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Friday, October 9th, 2009

How Bad Can It Be?: Noetic Science Goes to the Movies

howbadcanitbe

That Dan Brown was a terrible writer with a weakness for the sort of pseudohistorical conspiracy theories usually floated by college sophomores stinking of bongwater, we knew from his previous books. But what makes his latest The Lost Symbol truly annoying, as opposed to merely forgettable, is his use of so-called “noetic science” as a major plot point. Brown being inexplicably popular as he is, there’s already a ripple effect; BookScan indicates that Lynne McTaggart’s The Intention Experiment, which gets a mention in The Lost Symbol, is experiencing a spike in sales.

This is good news for Lynne McTaggart, who is, I’m sure, a lovely person — but bad news for those of us with fully-functional bullshit detectors. If noetics really is the next big thing, then we have reason to dread the water-cooler, these days, those of us who are interested in religion, or science, or both, and who resent the cheapening of both that comes of trying to fuse the two. Here’s Brown’s rundown on noetics — what we used to call “mind over matter,” back in the day:

[Katherine’s research] was a scientific tour de force — a massive collection of experiments that proved human thought was a real and measurable force in the world. Katherine’s experiments demonstrated the effect of human thought on everything from ice crystals to the movement o subatomic particles. The results were conclusive and irrefutable, with the potential to transform skeptics into believers and affect global consciousness on a massive scale.

“We have scientifically proven that the power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought. …. The idea of universal consciousness is no ethereal New Age concept. It’s a hard-core scientific reality… and harnessing it has the potential to transform our world. This is the underlying discovery of Noetic Science.”

(Something about Brown’s prose always sound like he doth protest a wee bit too much.)

Now, Dan Brown knows a good idea when he steals one; the central conceit of The DaVinci Code was lifted wholesale from the conspiracy classic Holy Blood, Holy Grail. A couple of media sensations over the last few years have popularized the pseudo-science of noetics — the movie What the [Bleep] Do We Know!?, and the book The Secret and its spinoffs. It’s via one or both of these that noetic science most likely came onto Dan Brown’s radar. At least, it’s these two that I single out for blame and scorn today. (more…)

Tags: Dan Brown, drinking games, Karen Armstrong, Law of Attraction, Noetic science, non-overlapping magisteria, QUANTUM PHYSICS!, Ramtha, take the red pill, The Case for God, The Lost Symbol, The Secret, What the Bleep Do We Know
Posted in Books, Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Film, How Bad Can It Be? | Comments

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

How Bad Can It Be?: Dan Brown, “The Lost Symbol”

by Jack Feerick

On one level, there seems little point in reviewing a Dan Brown book. He’s big enough now that he’s critic-proof, and my little barbs will penetrate his mighty armor of public adoration not one jot. But you know, sometimes criticism isn’t about influence; sometimes, it’s a matter of conscience. And on the matter of The Lost Symbol being a terrible book — abysmally written, ludicrously plotted, resting on a foundation of knuckleheaded historical speculation and flat-out pseudo-scientific wrongness — I will not be silent.

You don’t have to be a great writer, Lord knows, to achieve popular literary success. But has there ever been a worse writer than Dan Brown to ever become so successful? It’s a trick question, of course, because there’s never been a writer quite as successful as Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code has sold more copies than all four Twilight books put together — more copies than the Merriam-Webster dictionary, fa chrissakes. J.K. Rowling has sold more books overall, but no single volume of the Harry Potter series has racked up Da Vinci Code numbers.

Besides, Rowling is — despite her huge and glaring flaws as a prose stylist and a systematic thinker — pretty good with character and mood. She’s still a terrible writer, but she’s a slightly more lustrous shade of terrible than Dan Brown. True fact, The Da Vinci Code is not a good book, and Brown’s latest, The Lost Symbol, carries on in the tradition. And if you haven’t read it and intend to, be warned: from this point on, I will be SPOILING like mayonnaise in a hot car.

I have a theory. It’s not a literary theory, but a theory of personality — Dan Brown’s personality, to be precise. See, I figure Dan Brown probably enjoys all the perks of being a writer (who wouldn’t?), but is not much interested in the craft of writing. The Lost Symbol is all plot and ciphers (one using the “pigpen” code from that one issue of Boy’s Life, another apparently created in MS Word with Zapf Dingbats), told with about as much verve or emotional heft as a Will Shortz back-page puzzle from the Times. Or maybe — and this is perhaps a better comparison — as Myst; the structure and lack of emotional affect make the whole enterprise feel like a video game. Stuff happens. Puzzles are solved. Move to a new location — a new level — and start the process again. (more…)

Tags: AM I BLOWING YOUR MIND?, Circle of Iron, Dan Brown, desolate howling, egregious bullshit, Freemasonry, Kabbala, metaphysics, more copies than the dictionary, Noetic science, the da vinci code, The Lost Symbol, wish fulfillment, you can't fake smarts
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, How Bad Can It Be? | Comments