‘Da Vinci,’ other best sellers said to fit conspiracy fixation

As Dan Brown writes in “The Da Vinci Code,” “Everyone loves a conspiracy.”

So here they are – the supposed secrets nobody wants you to know, least of all the Christian church: Jesus never died on the cross. No, he retired to Egypt. Or was it France? He sired a royal bloodline with wife Mary Magdalene.

Can this all be true? No, say virtually all serious historians who deal with the first century.

But that doesn’t matter in the world of publishing. The staggering success of “The Da Vinci Code” – 40 million hardcover copies in print worldwide, plus another 6 million in paperback – has given a boost to books marketed as both nonfiction and fiction that play on the idea that great mysteries envelop the “greatest story ever told.”

To people like Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly for the past decade, the explanation is simple: “Conspiracy theories have tremendous appeal for Americans.”

She sees it as the religious equivalent of the many theories about President Kennedy’s assassination.

Riding in the wake of “Da Vinci” has meant success for books about the Knights Templar, ancient goddess worship, Holy Grail hunts, Vatican intrigue, religious texts that early Christians spurned and the never-ending speculations about the “real” Jesus.

The titles on various best-seller lists lately include “Labyrinth,” “The Last Templar,” “The Templar Legacy,” “The Third Secret” and Brown’s earlier novel, “Angels & Demons.”

Garrett says the books have hit a perfect moment in popular culture, given the actual Catholic cover-ups regarding sexual abuse by priests and the nation’s edginess over “the whole specter of terrorism.”

Another factor helpful to Brown, she says: “A lot of people don’t know church history so are more open to whatever is put out there.”

Writer Dan Burstein thinks the “Da Vinci” depiction of the role of women in religion appeals to female book buyers and that the novel comes at “a time of search for new religious answers” as opposed to old ones.

Burstein is completing a documentary based on the 2006 edition of his fan anthology, “Secrets of the Code.” That book is among some 30 flooding the market that treat themes in “The Da Vinci Code” itself, another extraordinary phenomenon.

Most are attacks on the novel from mainstream Catholics and Protestants. Because so many people believe Brown’s various accusations against the church are “true, or largely true,” Burstein says, religious people have been forced to respond: “They see themselves, rightly, as involved in a propaganda war.”