The Sacred Secret
The Real Mystery in The Da Vinci Code
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21204323 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Giannini, John L Giannini (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 63-84 |
| Publication date | 2008-04-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Jung Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1934-2039 • E-ISSN: 1934-2047 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1525/jung.2008.2.2.63 |
| OpenAlex | W2466427039 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 1 |
Why did Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a reasonably interesting murder mystery of ordinary literary caliber, sell 65 million copies? Was its amazing popularity due to “the sacred secret,” the feminine principle which has been missing and ignored in world consciousness for well over five thousand years by a patriarchal culture in which male political power and the masculine principle have dominated? Tracing this “secret” leads to a search that includes a history that precedes writing, only recorded by archeologists in artifacts as the Neolithic goddess tradition. It is also found in key figures in both the Old and New Testament, in dreams and other communications from the unconscious, in myths, as well as in nature. This article focusses on the Arthurian Legends and the search for the Grail, an explicit symbol for the sacred feminine. While Brown’s book is a modern variation of the Grail legend and several key characters are portrayed as scholars of the feminine, ideas about the feminine are discussed in subtle ways, leaving deepest meaning of the Grail sub rosa. The feminine principle goes deeper to the maternal dimension that embraces as well as transcends all opposites, including good and evil, and becomes the universal all-inclusive gnosis, an intrinsic intelligence that is in all of nature. Sir James Jean, a Noble-prize winning quantum physicist spoke about a general consensus among his scientific associates that the universe should be understood more “like a great thought than a great machine.” The feminine principle as maternal is all inclusive in its complex yet unified intelligence. In Meister Eckhart, so valued by Jung, we find this same archetype in his distinction between God and Godhead. God is a human way of understanding the divine, and the name is masculine in both Latin and German. Godhead is the mystery in all of existence, and this name is feminine in both languages. The ultimate gnosis in psyche and nature is an inclusive, mysterious creative intelligence
Art · Consciousness · Epistemology · Legend · Literature · Mythology · Politics · History · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2011 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |