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Favourite literary charlatans

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    Favourite literary charlatans

    Eric van Daniwank's name in the best-sellers thread reminded me of my own flirtations with dodgy authors. There was Carlos Castenada of course, who I enjoyed for a month or two around the turn of the sixties. He doesn't quite count, as he did have the academic cred, and the first couple books might be read as allegory (or something.)

    But, when I was in my early teens I totally bought into Lobsang Rampa (who now possesses the most hilarious Wiki page ever.) Thing is in the late 50s - early 60s almost no one in Europe or North America had been to Tibet, it was truly the "Lost Horizon," which is how a canny plumber from Plympton could claim his body was the host of a lama named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, and make a fortune writing about it.

    Any others...?

    #2
    One could argue that Hermann Hesse represents the intersection of Castaneda and Lobsang Rampa, though I would hesitate to call him a charlatan.

    He would be my entry here.

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      #3
      In terms of results, Joseph Smith and L. Ron take some beating.

      Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider, enjoyed a long but increasingly obscure career churning out weird, countercultural nonsense.

      Alex Haley's reputation seems to have recovered somewhat since the controversy about the factual basis of Roots being from wider sources than originally claimed

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        #4
        JZ Knight did fairly well in selling her books on 35,000 year old warrior chum Ramtha, though that might not be the sort of literary that Amor had in mind. Likewise the little boy who died but didn't, in every possible sense, wasn't he a massive best seller too?

        On a more literary level, James Macpherson's Ossian tales had a massive impact in the late 18th century, including for some of the leading Romantics. Blake in particular was a sucker for this sort of thing, for all his smarts, though I don't know if he bought into these particular fabrications.

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          #5
          I met JZ Knight once (she travelled in the same circles as a client and friend).

          She was exactly what one would expect.

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            #6
            A little vague on detail?

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              #7
              Quite, but extremely committed to her grift and oozing woo and “positive energy”

              California tends to be a very competitive marketplace for that particular brand of charlatan, so only the ones who excel at their craft tend to make it big.

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                #8
                Carlos Castaneda is just a name to me, but a name that I encounter in song lyrics, never in a favourable light.

                My first encounter with the name was in the song "Herrmann hiess er", on Nina Hagen's 1979 album Unbehagen

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMO1D0tF3uc

                Most recently I've come across the name in Alabama 3's "Ain't Goin to Goa", from their 1997 album Exile on Coldharbour Lane (the album with what became the Sopranos theme song).

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhzAgAzSr4

                And I'm sure there was some other rock or pop song referencing Castaneda that I heard around 5 years ago, but I've forgotten what it was.

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                  #9
                  I read Stephen Knights Jack the ripper book when I was a teenager and thought it was amazing,pity it was a load of bollocks, "Murder by Decree " is still a great film though

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Evariste Euler Gauss View Post
                    Carlos Castaneda is just a name to me, but a name that I encounter in song lyrics, never in a favourable light.

                    My first encounter with the name was in the song "Herrmann hiess er", on Nina Hagen's 1979 album Unbehagen

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMO1D0tF3uc

                    Most recently I've come across the name in Alabama 3's "Ain't Goin to Goa", from their 1997 album Exile on Coldharbour Lane (the album with what became the Sopranos theme song).

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhzAgAzSr4

                    And I'm sure there was some other rock or pop song referencing Castaneda that I heard around 5 years ago, but I've forgotten what it was.
                    He became a cult figure in the late-60s, as his first book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge ticked a lot of hippie boxes. That book, and the next two were based on his PhD thesis in anthropology from UCLA. Since then his work has remained controversial among academics. Whether it's wholly, or partially true, or completely bogus is still debated. The man himself is dead, and only ever gave one interview, to Time where he was described as: "an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla". I've no idea as to their authenticity, but they are a great read and a superb evocation of Northern Mexico. I guess that's what I meant in the title. In the end I didn't care that Lobsang Rampa was really a West Country pipe-fitter, he still could spin an excellent yarn, same goes for Casteneda. I'm not sure that's true of Hubbard, though is it?

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                      #11
                      Regarding Hubbard, are we discussing his sci-fi, Dianetics or his Scientology writings?

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                        #12
                        Orwell once called Tolstoy a literary prostitute for accepting large amounts of cash while while giving up his right to freedom of expression. Not a charlatan as such, but worthy of comment, certainly.

                        Carry on.

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                          #13
                          Lev got a bit weird in later life didn't he?

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