Society + Culture,

REAL Da Vinci Code Exposed

THE DA VINCI CODE has been introduced to a mass audience by Dan Brown’s best-selling but ultimately implausible “airport novel”, the subsequent  “plagiarism trial” and now the movie starring Tom Hanks. However Hollywood-style mass culture frequently seems to get it wrong or miss the obvious point –  and the Da Vinci Code is no exception as I will explain.

It is patently clear that Corporate Mainstream Media often want us to miss the obvious point – thus they have promoted “Islamophobic terror hysteria” over appalling Muslim-origin non-state terrorism (7,000 Western civilian deaths over 40 years) but soft-pedalled on something like 10 million cigarette smoking-related deaths in the US alone over the same period and 0.4 million such deaths each year in the US alone (5 million globally). This “Islamophobic terror hysteria” has enabled the War on Terror which has so far been associated with 2.3 million avoidable deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (50% female, 60% infants, comprehensively ignored by lying Mainstream media and due to gross Coalition violation of the Geneva Conventions) and constitutes in reality a War on Women and Children (see MWC News: and here ).  “The Da Vinci Code” book and movie propose a “dreadful secret”  of  Jesus Christ being married and having children. The REAL Da Vinci Code relates to sacred and profane symbolism in Mediterranean and European culture.    

ARTISTS are familiar with the Golden Rectangle, a geometric construction in which the ratio of the Long Side to the Short Side is 1.618 (this number being known as Phi). The Golden Rectangle can be sectioned by a line called the Golden Section (also known as the Golden Ratio, Golden Mean or Divine Proportion) that divides the Golden Rectangle into a Large Square and a residual Small Rectangle - which simply turns out to be another Golden Rectangle and which can then be similarly subdivided into a square and another  Golden Rectangle. Reiteration of this Golden Sectioning yields a Spiral Pattern (for a good illustration see ).

The mathematical series underlying the Golden Rectangle and its implicit Spiral is called the Fibonacci Series: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 …   The numbers of this series (named after the 13th century Italian mathematician popularly known as Fibonacci) are interesting in that  (a) successive elements are the sum of the previous two  (e.g. 0 + 1 = 1, 1+ 1 = 2, 1+ 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8,  etc) and (b) the ratio of higher to lower successive elements progressively approximates to 1.618 i.e. to Phi (8/5 = 1.6, 13/8 = 1.625, 21/13 = 1.615, 89/55 = 1.618181818 …). Phi (like Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) is an “irrational number” and extends as follows: 1.61803 39887 49894 84820 45868 34365 63811 77203 09179 80576 …

Corporate Mainstream Media often want us to miss the obvious point – thus they have promoted “Islamophobic terror hysteria” over appalling Muslim-origin non-state terrorism (7,000 Western civilian deaths over 40 years)

The Golden Rectangle was beloved of the Greeks (inspiring the Parthenon, for example) and was known to the Ancient Egyptians (e.g. the ratio of the altitude of a face of the Great Pyramid to half the side of the base is Phi). The Golden Ratio was widely employed by Renaissance and subsequent artists to the present (some of the numerous exponents including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Goya, Delacroix and Modigliani). The Spiral implicit in the Fibonacci Series occurs in Nature (e.g. in patterns of seeds and petals) because it enables ordered expansion, but the Nautilus shell spiral is not actually a Golden Section Spiral . 

Fibonacci described a “population explosion” arising from putting 2 newborn baby rabbits together and assuming a sexual maturation period of 1 month, a gestation period of 1 month and twin births – the number of pairs of mature rabbits  in successive months is the Fibonacci Series of 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ect.

You can derive a Pentagon and the implicit Golden Ratio and Golden Rectangle very simply using a Ruler and a Compass . However I would like to describe another way of generating a Golden Rectangle that will provide you with a GREAT SURPRISE and will work if all you have is a stick  to draw patterns in sand (it will be more precise if you have a pencil, graph paper, a compass and a ruler):

(1) draw a square and insert an exactly fitting circle #1; (2) draw another identical square below it and an exactly fitting circle #2, with the 2 squares sharing a side; (3) draw in the diagonals of each square; you can see that you have a rectangle with 1 side 2 times the length of the other; (4) now imagine, in Portrait mode,  sliding the 2 squares into each other – ultimately the 2 squares and circles exactly superimpose and you have the original pattern found in step (1); (5) now try sliding the 2 squares together so that the circles don’t go as far as in (4) and just touch the diagonals of the opposite squares -  a FISH symbol (a type of “Vesica Pisces”) will appear due to the intersection of the 2 circles; and NOW (6) (the CRUCIAL STEP), try sliding the bottom square just a TINY bit higher so that its circle  just crosses the diagonals of the opposite square (and vice versa) and suddenly you will see two  4-petalled FLOWERS appear on either side of the middle of the resultant rectangle. When the flower pattern is fully formed and SYMMETRICAL the Rectangle you have will be a Golden Rectangle and the furthest extension of each Square will exactly correspond to the Golden Section (Golden Ratio, Golden Mean, the Divine Proportion).