The occultural significance of The Da Vinci Code

The popularity of books such as The Da Vinci Code is interesting in that it would seem to support surveys indicating at least a general level of public interest in the spiritual and the paranormal. More specifically, an analysis of the dominant ideas articulated in The Da Vinci Code suggests that it is a book reflecting key themes within western occulture which have become central to the shift from religion to spirituality in western societies: the sacralization of the self; the turn from transcendence to immanence; the emergence of the sacred feminine; the focus on nature and the premodern; and a conspiracist suspicion of the prevailing order and dominant institutions, particularly the Church.