by Joe Atwill, The Unz Review:
J D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is a work with many mysteries attached to it. Perhaps the least of these is that, though the story is both incoherent and morally destructive, it has been forced-fed to adolescents by America’s public school system for sixty years. A mystery more often cited by the public press, however, has been the book’s odd association with assassinations.
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In fact, among the assassins purportedly in possession of Catcher in the Rye were three of the most famous in history. Mark David Chapman, after he had shot and killed John Lennon, calmly opened his copy of Catcher in the Rye and proceeded to read it before being apprehended. John Hinckley was also carrying the book while attempting to kill Ronald Reagan. It is alleged that Lee Harvey Oswald had a copy in his apartment and that it was one of his favorite books, though this is disputed.
The strange cluster of individuals in possession of the book at the time they assassinated a famous person have led some to speculate that the book is somehow a trigger for ‘mind controlled’ subjects, as was the case for the assassin who was depicted in the book and film ‘The Manchurian Candidate’.
In this article I will decode the symbolic framework of the Catcher in the Rye and this will explain why the assassins possessed it. The book was not a trigger for the murders, rather it was a warning to those who understood the book’s occulted meaning. The warning was that they maintain silence about the doings of what Salinger described as a “secret fraternity” upon threat of death.
To start with the first thing, the title of the book has not been understood. The ‘Catcher in the Rye’ has a dual symbolic meaning. It links to a Robert Burns’ poem that for some reason Holden Caulfield misquotes, as is well known. But what has been overlooked is that a ‘catcher in the rye’ is the scythe that the grim reaper holds and the phrase therefore can be seen as a representation of the Apocalypse.
On its surface, Catcher in the Rye appears to center on the internal life of Holden Caulfield, a neurotic seventeen year old who is expelled from his prep school. However, its symbolic meaning reveals a process whereby Caulfield, having failed to progress through Freemasonry’s ‘levels’ in his first attempt, nevertheless perseveres and obtains the knowledge needed to rise up through the levels and learn the deepest secret of the “secret fraternity”. Is is useful to recognize that Salinger appears to be following the levels of Freemasonry – to the extent that they are known – in the order a Mason would follow.
The kind of Freemasonry Salinger symbolically described was not the beneficial stereotype, but rather an organization with a sinister and secret agenda. At the book’s conclusion, Holden Caulfield has become a ‘Master Mason’ and is permitted to enter the ‘Holy of Holies’ to learn the ultimate secret of the Freemasons which, apparently, is that the “Sons of Light” as Robert Burns describes Freemasons, have sworn to implement an Apocalypse on all non-Masons and to kill anyone who exposes the organization’s plan
The Catcher in the Rye describes many ‘secrets’ that cannot be discussed. For example, the book begins with the central character, Holden Caulfield, noting “my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father.”
Given the analysis below. the personal details the father does not wished disclosed is his membership in a secret society – Freemasonry.
The central puzzle of The Catcher in the Rye is the identity of the “secret fraternity“ that existed in Holden Caulfield’s school and he had joined:
“And they had this goddam secret fraternity that I was too yellow not to join.”
