The Alarm Clock Code

Shortly after waking up yesterday I paused, or rather yielded reading King's Cujo after getting a new book in the mail. The book: The Secret History of Lucifer, is written by one of the occult authors made famous by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Lynn Picknett. Her books, including The Templar Revelation, subtitled 'Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ', which she co-wrote with Clive Prince, are about on par in terms of notoriety (and reputation) as Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Now, I know, as a (former) university student of literature - especially one who loved the 'classics' - I should know better than to take these pseudo-histories seriously. The point is: I don't. I read not only for the obvious intriguing conspiracy theory, but even more so as a literary exercise in patience. Reading 'trashy books' - an open-ended classification for the haphazardous - periodically makes for good practice in keeping up an open mind aerobically, by plumbing whatever depth these occult writers with their sometimes believable but often bizarre agendas wish for whatever length of time and pages.

The other book to arrive, which I purchased after reading the (highly recommended) book The Virgin and the Grail: Origin of a Legend by the University of Toronto history professor Joseph Ward Goering, was Merlin and the Grail: The Trilogy of Arthurian Romances attributed to Robert De Boron. That is, the first known tales to have wrought a successive link with the sacrosanct grail in the (French) Arthurian cycle with the cup of Christ and Christian traditions and dogma.

How long before the intrigue surrounding The Da Vinci Code and its back-drop conspiracy theory wanes from our short attention spans? Trust me, I saw the movie recently. Followers, or somnambulists, of The Da Vinci Code will everywhere awaken not too long from now with some of the worst cases of cultural hangovers and amnesia since the days of Vanilla Ice.