The popularity of books such as The Da Vinci Code is interesting in that it would seem to support surveys indicating at least a general level of public interest in the spiritual and the paranormal. More specifically, an analysis of the dominant ideas articulated in The Da Vinci Code suggests that it is a book reflecting key themes within western ‘occulture’ which have become central to the shift from ‘religion’ to ‘spirituality’ in western societies: the sacralization of the self; the turn from transcendence to immanence; the emergence of the sacred feminine; the focus on nature and the premodern; and a conspiracist suspicion of the prevailing order and dominant institutions, particularly the Church.