Wednesday the 21st October at 8pm on Five
For Dan Brown fans, his books are an amazing adventure - a voyage of intellectual exploration and discovery. A chance to time-travel through secret worlds and discover hidden knowledge. With 25 million copies sold worldwide, the massive success of The Da Vinci Code has readers eagerly awaiting his next novel, possibly titled The Solomon Key.
Conspiracy theorists and Dan Brown experts alike are already predicting potential storylines. With input from the authors of the two "guess" books that have already been published and also conspiracy experts, this documentary attempts to explore what inspires Brown and therefore what might feature in the new book. By all accounts, it seems the next secret society to be the target of Dan Brown's quill is the Freemasons.
And what better subject to focus upon than one of the largest and most talked about secret societies in history? Most people think of The Freemasons as a quaint but innocent "old boys" network - but what is the truth? Masons themselves define Freemasonry as "a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated in symbols" - and that sounds right up Robert Langdon's street. Combine Langdon's love of symbols and code breaking with the Freemasons coded words and secret handshakes, and you could get an explosive combination.
We all love the fear of the unknown that surrounds conspiracy theories and we know Brown loves them too so it seems likely that he will draw on many of the more conspiratorial elements of the history of Freemasons. We will take the best bits of our existing 100 minute film and incorporate the elements from The Solomon Key book that we think are going to be relevant to Freemasonry.
In The Lost Symbol - The True Story, we weigh the evidence in the balance on a dramatic journey to discover whether the Masons are the perpetrators of evil or, in fact, whether they might really be the victims. As the central narrative progresses, we are driven to look at modern masons today, to gain new insight into who they are; what they do; what Freemasonry means to them and whether or not they really do run the world.
We will explain how the 'all seeing eye' and the 'unfinished pyramid' found their way onto the Great Seal of the United States and onto the back of the dollar bill. The history of the United States will be explored by outlining the Masonic ideals behind the founding of the nation - including the Founding Fathers, Freemasonry, and the 'Skull and Bones' secret society at Yale University. There will be a close up look at the streets of Washington D.C.
There are over five million Freemasons world wide. And while they are often thought of as the fathers of modern science, architecture and politics, they are also linked to some of the biggest scandals in contemporary history. One of the better known conspiracies surrounding Freemasonry is the suspicious death of Italian Banker Roberto Calvi and his membership to the defunct Masonic lodge P2. We look at his story throughout the documentary, as we explore the Masons' difficult relationship with the Catholic Church.
In Angels and Demons, the battle between the Illuminati and the Catholic Church was described as a battle between science and religion. The Da Vinci Code had commercial success as well as a huge sociological influence - and the church still hasn't quite recovered. Will The Solomon Key book do to early American history what The Da Vinci Code did to the earliest annals of Christianity?
Cover ups and conspiracies, buried treasure and relics, religious beliefs and practices, the signs, symbols and artworks lying at the very foundations of human experience - what it is about our contemporary culture, as well as our human psyche, that makes us so interested and drawn to such things? As Dan Brown launches his new work of fiction, this documentary shines a spotlight on the facts. Tune in as we drive towards an answer to the most fundamental question of all: are the Freemasons guilty?
