The Secret of Secrets: Dan Brown and Lance Butler in Dialogue
Has Dan Brown Just Published the Most Widely Read Case for the Primacy of Consciousness?
Half the planet would like to have a conversation with Dan Brown, and we at the SMN are going to have one on Zoom on 6 June at 4pm (BST, UK). Ever since the monumental success of The Da Vinci Code (2003; 85 million copies sold; translated into 44 languages) Brown has been the epitome of the successful popular novelist.
But his latest novel in the Robert Langdon series, The Secret of Secrets, astonishingly, as well as being a highly-readable page-turner, is based on exactly the things the SMN investigates, proclaims and stands for, namely the ontological priority of consciousness and the existence of dimensions to the universe that are other than material.
David Lorimer and Lance Butler will be in dialogue with Dan Brown and will hope to find out how a firm scientific-materialist came to make another whiz-bang plot out of the ideas which we, along with all members of the SMN, espouse, and then found out for himself that, in truth, the great secret of the universe, hidden by so much of modern thought, may be that there is a lot more to heaven and earth than the physical.
This event will include a live Q&A.
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About the speakers:
Dan Brown is the author of eight number one bestselling novels, including The Da Vinci Code, which has become one of the bestselling books of all time. His Robert Langdon thrillers—including The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, Inferno, and Origin—have captivated readers worldwide and continue to spark intellectual debate, dialogue, and conjecture. Brown’s novels are published in 56 languages around the world with over 250 million copies in print.
In 2005, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine, whose editors credited him with “keeping the publishing industry afloat; renewed interest in Leonardo da Vinci and early Christian history; spiking tourism to Paris and Rome; a growing membership in secret societies; the ire of Cardinals in Rome; eight books denying the claims of the novel and seven guides to read along with it; a flood of historical thrillers; and a major motion picture franchise.”
The son of a mathematics teacher and a church organist, Brown was raised on a prep school campus where he developed a fascination with the paradoxical interplay between science and religion. These themes eventually formed the backdrop for his books. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he later returned to teach English before focusing his attention full time to writing. He lives in New England.
Brown’s much-anticipated new novel, The Secret of Secrets was published on 9 September 2025. To find out more, click here.
Prof Lance Butler taught literature and literary stylistics at the Universities of Stirling in Scotland and Pau in France between 1972 and 2016. He is the author of Thomas Hardy, Samuel Beckett and the Meaning of Being, Victorian Doubt and Registering the Difference, a study of the linguistic concept of register. Lance was Chairman of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre in Edinburgh, a mind-body-spirit institution set up to further the same aims as the SMN.
TICKETS
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Speakers
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Lance ButlerChairman of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle CentreLance Butler taught literature and literary stylistics at the Universities of Stirling in Scotland and Pau in France between 1972 and 2016. He is the author of Thomas Hardy, Samuel Beckett and the Meaning of Being, Victorian Doubt and Registering the Difference, a study of the linguistic concept of register. His new book of essays, Two Enlightenments, comes out around the time of this lecture. Lance is currently Chairman of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre in Edinburgh, a mind-body-spirit institution set up to further the same aims as the SMN.
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Dan BrownBest-Selling AuthorDan Brown is the author of eight number one bestselling novels, including The Da Vinci Code, which has become one of the bestselling books of all time. His Robert Langdon thrillers—including The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, Inferno, and Origin—have captivated readers worldwide and continue to spark intellectual debate, dialogue, and conjecture. Brown’s novels are published in 56 languages around the world with over 250 million copies in print.
In 2005, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine, whose editors credited him with “keeping the publishing industry afloat; renewed interest in Leonardo da Vinci and early Christian history; spiking tourism to Paris and Rome; a growing membership in secret societies; the ire of Cardinals in Rome; eight books denying the claims of the novel and seven guides to read along with it; a flood of historical thrillers; and a major motion picture franchise.”
The son of a mathematics teacher and a church organist, Brown was raised on a prep school campus where he developed a fascination with the paradoxical interplay between science and religion. These themes eventually formed the backdrop for his books. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he later returned to teach English before focusing his attention full time to writing. He lives in New England.
Brown’s much-anticipated new novel, The Secret of Secrets was published on 9 September 2025.
