Da Vinci Code

For those who have been to Mars recently, The Da Vinci Code is the best selling novel by Dan Brown, which to date has sold 70 million copies and the creation of a cinematic extravaganza. The popular and world-wide success of this, quite unremarkable book, is a paradox that publishers and marketing executives around the world are spending huge amounts of time and money investigating. In fact it mirrors the success of the original version of events spoken of in the book and which first came to the public eye through The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. This book, in the 1980's sold millions too, but the difference was that HBHG was supposed to be a factual book, not a fiction.
Useful sites: www.philipgardiner.net www.danbrown.com

Sub paragraph 1 The Story

The story of the Holy Grail has captured the minds of millions of people for over 500 years and continues to do so today. There are billions of words dedicated to discovering the secret or truth of the Grail and so The Da Vinci Code walked straight into this world. Around this central mystique were collated other wonderful mysteries and together they give us a journey of intrigue and enlightenment. In this tale, Dan Brown uses the HBHG as a base and explains eventually that the Grail is in reality the continued lineage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. This lineage then became Royalty in Europe and the secret of their descent closely guarded by a clever secret society called the Priory of Sion.

Sub Paragraph 2 Truth

Any good novel, whether love story or science fiction, works better if there is an element of truth for the reader to grasp on to as if holding on to reality itself. This perception of holding reality in ones hands then leads us to wonder whether the other elements - that may appear far-fetched in isolation - were true or not.
Did the Priory of Sion ever exist? Did Mary and Jesus marry? Was Leonardo da Vinci ever in a secret society? Are the Priory of Sion still active today? All these questions lead to a mind full of "what ifs" and we end up convinced that there must indeed be more to the whole thing.
In fact there is very little in The Da Vinci Code that any historian will back as truth in the physical sense. But there is esoteric truth in the union of male and female - Jesus and Mary - as an alchemical secret from at least the medieval times onwards.