The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
Brown, Dan, The DaVinci Code, Corgi, London, 2004
p. 32, 2nd proper para - Langton on the interconnectiveness of events and history
‘As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate embelms and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.’
An apt summary of major conspiratorial thinking.
Ch. 5 (p. 49-54) - Description of the Roman Catholic sect ‘Opus Dei.’ This specimen of ‘facts’ lends credence to the ‘theory.’ Should check for the existence of ODAN (Opus Dei Awareness Network - www.odan.org).
Ch. 37 (p. 216-222) - History of the Priory of Sion (itself a historical forgery). Should compare this history with the FT article on the same organisation and the notes from Uncon06. First major piece of fiction masquerading as fact.
p. 218, 2nd para - Langton on the controversy of the history of the Knights Templar.
‘Langdon had lectured often enough on the Knights Templar to know that almost everyone on earth had heard of them, at least abstractly. For academics, the Templars’ history was a precarious world where fact, lore and misinformation had become so intertwined that extracting a pristine truth was almost impossible. Nowadays, Langdon hesitated even to mention the Knights Templar while lecturing because it invariably led to a barrage of convoluted inquiries into assorted conspiracy theories.’
Funny and apt, considering the context.
p. 280, paras 7 & 8 - Supposed authenticity of the Priory via documentation.
Ch. 55 (p. 311-319) - potted history of the rise of Christianity as a political tool of the Roman Empire. Very historically inaccurate; claims Constantine made the religion official (Theodosius did; Constantine just legalised it for tax reasons) and that he also decided on both the divinity of Christ and the biblical canon. The divinity question was over how Christ’s divinity worked (indeed, Nicaea chose against Aryanism, the Emperor’s/Court’s choice) and the debate over the canon had been on-going (and would continue to be so). Could mention the Gospel of Judas in re this point; find the Hitchen’s article via 3QuarksDaily.
Ch. 58 (p. 326-336) - The conspiracy against the wife of Jesus by Peter and the ‘appreciation’ of ‘The Last Supper.’ Probably the main crux of the argument; the wife of Christ, suppressed gospels and a reiteration of the claim that the canon gospels were rewritten to foster a particular ideology on to the faithful.
- need a high res version of the ‘The Last Supper’ for projection purposes.
p. 340 - mention and critique of ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail.’
- fourth paragraph; claim that the Crusades were, in part, an attempt to destroy information regarding to the Sang Raal.
Ch. 60 (p. 339-346) - the suppression of Christ’s marriage to the Magdalene, the Grail as the documents of the bloodline and of Mary’s body and the bloodline. Also, the Church’s oppression of the people’s involved (could joke here that when I say the Church I tend to mean the Roman Catholic Church although as the Anglican Church also did not allow filming in its sites that it is a global Christian conspiracy).
p. 343 - “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”
Ch. 74 (p. 408-414) - The Sacred Feminine and Hiero Gamos ritual. Purportedly ancient but, I think, and a fairly modern idea of what the Ancients might have thought and believed.
