The Templar Revelation

One or two stars...

First of all, I have a confession to make: I liked “The Da Vinci Code” when it was published. I was new to the genre and found it to be fast-paced with lots of interesting historical facts sprinkled throughout the story. Back then, I thought it was great entertaining fiction.

Now, this book was apparently one of the books from which Dan Brown got his ideas. The authors consider themselves serious investigators, but I found this book to be a disorganized collection of facts and speculations presented as truth.

It goes like this: There is a painting of, let's say, the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci. There are some odd things to be seen there. One of the disciples looks like a woman (he actually does), there is a knife, there is an M-shape, and Leonardo put himself in the scene as well. Suddenly, another painting with an M-shape is found. M-shapes are all over the place. Then we go to the 1960s, where a mural is painted in a church in London by Jean Cocteau. Oh, there's an M-shape there as well, and Cocteau added himself to the scene too, looking back at the audience (lots of painters did these kinds of things over the years). The M must have a meaning; it must be Mary Magdalene, obviously. A list is produced from a dubious origin about grand masters of a dubious occult organization. Both names, Da Vinci and Cocteau, are on it, and this also must mean something. The authors come up with some possible theories, but a few chapters later, the word “possible” disappears, and the posed theory is quietly taken as the truth and on to the next.

Gradually, all kinds of societies, markings, Black Madonnas, Templars, and pagan rites of Isis are connected in the way described above, and before you know it, you are looking at one great conspiracy by the church to suppress some secret knowledge that would harm Christianity if it ever came to light.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Christianity here, as what it is based on is just as unlikely as the book “Picknett and Prince” produced. There are interesting facts here and there, and in the second half of the book, they expose some vulnerabilities within the Orthodox Christian heritage, especially on the way the current Bible was “compiled.” Then they go wild on speculations about John the Baptist and to wrap it up, of course, the Templars knew it all and that's why they were suppressed, together with other heretic groups. The knowledge that all such occult groups are guarding is so explosive, it would turn society as we know it upside down. It would place a bomb under 2000 years of Christianity.

So now the authors have exposed the “hidden secrets”...what happened? Dan Brown made millions of it and that's about it.

This book could have been entertaining if it had been presented as an “alternate history” story, but in the end, it was tedious and annoying.