are defined and understood differently by different members of society, that
most of our symbols didn't come with interpretive texts, that there is a general lack of documentary evidence indicating the designers intentions, points to
official government pronouncements about those symbols as the final word on the matter, which leads us back to the Bible story about parables and those
within and without. Robert never expands on the doctrine of exclusion, the fact that meanings are revealed to members of groups as they accumulate
information and knowledge, and suggests naively that the exoteric view of the Great Seal is the 'truth'.
Note that above we saw that Decker's argument collapsed because his group was susceptible to the same critique that he was applying to Freemasonry. The idea
is that we need to be aware of what we accuse others of. For instance United Symbolisms speaks of writers who cloud documented history, selectively
filter information to support their perspective believing that they already have the truth and are merely searching for examples to make a showy case for
others (p 22). This is what 'book sellers' do; I call it 'fluff' and contrast it to scholarship.
Rememeber what was said about people already wanting to check up on people's presentations. This is naturally escalated for those in roles that implicitly
make moral claims like priests, cops and doctors, or for those that point the moral or academic glass at others. The implication is that the presentation
will not cloud but clear documented history and not selectively filter information, and most of all that his presentation will be better than theirs
Note to ppl who write about fact checking and accuracy or precision - others may turn that glass on you. Precision refers to what you are capable of.
How precise can you be with those tools? Accuracy refers to how right you got it. The idea is that you can be precise and still be wrong, if your survey is
based on inaccurate control information - your assumptions so to speak. That's why we 'tie down' our surveys with known quantities.
As to fact checking, you might want to edit the note on page 128 that calls Venus the brightest object in the sky. Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in
the sky after the Sun, the Moon and Venus. And I am not sure that I would want to claim that some Egyptians believed that the sun 'stood for the star Sirius'
(page 16). Sirius is the brightest star in the sky.
I would also add something more to this sentence fragment: "the number 13 was associated with followers of the Goddesss and the way this culture marked
time, based on the annual menstrual cycle of the average woman". This of course refers to the monthly cycle of an average woman viewed for a year.
What it means is that the old matriarchal societies counted time by full moons not by arbitrary solar months. There are 13 full moons a year.
And I am curious about how it is that the holy number seven expresses the rythm of the evolution of the changing positions of the sun thereby creating
a seven day week, because all the refrences that I find relate the seven days of the week to the seven 'planets' and point out that
seven is not a good sun number.
When mentioning the 'layers' of meaning, Robert mentions the usual suspects like physical, mental, spiritual but fails to say much about astronomical,
theological, or kabbalistic. A life time of studying astrology does not teach you astronomy. Much Masonic and Bible symbolism is astonomical.
A Defense of Freemasonry
The book actually begins on page 251 where he tells us:
"A defense of Freemasonry is not within the scope of this book, but I felt it was necesary to include it here because it was a prime motivator for
me to write this book in the first place. All most all of the contemporary attacks on American symbolism are linked to attacks on Freemasonry." What this
means is that he judges an arguement not on the basis of truth or fiction but on whether or not it sounds favorable to Masons and Freemasonry to him.
To Robert, attacks on American symbolism appears to mean any suggestions that the Founding Fathers as a group were anything but 'hermetic Christians', and
that those are Christian symbols and legends being refered to in the seal. He reinforces this by latching onto David Ovason. What he fails to explore is that the
Kabbalah and Mysticism are at the core of hermetic Christianity. If he did perhaps he could appreciate the Tree of Life embedded in the D.C. map.
He invests himself in the idea that either there are no symbols in the map, or that if they are, they are merely coincidental; instead of just
looking at the map to see what you can see. Ask a Mason if any thing in the ritual or Lodge layout is coincidental? He claims he can't see a pentagram when
he looks at the map and Ovason never mentions it in his book.
Accuracy
Robert rails against the notion of 'looks like is close enough', as he calls it. "When people already have their minds made up, they will often see similar
symbols as close enough to serve as proof for their convictions". (p 207) Does that work for not seeing symbols as well? This is the conceptual flip side of
Ed Decker, and is presented as a bad thing when some people do it.
Nicholas Mann suggests that L'Enfant's map that he bases his analysis on was only meant for the President and not for surveying purposes, and can only be
considered accurate to within 20 yards in a mile. The angular seperation of one degree at a mile is 94 feet. 20 yards is 2/3 of a degree at a mile. I
believe that if you overlay the L'Enfant map with the Ellicott map you can prove for yourself how accurate it was, since the Ellicott map was
intended to show the real lot positions for the city. Doing a survey today, we worry if we get readings over 1/10th of a foot (1.2 inches).
The question that arises then is how close is close. Or rather, what does exact mean to you? Consider what United Symbolism has to say about
David Ovason's book. One of the central points in Ovason's book is that the right triangle found in the map formed by the WH, CB and Wash Mmt was
deliberately situated to mirror the stellar triangle that encompasses the constellation Virgo. The book offers two illustrations, one (p 196) shows
the triangle in a nineteenth century map, the other (p 200) shows a star chart with a triangle drawn on it.
A Tribute to a Triangle
US says that Ovason sees this as L'Enfant's 'tribute to the triangle', which by the way features a 19.5 degree base angle at the CB. The sine of 19.5
is .333. So you would expect that the angle in the sky would be near 20 or so degrees. After all, the book adds that Ovason believes that either Washington
or Ellicott determined the exact angle of Penn Ave (p 198) and worked into the map a triangle that reflected the stellar triangle that
enclosed most of the Virgo constellation. (Earlier he had written 'that encompasses the constellation Virgo'.) The image on page 200 in United
Symbolism shows the constellation cut off by the triangle, but in Ovason's book another image shows that the constellation continues on past that line. Why
the two different images??
Looking at the D.C. map we can see that Penn Avenue is not straight because the CB is not in line. The implication of the notion about an 'exact angle'
suggests that the Capitol was displaced from a position of the straight line in order to produce an alignment 3 degrees different from the northwest end of
Penn Ave that would produce an triangle with a different angle at the CB; 19.5 degrees rather than 23.5. Notice how the shift changes the angle of Maryland
Ave as well.
Ovason suggests that the central section of Penn Ave was aligned by first placing the CB, then the WH. He never considers the notion that PA may have been
planned as a straight line, and that the CB has been displaced.
And this from United Symbolism:
"The triangular pattern of this group of stars is reflected exactly in the shape of the Federal Traingle, with Penn Ave as the hypotenuse.
Ovason was the first to reveal this solar-stellar orientation." This is an endorsement of Ovason's ideas. Robert is not the first to
clamor over him and his exacting investigative technique and how he is probably the best-qualified writer to ascertain these symbols, but I believe that I
am the first to have attacked the idea about the analogy arguement
as I call it, and I am proud to have the opportunity to do so again.
Once more, I ask, what does exact mean to you? The claim is that the match is exact. Take a look. The top image is a screen capture from astronomy software,
The bottom image is from Ovason's book. The angle is nowhere near 20 degrees, not exact, plus he fudges his image to make one angle appear more square.
It appears his model may have been the 30-60-90 triangle. My first question would be why the planners determined an exact angle for Penn Ave that was not
near the angle of the pattern in the sky that they were trying to represent. What was the logic of this 'symbol' given the difference. Also, what are we to
make of the fact that the triangle in the sky is not a right triangle? Does this not matter either?
Ovason has tried to salvage this by claiming that it is the Federal Traingle that is the key and not the three buildings, since the Wash Mmt has been moved.
Note how the displacement of the monument increases the square angle to about 97 degrees.
Virgo
United Symbolism goes on to tell us that "the alignment of Penn Ave with the stellar triangle" links the city to the Virgo constellation. This is based on
the notion that the 'ancients' dedicated buildings, temples and cities to 'spirits in the sky', and they celebrated the connection by aligning structures
and streets to astronomical events like the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars.
What this alignment turns out to be is the fact that one of the stars in the triangle is near the sun as it sets along Penn Ave in August each
year. The sun also sets there the first of May. The star is in Leo and not in Virgo, so the connection to Virgo on this precisely chosen day is through
the exact triangle connection that appears close enough for some like Ovason and Robert, but not for me.
Sunset Aug 10 as seen from D.C.
This is an image depicting the sun setting in D.C. on August 10th at about 20 degrees north of due west over the White House location on the end of PA as
seen from the CB. According to United Symbolism, after sunset three stars begin to glow above the White House, Spica, Arcturus and Regulus, and pick out a
large right triangle: the apex of which is marked by Regulus hovering above the WH. [Note that an apex is the top of an isoceles triangle, and
that Regulus is approaching from the south and west; it does not hover over the WH.]
If you know anything about astronomy, you know that the reason that we can't see all the heavenly bodies all the time is that they are blotted out by the
sun during what we call the day time and when celectial mechanics brings their apparent orbits close together. The moon goes missing for three days at a
time because it is between us and the sun. (Rebuild this temple in three days.) Mercury and Venus are rarely seen because they are closer to the sun than
we are, and don't often get far enough from the sun for most people to notice them. (I'm kidding, I know you don't look at the sky.) Sirius is the
brightest star in the sky and needs to be at least seven degrees from the sun in order to be seen, others require more distance.
If you look at the image above you can see that Regulus is less than ten degrees from the sun on that night and therefore won't be seen after
sunset. David Ovason tells us that Regulus sets just over half an hour after the sun on August 10. The earth moves one degree (twice the sun's width) in four
minutes. 32/4 is eight degrees of seperation approximately. Given that the sun sets behind buildings on Penn Ave, and the fact that Regulus is so close
to the sun plus the lights of the city, it won't be seen hovering over the WH then, meaning that you can't see that triangle on that night. The poetry
sounds like it might work but the science is all wrong.
As to the notion that these stars of the triangle glow above the White House, this is clearly a stretch of the imagination (and some one's
credibility). In the image above the WH is at 20 degrees north of due west, the Jeff Mml is 20 degrees south of due west and Spica is even further south
than that. The triangle is at least fifty degrees wide across the sky and the Virgo is the second largest constellation (the Hydra is larger), so there is
no alignment of Penn Ave to it on any one day. It will be seen in the southwest after sunset for quite a while. Moving the alignment of Penn Ave 3 degrees
in order to have made it straight would not significantly disrupt this viewing. That is, this 'alignment' does not account for the bend in Penn Ave.
Regulus and Sirius
This is not an alignment to the Virgo, but rather a sighting of it in the sky. If anything, the alignment appears to be to Leo which is setting on the White
House location and is said to 'rule' the sun (as in raised by the grip of a lion's paw). And you say Ovason discovered this eh? What we can say about the
map that would be true in this case is that one segment of Penn Ave is currently aligned to the sunset at the heliacal setting of Regulus.
If you read the book and never looked at this page, you might imagine that after sundown on August 10th you would be able to see a triangle of first
magnitude stars glowing above the White House, with Regulus hovering right over it. The triangle you might presume would be near to 20 degrees at one end
and have a right angle, but this is not the case. Robert, you live close by there - did you never go to Penn Ave and look for yourself, or did you just
rhapsodize and extrapolate on Ovason's control points. You would be a hero to the D.C. study group in general if you could arrange for photos of that one
August.
It has been suggested that perhaps Penn Ave (between the WH and the CB) was aligned to heliacal risings of either Regulus or Sirius. That is easy
enough to check. Here we see Regulus rising just before the sun, the first week in September. It crosses the horizon at 16.5 degrees north of due east.
Maryland Ave. runs 19.5 degrees north of due east. [Remember that the first week in Sept the sun is nearing the equator, so it is still north of due east.
The Heliacal Rising of Regulus 16.5 degrees north of due east
As to Sirius, it's heliacal rising was on August 6 in 1800. Below we see it crossing the horizon just ahead of the sun but at 22.5 degrees south of due
east. Penn Ave (measured between the WH and CB) runs 19.5 degrees south of due east.
The Heliacal Rising of Sirius 22.5 degrees south of due east
As it rises Sirius moves south and east of Penn Ave, and doesn't hoover over the CB as is claimed.
Nicholas Mann, without ever consulting astronomy software suggests that the 108 degree azimuth of Mass Ave in the first L'Enfant map may align with
one of these two, but 108 is 18 degrees south of due east, less than the current alignment of the mid section of Penn Ave. "It is likely that the
108 degree angle of the pentacle aligned the primary avenues of the city to the rising in the east of such first-magnitude stars as Regulus and Sirius."
Mann p 178. It's really not that hard to check this stuff you know, especially if you study some astronomy with your astrology.
Mann p 95 L'Enfant may well have intended the lines of the pentacle to symbolically usher in the stellar and auspicious qualities appropriate to the
birth of a new nation. p 176 it's arms may also have pointed to the heliacal rising of certain first magnitude stars. The eastern star was seemingly
also intended to represent equal distribution of those resources among the people as a whole. p 178 was intended to align the city to the heavens.
US page 221 suggests that Mann surmises that Benjamin Banneker might have been there during the initial survey work to point out to L'Enfant
the heliacal rising of Sirius so that it would correspond down the avenues of the Eastern Star; but as we saw above the heliacal rising of Sirius was in
August and Banneker left the job before May.
We now know that neither the heliacal rising of Sirius nor Regulus aligns with the section of Penn Ave between the CB and WH, but that Penn Ave does align
with the sun set near the heliacal setting of Regulus. This is, however not an alignment to Virgo in any way. Also the Federal Triangle cannot be construed
as an exact replica of the sky triangle. It's just not true. It is also not true that you can see that triangle above the WH on that night. Let's look
together this August.
I also hope that we now know that the alignment of the D.C. streets is not a subject of debate or speculation - either they do or they don't, but it's not
that hard to check. Just as it's not hard to determine the positions of the sun and moon, if you have an almanac or an ephemeris, or know a little bit of
astronomy. Robert publishes this wack claim by Charles Westbrook without ever batting an eye:
"Because the 56-7 year cycle of eclipses would have to be observed at least twice to determine it's accuracy someone may have been working on the
city plan as early as 1679." Charles is not an astronomer, nor is Robert, so they appear not to know that you can figure these things out before hand and
it doesn't require years of viewing.
We know that the sun moves from 23.5 degrees north of due east to 23.5 degrees south of it at sunrise at the equator. At Washington D.C. this 'solar arc' is
62 degrees rather than 47 (at the equator), meaning that the maximum sun rise occurs at 31 degrees north and south of due east at the solstices. The streets
in the pentagram form 23.5 degree angles. The mid section of Penn Ave is 19.5 degrees, as is Maryland Ave which crosses PA at the CB.
We also know that the moon's orbit goes 5 degrees above and below the sun's extremes, meaning 28.5 degrees at the equator. At D.C., 28.5 converts to 37.6
degrees. The most excentric planet is Mercury which goes 7.5 degrees beyond the sun, meaning 31 degrees at the eqautor. If you want to depict the path of the
sun and planets in two dimensions you need a rectangle 62 degrees wide and 360 degrees long. 31 degrees converts to 40.9 at D.C. It is not true that you have
to sit and watch the sky for years in a location to be able to forecast eclipses there, and it is irresponsible to publish the claim.
. . .
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