Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 3)

In this post, we look at the third premise of The Da Vinci Code: the claims of a secret society called the Priory of Sion. But first, if you haven't already, I encourage you to read the previous three posts in this series:

Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Introduction)
Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 1)
Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 2)

Dan Brown opens The Da Vinci Code with the following bold claim:

FACT: The Priory of Sion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci.

In fact, much of the authority of the novel's claims is based upon the supposed revelations made by this secret society. On this basis, it's important for us to look at 1) whether this secret society really exists and 2) whether it is what it claims to be.

Dan Brown makes it clear that he fully believes that the Priory of Sion is not a work of fiction but a genuine secret society which was founded for one purpose -- to protect a secret that had been covered up by the Church, the secret of Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene and his resulting lineage that descended down through the Merovingian royal bloodline. This is emphasised, once again, at the beginning of the novel with this initial claim:

"All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

So who are the Priory of Sion?

Dan Brown draws his information on the Priory of Sion primarily from one book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which was published in 1982 by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Brown, with his characteristic love of puzzles, codes and plays on words, used the names of these authors as the basis for his character, Leigh Teabing. "Leigh" is the surname of one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and "Teabing" is an anagram of "Baigent." These three authors, however, didn't smile at Brown's side-reference to them. They took him to court for plagiarism, claiming that he had stolen the essential plot and much of the content of The Da Vinci Code from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The judge eventually found in the favour of the defendant, legislating that a novelist has the right to adapt historical works into works of fiction. The irony is that the court case would have been successful for the plaintiffs if they had categorized Holy Blood, Holy Grail as fiction, but by insisting that their book was a non-fiction (i.e. genuinely historical), they lost. It must have been hard for the co-authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail to see all the attention (and money) going to The Da Vinci Code when, as we shall see, the substance of the novel really was based upon a superb piece of fiction pioneered in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln really did invent the story of The Da Vinci Code.

According to Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the Priory of Sion is a secret society created in the early twelfth century by Godfroy de Boullion just before he captured Jerusalem. The Priory was charged, again according to that book, with guarding the secrets of the Holy Grail, and later, in 1118, created a military arm called The Poor Knights of Christ and Solomon's Temple (also called, for short, The Knights Templar). The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail had direct contact with Pierre Plantard, who claimed to be the then current Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. However, it was the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail who took an imaginative leap that would become the basis, twenty years later, for the best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code.

Simon Cox, in his book Cracking the Da Vinci Code, explains:

...Plantard was the main source of information behind the international best-seller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, having had direct contact with the authors as they were writing it. It was this book that brought the story of the Priory of Sion to the attention of the English-speaking world in 1982. In preparation for the book, co-authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln spent years tracing and dissecting the genealogies, secret codes, and history of the secret society which were drip-fed to them via the strategic release of arcane documents and face-to-face interviews, which led them on a chase through the last 1,000 years of European history and political intrigue.

The trio never did ultimately discover what the real purpose of the Priory of Sion was. The restoration of a Merovingian monarch to the throne of France was high on Plantard's list of priorities, but so was the realisation of an economic and political United States of Europe, which has now largely been achieved with the advent of the European Union and the implementation of the euro replacing the majority of local currencies.

Therefore, in the absence of any clear statement of purpose, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln themselves developed the revolutionary theory that the Merovingian bloodline might represent the vestiges of a lineage descending from the children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (who, it is believed, found refuge in France after the Crucifixion) and that the purpose of the Priory of Sion was, in fact, to guard this sacred lineage.

This is where the "fiction" of Holy Blood, Holy Grail kicks in (and readers of The Da Vinci Code will immediately recognise it). Remember: Pierre Plantard never claimed that the Priory of Sion guarded the supposed secret that the Merovingian kings were, in fact, the descendants of Jesus Christ. This, it turned out, horrified Plantard, who himself claimed to be a descendant of the Merovingian line, and so Plantard went on French television, publicly denouncing this conclusion. I watched the relevant part of this French documentary, and I saw Plantard stating clearly, and very nervously, that at no time had he ever claimed to be himself a descendant of Jesus Christ.

Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's revolutionary piece of fiction - the suggestion that the grail secret being guarded by the Priory of Sion was not a cup or chalice, but was in fact the royal bloodline descended from Jesus himself - became the basis for Dan Brown's novel (and you can understand now why the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail sued Dan Brown for plagiarism). This intuitive leap was based on an ingenious play on words. Instead of the original words for "Holy Grail", being in old French san greal (which means "holy cup/chalice"), the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail claimed that it should really read sang real, which means "royal blood" (this is something we'll take up in more detail in tomorrow's post). And upon this play on words, an ingenious new theory of grail legend - the core material of Holy Blood, Holy Grail - was meticulously constructed.

Even though Dan Brown uses Holy Blood, Holy Grail as his primary historical source material, true historical scholars regard the book as "pseudohistorical" at best. It is based on "what if" queries and mind-numbing leaps of imagination. In short, Brown's source material is hardly a scholarly work held in high reputation. It has only one thing in its favour, however: it is popular. It was a bestseller back in the 1980s and today, thanks to The Da Vinci Code and the associated court case, Holy Blood, Holy Grail is in reprint and is once again climbing the bestseller charts. Despite their loss in court, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln are, I'm sure, making millions in new-found revenue.

So what is the truth behind this supposed secret society, The Priory of Sion? Here are the real facts:

• In 1956, a Frenchman called Pierre Plantard (together with two others) founded a group in France called the Priory of Sion, claiming that it had ancient roots.

• Although there is mention of a monastic order of the same name, founded in Jerusalem in 1100 and absorbed into the Jesuits in 1617, everything we know about the present-day Priory of Sion comes from the Dossiers Secrets, which was disclosed by Plantard, who claimed to be its (then) current Grand Master. Both The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail base their historic "facts" on the contents of the Dossiers Secrets.

• The claims that Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton, among others, were Priory Grand Masters also come from the Dossiers Secrets.

• In 1993, Plantard admitted under oath to a French judge that he had fabricated all the documents relating to the Priory of Sion. The judge warned him not to toy with the judicial system and dismissed him.

• Pierre Plantard's motivation behind the Priory of Sion hoax appears to be his desire to be identified as rightful heir to the Merovingian throne.

• Even the fake Priory of Sion (founded by Pierre Plantard) was never interested in goddess worship. This is a very important point, because you will remember that at the beginning of his novel, Dan Brown claims, "All descriptions of...secret rituals in this novel are accurate." This is a blatant lie. The so-called "secret rituals" of the Priory of Sion that Dan Brown describes in his book are 100% fiction. Although they may be accurate representations of pagan rituals, they are not accurate representations of the rituals of the Priory, and somehow it wouldn't surprise me if the modern Priory of Sion (the fake society created originally by Plantard) sues Brown for misrepresentation. Now wouldn't that make an interesting news headline?

Although "alternative gospels" and the supposed symbology of Leonardo da Vinci's artwork underpin the storyline of The Da Vinci Code, it is the Priory of Sion's Les Dossiers Secrets which are the primary foundation for the novel's bizarre claims. So let's take a closer look at Les Dossiers Secrets.

I haven't personally read the documents themselves (I really do have better things to do with my time), but I've read a number of books which describe their contents. The Dossiers mostly deal with genealogies (remember, one aim of the Priory of Sion, according to Plantard, is the restoration of the Merovingian throne) and include a lot of arcane writings relating to gnostic themes. The Dossiers are, frankly, massive in scope, and Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, in their book The Templar Revelation, struggle to make sense of their "absurd" contents. They write:

Once again, one is faced with a sense of high strangeness. An enormous amount of time, effort and perhaps even personal danger must have been involved in setting up such an elaborate ploy. But at the same time, in the final analysis, it appears to be completely and utterly pointless. In that respect, however, the whole business is merely following in the tradition of intelligence agencies, in which few things are as they appear to be and the most seemingly straightforward matters may well be exercises in disinformation.

There are, however, reasons to make use of paradoxes - even blatant absurdities. We tend to remember the absurd, and, furthermore, illogicalities that are deliberately presented as scrupulously argued facts have a curiously powerful effect on our conscious minds. After all, it is this part of ourselves that creates our dreams, which operate with their own kind of paradox and non-logic. And it is the unconscious mind that is the motivator, the creator, which, once it has been "hooked", will continue to work even on the most subliminal meaning from a tiny scrap of apparent gobbledygook...For example, what better way of attracting attention on the one hand, but filtering out unwanted interlopers or the casually curious on the other, than to present the public with apparently intriguing but also virtually nonsensical information? It is as if even getting close to what the Priory is really about constitutes an initiation: if you are not meant for it then the smokescreen will effectively put you off deeper investigation. But if it is in some way meant for you then you will soon be given that extra material, or will discover for yourself, in some suspiciously synchronistic fashion, that extra insight into the organization which suddenly makes everything about it fall into place.

On the basis of this reasoning, Picknett and Prince then go on to say:

It is, in our opinion, a great mistake to dismiss the Dossiers Secrets simply because their overt message is demonstrably implausible. The sheer scale of the work behind them argues in favour of their having something to offer.

I can't help but shake my head as I read this, and marvel at the awesome capacity of the human mind for self-deception. Yet this "demonstrably implausible" work, which excels in "apparent gobbledygook" and "virtually nonsensical information" in a concoction of "[its] own kind of paradox and non-logic", is being presented as the basis upon which billions of Christians should question the biblical account of Jesus. I don't know about you, but if I am asked to choose between the Bible and Les Dossiers Secrets, the answer is a no-brainer!

Did the Priory of Sion ever exist? Probably. Does it exist now? Probably. Are the ancient and modern Priories one and the same? Unlikely.

But let's once again give Dan Brown the benefit of the doubt. Let's just allow for a moment the possibility that the Priory of Sion instituted by Pierre Plantard really is what it claims to be - an ancient secret society dating back to the twelfth century. What does this really mean for the message of Jesus? We have to remember that even in the first, second and third centuries, gnostic heresies vied with the Christian message. And there have existed, down through history, strands of heresy - the offshoots of early gnosticism - which has, like the mythical hydra, reared itself with many heads and many guises. Even if the Priory of Sion did exist today, and could prove a legacy dating back one thousand years, this does not automatically make it the keeper of the truth. There are many, many such strands of heresy that each vie for the same title. Some, like the Cathars, were destroyed by the medieval Church during the Crusade and Inquisition eras. Others, like the Rosicrucians, continue to exist today. And new ones are constantly emerging, usually some form of New Age rendition of an Old Age gnosticism.

Remember what Dan Brown writes at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code? "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." What he should have written, instead, was: "Many descriptions of...documents and secret rituals in this novel are based upon conjectures that depend on the statements made by people who claim to be members of a secret society called the Priory of Sion." And, as we have seen, even the very secret rituals portrayed in the novel are not accurate descriptions of those used by the Priory of Sion - so what on earth are we left with that is actually true and accurate? The artwork? Not really, as we saw in yesterday's post. The architecture? Well, not to pick too fine a point, but even Dan Brown's descriptions of the architecture have some glaring flaws. So I ask again, looking at the claims Dan Brown makes at the beginning of his book, where does that leave us?

The first three important premises of the novel -- the authority of alternative gospels, the supposed symbology of Leonardo da Vinci's artwork and the historicity of the Prior of Sion -- have been found to be the poorest of proof -- evidence that no lawyer would be game to submit in a court of law. Let's take a look, tomorrow, at the last standing premise -- the supposed "culturally unacceptable" marital status of Jesus.

Next: Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 4)