Who Is Irma Plavatsky? Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and the Internationalisation of Popular Culture from the Dime Novel to The Da Vinci Code

Abstract

The first dime novels were simply novels written as a whole and then cut into chapters and sold as weekly instalments. The most successful dime novels prospered by proposing, secret societies and conspiracy theories. For many theologians, the success of The Da Vinci Code is both good and bad news: it attests to a substantial contemporary interest in Jesus Christ, and an equally substantial eagerness to explore alternative versions of his story from the one usually told by mainline churches. As Neo-Pagan groups find inspiration for their religion from popular culture, the same process had to be prevented in Christian groups influenced by The Da Vinci Code . There is now considerable scholarly study of conspiracy theories and it is one of the arguments of this chapter that when conspiracy theories are used in a religious fashion, they are part of the hyper-real religious phenomenon. Keywords:conspiracy theories; dime novels; hyper-real religious; Neo-Pagan groups; popular culture; religion; The Da Vinci Code ; theologians