Who wrote Chapter 133?

I was all set to reject Dan Brown's latest novel "The Lost Symbol" before I'd read through even a quarter of the book. The central character, Robert Langdon, had been through more than the full "Indiana Jones" experience in previous escapades yet remained "a realist, and a skeptic (sic)" with no sign of any awakening to the mysteries that seem to unfold about him on an hourly basis. What a closed-minded and recalcitrant figure he cuts through much of the tale, and seems to become more annoyingly dogmatic in his refusal to open his eyes and his mind as the story progresses.

Add to this the extracts of mysticism and metaphysical science that seem to have been cut-and-pasted into the narrative. You sense that Brown has grazed superficially through a limited research list to come up with Wikipedia-like sound-bites to pad out the storyline. I almost laughed out loud when, later in the book, a student actually reads out a Wikipedia entry on the Masons during a Langdon lecture. Nice one -- that filled up a few more paragraphs, I thought.

Catholics can breathe a huge sigh of relief as they are, for once, not baddies in this tale. However much of the plotline mimics "The Da Vinci Code", albeit that we are not taken on a tour of the world, but of the Washington, DC. Which is why in my mind's eye, I was not seeing Tom Hanks running about the nation's capital as I read this but Nicholas Cage in the "National Treasure" movies that have already touched on similar subject matter.

Oh dear, I thought, here we go again. "Code" seemed to be a mish-mash of conspiracy theories, myths, tenuous connections and distillations from earlier books like "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail". So was "Symbol" going to be just another link from the Dan Brown sausage-machine?

Well, no as it turns out. Because suddenly out of the grab-a-clue-and-run sequence of events we enter a zone of serenity. A period of reflection, re-evaluation, revelation even. Chapter 133 (a significant number in itself once you have read the story) is no unfulfilled conclusion; no anticlimax of a mystery that remains just out of reach, never to be unearthed. It is the capstone on the pyramid.

Up until now the reader has been presented with lots of ancient mysticism and scientific discovery that would tend to suggest that "miracles" can and do happen. This is wrapped inside the quest for a mystery that lies hidden but will confer great power upon its finder. The wrapping keeps the sceptic enthused while his/her cynicism is chipped away at by a regular presentation of the "evidence". Chapter 132 ends, and you are tempted to close the book as Dan Brown seems to have done enough but no....

Then the bombshells hit. Science in The Bible. The study of human thought processes bringing science and ancient wisdom (and, dare I say, the foundations of religions) together. The power of the mind to transform -- the stuff of pure magic -- and this being quantifiable through scientific experiment. That all the mystery we ever looked for in the outside world, was inside us all along. We are left looking in the mirror, and seeing the Holy Grail in reflection.

A very profound ending. Did Brown really write this? I can't help feeling that older, wiser hands were at work weaving a message of great hope and the promise of transformation into this chapter. Pure alchemy. Perhaps the time really is coming (2012?) when the minds of all will be opened to effectively share in a universal consciousness. If so then Brown (and any helpers) will have helped to kick-start the process by injecting deep meaning into this sure-fire bestseller.