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From Mona Lisa’s Secret Number to Duchamp’s Hidden Face: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Will Blow Up Your Art WorldDid Duchamp lie about finding his readymades? Did Anthony Quinn's painting predict 9/11? The truth is art there.\ In a lot of ways, this was the Year of the Conspiracy Theory. Fabulations and connect-the-dots conjectures of all sorts found their way from the margins to the center. The phenomenon very much affects art—which makes some sense, in that art is designed as fodder for fantasizing. Most of the time, such speculation is as consequential as the latest theory about Game of Thrones,...

Since its 2003 publication, "The Da Vinci Code" has caused quite a stir. Since its debut to glowing reviews, it has sold more than 40 million copies in at least 44 languages [ref]. In addition to being a bestseller, it's sparked a lot of controversy. It's a work of fiction, but it presents itself as based in fact, and many critics have raised questions about whether those facts are accurate. It's no secret that the HowStuffWorks staff likes to take things apart and see what makes them tick. Some of us are also the kind of sticklers who point out...

The best-selling author of the purely fictional books The Da Vinci Code and Inferno is not known for letting facts get in the way of his stories. The problem isn't so much Dan Brown, though. It's the legions of readers who believe that the drivel he spills onto the paper is true. There are reasons why I used the qualifier "purely fictional": many people believe that the history and theology in Dan Brown's books are correct. They're not.Hopefully, the smackdown that physicist Jeremy England gave Dan Brown in a Wall Street Journal article titled "Dan Brown Can't Cite Me to Disprove God" will help people realize...

Globalists who work to lead the masses away from their Creator are a dime a dozen It must be getting closer to Advent. Dan Brown of “Da Vinci Code” FICTION fame is back. Harvard “symbology” professor Robert Langdon, the protagonist of “The Da Vinci Code”, a work of fiction that questioned the history of Christianity, is back in Brown’s newly published novel, ‘Origin’, this time pushing the meme: “Our need for that exterior god, that sits up there and judges us ... will diminish and eventually disappear.”

Dan Brown, the author of "The DaVinci Code," is back with another blockbuster anti-religion novel, and CBS "Sunday Morning" rolled out the red carpet on Oct. 1 to honor him and his massive commercial success. The segment began with what he called his "fortress of gratitude" -- his house loaded floor to ceiling, over several stories, with bookshelves ... stuffed with copies of Dan Brown's own books. So we know who Dan Brown worships. CBS correspondent Tony Dokoupil vaguely noted Brown has been attacked by "religious groups" for his "depictions of Christianity." Brown complained that the Vatican told Catholics to...

The real mystery lurking in the chapel where Dan Brown set The Da Vinci Code. From the outside, the Rosslyn Chapel does not look like a suitable place to hide Jesus' head. It's not much bigger than a country church, standing inconspicuously on a small hill in the miniature Scottish town of Roslin, a few miles south of Edinburgh. Its Gothic pinnacles, flying buttresses, and pointed arches have been battered by 500 years of capricious weather, and for years it has been encased in an exoskeleton of scaffolding as restoration efforts plod along. Until recently, it was covered by a...

SAINT ROBERT, Mo. (Oct. 5, 2010) — Mayors aren’t elected on a partisan political ballot and don’t commonly make political endorsements, but St. Robert Mayor George Sanders made an exception Monday by deciding to endorse State Rep. Dan Brown, a Rolla Republican who is running against State Sen. Frank Barnitz, a Democrat from Dent County, for the 16th State Senate District. “Dr. Brown is the type of leader Missouri needs as we face uncertain economic times,” Sanders said in a prepared statement. “I am convinced that his conservative values and sense of fiscal responsibility will serve us well as our...

Pope's 'Revenge' As LA Gets Opus Dei Bishop A member of the radically-orthodox Catholic group Opus Dei has been appointed as the new Archbishop of Los Angeles. By Simon Caldwell 06 Apr 2010 Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio takes questions from the media at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Jose Gomez has been parachuted into the archdiocese of five million to try to lure the increasingly lapsing faithful of southern California back to Church. The appointment was described as the Pope's revenge on Hollywood for filming The Da Vinci Code. Benedict XVI's choice comes after Colombia...

Agca to Be Released Monday; Interview and Book in FutureROME, JAN. 13, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 is set to be released Monday from a Turkish prison after serving almost 29 years. He said he has contacted the author of "The Da Vinci Code" for help in writing a book. News of the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, was confirmed by his lawyer, Haci Ali Ozhan. Agca has said once he is free he wants to do two things: visit John Paul II's tomb and write two books, including one about his...

Dan Browns new book opens Americans eyes to a new tax payer funded museum only for the government class. "SMSC - Smithsonian Museum Support Center The Smithsonian Museum Support Center (SMSC) is a library that houses over 30 million historical artifacts that are not available for public ..."

Author Dan Brown confirms he has seen the actual birth certificate in a vault in Hawaii.

Author Dan Brown is a friendly, normal guy--not the type you'd expect to have created the dark world of The Da Vinci Code. The book, published in 2003, has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, and the 2006 movie starring Tom Hanks grossed over $758 million. It also generated enormous controversy: Catholic Church leaders denounced its heretical slant and negative portrayal of Opus Dei, a conservative Roman Catholic group. Now, after six-and-a-half years, Brown's newest novel, The Lost Symbol, comes out on Tuesday. Brown, 45, still seems surprised that his book started such a frenzy. He grew up on...

LANGLEY, Va. - Part of the new Dan Brown novel is based on a local mystery. In the introduction to his new best-selling novel, "The Lost Symbol," author Dan Brown lists the following: "In 1991, a document was locked in the safe of the director of the CIA. The document is still there today, its cryptic text includes references to an unknown location underground. The document ... includes the phrase, 'It's buried out there somewhere.'" Brown says the 20-year-old document contains the answers to a 20-year-old mystery. WTOP's National Security Correspondent J.J. Green investigated the claim, and found out it's...

Dan Brown has done it again. In 2003, "The Da Vinci" code author released the must-read novel of the year. Six years later, his sequel "The Lost Symbol" sold more than one million copies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. on its first day, shattering sales records in adult fiction books and forcing the publisher to rush-print an additional 600,000 copies to meet the demand.

The Freemasons' square-and-compasses symbol adorns a wall in Washington, D.C.'s Masonic House of the Temple--the scene of strange rituals in Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol -

SAN FRANCISCO: The latest novel from “Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, “The Lost Symbol,” broke one-day sales records, its publisher and booksellers said. Readers snapped up over one million hardcover copies across the US, Canada and the UK after it was released on Tuesday, said publisher Knopf Doubleday, a division of Random House. “We are seeing historic, record-breaking sales across all types of our accounts in North America for ‘The Lost Symbol,” said Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House. Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, called the book its bestselling first-day adult...

Jaycee Lee Dugard: Inside the secret world where she was kept captive for 18 years For 18 years, this was the chilling secret world where Jaycee Lee Dugard was held captive and gave birth to two daughters - fathered by her abductor. Philip Sherwell 29 Aug 2009 Chilling message hung on a tree Photo: NICK STERN / [Pic in URL] But the ramshackle sheds and tents dotted around the compound behind the home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido in the middle of a working-class Californian district are now yielding their squalid secrets. Extraordinary pictures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph allow...

Editor's Note: The movie "Angels and Demons" is considered a financial flop in the United States. It must be noted 70% of revenue generated by Hollywood films derives from foreign viewership. See: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/ -- JMZ Disparaging the Catholic Church is the real purpose of the latest Dan Brown/Ron "Opie" Howard movie “Angels and Demons.” Bill Donohue, President of the anti-defamation Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights www.catholicleague.org is demanding a disclaimer as the team who produced "The DaVinci Code" uses the same confusing mix of "fact and fiction" to spin a suspenseful conspiracy tale revolving around a secret ...

While Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" (and the movie version) wasn't as poorly written as The Da Vinci Code, it still has a lot of whoppers. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a18IQD8xTuQ

In a Q&A billed as an “interview” on his own website, Brown writes “My goal is always to make the character’s [sic] and plot be so engaging that readers don’t realize how much they are learning along the way.” Or how much misinformation they’re absorbing. Quick, how did Copernicus die? Dan Brown readers "know" the answer: "Outspoken scientists like Copernicus" were "murdered by the church for revealing scientific truths," according to a tag-team history lesson by Harvard "symbolist" Robert Langdon and CERN director Maximilian Kohler in Angels & Demons, the predecessor to Brown's blockbuster sequel, The Da Vinci Code. On...