The Priory of Sion hoax

Dan Brown’s best-known novel was founded on a myth, but it was a myth which he appeared to believe to be true despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The Da Vinci Code

Readers of Dan Brown’s well-known 2003 novel “The Da Vinci Code” soon become aware that the plot centres on the activities of a secret occult organisation known the “The Priory of Sion”. A murder takes place in the Louvre, Paris, the victim being the Priory’s Grand Master. As the story unfolds we are told that this society has existed for hundreds of years, its mission being to guard the secrets of the origins of Christianity, and in particular the fact that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had descendants who are alive today. Previous Grand Masters had included Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton.

It is clear from Brown’s preface to the book that he regarded the Priory of Sion as being a historical entity, dating from 1099. He cited as his main source the 1983 book “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” by Michael Baigent et al, who claimed to have first-hand evidence of the Priory’s existence and history from its current Grand Master.

Mere invention

However, the whole edifice was to come crashing down in 1993 with an admission in court by a French occultist, Pierre Plantard (1920-2000), that the Priory of Sion was entirely fictional and existed nowhere except inside his own head. This admission seems to have escaped the notice of Dan Brown, whose bestseller appeared ten years later!

The Priory of Sion was invented in 1956 as an attempt to link Roman Catholicism with occultism. Plantard was a right-wing Frenchman (from south-west France) with Fascist sympathies, who had previously, in 1940, created a secret society called Alpha Galates and had served time in prison for so doing.

The Priory of Sion appears to have been an attempt to revive Alpha Galates. Plantard claimed that it was a large organisation with a hierarchy of membership levels that could be obtained for certain sums of money. However, this was all a con and Plantard served another prison sentence for fraud.

Undaunted, Plantard continued to advance the cause of the Priory despite the fact that, for much of its existence, he was the sole member. He came across another fraudster, Noel Corbu, who had invented a mysterious past for a restaurant he was opening at Rennes-le-Chateau near the French Pyrenees. Plantard determined to do the same for the Priory and concocted the history that deceived firstly Michael Baigent and then Dan Brown.

The web of legends and half-history that Plantard wove included the Albigensian “heretics” of the 13^th century, the Merovingian rulers of first millennium France, the 18^th century German “Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross” and much more besides. Documents were forged that claimed to back up his claims, and it was these that eventually landed Plantard in court.

In 1984 Plantard tried to put an end to the Priory but then tried again in 1989 with a new set of claims which got him nowhere.

Believing in the myth

Despite all the evidence that the Priory of Sion was founded on nothing but the imagination of a fantasist and convicted fraudster, many people have fallen victim to believing the whole story. As with many such cases, people will believe what they want to believe, however flimsy the evidence.

The fact that fictions such as the Priory of Sion have achieved such wide notice and attracted much credibility should serve as a warning that other, more widely accepted, beliefs in what cannot be proven should also be looked at far more critically. However, once a mind is firmly closed to reason it is very difficult to re-open it!

© John Welford