Author. He grew up in small communities (Motueka and Wakefield) on the sparsely populated South Island of New Zealand. He was raised in the Catholic faith, attended church 3 times a week and was tutored in Catholic theology from the age of 5. When he was 8 years old, his father left the family, so he took the surname of his maternal grandfather, Lewis Baigent, a sawmill owner. His great-grandfather had founded a forestry firm, "H. Baigent and Sons". His secondary schooling was at Nelson College and then he moved on to Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand. He initially intended to study science and continue in the family career of forestry, but then switched to studying comparative religion and philosophy including Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity. He traveled to Australia and Southeast Asia, occasionally living on the street. He then returned to Auckland and received a BA in Psychology. Later in life, he earned an MA in Mysticism and Religious Experience at the University of Kent. In 1976 he moved to England where he was a Freemason and a Grand Officer of the United Grand Lodge of England. From April 2001 he was editor of "Freemasonry Today" and a trustee of the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre. He co-wrote a number of books that question mainstream perceptions of history and the life of Jesus. His historical interpretations were controversial and attracted some hostile criticisms from scholars and historians. He had an interest in the Knights Templar and during the 1970s lectured about a Jesus bloodline theory. This later developed into the book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" which was published on 18 January 1982. It popularized the hypothesis that the true nature of the quest for the Holy Grail was that Jesus and Mary Magdalene 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. These ideas were later used as a basis for Dan Brown's international bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code". In March 2006 a lawsuit was filed in a British court against Brown's publisher, Random House, claiming copyright infringement. On 7 April 2006, High Court judge Peter Smith rejected the claim and Brown won the court case. An appeal against this decision was lost on 28 March 2007 with legal bills of about 3 million pounds. The case also took a health toll as his co-author Richard Leigh died in 2007 and within 6 months Baigent collapsed and ended up in hospital, where he was given a liver transplant. He also had to sell his home and move into rented accommodation. He was a resident of Bath, England and at age 65 suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage at a hospital in Brighton, England. Some reports cite his death as June 17, 2013 and some reports cite June 19, 2013. Vale Michael Baigent was survived by his wife and 2 daughters. A funeral service was held in England and his ashes were returned to New Zealand per obituary. He was a co-author of the following books: Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982 UK), Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1983 USA paperback), Mundane Astrology: Introduction to the Astrology of Nations and Groups (1984 and reissued 1992), Messianic Legacy (1986), Temple and the Lodge (1989), Dead Sea Scrolls Deception (1991), Secret Germany: Claus Von Stauffenberg and the true story of Operation Valkyrie (1994), Elixir and the Stone: Tradition of Magic and Alchemy (1997), The Inquisition (1999). He was the sole author for the following books: From the Omens of Babylon: Astrology and Ancient Mesopotamia (1994), Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History (1998), Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History (2006), Racing Toward Armageddon: 3 Great Religions and the Plot to End the World (2009).