"As a man whose ideas have had their share of physical effects, Dan Brown is well aware of how widely read and closely scrutinised The Lost Symbol will be. He even lets a character joke about this book's guaranteed popularity. Dr Katherine Solomon specialises in noetic science, with its focus on mind-body connections. She admits that her field is not widely known. But when her story comes out, she suggests, noetics could get the kind of public relations bump that Mr Brown gave to the Holy Grail.