So dark the con of man, he thought. So
dark indeed.
Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today's troubled world, and yet
the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to "reeducate" the pagan and
feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing
methods as inspired as they
were horrific.
The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked
publication in human history.
Malleus Maleficarum—or
The Witches' Hammer—indoctrinated the
world to "the dangers of freethinking women" and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and
destroy them. Those deemed "witches" by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses,
gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women "suspiciously
attuned to the natural
world." Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease
the pain of childbirth—a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment for
Eve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During
three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at
the stake an astounding five million
women.
The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.
Today's world was living proof.
Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the
temples of the world. There were no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics.
The once hallowed act of Hieros Gamos—the natural sexual union between man and woman
through which each became spiritually whole—had been recast as a shameful act. Holy men who
had once required sexual union with their female counterparts to commune with God now feared
their natural sexual
urges as the work of the devil, collaborating with his favorite accomplice...
woman.
Not even the feminine association with the
left-hand side could escape the Church's defamation. In
France and Italy, the words for "left"—
gauche and
sinistra—came to have deeply negative
overtones, while their right-hand counterparts rang of
righteousness, dexterity, and correctness. To
this day, radical thought was considered
left wing, irrational thought was
left brain, and anything
evil,
sinister.
The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung.
Mother Earth had become a man's
world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego had spent two
millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart. The Priory of Sion believed that it was this
obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans
called
koyanisquatsi—"life out of balance"—an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fueled
wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.
"Robert!" Sophie said, her whisper yanking him back. "Someone's coming!"
He heard the approaching footsteps out in the hallway.
"Over here!" Sophie extinguished the black light and seemed to evaporate before Langdon's eyes.
For an instant he felt totally blind.
Over where! As his vision cleared he saw Sophie's silhouette
racing toward the center of the room and ducking out of sight behind the octagonal viewing bench.
He was about to dash after her when a booming voice stopped him cold.
"Arrêtez!" a man commanded from the doorway.
The Louvre security agent advanced through the entrance
to the Salle des Etats, his pistol
outstretched, taking deadly aim at Langdon's chest.
Langdon felt his arms raise instinctively for the ceiling.
"Couchez-vous!" the guard commanded.
"Lie down!"
Langdon was face first on the floor in a matter of seconds. The guard hurried over and kicked his
legs apart, spreading Langdon out.
"Mauvaise idée, Monsieur Langdon," he said, pressing the gun hard into Langdon's back.
"Mauvaise idée."
Face down on the parquet floor with his arms and legs spread wide, Langdon found little humor in
the irony of his position.
The Vitruvian Man, he thought.
Face down.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
