Inside the Salle des Etats, Langdon stared in astonishment at the six words glowing on thePlexiglas. The text seemed to hover in space, casting a jagged shadow across Mona Lisa'smysterious smile.

　　"The Priory," Langdon whispered. "This proves your grandfather was a member!"Sophie looked at him in confusion. "You understand this?""It's flawless," Langdon said, nodding as his thoughts churned. "It's a proclamation of one of thePriory's most fundamental philosophies!"Sophie looked baffled in the glow of the message scrawled across the Mona Lisa's face.

　　SO DARK THE CON OF MAN"Sophie," Langdon said, "the Priory's tradition of perpetuating goddess worship is based on a beliefthat powerful men in the early Christian church 'conned' the world by propagating lies thatdevalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine."Sophie remained silent, staring at the words.

　　"The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the worldfrom matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda thatdemonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever."Sophie's expression remained uncertain. "My grandfather sent me to this spot to find this. He mustbe trying to tell me more than that."Langdon understood her meaning. She thinks this is another code. Whether a hidden meaningexisted here or not, Langdon could not immediately say. His mind was still grappling with the boldclarity of Saunière's outward message.

　　So dark the con of man, he thought. So dark indeed.

　　Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today's troubled world, and yetthe Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to "reeducate" the pagan andfeminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as theywere horrific.

　　The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soakedpublication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum—or The Witches' Hammer—indoctrinated theworld to "the dangers of freethinking women" and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, anddestroy them. Those deemed "witches" by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses,gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women "suspiciously attuned to the naturalworld." Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to easethe pain of childbirth—a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment forEve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. Duringthree hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five millionwomen.

　　The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.

　　Today's world was living proof.

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