Michael Baigent (born Michael Barry Meehan, 27 February 1948 – 17 June 2013) was a New Zealand writer who published a number of popular works questioning traditional perceptions of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and the life of Jesus. He is best known as a co-author of the book ''

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'' (published as ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'' in the United States) is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The book was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape in London as an unofficia ...

''.

Biography

Baigent was born on 27 February 1948 in

Nelson, New Zealand (Let him, who has earned it, bear the palm) , image_map = Nelson CC.PNG , mapsize = 200px , map_caption = , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = ...

and spent his childhood in the nearby communities of

Motueka Motueka is a town in the South Island of New Zealand, close to the mouth of the Motueka River on the western shore of Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere. It is the second largest in the Tasman Region, with a population of as of The surrounding d ...

and

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population ...

. His father was a devout

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, and he was tutored in Catholic

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

from the age of five. After his father left the family when Baigent was eight years old, he went to live with his maternal grandfather, Lewis Baigent and took his surname. His great-grandfather, Henry Baigent served as a Nelson city mayor and had founded a

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. ...

firm, H. Baigent and Sons. His secondary schooling was at Nelson College, and then he moved on to the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

, initially intending to study science and continue in the family career of forestry, but switched to studying comparative religion and philosophy. After graduating in 1972, Baigent made extensive travels to different countries, as a freelancer. He did stints as a war-photographer in Laos and as a fashion-photographer in Spain, before arriving at England in 1976. While working at the BBC photographic department and doing night shifts at a soft-drinks factory, he met Richard Leigh via a TV producer who was producing a series on the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon ( la, Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars, was a Catholic military order, o ...

. Leigh was to be his frequent co-author across his entire professional life. The two joined

Henry Lincoln Henry Soskin (12 February 1930 – 23 February 2022), better known as Henry Lincoln, was a British author, television presenter, scriptwriter, and actor. He co-wrote three ''Doctor Who'' multi-part serials in the 1960s, and — starting in th ...

in unravelling the alleged mystery of

Rennes-le-Château Rennes-le-Château (; oc, Rènnas del Castèl) is a commune approximately 5 km (3 miles) south of Couiza, in the Aude department in the Occitanie region in Southern France. In 2018, it had a population of 91. This hilltop village is ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, the details of which were put forward in ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail''. In 2000, Baigent also earned an MA in the study of

Mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

and Religious Experience at the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

. A Freemason and a Grand Officer (2005) of the

United Grand Lodge of England The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) is the governing Masonic lodge for the majority of freemasons in England, Wales and the Commonwealth of Nations. Claiming descent from the Masonic grand lodge formed 24 June 1717 at the Goose & Gridiron ...

, he was an editor of '' Freemasonry Today'' from Spring, 2001 to Summer, 2011 and advocated for a more liberal approach to Freemasonry.

Personal life

Baigent married Jane, an interior designer in 1982 and had two daughters, Isabelle and Tansy, along with two children from her earlier marriage. He died from a

brain haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

in Brighton, East Sussex on 18 June 2013.

Works

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

Published on 18 January 1982, ''

'' popularised the hypothesis that the true nature of the quest for the

Holy Grail The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracu ...

was that

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

and

Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurr ...

had a child together, the first of a bloodline which later married into a Frankish royal dynasty, the Merovingians, and was all tied together by a society known as the

Priory of Sion The ''Prieuré de Sion'' (), translated as Priory of Sion, was a fraternal organization founded in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chivalric order. In the 1960s, Plantard began claiming that ...

. 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 in early Christian times, thus signifying Mary's emancipation), and ''spiritual marriage'', as given in the

Gospel of Philip The Gospel of Philip is a non-canonical Gnostic Gospel dated to around the 3rd century but lost in medieval times until rediscovered by accident, buried with other texts near Nag Hammadi in Egypt, in 1945. The text is not closely related to the ...

. It was earlier perpetuated by authors

Laurence Gardner Laurence Gardner (17 May 1943 – 12 August 2010) was a British author and lecturer. He wrote on religious fringe theories such as the Jesus bloodline. Biography Laurence Gardner was born in London Borough of Hackney, Hackney, London. He was mar ...

and

Margaret Starbird Margaret Leonard Starbird (born June 18, 1942) is the author of seven books arguing for the existence of a secret Christian tradition that held Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, calling it the " Grail heresy", after having set out to discr ...

Popular and critical reception

The book was a bestseller in America. It regained popularity after the publication of

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels '' Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), '' The Lost Symbol'' (2009), '' Inferno'' (2013), ...

's ''

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...

'' and sold over six million copies. Historian Marina Warner noted the book to be filled with lurid falsehoods and distorted reasoning. Soon enough, the authors had a public clash on a BBC broadcast with her and the Bishop of Birmingham. In a scathing review of the book for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

'', critic

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire '' A Clockwork ...

wrote: "It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvelous theme for a novel." A Kirkus Review described the work as an intriguing phantasmagoria wherein the authors jumped "perilous heights to reach crazy conclusions".

Colin Henderson Roberts Colin Henderson Roberts (8 June 1909 – 11 February 1990) was a classical scholar and publisher. He was Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press between 1954 and 1974. Biography Roberts was born on 8 June 1909 in Queen Eli ...

, reviewing for

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review ...

, noted that the work advanced a preposterous hypothesis and made major blunders in its quest to get simple reductive answers from complex questions. In the immediate aftermath of the publication of ''

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read ...

'' deemed ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'' to be among the all-time great works of pop pseudo-history. John J. Doherty, literature librarian at

Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was founded in 1899 as the final public university established in the Arizona Territory, 13 years before Arizona was admitted as the 48th state. ...

, writing in ''King Arthur in Popular Culture'', describes of the work as being "thoroughly debunked by scholars and critics alike". 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. In 2005, a

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

programme hosted by

Tony Robinson Sir Anthony Robinson (born 15 August 1946) is an English actor, author, broadcaster, comedian, presenter, and political activist. He played Baldrick in the BBC television series ''Blackadder'' and has presented several historical documentarie ...

interrogated the main arguments of Brown, Baigent and Leigh, and termed the entire episode to be a hoax. Arnaud de Sède, son of

Gérard de Sède Géraud-Marie de Sède, baron de Liéoux (5 June 1921 – 29 May 2004) was a French author, writing under the nom-de-plume of Gérard de Sède, and a member of various surrealist organizations. He was born into an aristocratic family from Comm ...

, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of a 1,000-year-old

, and described the story as "piffle". With increasing proliferation and popularity of books, websites and films centered around Baigent's works, many critics regard the work to have been highly influential in the mainstreaming of

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a neg ...

and

pseudohistory Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudoh ...

in the public psyche. Damian Thompson noted the book to "employ the rhetoric of authentic history, but not its method, to present myths as fact". Laura Miller writing for

Salon (website) ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including r ...

described the book to have advanced a preposterous idea in stages - first as a wild guess, then as a tentative hypothesis, and lastly as an undeniable fact - but entirely from within a miasma of bogus authenticity.

Dan Brown lawsuit

Some of the ideas presented in Baigent's book ''

'' were later incorporated in

's bestselling American novel ''

''.NZ author claims copyright breach in Da Vinci Code
28 February 2006 In ''The Da Vinci Code'', Dan Brown named the primary antagonist, a British Royal Historian, Knight of the Realm and Grail scholar, Sir

Leigh Teabing ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...

, KBE, also known as the Teacher, in homage to the authors of ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail''. The name combines Richard Leigh's surname with 'Teabing', an anagram of Baigent. In March 2006, Baigent and Leigh filed a lawsuit in a British court against Brown's publisher,

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Ger ...

, claiming

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

.Kiwi author takes on Dan Brown
1 March 2006 Concurrent with the plagiarism trial, Baigent released a new book, ''

The Jesus Papers ''The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History'' is a book by author Michael Baigent published in 2006. Providing his detailed history of Jesus' life and crucifixion, using papers that (according to the author) were covered up, th ...

'', amid criticism that it was just a reworking of themes from ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'', and timed to capitalize on the marketing hype around the release of the movie ''

'', 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 were faced with legal bills of about £3 million.

Other

Beginning in 1989, Baigent and Leigh co-authored several books, most prominently '' The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception'' (1991), in which they primarily followed the controversial theories of Robert Eisenman concerning the interpretation of the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

. This was discredited by Otto Betz and Rainer Riesner in their book ''Jesus, Qumran and The Vatican: Clarifications'' (1994). In 1999, Baigent and Leigh published ''The Inquisition''. Bernard Hamilton, writing in the ''

English Historical Review ''The English Historical Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1886 and published by Oxford University Press (formerly Longman). It publishes articles on all aspects of history – British, European, and ...

'', described the book as pursuing "a very outdated and misleading account", which ignored all modern development in Inquisition Studies and grossly exaggerated its power and influence, to the extent of being polemical. Writing in the '' Spectator'' magazine, Piers Paul Read deemed the authors to have penned a misinformed diatribe against Catholicism, with nil interest in "understanding the subtleties and paradoxes in the history of the Inquisition". A review in

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

noted it to be mostly drab and uncontroversial, in reiterating facts which were already known for decades but which progressively gave way to hysteria, in its bid to draw a parallel between the ancient institution and current abuse of power by Catholic authorities. Dongwoo Kim, writing in ''

Constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellatio ...

'', noted the book to not be a significant contribution in the field, in that it was an epitome of ''

Whig historiography Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents history as a journey from an oppressive and benighted past to a "glorious present". The present described is generally one with modern forms of liberal democracy ...

'' which sought for a binary categorization of the past between good and evil, while locating the Catholic Church as the "antithesis of modernity and liberalism". 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."DaVinci, other books fit conspiracy fixation
/ref>

Bibliography

Sole author

*''From the Omens of Babylon: Astrology and Ancient Mesopotamia'' (1994) . 2nd edition published as ''Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Science of Omens and the Knowledge of the Heavens'' (2015) *''Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History'' (1998) *'' The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History'' (2006) *''Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World'' (2009)

Co-written with Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln

* ''

'', 1982, UK ** U.S. paperback: ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'', 1983, Dell. * ''The Messianic Legacy'', 1986

Co-written with Richard Leigh

*''

The Temple and the Lodge ''The Temple and the Lodge'' is a book written by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, in which the authors claim to trace a link between the suppressed Knights Templar and modern day Freemasonry. Synopsis The thesis of the book is that after the ...

'', 1989, *'' The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception'', 1991 *''Secret Germany:

Claus Von Stauffenberg Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair. Despite ...

and 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

External links

Michael Baigent website

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baigent, Michael 1948 births 2013 deaths New Zealand non-fiction writers New Zealand people of English descent University of Auckland alumni People educated at Nelson College New Zealand Freemasons 20th-century New Zealand writers 20th-century New Zealand male writers 21st-century New Zealand writers Swoon hypothesis Male non-fiction writers Pseudohistorians