Dr. Barton: Why I do not use Dr. Langdon's books

As a professor of Symbology, I naturally come across Dr. Langdon's books a lot. Most of my students read them, and as Dr. Langdon is something of a celebrity, they take his word as law. Unfortunately Dr. Langdon can be something of a monomaniac. He has a fascination with pagan symbolism of the Sacred Feminine, and some of his research into pagan symbolism is both important and useful to people like myself. However, despite his oft-repeated statement that "symbols mean different things to different people," there are times when I feel he comes perilously close to identifying symbols as a sort of universal language. Take the simplest of all symbols, the circle. Dr. Langdon seems to identify it as usually, if not always, a symbol of the Sacred Feminine. Unfortunately that is not the case. The circle can also be a symbol of eternity - it has neither end nor beginning - and is used as such in some cultures. It is also possible fo a symbol to lose its meaning and to be used by a later culture for decorative purposes only (this is particularly obvious in my own field of study, the symbolism of Victorian Churches). Consider the niche. Originally intended to hold a statue, niches are often used by Victorian architects simply to break up an area of masonry.
Or we might consider the eye. I often wear a sweater with an eye symbol on it. I like to ask my classes what the eye means. Sometimes I get smart-alec answers by would-be Robert Langdons, who assure me it's an erotic symbol, but more often that not I get various answers depending on the culture of the student. Mediterranean students identify it as a charm to ward off the evil eye, for example. But in 17th Century protestant iconography the eye is used as a symbol of the all-seeing gaze of God.
But I must be fair to Langdon. He is by no means as much of a monomaniac as the British historian Sir Leigh Teabing.
I ought also to point out that Dr. Langdon is a member of the 'History of Religions School' (no, I am not going to give the German), and therefore expects to find a thread linking all the religions of the world. But that is not really my field.