Between the Acknowledgements and Prologue in The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, there is the following text. It is in the hard back, paper back and electronic editions:
FACT:
The Priory of Sion — a European secret society founded in 1099 — is a real organization.
In 1975 Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.
He got the address for Opus Dei's world headquarters right, as well as the fact that they are Catholic.
Virtually every other statement is a bogus distortion or an outright lie, particularly the last statement about "all descriptions." They did have the sense to take out a phrase to the effect "all historical incidents are accurate" from the publicity for the very first edition since he screwed up badly on most of his historical timeline, putting such "little things" as the Council of Nicea several centuries after events that actually happened because of the council, for example.
Cause. Effect. It's the little things that will trip up a writer of historical fiction.
Further, the whole premise is part of the Cathar / NAZI / "pure blood" crap pushed by Otto Rahn (the real life NAZI archeologist who inspired the Indiana Jones stories) and exploited by Heinrich Himmler, along with such obscene pieces of "pure blood" propaganda as Wagner's Parzival.
The entire fantasy of Brown's Da Vinci Code is based on the core belief of NAZI mysticism about the Grail being about a blood line. The Priory of Sion, as described by Brown, is largely the NAZI propaganda version, except they leave off the involvement of the German knights and Himmler traced the blood line to... you guessed it... old Adolf himself.
The book is a fun read, the same way one of the 1920s pulp magazines is, so long as you know it's at heart an obscenity based on really bad research and plagiarism from NAZIs, among others. The author, the publishers and the folks behind this movie are striving very hard to hide this from the public. They're trying to sell this as "based on historical fact."
The book should be sold with a required disclaimer and limited to those who can prove that they can tell, well, what Shinola is. The movie should be rated NC-17.
But then, I haven't really paid attention to the whole thing. They've got a movie coming out? Neat. </sarcasm>
I personally find it a dangerous work. Many of the liberals who have been sucking it up don't realize that they have been injected with Nazi fictions. I also continue to wonder about this Mr.Brown. What is in the darkest recesses of his thoughts?