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Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has become a publishing phenomenon and this week a blockbuster film version starring Tom Hanks opens simultaneously in 71 countries. The book has been condemned by religious leaders, historians and the literary intelligentsia, but applauded by feminists and positively feted by conspiracy theorists. Its success is undoubtedly rooted in its heady mix of ideas and historical themes. It is packed with extraordinary claims about history, science and especially religion. Some may be true, some are rubbish.
In this three part series, Dan Rivers is determined to find out the truth, where these claims come from and what it is about this book that has turned it into the best selling novel ever.
In this three part series, Dan Rivers is determined to find out the truth, where these claims come from and what it is about this book that has turned it into the best selling novel ever.
Programme 1: Secret Societies
The first programme investigates secret societies and discovers just how easy it is to believe in conspiracies. Dan penetrates the Freemasons, revealing for the first time on television just what the organisation's initiation rites involve. He pursues the Knights Templar and their present day descendants in Hertfordshire. In Rome he meets the head of a little known organisation which claims to be nothing less than a country and he questions members of a genuinely secret body which claims to have vetted Tony Blair before he become Prime Minister.
Programme 2: The Sacred Feminine>
The second film in the series investigates the most controversial theme of The Da Vinci Code – The Sacred Feminine. Dan Brown claims that for two millennia the Catholic Church has suppressed a shocking truth about the union between Jesus and his wife Mary Magdalene. The essence of the church was the original trinity: God, the Son, and his Wife (NOT the Holy Spirit). Mary herself was considered sacred, and was the chief disciple.
Dan Rivers begins his quest by looking for Isis, the ancient goddess who represents the feminine side of divinity. He heads to her temple at Philae in Egypt to see whether there's any truth to this male / female god union. Contrary to Dan Brown’s view, Catholics seem remarkably tolerant of goddesses – but as Dan Rivers discovers, both Islam and Judaism have their own histories of feminine suppression.
And finally, can Dan get nearer to the sacred nature of sex? Is it true, as Dan Brown claims, that men only achieve sacred enlightenment through sex?
Dan Rivers begins his quest by looking for Isis, the ancient goddess who represents the feminine side of divinity. He heads to her temple at Philae in Egypt to see whether there's any truth to this male / female god union. Contrary to Dan Brown’s view, Catholics seem remarkably tolerant of goddesses – but as Dan Rivers discovers, both Islam and Judaism have their own histories of feminine suppression.
And finally, can Dan get nearer to the sacred nature of sex? Is it true, as Dan Brown claims, that men only achieve sacred enlightenment through sex?
Programme 3: Codes and Symbols
The final film asks the biggest question of all – is there really a Da Vinci Code? And if there is, does it have the huge historical significance that Dan Brown claims?
Dan Brown has no doubt that Leonardo stuffed his pictures full of symbols that held clues to great secrets of state and religion. Art historians take a rather different view. Other painters too, such as Poussin and Holbein, have been seen by conspiracy theorists as painting not so much pictures as complex riddles.
And while word codes have a firm place in real history, is there any evidence that secrets can be passed on by generation to generation with only a chosen few being able to crack them? Visiting the country's only real Cryptography school, Dan Rivers tests the famous Bible Code and gets his hands on a real Cryptex.
Finally he comes face to face with what some believe is the biggest code of them all – the mathematical sequence that governs all of nature.
And while word codes have a firm place in real history, is there any evidence that secrets can be passed on by generation to generation with only a chosen few being able to crack them? Visiting the country's only real Cryptography school, Dan Rivers tests the famous Bible Code and gets his hands on a real Cryptex.
Finally he comes face to face with what some believe is the biggest code of them all – the mathematical sequence that governs all of nature.
