A Knight’s Quest
In the last two parts of this series, we examined Katabasis as the path through the Underworld and as the path of Incarnation. Today, we will look at it through another lens: The Grail Quest. I recommend reading the previous two articles before this one.
The Holy Grail is supposedly the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper, in which he claimed the wine was his blood. Seeking this cup, which was said to have any number of magical properties such as healing or granting eternal life, has been a cultural theme since early Christianity, through Medieval times, and into modern day. Some say the Knights Templar discovered it during the crusades and secreted it away to a hideout in Europe and that it was then lost to time.
However, there are other meanings of the Holy Grail besides a specific cup. People use the term to mean any sort of desired object. Some say it was a different real chalice used to catch Jesus’s blood at the crucifixion. Others parsed the French “san-graal” as “sang réal”, meaning “royal blood” and referring to a hypothetical bloodline of Jesus. Thelema has the concept of Babalon collecting the blood of the saints in her grail.
There is very much a “blood” theme surrounding it.
In this article, we will examine the The Quest for the Holy Grail as the quest to find the Goddess.
The Da Vinci Code
We are going to discuss the film version of The Da Vinci Code. We will not examine every single symbol within the movie, nor the specifics of the conspiracy theories or accuracy of the Gnosticism presented, as that is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we will simply look at the plot and highlight the relevant parts of the journey. Some of the discussion will be out of order with how the movie presents it, as we are not trying to untangle the mystery, but instead look at how it is another example of Katabasis.
This will spoil the plot of the film for you immediately, so I would recommend watching it before reading this article.
The Underworld
In The Da Vinci Code, the Underworld takes a different form from that which we looked at in past articles. Instead of a literal trip through a land of the dead, or a spiritual journey, the Underworld here is History. The movie still has our Hero traveling around physically, however his journey is one through layers of the past.
This film, as with the previous ones we examined, begins with death. An unknown man pursued by a robed and hooded figure runs through the Louvre in Paris. He interacts with a number of paintings before being caught and shot.
The man is Jacques Saunière, curator of the Louvre and secretly head of an order known as the Priory of Sion. In French “sauniere” is a plural feminine word meaning “a person who extracts salt”, a merchant who sells salt. Salt has long been thought of as an agent of protection and purification.
The Priory of Sion was a real fraternal organization created in 1956 mythically associated with the Knights Templar, and has been said to guard the location of the Holy Grail or to know of a surviving bloodline of Jesus.
The albino man who shoots Jacques is known as Silas, a monk and member of Opus Dei, a real Catholic institution that arrives as an antagonist in this film who seek to cover up any idea that Jesus had children. Silas could be considered to have an angelic appearance, though he takes the role of a fallen angel here. An agent of the Demiurge, he can be considered the Devil for our purposes.
Silas in this film is played by Paul Bettany, whereas Silas was a member of the early Christian community who accompanied Paul the Apostle on missionary journeys. He is often depicted carrying broken chains, as an earthquake broke him and Paul out of jail.
The Louvre itself is our first stop on this Underworld Journey, as it is a building full of History. Great works of the past hang silent upon its walls: images of the dead and the legacy of those who created them. It is crowned with a glass pyramid beneath the skies of Paris. Pyramids are monuments built to house the tombs of Pharaohs, people thought of as Gods on Earth, and their placement within them was the beginning of their journey through the land of the dead.
We are next introduced to Robert Langdon. “Langdon” comes from the Old English words “lang” and “dun” which refer to the slope of a long hill. Something which has quite a distance to go down, or up.
Langdon is a symbologist giving a lecture on symbols of the sacred feminine, images from world culture depicting the Goddess. He is our Knight starting his Grail Quest. Knights can be seen as Angels symbolically, as they are God’s agents on Earth. His shield is his knowledge of History (the Underworld) and eidetic memory, and his sword is his puzzle solving intellect.
As Langdon finishes his lecture and begins signing autographs, he is summoned by Bezu Fache, a police captain. “Fache” translates to English as “angry”, which fits his short tempered character. Unbeknownst to Langdon, Fache is visiting him because the Demiurge’s agents have convinced him that Langdon is responsible for Saunière’s murder. He plans to force a confession at the scene of the crime.
Here begins Langdon’s journey into the Underworld.
The First Spiral
Langdon was an acquaintance of Saunière, and so comes to the Louvre under the impression he is to help with the murder investigation. He had a choice not to go, but decided to delve into this world. Here he meets Fache, who mentions how he does not like the glass pyramid. As they enter the building and begin descending, Langdon comments on a mirrored set of pyramids. One pointing up, one pointing down. They exemplify the Hermetic concept of As Above, So Below. Langdon will later point out that these pyramids are the symbols for male and female.
Here, as Langdon hesitates to enter an elevator, we learn of his claustrophobia. We later find out that this is due to him falling into a well when he was 7 years old.
Saunière’s body is laid out in the in the form of the Vitruvian Man, a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci’s. It symbolizes the ideal human form, a microcosm of the universe, and the intersection of the human and the divine. On his chest is a pentacle, which Langdon explains as a symbol for Venus and the feminine half of all things.
Fache, as a police investigator, carries with him the ability to reveal hidden things. He uses a UV flashlight to illuminate invisible script that the dying Saunière wrote on the floor: An out of order fibonacci sequence and the words “O, Draconian devil, Oh lame Saint”. At Fache’s prompting, Langdon speculates that the reason one would leave such a message would be to identify their killer.
Here we are introduced to Sophie Neveu, a police cryptographer and Langdon’s Holy Guardian Angel for this journey.
Sophie believes she is Saunière’s granddaughter, who he called “Princess Sophie” and trained to solve complex puzzles. She is actually one of the last surviving members of the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. On her neck is a red birthmark, a feature said to have been shared by Joan of Arc.
“Sophie” comes from “Sophia” meaning “wisdom”. Also, from Sophia, the gnostic Goddess who gave birth to the Demiurge and dwells within the Abyss. “Neveu” translates as “nephew”, and here we remember that while the Soul is seen as Female, the Human is Male. We later find her family name was changed from “Saint-Clair”, possibly referring to Clare of Assisi who founded the Order of Poor Ladies, an enclosed order of Franciscan nuns in the Roman Catholic Church.
She immediately begins helping Langdon by passing him a secret message via a phone call to her answering machine, warning him that he is danger of being framed for this murder. She meets him in a bathroom, exposing that the police are tracking him by GPS. She reveals that Fache wiped away another line of text before Langdon arrived: “P.S. Find Robert Langdon”, and that the “P.S.” refers to her grandfather’s nickname for her.
She offers to help Langdon get to his embassy if he helps her figure out why Saunière contacted him and what his messages mean. They trick the police into leaving the Louvre by throwing the GPS tracker into a passing truck, giving them a few moments to explore. This is a symbolic leap into the Abyss, as Langdon would have had to jump out of a window to land in the truck.
Langdon and Sophie unscramble the message left by Saunière: “Leonardo Da Vinci, The Mona Lisa”. This sends them to the painting, explaining the oddities of its composition, where they find a new message: “So dark, the con of man”. Langdon begins trying to decode it: “moon, sermon, charms, demons, omens, codes, monks, rocks”, and Sophie points him to the Madonna of the Rocks.
Behind this painting, the Goddess for this spiral, they find a key upon the hilt of which is a fleur-de-lis. Hearing a police radio approaching, they flee the Louvre (the underworld) and begin to drive toward the US Embassy in Paris.
The Second Spiral
In Sophie’s car, Langdon (the Knight) begins to question her (his HGA) about her past and her history with her Grandfather, Saunière. He explains the Priory of Sion and its history, including famous historical figures said to have been members, such as Da Vinci himself. The fleur-de-lis is their crest, and the secret they protect was known as the “dark con of man”.
They pull up to the Embassy, which they find blocked off by police. Here Langdon has a choice to exit and be caught, but Sophie quickly reverses the car and the cops pursue. Continuing to drive in reverse, she speeds through the Paris streets, and performs a miracle to help their escape by rushing the car through a gap between two trucks.
In a park, Sophie performs another miracle by convincing a junkie to abandon his drugs and leave, giving her and Langdon a safe place to plan. She guides Langdon to the next step by remembering things her Grandfather taught her about solving puzzles. Langdon realizes what they are doing is a Treasure Hunt.
Seduced by her musings on solving puzzles and codes, he again delves into the Underworld (History) by explaining the Priory of Sion.
The Knights Templar supposedly had a secret goal: to find the Holy Grail. One day they left the Holy Land and traveled directly to Rome, being granted limitless power by the Pope. Later, on Friday, October 13th 1307, the Templars were rejected by the church and their treasures hidden.
Examining the key, and Sophie reiterating that it was left to both of them, they find a street address on it. This leads them to a Swiss bank and a safe deposit box. They meet with the bank manager Andre Vernet, who explains how to access the box with the key. In reality, a man named Andre Vernet was a French Historian, specializing in medieval literature. Vernet, in this film, can be seen as a fallen Knight (fallen Angel). One who is unworthy to find the Grail, and so attempts to take it by force. He is one of the dead within the Underworld. In this way, he can also be thought of as an agent of Choronzon, bringing confusion as they pass through the Abyss.
Sophie and Langdon’s next challenge is to retrieve the safe deposit box, as Sophie performs another miracle by correctly interpreting the order of numbers Saunière left them as a password, quipping that she doesn’t like History (the Underworld). Within, they find a small box emblazoned with a rose, a symbol for the Holy Grail.
Vernet enters the room and alerts Sophie and Langdon that the police have arrived, but that their account at the bank includes a safe passage clause. In a mirror of Langdon’s first encounter with the police, he once again has to confront his claustrophobia as Vernet leads them to an armored truck in which to escape. This is once again Langdon’s dive into the Abyss.
Vernet tricks the police, allowing the group to leave. Langdon, sitting fearfully in the corner of the truck, has Sophie open the box, revealing a cryptex: a password encoded device designed by Da Vinci in which a thin piece of paper hides a secret message. If the box is forced open, a glass vial of vinegar breaks and destroys the message. This particular one is known as the “keystone”.
Here, Sophie’s role momentarily changes. No longer Langdon’s Holy Guarding Angel, she is now the Goddess at the bottom of the Abyss. Langdon, cowering alone and fearful in the truck, is forced to admit he is not ok. Sophie performs an action her Mother used to do. She rubs her hands together, and passing streetlights make it look as if they are glowing.
She places her hands upon Langdon, and he relaxes. Another miracle, curing a trauma from his personal History. His claustrophobia now relieved, Sophie explains the loss of her Parents and Brother in a car crash when she was 4.
Vernet pulls the truck to a secluded location and points a gun at the pair. He explains he’s been trying to get the box for 20 years. He makes them turn around, but instead of shooting them he closes the doors of the truck. A stuck bullet casing that Langdon kicked there makes one of the doors unable to close completely, and Langdon charges Vernet, knocking him down. Sophie and Langdon flee in the truck.
Langdon grills Sophie again about her Grandfather, saying that no one hates History, just their own Histories. He suspects that Saunière was grooming her to be a member of the Priory. Sophie asks if he thinks this is all real now, but Langdon is not ready to admit it yet. Instead he claims he’s been dragged into a world where people think this is real.
Langdon says he is out of his depth in knowledge of these secret societies, and suggests meeting with someone else that he knows who lives in Paris: A Grail Historian.
The Third Spiral
The man Langdon and Sophie are heading to meet is Leigh Teabing. His name is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which influence the Da Vinci Code. He is a British Royal Historian and Knight of the Realm.
Teabing is the Demiurge in Langdon’s Quest. Secretly, it is he who has been manipulating members of Opus Dei, including Silas, and has been trying for years to destroy the Catholic Church. Silas has been pursing the Grail, has murdered multiple people, including a nun who was a Priory of Sion member that guarded their secret, and hit upon numerous dead ends. Teabing is known to the Opus Dei members only as “The Teacher”.
As the Demiurge, Teabing knows the History of the Grail (the Cosmology of the Underworld), but is incapable of finding it himself. He presents a number of challenges to Langdon and Sophie to be allowed entrance to his home. He descends from on high, in shadow, as the others wait below in the light.
Teabing explains how there are four guardians of the Grail. He knows a full list of the Priory of Sion’s members, and that its task is to protect the source of the Church’s power on Earth. That the Holy Grail is not in fact a cup. He presents Constantine changing the Bible to exclude the Pagan concept of the Goddess to maintain order. He and Langdon disagree over if the Pagans or Christians started the fighting in the Roman Empire which caused this change.
Other details of the council of Nicaea, including the divinity of Jesus, are brought up for debate with Teabing (the Demiurge) insisting on only Humanity without the Divine.
Teabing quizzes Sophie on the painting The Last Supper, pointing out that the Grail (as a cup) does not exist within the painting. They reexamine the triangular shapes of male and female which he calls the blade and the chalice. He identifies the Holy Grail as Mary Magdalene, who he says was the wife of Jesus. In our Quest she is the representation of the Goddess on Earth. She and Jesus are mirrored images of each other in the painting. Here, she is once again found at the bottom of the Underworld (History).
Teabing presents extra-biblical gospels as additional proof, as well as “sang réal” meaning “royal blood”, claiming that Mary was pregnant at the time of crucifixion. This secret, the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, are what he claims the Priory of Scion protects.
Teabing has secretly contacted Opus Dei via his butler, Remy Jean, to alert them to Langdon and Sophie’s presence in his home. He is enraged when he finds the police are looking for them as well. Silas (the Devil) arrives as they begin to examine the cryptex. Teabing points out that Silas cannot succeed, as only the worthy can unlock the cryptex. The police arrive, and again (just like in previous spirals) a fight ensues, where Teabing, Jean, Langdon, and Sophie escape with a captured Silas, who Teabing refers to as “a dragon”, flee to his airplane and fly to London.
The Fourth Spiral
On the plane, Langdon finds another secret in the box which held the cryptex. A mirrored message leading them to Temple Church in London. Teabing declares that they are no longer observing History (the Underworld), but are instead living in it and making it.
The London police are alerted to the group’s arrival, storming the airport as the plane lands, but Teabing uses a trick of misdirection to allow the others to slip into a waiting car unseen. His comments about people not noticing things right in front of their eyes mirrors his explanation of Da Vinci’s paintings.
Teabing comments on how he was surprised at Langdon’s comfort on the airplane, no longer experiencing claustrophobia (or the Abyss) due to Sophie’s healing. Temple Church is declared to be “wrong” by Sophie as she looks at the strange carvings on the wall. They realize they are not in the correct place.
Silas, released by Remy, captures Sophie and Remy captures Langdon and Sophie. Doves, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, along with a crowd of nuns allow Sophie and Langdon to escape. This mirrors Sophie’s earlier miracle of the escape through traffic. On a bus, she gets Langdon a phone and he discovers the real place they should have gone: the tomb of Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. Meanwhile, Teabing kills Remy and sets the police to the Opus Dei safehouse where Silas is now hiding. Silas dies in a gunfight.
Teabing meets Langdon and Sophie at the Abbey, threatening them with a gun. He reveals that he was unworthy to find the Grail (the Tomb of Mary Magdalene), trying to justify his actions by saying that Grail Quests require sacrifice, but that he will do anything to find it.
This is the moment of Langdon’s HGA (Sophie) abandoning him as he crosses the Abyss, as Teabing points a gun at her, forcing Langdon to solve the cryptex by himself.
Langdon solves the puzzle in secret, sneaking away the message hidden within. He tells Teabing that he cannot solve it, throwing the cryptex into the air and causing the vinegar to shatter as it hits the ground. This allows Sophie to grab the gun as Teabing dives for the cryptex. Fache arrives with the London police and arrests Teabing, having discovered the Opus Dei conspiracy.
Outside, Langdon reveals the password to be APPLE, the “orb which fell from the heavens” to inspire Newton’s work, and symbol of forbidden knowledge. This reveals the next milestone to follow: Rosslyn Chapel, a church in Scotland built by the Templars.
Here, they find architecture and artifacts from across the world, and Sophie realizes she had been there as a child. They find a stairwell marked with a hexagram, a symbol made of two intersecting triangles, male and female fused as one. They enter a private area filled with paintings, more history and images of the dead.
Looking upward, they find the ceiling to be carved with stars, as the cryptex rhyme predicted. Below them is an image of the moon on a rug.
Beneath the rug they find a trap door. They descend its stairs and find a rose in a small vase. However, Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail, is not present.
Instead, they continue through history. The room is filled with records. As Langdon reads through them, he reveals that Sophie is the living descendant of Jesus and Mary, and that she, Princess Sophie, is the living presence of the Goddess, and thus the Grail had been with him all along. As the French Taunter says in another famous Grail Quest, “We’ve already got one”.
They ascend to find the church full of figures. They reveal themselves to be the Priory of Sion and friends of Sophie’s grandfather. They are there to protect her, and her grandmother is among them.
Now a full believer, Langdon points out the miracles Sophie has performed along the way, and that when he was lost in the well as a child he prayed for help. She then identifies him as a Knight on a Grail Quest. They embrace, and go their separate ways. Sophie momentarily tries to walk on water, but no luck, implying she might do better with wine.
The Fifth Spiral
Now, having to finish his Quest completely alone, Langdon returns to Paris, the original entrance to the Underworld on his Journey.
He cuts his face while shaving, the trail of blood in the sink providing an epiphany.
He checks his own book, realizing that “bloodline” as the Holy Grail may have more than one meaning. He is reminded of the Rose Line. Putting together the final pieces of the puzzle from the cryptex, having realized his True Will, he leaves his hotel.
Following markers on the ground, he walks through the streets of Paris, nothing standing in his way. He repeats the message he found as he approaches the Louvre:
The Holy Grail [Tomb of Mary Magdalene, the Goddess] ‘neath ancient Roslin [the Rose Line] waits. The Blade and Chalice [The opposed pyramids in the Louvre] guarding o’er Her gates. Adorned in masters’ loving art [The paintings in the Louvre], She lies. She rests at last beneath the Starry Skies [The Night Sky].
Doing the only thing appropriate at this moment, having found the Goddess at the very bottom of the Underworld, beneath a Pyramid under the Stars, he kneels.
The camera zooms downward beneath the Louvre to show us that he has succeeded, and his Grail Quest, the Katabasis, is now complete.
Having now examined Katabasis as the Journey of the Dead, the Incarnation of God, and the Quest of Man, our next example will bring everything full circle. After which we will look at some requests made by people on Discord and Twitter.
If you enjoyed this analysis and would like to discuss it, or see more of the same sort of thing with other films, please let me know on my Discord or on Twitter. If you would like to support me and the continuation of this blog, please consider joining my Patreon.