THE HERMETIC CODE-CHAPTER 15

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/12/2006 (6887 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The facts and people in this Manitoba legislature mystery are real; the events have been brought to life by writers Carolin Vesely and Buzz Currie.
In this, the final instalment of our special two-week series, Carolin discovers the Golden Boy’s true identity.

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Chapter 15

ALL day at the office Wednesday, I couldn’t stop thinking about poor Frank Simon.

He’d poured his life into Manitoba’s legislature, didn’t even get credit for the work in his home country, and seemed to have paid for the experience with his career.

I couldn’t wait to find out if there was any sort of redemption for him.

Frank Albo was smiling as he greeted me at the now-familiar rotunda.

“Here’s something I just learned a few weeks ago,” he said. “I want you to walk around the balustrade, keeping an eye on the Black Star.”

I circled the limestone ledge as Frank asked, looking down and to my right, until I was back where I’d started.

“Did the star appear to stay in the centre of the pool?” Frank asked.

“No,” I said. “I’d have had to be directly above the star for it to look that way, and I’m off to one side all the time. No mystery in that, is there?”

“No mystery,” Frank agreed, “but no coincidence, either.

“Remember the centre of the temple is a metaphor for the movements of the cosmos, so through this optical illusion, the building re-enacts one of the most significant cosmic cycles to occur in the heavens. It’s called the Procession of the Equinoxes and refers to a 26,000-year cycle of the Earth’s rotation around Polaris — the Pole Star.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to deliver a lecture at a conference in Germany, where I met many of the leading experts in Freemasonry. It was at Schwetzingen Castle, in the room where Mozart — he was a Mason, too, you know — gave his first concert.

“One of the scholars presented a paper on a building designed by Charles de Wailly, an important 18th-century French architect and a Freemason. Now, in my own research, I’d already identified de Wailly as one of Simon’s inspirations because of his drawings recreating the Temple of Solomon according to stages of Masonic ritual.

“De Wailly designed the large domed rotunda to imitate the movement of the cosmos and placed a 24-pointed black star in its centre to commemorate his Masonic lodge, Les Coeurs Simples de l’Etoile Polaire — Simple Hearts of the Pole Star, in English — the most important lodge of Parisian architects for the past 200 years.”

Something about the look on Frank’s face — not to mention his trademark pause for effect — told me he was about to lay another “aha” discovery on me.

I was right.

“Now the wow moment,” he said. “All — EVERY ONE — of the French architects who influenced Simon and his École master, Jean-Louis Pascal, were members of this same Masonic lodge, Simple Hearts of the Polar Star.

“That lodge is not affiliated with the traditional three-degree system of Freemasonry. That is, it’s not under the umbrella of the United Grand Lodge of France, but rather the much more mystical Grand Orient of France. The Grand Orient began in 1733 and is the oldest Masonic organization in contintental Europe. It was quickly labelled ‘irregular’ because it admitted women and gave membership to those who had no belief in a supreme being — which was considered a cornerstone of ‘proper’ Freemasonry.

“The Grand Orient also focused on the higher degree systems, the 33 degrees, occult interests, including magic, numerology and, of course, Hermeticism.”

“What is that again, The Simple Hearts?” I asked. “Maybe that would explain why Simon’s such an expert in Masonic lore but doesn’t show up on any membership lists.”

“It would explain a lot,” Frank said.

* * *

Frank and I climbed up the spiral staircase to the roof of the legislature in near-darkness, and popped up through the trap door into the still-bright summer sky.

We were at the rim of the dome, where it sits on the square central tower that rises from the bar of the H-shaped layout of the Legislative Building.

Below us, Winnipeg peeked out through its umbrella of elms. Above us, Hermes in his coating of gold gleamed so brightly that I had to look away.

“The first time I showed pictures of him to one of my professors in Toronto,” Frank said, “the man was stunned. ‘Good lord,’ he said, ‘look at him. He’s gold.’ ”

“And why wouldn’t he be?” I asked. “After all, he is the Golden Boy, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think Frank Worthington Simon ever called him that, or even thought of him that way,” Frank said.

“But he’s always been golden, hasn’t he?” I asked.

“He had a coating of gold paint when he arrived here in 1919,” Frank said, “and he got a coat of real gold in 1951 — 23.5-karat gold leaf. Public Works replated him a few years ago, so Hermes is as gold now as he’s ever been.

“Anyway, I’d spent a lot of time poring over alchemical texts back in Amsterdam, which just happens to house the world’s largest library of Hermetic books.

“So I started thinking about the four elements of alchemy — earth, air, fire and water. And the vital element, the one that unites them? Mercury. And there, at the top of the building, covered in gold, was Mercury.”

“Also known as Hermes,” I said.

“Also known as Hermes,” Frank agreed.

“And then,” Frank said, “I got a fresh perspective on these.”

He walked over to one of four stonework groupings that decorate the corners of the central square tower supporting the dome.

“They’re identified as Agriculture, Art, Science and Industry.

“Look at Agriculture here. The grains and vegetables could well symbolize earth. And over there, the figures in Art are grouped around a jug, so the grouping is easily identifiable as water.

“In Science, the genie’s lamp implies it’s also representative of air. And air is associated with learning, and the open book is prominent in the piece. As for the fourth grouping, Industry is equated with fire, which is presided over by the craftsman Hephaitos.

“So grouped up here, we have the four elements presided over by the unifying element, transmuting them into gold.”

“Alchemy,” I said.

And I finally realized what he was driving at.

“I get it!” I said. “You’re saying the Golden Boy is not just Hermes, but the father of alchemy, that Trismegistus guy?”

“He’s Hermes Trismegistus,” Frank agreed. “Hidden up here in the plainest view possible.”

“What’s the Hermetic principle again?” I asked. “As above, so below?'”

“That’s right,” Frank said. “What appears on the earthly plane mirrors the greater truth in the spiritual plane. Transmuting the base elements into gold is the lower manifestation. Hermes Trismegistus aims to teach the greater alchemy — the means by which men transform themselves to the perfection of gods, as he did.

“As I said, Gaudet, the sculptor, and Simon never called him the Golden Boy. They gave a broad hint of his true identity, though, when they named him ‘Eternal Youth’ — immortality, in other words.”

“It all seems so weird and ancient for a 20th-century building,” I said.

“And yet,” Frank replied, “we have to look at the evidence. The Hermetic system broke away from medieval magic in the way it invoked cosmic forces. When a Hermeticist wanted to call on the power of the sun, he had a number of techniques.

“He could use the number 666, the number of the sun.”

“And Simon marked right on the blueprint that the Grand Staircase Hall was a square, 66.6 feet on the side,” I said.

“In Hermetic terms, 666 is a solar invocation,” Frank went on.

“Like the one inscribed on the sphinxes,” I said, consulting my notes, and recited: ” ‘The everlasting manifestation of Re, the good god who gives life.'”

“And,” Frank said, “there should be gold, to represent the perfected process of the alchemical transformation.”

“Like our boy Hermes, here,” I said, pointing to the Golden Boy.

Frank nodded.

He glanced back up at the boy above, gleaming against the bright blue Prairie sky.

“We can only guess at what more Hermetic magic Simon might have incorporated if the great scandal of 1915 hadn’t occurred,” he mused.

“What could he do? The money had dried up. Simon could hardly argue that he needed more money for pagan imagery to focus and magnify the power of Hermes Trismegistus.

“Instead, he had to finish as best he could.”

We started slowly walking back to the trap door.

“The grand opening ceremony took place on July 15, 1920,” Frank said. “Guess what was happening in the sky that day?”

We stopped at the door, and he grinned.

“I checked. It was just like six years earlier, the day the cornerstone was laid. The planets Mercury and Venus — Hermes and Ishtar — were aligned.”

“Simon set those dates?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Frank said, “but whoever did even set it to the time of day — 5:30 p.m. on June 3, 1914,” Frank said.

“The cornerstone ceremony is far more important than the dedication, in mystic terms, but the 1914 ceremony was flawed. The stone was laid by the contractor, Thomas Kelly, the man who undermined the great work to feed his greed.

“Maybe Simon thought the project was cursed from that day. But he did his best, in 1920, to put it right.”

We climbed back down through the trap door, closing it behind us, and took the stairway through the gloom to the building below.

Above us, the sun beamed off Hermes Trismegistus in his coat of gold,

Summoned by the invocation on the sphinx’s breast, the light travelled into the Grand Staircase Hall to give its power to the icons of protection.

Up the Grand Staircase, it sought the pagan divinities, to give them the power to lift the members of the legislature up the steps of the Tree of Life.

But the niches of the gods were empty, the designer’s hand long stilled.

And along the halls of Frank Worthington Simon’s talisman, Amen-Re searched in vain, and faded to black.

Over the city, too, the light was growing dim. We walked up Memorial Boulevard into the gathering twilight and Hermes Trismegistus whispered his ancient maxim:

“As above, so below.”

THE END