The Secret of Secrets

Title: The Secret of Secrets
Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: Bantam, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9781787634558
Pages: 675

After a gap of eight years, here we have another great book from Dan Brown and the wait was worth it. Robert Langdon, the legendary American symbologist, is the protagonist who wades through one tangle after the other in this book whose storyline is set in Prague, the capital of Czechia. Langdon’s companion, Katherine Solomon, is a noetic scientist and the book she intends to publish on the secrets of human consciousness falls foul of the CIA who actually uses some of her ideas described in the book. The agency’s clever moves to thwart the pair and to destroy all copies of the manuscript in digital format leads eventually to the destruction of the largest mind-control experimental facility secretly built underground Prague. Apart from the thrilling and mysterious storyline, the book identifies the human mind as the world’s next battlefield. The future of technology lies in developing a perfect human-to-machine interface, without typing or dictating, but directly from the brain by thinking. Along with the lead cast, readers enjoy a virtual tour through Prague’s cityscape, geographical indicators, famous museums, cathedrals and hotels and a glance at the extraconstitutional influence the US ambassador wields in the country. The book introduces the philosophical concept of non-local consciousness which claims that there is no such thing as an individual’s consciousness and human brain does only to tune into the global consciousness which pervades the whole world as if a radio gets in sync with a particular station which then appears to others as the person’s mind or character. Believe me, Brown is subtle as well as intriguing in this thriller.

The book introduces the science of noetics which is the science of the intellect or pure thought, focusing on reason, mind and the origins of logic. One word of caution is prudent here: whenever you see the word science in this book, take it only with a pinch of salt. However, Brown colours the narrative with a touch of the paranormal and presents it as an addendum to parapsychology or out-of-the-body experience. This minor hitch definitely does not hinder the pleasure of reading it and the first thrill comes on page 32 itself. The idea of artificial neurons is developed in the book which is thought to control consciousness and would permanently alter the course of human history. Brown’s insight is sharp and transcends domains in its application and is evident in generalizations such as ‘the social media is the biggest intelligence gathering boon since the catholic church invented confession’. We know that the world is aging fast, and the percentage of old people is shooting up in developed economies which the others would surely follow once they trudge along the road of development and growth. Brown’s characters are youthful only in their spirit and in fact are aged well over fifty, including Langdon the hero and Katherine Solomon, his lover, who is in fact four years older than him. However, the narrative is very effective in displaying only the vigour of their demeanour which leaves the readers unsuspecting of their real age since their actions are so youthful in and out of bed, while Brown has included more scenes of the former variety in this book than was his wont!

This book’s focus is on human consciousness which is claimed to be non-local in the sense that humans can receive or reflect only a sliver of an external consciousness. This can be exploited to serve our needs and to enhance our capabilities such as visualizing a remote area without actually going there in person. In this scenario, it affords the ultimate spy camera if a suitable technology is developed to nudge a person to undergo an out-of-body experience and help it record the visual experience on to a storage medium to play back later without human intervention. I personally don’t believe or think it would ever be possible, but there is no denying that Brown has made very persuasive arguments in its favour. If you are spiritually oriented, it is very probable that you would become a fan. Study of human brain is said to be divided into two opposing philosophies – materialistic and noetic. Materialists believe that all phenomena, including consciousness, can be explained solely in terms of physical matter and its interactions. Noeticists think that consciousness is not created by brain processes but rather a fundamental aspect of the universe, like space, time and energy and was not even located inside the body. The heroine of the story, Katherine, is a noted noeticist and it is she who thinks up the exotic technologies to communicate electrically with the brain which is clandestinely appropriated by the CIA. Going a step further, she claims that human thoughts create reality and that this idea existed at the core of most major spiritual teachings. This is part of a conscious effort to bring in all religions into the narrative, however flimsy the occasion is. An instance that can be cited is that of employing the Vel spear of the south Indian god Murugan as part of the letter A in a monogram in the story. The book claims in the preface itself that all artwork, artefacts, symbols and documents in the novel are real and that all experiments, technologies and scientific results are true to life and that all organisations in the novel exist.

The city of Prague is as much a character in the story as is Langdon or Solomon. A city with a classical past is the normal fare of Brown novels and it is seen that Prague eminently suits the plot. It’s the city of a thousand spires and also a city of drama and fantasy. Revellers regularly walked the streets masquerading as storied characters from her rich history. An important character in the novel named Golem used this peculiarity of the city to go about the streets in full disguise. The book offers a fine tour of the landmarks of the city through the narrative and it would be extremely good if readers check the places up on Google along the way. Knowing fully well the predilection of our Indian taxi drivers to mislead their passengers to squeeze out something extra, it was somewhat heartening to read that Czech taxi drivers are no different and would take a roundabout route to extract a hefty fare from their unsuspecting passengers. Another notable point is the hegemony US diplomats exercise in Prague. The US ambassador is seen directly ordering Czech law enforcement officials and forcibly releasing American suspects from their custody. The embassy has control of the surveillance system in the city and its officials can track the route taken by any person.

It’s a little unfortunate that this book promotes the pseudoscientific concept of global consciousness to imagine startling inventions that are mindboggling. It is suggested that there is no such thing as an individual’s consciousness residing in his or her brain. Even a person’s memory data sits outside the brain and is accessed from there each time, much like cloud computing. Global consciousness hovers in the universe and individual brains tune in to a particular source or channel and access data, like a radio receiver tuning in to a station. It is the development of some filters in the brain that prevents one from tuning in to another person’s channel. By this logic, extra sensory perception (ESP) is a brain tuning in to information that it normally filters out. Precognition is also explained away with a similar contraption. Brown then uses the common charlatan trick of hanging on to quantum physics to reason out implausible phenomena whereas quantum theory throws a disclaimer up front that its conclusions are valid and applicable only in the micro-realm and do not affect the macro objects. Concealing such caveats, Brown freely translates experiments in quantum mechanics into the spiritual realm. There is also an unabashed argument on authority in claims such as ‘some very smart minds believed future events did indeed affect past events’ (p.337). The author fails to realize that it is not the smartness of the mind, but of the idea that carries weight in science. The book further suggests that consciousness exists in the quantum field. An unpardonable license taken by the author is that he clubs Newton, Einstein and Galileo with religious prophets regarding attaining enlightenment and observes that ‘these brilliant minds had scientific epiphanies and spiritual revelations that can be explained in scientific terms’. When we die, our consciousness returns to the universal one and a life begins after death. He then makes a bold yet more or less irresponsible finding that hallucinogens such as LSD open up a wider spectrum of reality and help to see more of it. This reminds us of the need of Sherlock Holmes’ children’s versions to remove those portions in which the famous detective uses drugs.

The book is structured in the same mould as his earlier best sellers like Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, with a slew of code breaking, secret messages, hurried chases across the city filled with artistic and architecturally notable buildings. What is impressive is his uncanny ability to demand the undiluted attention of the reader and the total immersion it guarantees. The significance of the title becomes evident in the epilogue along with the message he tries to convey. I just noted down the concepts, ideas and even gadgets he mentions in the book and of which I was not aware beforehand and it runs from secure virtual workspaces, laser microphone, UV resin, near-field communication, superconducting magnetic energy storage to body jet showers! With this brilliant line of sophistication, it is quite odd to find him mentioning ‘fluorescent lights flickering on’, especially since the fluorescent lighting has long since yielded their place to LED lighting which does not flicker and attains full brightness instantaneously.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star