I have read all of Dan Brown books - and this one is the worse. To begin with the title sucks...what is he really looking for - a symbol, a pyramid, a legend, a masonic secret ? Professor Langdon is sceptical and so are Mr Dan Brown's readers. Goes to show that Mr. Brown is lost and he just drags us with him.
I am beginning to feel that after the success of The Da Vinci Code - this book is his deliberate and forced attempt to put America on the mystery hunt list. In fact India would have been a more suited location to find ancient mysteries. He induces fascination where it does not exist. His fast pace/page turning formula leaves you disappointed chapter after chapter and towards the end you feel both frustrated and cheated.
The only interesting aspect in the whole book is "Noetic Science" - i could not help launching a research to understand more of it. Noetics as i understand is essentially trying to find some scientific explanations (through meta physics and such) in the intangible beliefs of soul, intuition or the inner consciousness.
IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences) was co-founded by Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut who was part of the Apollo 14 mission. During his journey Mitchell had an epiphany while looking down on the earth that existence of life on earth was not just an accident based on random processes...
Well...the scriptures in India, China or Egypt have a lot to say on this subject - some of the ancient revelations are perhaps forgotten or have been branded as superstitions due to the lack of understanding of modern sciences.
IONS might be able to fill that gap and provide us with some substantial research that confirms that what we read in scriptures is not "bull" and maybe we all have within us super human capabilities which only needs to be unleashed. And then the ancient gods will hold no fascination if we would be able to part seas, travel in time or heal the sufferings in this world.
Marrying the intangible mysteries to logical sciences maybe worthwhile - but this is a deep subject and Browns attempt to capture it in a few hundred pages is a bit ambitious i think.
