What is the "The Truth?"
I have no idea. Seems I said it elsewhere on this blog. Here it is again; I tend to live my life at a high level of uncertainty.
From a strictly faith-based perspective, the truth is cast in bronze as one thing. From a research-based point of view, it shifts with the sands.
From an entertainment standpoint, we're talking blockbuster here.
Ron Howard's "Angels and Demons" is out and getting mixed reviews. One reviewer calling it "...an endless chase that makes less sense the more and closer you watch it." Yeah, right, like that hurts; the first weekend out the movie did $46 million.
The DaVinci Code did $77 million and was huge, both as book and as movie. It's entertainment value was unquestionable. There was, though, something else.
Dan Brown made a lot of people, millions probably, stop and think, "What if...?" Yes, indeed, what if?
My moment of "What if..." came years before the novel and film. Neither Brown nor Howard had anything to do with it. Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh made me start thinking, questioning, allowing for any number of possibilities other than that which is usually accepted by most.
It was a long time ago.
Originally published in 1982, the book had been an enormous bestseller in Europe, where the story it told had blown a firestorm of controversy across the continent and throughout the UK. The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was the story of Rennes Le
Chateau, itself a widely popular mystery surrounding the Languedoc, a region in the south of France. (When the book was released in the USA, the name had been changed to Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Why, I haven't the faintest. Also for some unknown reason, the book failed to kick up the fuss it did on the other side of the Atlantic.)The book, its authors, and very quickly its supporters, made some preposterous claims.
The two which immediately grabbed me were that Jesus Christ was a married man, he had children, and that his bloodline exists today, and those descendant of the Sang Real, the Royal Blood, know full well who they were.
Another claim, but certainly not the only claim, was that there was incontrovertible proof to all of their claims. For instance; Jesus' wife was the woman the New Testament has taught us to know as Mary Magdalene, or simply, The Magdalene who, of course, would have been the mother of the children of Jesus, truly the children of God.
Crazy talk, you say? Oh, there is more, much more, perhaps even more crazy. That's your job, not mine, you'll have to read the book.
I read the book in the early '80s. There was no movie, although there were sequels to the book itself, all of which I also read. I should tell you that I recommended the book to a lot of people over the years; some loved it, some never finished it, some thought it complete fabrication. Love, hate, toss it in the trash, I don't now, nor did I ever, see fabrication.
Those who discarded the book and badmouthed it, I suspect, were made uncomfortable by its challenging of long-held religious beliefs. A deceased friend of mine, a history teacher with a master's, dismissed the book as garbage. When I pushed him on specifics, he couldn't provide them. He was a devout Methodist. The book made him itchy.
Some twenty years had come and gone since reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail when one day the talk started. People at work were buzzing about this new book, The Da Vinci Code, and those reading it were losing sleep at night because they couldn't wait to get up in the morning and discuss the book and its implications, the biggest of which is, again, "...what if?"
What if there are more and different "truths" out there and selected individuals know these truths and guard them with not only their lives but with the lives of others.
Some friends literally cornered me to tell me about this phenomenal book, The Da VInci Code. No sooner would they begin to unveil the premise to me, usually in hushed and confidential tones, than I'd look right at them and finish their sentences.
This "new" book, this "new" theory or new set of theories, was all old news to me.
Dan Brown's books are novels, works of fiction. Yet both are based on a book and books that are put forth as
100% non-fiction. While there are several books, perhaps dozens, the granddaddy of them all is undeniably Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the story of Rennes Le Chateau's central figure, Berenger Sauniere, the Roman Catholic priest who discovered "the secret."Is there a secret? Yes, I do believe there is. My belief in the secret, however, is not without numerous and important caveats.
While I do believe there is a secret, and that societies and powerful men and women have shed blood in protection of this secret, and that could include the Vatican, there is one question I cannot answer; is this secret true? One need to ever keep in mind that just because something is designated as a secret does not in any way verify the alleged secret as being the truth.
What the truth is, I really do not know. There's that high level of uncertainty again. The Da Vinci Code aside, I have my own thoughts on what the secret is and what its implications are, but you need to read the book, watch the movies, get your hands on all available info and draw your very own conclusions. Maybe it is all crazy talk - but what if?
