That Damn Book (And Film)

[poliphilo]

The Da Vinci Code comes too late for me. I did all this stuff in the 80s and 90s.

I'm not saying I was in the vanguard. As someone in the Observer pointed out this morning, people like Robert Graves and Margaret Murray were putting together theories involving the Great Goddess, the sex life of Jesus and centuries-old ecclesiastical conspiracies over fifty years ago.

And behind them lies Frazer's Golden Bough- one of the key texts of the early 20th century.

What was once the prattle of a few off-centre scholars and pseudo-scholars has finally gone mainstream.

There was a time when I hoped and half-believed it was all true.

But now I know it isn't.

There never was a Goddess worshipping Golden Age.
The Priory de Sion was the invention of a mid-20th century fascist hoaxer.
Opus Dei may be sinister- but it doesn't employ albino hit-men.

And so on...

That's what irritates me about Brown. If he'd done proper research- instead of cherrypicking the conspiracy websites- he'd have known that most of the ideas he's playing with here were shot to pieces ages ago.

Comments

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I feel the exact same way. I was all into this stuff back in the 80s (still have a first edition paperback of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"), but my deeper study (and some good Guidance) led me to understand that 99.9% of all of it was fabricated. The Goddess stuff. The Jesus stuff. The 'witch cult' stuff.

I think it was the Woodcrafter connection with Gardener that finally severed the last thread. If there were actual Native American elements blended into the Wiccan mix, the claim of a 'pure, unbroken Tradition' is bunk.

I still get amusement from some conspiracy stuff, but I don't believe any of it. At least the Pagan stuff. It's the modern Dominionist Christian movement in the US that is proving to be The Real Thing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The actual history is at least as interesting as anything the conspiracy buffs can come up with.

I found Ron Hutton's account of Wiccan origins in Triumph of the Moon absolutely riveting.