The Hiram Key by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas

The Hiram Key is one of those books that get a lot of commentary from the Masonic community either criticizing it for its aloof speculation or praising it for its imaginative nature and intriguing content.
The biggest problem with this book is that it is laced with speculation and spurious coincidences so much so that it allows itself to be taken as a work of fiction. Granted, there are many stretches of fact in this book to accommodate a lack of written history. From their opinions on the relative nature of Freemasonry and Jesus’ life to their suspected evidence of finding the “Third Baseman”, Knight and Lomas paint a picture that can hardly be regarded as fact or truth. Their investigative methods are lacking in many ways and they seem to go from point A to D without accounting for B or C.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The reason I was able to enjoy it was that I was cognizant of the fact that Knight and Lomas have an uncanny ability to tell a fantastic Masonic story as seen in their other writings. The emphasized word here is STORY. If you approach this book as a form of entertainment and take its content light heartedly you will have an interesting read. If you expect to get cold hard facts about the history of Freemasonry from this book they you might as well move on to another title.

The Hiram Key has been called The DaVinci Code for Freemasons, and in a way that analogy is correct. Just as Dan Brown has fused historical fact with an imaginative history and applied it to a storyline, Knight and Lomas have done a similar thing. They have taken the few facts we have on Freemasonry, did a bit of research and investigating and applied them to a storyline. Lomas even says in one of his interviews “There are no hard facts regarding these gaps in history, but it makes for a great story.”

With that in mind, take this book and read it for entertainment because it is entertaining. Not at all times factual, even sometimes ire inducing to some Freemasons, but never the less fun discussion material.

Review by John A. Nichols