Home > History > Alternative History > Secret Societies

SECRET SOCIETIES

The major premise of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is that a secret society, the Priory of Sion, has kept as a guarded secret that Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail because through bearing the child of Jesus she assured the continuance of His royal bloodline. Althought the idea of a clandestine organization raises high interest, is such a notion to be believed?

The Priory of Sion has a basis in fact, but not in the sense that Brown portrays it. The title has been used three different times. It was first a monastic order founded in Jerusalem in 1100 that was absorbed into the Jesuits in 1617. The second and third Priory of Sion were each under the leadership of Pierre Plantard (1920-2000), an anti-Semitic Frenchman who went to jail in 1953 for fraud. In 1954, Plantard formed a group called the Priory of Sion to help those in need of low-cost housing. The group dissolved in 1957. Then in the 1960s and 70s he created a series of forged documents to "prove" the existence of a bloodline descending from Jesus and Mary through the kings of France to himself (claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne). He and his associates called themselves the Priory of Sion and deposited these documents in libraries all over France, including the National Library. In 1993, however, Plantard admitted under oath to a French judge that he had fabricated all the documents relating to the Priory of Sion. The judge issued him a severe warning and dismissed him as a harmless crank (www.priory-of-sion.com).

But were Da Vinci and Isaac Newton members of the Priory of Sion as Dan Brown's book says or is this merely the product of a fertile imagination? The significance of the Priory of Sion is bolstered in the plotline of The Da Vinci Code by claiming a little-known connection with such geniuses as Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton. Once again, however, Brown bases these assertions on one of Plantard's forged documents called Les Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau (The Secret Records Of Henri Lobineau). Even though a French judge got Plantard to admit his hoax, Dan Brown uses these "secret records" as if they were legitimate.

These facts are important to readers of The Da Vinci Code. If there is no credible evidence that Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton were secretly involved in the Priory of Sion, and if there is only fraudulent evidence that the Priory of Sion was formed to keep "the secret of Mary Magdalene." (See: pp. 45-61, The Truth Behind The Da Vinci Code by Richard Abanes.)