Michael Baigent
Michael Baigent | |
---|---|
Born | Michael Barry Meehan 27 February 1948 |
Died | 17 June 2013 Brighton, England | (aged 65)
Education | B.A. Psychology M.A. in the study Mysticism and Religious Experience |
Alma mater | University of Kent |
Occupation(s) | author and lecturer |
Known for | Co-author The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail |
Michael Baigent (born Michael Barry Meehan,[1] 27 February 1948 – 17 June 2013) was a New Zealand writer who published a number of popular works questioning traditional perceptions of history and the life of Jesus. He is known best as a co-author of the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
Biography
Baigent was born on 27 February 1948
His secondary schooling was at Nelson College, and then he attended the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, initially intending to study science and continue in the family career of forestry, but switched to studying comparative religion and philosophy.[4]
After graduating in 1972, Baigent made extensive travels to different countries, as a freelancer.[4] He did stints as a war-photographer in Laos and as a fashion-photographer in Spain, before arriving at England in 1976.[4] While working for the BBC photographic department and doing night shifts for a soft-drinks factory, he met Richard Leigh via a television producer who was producing a series on the Knights Templar.[4][5] Leigh was to be his frequent co-author during his entire professional life. The two joined Henry Lincoln in researching the alleged mystery of Rennes-le-Château in France, the details of which were revealed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.[4]
In 2000, Baigent also earned an Master of Arts degree for the study of Mysticism and Religious Experience at the University of Kent.[4] A Freemason and a Grand Officer (2005) of the United Grand Lodge of England, he was an editor of Freemasonry Today from Spring, 2001 to Summer, 2011 and advocated for a more liberal style for Freemasonry.[2][5]
Personal life
Baigent married Jane, an interior designer in 1982 and they had two daughters, Isabelle and Tansy, along with two children from her earlier marriage.
Works
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
Published on 18 January 1982,
The theory that Jesus and Mary were in a carnal (physical) relationship is based on Baigent's interpretation of the holy kiss on the mouth (typically between males during early Christian times), and spiritual marriage, as given in the Gospel of Philip. It was promoted earlier by authors Laurence Gardner and Margaret Starbird.
Popular and critical reception
The book was a bestseller in America.[6] It regained popularity after the publication of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and sold more than six million copies.[6]
Historian Marina Warner noted the book to have many lurid falsehoods and much distorted reasoning.[7] Soon enough, the authors had a public dispute on a BBC broadcast with her and the Bishop of Birmingham.[8] In a scathing review of the book for The Observer, critic Anthony Burgess wrote: "It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvelous theme for a novel."[2] A Kirkus Review described the work as an intriguing phantasmagoria wherein the authors jumped "perilous heights to reach crazy conclusions".[9] Colin Henderson Roberts, reviewing for London Review of Books, noted that the work advanced a preposterous hypothesis and made major blunders in its quest to get simple reductive answers from complex questions.[10]
In the immediate aftermath of the publication of The Da Vinci Code, The New York Times Book Review deemed The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail to be among the all-time great works of popular pseudo-history.[11] John J. Doherty, literature librarian at Northern Arizona University, writing in King Arthur in Popular Culture, describes of the work as being "thoroughly debunked by scholars and critics alike".[12] Arthurian scholar Richard Barber commented the work to be a "notorious pseudo-history", which advanced its arguments on innuendo and fertile speculations, and would take a book of equal length to dissect and refute it in entirety.[13]
In 2005, a
Dan Brown lawsuit
Some of the ideas presented in Baigent's book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail were later incorporated in Dan Brown's bestselling American novel The Da Vinci Code.[15]
In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown named the primary antagonist, a British Royal Historian, Knight of the Realm and Grail scholar, Sir
In March 2006, Baigent and Leigh filed a lawsuit in a United Kingdom court against Brown's publisher, Random House, claiming copyright infringement.[17]
Concurrent with the plagiarism trial, Baigent released a new book, The Jesus Papers, amid criticism[by whom?] that it was just a reworking of themes from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and timed to capitalize on the marketing hype concerning the release of the movie The Da Vinci Code, as well as the attention brought by the trial. In the postscript to the book (p. 355), Baigent asserts that the release date had been set by Harper Collins long before.
On 7 April 2006, High Court judge Peter Smith rejected the copyright-infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. On 28 March 2007, Baigent and Leigh lost their appeal against this decision and had legal bills of about £3 million.[18]
Other
Beginning in 1989, Baigent and Leigh co-authored several books, most prominently The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception (1991), in which they primarily used the controversial theories of Robert Eisenman concerning the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was discredited by Otto Betz and Rainer Riesner in their book Jesus, Qumran and The Vatican: Clarifications (1994).[19]
In 1999, Baigent and Leigh published The Inquisition. Bernard Hamilton, writing in the
Baigent himself conceded that none of his theories yielded any positive results: "I would like to think in due course a lot of this material will be proven," he said, "but it's just a hope of mine".[24]
Bibliography
Sole author
- From the Omens of Babylon: Astrology and Ancient Mesopotamia (1994) ISBN 978-1591432210
- Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History (1998) ISBN 0-670-87454-X
- ISBN 0-06-082713-0
- Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World (2009)
Co-written with Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln
- ISBN 0-09-968241-9
- U.S. paperback: Holy Blood, Holy Grail, 1983, Dell. ISBN 0-440-13648-2
- U.S. paperback: Holy Blood, Holy Grail, 1983, Dell.
- The Messianic Legacy, 1986
Co-written with Richard Leigh
- ISBN 0-552-13596-8
- The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, 1991
- Secret Germany: Claus Von Stauffenbergand the true story of Operation Valkyrie, 1994
- The Elixir and the Stone: The Tradition of Magic and Alchemy, 1997
- The Inquisition. 1999
Co-written with other authors
- The Astrological Journal (Winter 1983–84, Vol. 26, No. 1) with Roy Alexander, Fiona Griffiths, Charles Harvey, Suzi Lilley-Harvey, Esme Williams, David Hamblin, and Zach Mathews, 1983
- Mundane Astrology: Introduction to the Astrology of Nations and Groups (co-written with Nicholas Campion and Charles Harvey) 1984 (reissued expanded edition, 1992)
- Freemasonry Today, (editor) 2001-2011
References
- ^ Obituaries, page 15, The Bulletin, The Magazine of the Nelson College Community, December 2013 [1] Archived 14 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ Tait, Morgan (21 June 2013). "NZ author dies of brain haemorrhage". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
- ^ a b c Hamill, John (5 September 2013). "Michael Baigent obituary". Freemasonry Today. Archived from the original on 19 May 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
- ^ ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ The Times, 18 January 1982.
- ^ Milne, Jonathan (12 March 2006). "The Kiwi trying to break the Code". Herald on Sunday. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
- ^ "Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ Roberts, C. H. (4 March 1982). "C.H. Roberts · Grail Trail · LRB 4 March 1982". London Review of Books. 04 (4). Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ Miller, Laura (22 February 2004). "The Da Vinci Con". The New York Times.
- ISBN 978-1-4766-0527-2.
- ISBN 978-1-84384-069-5.
- ^ Tony Robinson (presenter) (3 February 2005). The Real Da Vinci Code. Channel Four Television.
- ^ NZ author claims copyright breach in Da Vinci Code, 28 February 2006
- ^ Slotnik, Daniel (22 June 2013). "Michael Baigent, Writer Who Sued Over 'Da Vinci Code,' Dies at 65". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
- ^ Kiwi author takes on Dan Brown, 1 March 2006
- ^ see Guardian article
- ^ London: SCM Press, 1994.
- JSTOR 580893.
- ^ Read, Piers Paul (1 January 2000). "Lies, damned lies and statistics". The Spectator Archive. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
- ^ "Cardinal sins of a clerical history that verges on hysteria". The Independent. 23 October 1999. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
- ISSN 2562-0509.
- ^ DaVinci, other books fit conspiracy fixation