View Full Version : The Expected One
Last summer a best selling novel, written by an author claiming to be a direct descendent of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, caused a furor in the media. But "insiders" knew better...
Spliced from another space-time continuum...
what I am really wanting to get at is something that I disclosed in an earlier posting, namely; to come to a better understanding, with both literary and academia proof, of the erroneous material that Kathleen cites in her book. Is this not why we have gathered here -- to decipher the truth from the fiction?
Okay, firstly, as you know, it's impossible for Poussin to have painted that tomb, because it wasn't built until the 1930s. And it isn't in Arques, it was in Les Pontils. And we know exactly what was in it and what was there before it.
The Poussin myth was invented by the pranksters Plantard and de Cherisey to catch gullible grail grafters... it was probably chosen because of its prominent location on one of the only main roads in the area, you can't miss it. There IS another tomb with a more intriguing history, but even that's another Red Herring.
Furthermore, the legend of time anomalies around the tomb are also a myth - I still have a copy of the email from the person who told Kath about this. In fact, this particular myth was actually invented by a friend of mine who was particularly good at scattering breadcrumbs. It's fun to see where the breadcrumbs end up...
Anyway, I also have a rare artifact from Arques, which I keep on my desk - a statuette of Sekhmet taken from a secret underground Temple of Isis outside of Arques - given to me by a grand master who implored me not to reveal its existence, as it would put the site of the temple in great peril.
I'll tell you the story once we've settled down, it's quite hysterical.
Also, the direct male line of the St Clairs who built Rosslyn Chapel died out in 1778. Sir William cleverly sold the chapel and the estates, which were in extremely poor repair, in 1736, long before he died. Afterwards the original St Clair line completely died out and the estates ended up in the hands of the Erskine family, who were related to the original line by marriage, but not by blood. The Erskines went by the name Erskine Sinclair and then eventually Sinclair - the change in spelling was used to differentiate between the two lines.
The Sinclair bloodline myth has been cultivated since HBHG came out in the 1980s as a result of references in Pierre Plantard's fake genealogies in the Dossiers Secrets. In fact, the Sinclair family is a complete Red Herring... a far more interesting family to trace is the Douglases. But, if I tell you why, this will only end up in someone else's bestselling book...
Willow
10-16-2006, 08:33 AM
Robin,
Your writing is excellent and I'm enjoying reading your comments. You have all the potential for being a best selling author! Waiting excitedly for your next post. Absolutely wonderful "inside" information!
Willow
Alphaville
10-16-2006, 12:10 PM
Spliced from another space-time continuum...
Okay, firstly, as you know, it's impossible for Poussin to have painted that tomb, because it wasn't built until the 1930s. And it isn't in Arques, it was in Les Pontils. And we know exactly what was in it and what was there before it.
Hello, RCH! Glad I found you here. Was it as late as th 1930s that Mr. Lawrence built that tomb? I ask because I've seen others date it as early as 1919. In either instance, it wasn't there three centuries prior when legend has is that Nicholas Poussin used it as a backdrop for "Les Bergers d'Arcadie".
The Poussin myth was invented by the pranksters Plantard and de Cherisey to catch gullible grail grafters... it was probably chosen because of its prominent location on one of the only main roads in the area, you can't miss it. There IS another tomb with a more intriguing history, but even that's another Red Herring.
Well, for someone who didn't know the exact location of the tomb (or the fact that it was blown up in 1988) it could be a problem locating it, especially if they went as far as Arques looking for it.
Furthermore, the legend of time anomalies around the tomb are also a myth - I still have a copy of the email from the person who told Kath about this. In fact, this particular myth was actually invented by a friend of mine who was particularly good at scattering breadcrumbs. It's fun to see where the breadcrumbs end up...
Would that be the same friend who refers to David Icke as his "experiment"?
Anyway, I also have a rare artifact from Arques, which I keep on my desk - a statuette of Sekhmet taken from a secret underground Temple of Isis outside of Arques - given to me by a grand master who implored me not to reveal its existence, as it would put the site of the temple in great peril.
I'll tell you the story once we've settled down, it's quite hysterical.
That is definitely one of my favorites, and one to remember. You really should expand on it and talk about the origins of the "maquette" as well.
Also, the direct male line of the St Clairs who built Rosslyn Chapel died out in 1778. Sir William cleverly sold the chapel and the estates, which were in extremely poor repair, in 1736, long before he died. Afterwards the original St Clair line completely died out and the estates ended up in the hands of the Erskine family, who were related to the original line by marriage, but not by blood. The Erskines went by the name Erskine Sinclair and then eventually Sinclair - the change in spelling was used to differentiate between the two lines.
The Sinclair line never completely died out, just the direct male-line descendants of Earl William Sinclair of Orkney and Caithness through his third son, the line that inherited Rosslyn. The elder two sons (the Lords Sinclair and the Earls of Caithness) still have living descendants. Rosslyn was lost to the descendants of Earl William's third son through attainder in the late 1600s, and another Sinclair family, called the Herdmanston line (consanguinity with the Sinclairs of Rosslyn has never been established) bought it from the Crown. The first Grand Master of the Scottish Grand Lodge comes from this Herdsmanton line, not from the original Rosslyn line. It was a nephew of this William, his sister's son I believe, by the name of Alexander Wedderburn who inherited the barony and for whom it was elevated to an earldom. Wedderburn's heir, his own sister's son, was James Erskine, who changed the family name by deed poll in 1801 to "St. Clair-Erskine". Not a direct descendant of the family that built Rosslyn Chapel.
The Sinclair bloodline myth has been cultivated since HBHG came out in the 1980s as a result of references in Pierre Plantard's fake genealogies in the Dossiers Secrets. In fact, the Sinclair family is a complete Red Herring... a far more interesting family to trace is the Douglases. But, if I tell you why, this will only end up in someone else's bestselling book...
Why not write one of your own?
Alpha
(For the benefit of anyone here who hasn't seen it, this is a review I wrote in Another Place.)
Don't Expect Much from The Expected One
The Expected One, Kathleen McGowan, Simon & Schuster
Should we have expected more from The Expected One? A disappointed reviewer thinks so. And a bit more attention to getting the facts right wouldn't have hurt, he says. But when Mary Magdalene is twice married with three kids, and even Pontius Pilate calls Jesus by his childhood nickname, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? Except it isn't even that...
Because there has already been considerable controversy about this book and its author (see the forum on its amazon.com page, for example) I want to stress first that, so far as I know, I have never met Kathleen McGowan either in the flesh or in cyberspace, and indeed had never heard of her before this novel appeared; and second, that I have no problem with anyone changing their name or using a nom-de-plume, if this is indeed what she has done. In this article I intend to concentrate on the book itself, not on the author, except insofar as she herself has made the two indivisible.
Let me explain.
Dan Brown dropped himself in it by his statement at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate” and then filling his novel with a host of historical blunders for which he, as author, must take responsibility even though it was his wife Blythe who “researched” the novel.
Kathleen McGowan has gone one step further. In her publicity interviews she has stressed her lineal descent from Mary Magdalene and her spiritual identification with her, but in her 10-page Afterword to the novel she states: “In my need to protect the sacred nature of this information and those who hold it, I had no choice but to write this, and the subsequent books in this series, as fiction. However, many of my protagonist’s adventures and virtually all of her supernatural encounters are based in my own life experiences.” In other words, she is telling us, this “novel” is effectively a fictionalised autobiography.
So we should expect it to be factually accurate, right? Well, that depends on what you mean by factually accurate. In her Afterword McGowan also tells us that she has no time for scholarly written history. I would agree with her that “History is not what happened. History is what was written down.” The point that she misses is that so would most historians; any historian worth their salt would accept that they are constructing a storyline based on the best available evidence. But McGowan has a “mistrust for what has been academically accepted as historical evidence” and tells us that she “will wear the scarlet label of the ‘antiacademic’ with no small degree of pride”.
At least she’s telling us where she’s coming from.
Where, then, does she obtain the information in her story? – and remember that she’s told us that this is a fictionalised version of her life-story, not just a made-up novel. Between the novel and its Afterword, she and her heroine Maureen Paschal learn the truth from dreams and visions, from things given to them or told to them by total strangers in shops in Israel or disembodied voices in the Louvre, or from members of secret societies or from folklore. In preferring to rely on “the extensive folklore and mythology surrounding Mary Magdalene” rather than on scholarly analysis McGowan is being, in my opinion, both careless and clever.
Anyone doing genealogical research will tell you that family legends can be invaluable in helping to uncover fascinating details about your ancestors, but that they are just as likely to be made-up and misleading. This is why written evidence is so essential. (In my own family, there are two mutually contradictory “legends” about the origins of my paternal grandmother. Anyone who might have known the reality is now dead. If I want to track down the true story of my grandmother I will have to search century-old records on both sides of the Atlantic.) Folklore, on its own, is useless as an historical research tool. It might contain a kernel of truth, or it might be completely fallacious. But McGowan prefers it to scholarship.
On the other hand, she’s being very clever. When, in the rest of this review article, I say “She got this wrong. That didn’t happen. She’s made a mistake”, she can just smile and say “But you’re relying on academic information which I know from my own secret sources is incorrect.” It’s the same logic as the conspiracy theorist who says: “The fact that there’s no evidence just proves how clever They are at covering up the truth.” Rubbish as it is, it’s an unassailable argument, because it’s stepping outside consensual reality.
McGowan tells us we must take her word on trust. “I must be circumspect about the primary source of the new information presented here for reasons of security, but I will say this: The content of the gospel of Mary Magdalene as I interpret it here is taken from previously undisclosed source material.” Laurence Gardner, the great supporter of the spurious “Prince Michael of Albany”, used to pull the same trick: using “historical” information from sources no one else could check – in his case, the “Tenets of the Sacred Kindred of St Columba”. That’s fine if you’re writing fiction. But is it really acceptable if you’re purporting to tell the truth?
Part 2 follows...
That was a long preamble, but it was necessary to provide the context for my review of The Expected One. First, a quick summary of the plotline. Petite red-haired Irish-American journalist Maureen Paschal is given an ancient ring in Jerusalem. She has dreams and visions of Mary Magdalene. With her cousin, Jesuit priest Father Peter Healy, and her flamboyant friend Tamara Wisdom, Maureen goes to France. There she is told that she is descended from the Magdalene, and is the Expected One. She discovers the true story of Jesus, written by Mary Magdalene. And (quelle surprise) several people she trusts betray her. And that’s about it.
We know that originally the novel was privately published, before Simon & Schuster took it on. My only questions are: why on earth did they publish it, and why didn’t they edit it?
The Expected One shows many of the hallmarks of a self-published first novel. It’s vastly overwritten; the author’s use of tenses, particularly the pluperfect, is decidedly ropey; there’s little or no dramatic tension; the characterisation is clichéd to an extreme; there are viewpoint changes in the middle of scenes; and it’s cram full of what are known in the trade as infodumps, passages where one character delivers a lecture to another character for the benefit of the reader. Moreover, the lead character – one hesitates to call Maureen Paschal a heroine – is almost entirely passive: things happen to her, people say things to her, but she rarely initiates any action herself.
There’s a golden rule in writing fiction: unless you know what you’re doing, keep your language simple. Avoid phrasing like “History hung heavy in the rarified and holy air”, or a vision of the Magdalene’s eyes, “an extraordinary light hazel that reflected infinite wisdom and unbearable sadness in one heart-searing blend. The woman’s soul-swallowing gaze met Maureen’s in a brief and interminable moment…”, or “But she was rapt, her attention utterly focused on the charismatic Scot”, or “in the warm embrace of his strength” or, within ten lines, “a woman brimming with inner light and peace… with a smile of radiant compassion... They had all been brought here for some divine purpose, some higher good… It was that knowing which transformed each of them, and bonded them for eternity at the same time.” It’s as bad as mass-market romantic fiction.
Now for a handful of the historical problems with the novel – though some of them might just be bad writing, such as “the 800-year-old Franciscan Chapel of the Flagellation, where Jesus had suffered his scourging”. Really? In the chapel? Similarly, speaking of the Magdalene’s reputation as a prostitute: “Pope Gregory the Great had created that story to further his own purposes in the Dark Ages. But two millennia of public opinion is hard to erase.” Is it really 2000 years since Pope Gregory?
We’re told that after abbé Bérenger Saunière’s death his housekeeper “died mysteriously herself some years later”. In fact it was 36 years later, and there is little mysterious about an 85-year-old lady dying after a stroke.
We’re told that something at Rennes-le-Château “affects clocks and watches as well as electronics”. Not so far as anyone else knows. [Note: RCH apparently knows exactly where this came from.]
McGowan gets thoroughly confused over the meridian line (which she calls the Magdalene Line) in Saint-Sulpice. First of all, this isn’t the Paris Meridian, as she says it is; second, it doesn’t go through a tower in Rennes-le-Château.
She gets the derivation of the word Languedoc wrong. Oc is not the name of “their native dialect” as she says; it is their word for Yes, as opposed to Langue d’oïl (later oui), or the French language.
She calls the Cathars a “race”, which is utter rubbish; Cathars and Catholics could be from the same families. She talks of “food that has been prepared in the authentic Cathar manner” as if “Cathar” equates to a region like Provence or Normandy.
In her Afterword McGowan tells us that she took an artistic liberty in having Maureen go to the tomb at Arques, supposedly the one painted by Poussin in his “Shepherds of Arcadia” (1638); the tomb, she accepts, was destroyed by its owner in 1988. She neglects to tell the reader (or maybe she didn’t know) that the tomb which she says “had stood for centuries” was only built in 1933.
Maureen has a novel approach to the phrase “Et in Arcadia Ego”, splitting Arcadia into “arc-a-dia”, and asking Father Peter, “Does that make any sense in Latin?” – to which the priest replies that “it could mean ‘Ark of God’.” Not in any version of Latin that I’ve encountered...
She also creates a whole new derivation of grail. It’s not “san graal” (holy grail), or even Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln’s “sang raal” (blood royal). According to McGowan “the word ‘grail’ comes from an ancient term, Sangre-El, meaning the Blood of God”. It’s original, it’s clever – but she doesn’t explain why the term should be a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew!
One problem with relying on folk legends rather than factual history is that polemical myths are carelessly believed. McGowan speaks in her Afterword of the time she spent in Ireland, and complains about inaccurate reporting of the Troubles. True, but because of the long history of political and religious tensions in Ireland there are erroneous popular beliefs on both sides of the divide. McGowan’s alter ego Maureen recalls the town of Drogheda “where Oliver Cromwell had once slaughtered the entire population”. Wrong. Cromwell’s troops did indeed slaughter most of the soldiers in the garrison, but not even most of the male civilians in the town, let alone the women and children. The story is a myth. It’s a powerful religious-political myth, and it’s widely believed by one section of the population, but that doesn’t make it true.
McGowan is as careless as Dan Brown in her research of Leonardo da Vinci. She also repeats his error of saying that “the New Testament as it exists now was shaped at the Council of Nicea. Emperor Constantine and his council had many gospels to choose from, and yet selected only four” – a complete misunderstanding of what Nicea was all about, and of how and when the New Testament developed.
I always find it amusing looking at made-up genealogies. Like made-up lists of Grand Masters of non-existent secret societies, it’s somehow reassuring to see that according to this novel the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene included Charlemagne, King Arthur, Robert the Bruce, Saint Francis of Assissi, Joan of Arc – oh, and the Borgias, who apparently were nice people after all, and were even of Cathar descent. This is all utterly delightful. It’s almost a shame that McGowan spoils it when speaking of Lucrezia Borgia, with the careless mistake “Cesare was making a statement, which would cause the downfall of his daughter.” Lucrezia’s father was, of course, Rodrigo Borgia; Cesare was her brother.
I mentioned the passivity of Maureen Paschal. At one point she is asked if she has ever looked up the meaning of her surname. “No, I can’t say I ever have.” So this researcher and journalist who is deeply interested in religion has never thought to explore her own quite unusual surname. For me, that about sums it up about Maureen, one of the least interesting protagonists of a novel I have ever encountered.
Part 3 follows...
Much of the second half of the novel consists of the supposed text of two books by Mary Magdalene, telling of her relationship with Jesus, and of his crucifixion. Kathleen McGowan says, “I believe that the story it tells is genuine, and entirely her own.” Let’s look briefly at some of what she tells us. Here, of course, she has the advantage not just of information given to her by secret societies, but of her own dreams and visions. One must accept the possibility that she is completely correct in everything she says, and that generations of scholars, old, new, conservative and radical, are all wrong. It could be so.
We’re all quite used to the idea (true or not) that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. But in this story Jesus was her second husband; her first was John the Baptist, and it was at their wedding that Jesus turned water into wine. In reality, scholars tell us that Jesus, as an apocalyptic prophet, is highly unlikely to have been married; John the Baptist chose a life completely outside society and simply could not have been married.
McGowan has plumped for identifying Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, who lived with Martha and Lazarus. There might still be a few scholars holding this view, but most scholars today see it as part of the invalid and clumsy conflation of three or more Maries into one.
She appears a little confused in the way she treats Mary’s reputation. She rightly points out that the sixth-century Pope Gregory was the first to identify Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, but then she has Mary’s enemies mounting a smear campaign against her as a prostitute in her lifetime.
She’s also borrowed the currently popular idea that “Mary” was a title, not a name: “a title reserved for daughters of noble families within the Nazarene tradition” – and so, presumably, quite rare. In fact, Mary was one of the most popular names of Jewish women at the time.
And she’s taken as true the current “alternative” belief, completely unsupported by any evidence, that Mary Magdalene was a princess of the tribe of Benjamin.
So far as I know, though, her reinterpretation of the seven demons that Jesus cast out of Mary being the name of a lethal drug, is unique to this novel. At least, I’ve not encountered it in years of reading.
She has Jesus saying that he will die “without pain or fear”. Without pain? In a crucifixion?
Finally, in these long and somewhat tedious chapters, there is a problem which exemplifies what I’ve said about inconsistency, about difficulty with viewpoint, and about the desperate need for this novel to have been edited. McGowan tells us “The people called him Yeshua… But Mary called him by a childhood nickname, Easa, much to the chagrin of her brother and Martha”. (Actually, Jesus is called Issa in the Koran and in a particular Buddhist tradition.) That would be fine if it were just Mary calling him that, but Jesus is referred to as Easa throughout Mary Magdalene’s accounts of his life and death. Even Pontius Pilate calls him Easa!
Why have I taken so much time and effort to demonstrate how bad this novel is? It’s because I think there is a need for good esoteric fiction, for novels which help us to question established beliefs and explore alternative beliefs. There have been a few over the years, but all too few. It distresses me that, instead, readers are being palmed off with such badly-written tosh as The Da Vinci Code and The Expected One.
Comments welcome. Let's open up the discussion!
Jakester
10-16-2006, 03:55 PM
We all know that Trent Reznor is Jesus Christ on xtacy. Well, those of us who worship with the Cult of Trent.
(For the benefit of anyone here who hasn't seen it, this is a review I wrote in Another Place.)
Ah, okay, I see you put it here... this'll do, at least people will know what we're talking about now.
Glad to see you managed to migrate, BTW...
Why not write one of your own?
You guys really crack me up!
Welp, I've always said that I'd be happy to write the ultimate kiss-and-tell book if someone offered to pay my legal fees and security costs for the rest of my life... exposing faux grandmasters, barmy bloodliners, and bandwagon-jumpers with agendas is a messy business!
For the moment I'm quite happy scattering breadcrumbs into the aethers...
In fact, if you take all the breadcrumbs of mine that have made it into bestselling books and piece them together, you'll be sure to discover the ultimate secret that transcends the gestalt of the space-time continuum.
You just need to know where to look... :smirks:
Willow
10-17-2006, 12:10 AM
The in-depth interview by DVB is excellent. But why hasn't it ever appeared at amazon.uk and amazon.usa?
Willow
Okay, lessee, I'll have to take this bit by bit...
Furthermore, the legend of time anomalies around the tomb are also a myth - I still have a copy of the email from the person who told Kath about this. In fact, this particular myth was actually invented by a friend of mine who was particularly good at scattering breadcrumbs. It's fun to see where the breadcrumbs end up...
Would that be the same friend who refers to David Icke as his "experiment"?
No... it was invented by an alleged Templar/PoS "operative" who lived in the RLC area at the time. This person was the source of information that appeared in a bestselling book by a duo of authors who are known for their habit of "borrowing" material to suit their purposes. In fact, this source allegedly took legal action to stop some of his material from being published against his wishes.
Ironically, this source has also recently seeded even more mythical breadcrumbs to the same middleman who had leaked the time anomaly myth to Kath, who in turn fetched them to a TV producer who incorportated them into a new TV documentary, claiming to reveal the genuine "secrets" of the "real" Priory of Sion, due to be released any minute.
Dear, oh dear, this is going to be so much FUN!
Sorry to sound so cryptic, but I find it's easier to avoid the nutcases if I don't mention names. After a while, it really doesn't matter WHO said WHAT anyway... all that matters is what's REAL. We can analyse the TV doc once it's broadcast, that's probably the easiest way to do it.
The in-depth interview by DVB is excellent. But why hasn't it ever appeared at amazon.uk and amazon.usa?
Willow
Because civilised people, who actually know what they're talking about, tend to avoid that mess like the plague! :rolleyes:
Ah, okay, I see you put it here... this'll do, at least people will know what we're talking about now.
Glad to see you managed to migrate, BTW...
I thought I might as well put it in the thread you'd already started, and also I just didn't think of putting it in the Book Forum (duhhh). But I've just put a marker there, http://messageboard.cinescape.com/cinescape/forums/showthread.php?p=41342#post41342, to let people know the review and discussion are here. Btw, reformatting it and putting in all the HTML again, took forever!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willow
The in-depth interview by DVB is excellent. But why hasn't it ever appeared at amazon.uk and amazon.usa?
Willow
Because civilised people, who actually know what they're talking about, tend to avoid that mess like the plague!
It's a review, not an interview, of course -- but thanks! But on the amazon.com thing, just take a look at it, if you don't believe us. Compare and contrast the 1* and 5* reviews. Then read the Forum at the bottom of the page, and marvel at the venom of humankind. Actually, the Forum mentions my review, at its original home in Another Place. Be interesting to see whether anyone there picks up on the fact that we've migrated here. Also, whether anyone in the St Kath Appreciation Society notices... (Someone who has access to it said that she had emailed all her acolytes encouraging them to fix the voting on amazon on which reviews were helpful.)
DVB
Alphaville
10-17-2006, 12:10 PM
You guys really crack me up!
Welp, I've always said that I'd be happy to write the ultimate kiss-and-tell book if someone offered to pay my legal fees and security costs for the rest of my life... exposing faux grandmasters, barmy bloodliners, and bandwagon-jumpers with agendas is a messy business!
For the moment I'm quite happy scattering breadcrumbs into the aethers...
In fact, if you take all the breadcrumbs of mine that have made it into bestselling books and piece them together, you'll be sure to discover the ultimate secret that transcends the gestalt of the space-time continuum.
You just need to know where to look... :smirks:
Perhaps a partnership of sorts might get you out of the line of fire? Some stories are simply too good NOT to tell (and publish!)...
Alpha
Alphaville
10-17-2006, 12:13 PM
The in-depth interview by DVB is excellent. But why hasn't it ever appeared at amazon.uk and amazon.usa?
Willow
Indeed, it ought to be put up on both, maybe pared down a bit. DVB, Amazon does post editorial reviews (as opposed to those submitted by readers), so maybe you could submit your and see if they'll accept it? It's really too good not to expose it to a wider audience.
Alpha
hawklord
10-17-2006, 01:03 PM
...the Forum mentions my review, at its original home in Another Place...
I like this circumlocution that we keep using here - it's like the tradition of the UK House of Commons, where they always refer to the House of Lords as "another place".
I like this circumlocution that we keep using here - it's like the tradition of the UK House of Commons, where they always refer to the House of Lords as "another place".
It's a funny old world... we can't name places, we can't name people - we can only talk in euphemisms and metaphors...
I like this circumlocution that we keep using here - it's like the tradition of the UK House of Commons, where they always refer to the House of Lords as "another place".
Where do you think I got it from? :wink:
Indeed, it ought to be put up on both, maybe pared down a bit. DVB, Amazon does post editorial reviews (as opposed to those submitted by readers), so maybe you could submit your and see if they'll accept it? It's really too good not to expose it to a wider audience.
Alpha
I used to be an amazon editorial reviewer, on unusual religious books -- and did a few interesting interviews for them as well. Then my editor left amazon to become a priest, and his successor didn't keep me on.
The problem is, they don't want reviews that are too negative, because they are a bookshop and they do actually want to sell books!
Chebogue
10-17-2006, 02:08 PM
RCH shared that ......
Last summer a best selling novel, written by an author claiming to be a direct descendent of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, caused a furor in the media. But "insiders" knew better...
Good to be back, RCH. I know that we had been discussing bloodline descendants before, and I have, what I believe to be, a valid question.
If an individual has been able to take their genealogy all the way back to Charles I, otherwise known to the multitude as Charlemagne, does the possibility exist that one may be able to claim to be a direct descendant of JC and MM?
Chebogue
Alphaville
10-17-2006, 02:33 PM
RCH shared that ......
Good to be back, RCH. I know that we had been discussing bloodline descendants before, and I have, what I believe to be, a valid question.
If an individual has been able to take their genealogy all the way back to Charles I, otherwise known to the multitude as Charlemagne, does the possibility exist that one may be able to claim to be a direct descendant of JC and MM?
That would depend on two things:
(a) finding evidence that JC and MM had descendants; and
(b) finding evidence that Charlemagne was one of them.
If so, then absolutely.
Alpha :D
hawklord
10-17-2006, 03:46 PM
I did a review of Laurence Gardner's "Bloodline & the Holy Grail" book for a mag some years ago, and actually read the book beforehand.
The bastards hadn't sent a press pack with it, you see. (That's giving away some secrets of the reviewer.... but there you go...)
Anyway, I did spot that there was a considerable lack of evidence, and now I see that even the Internet, in all its glory, hasn't managed to fill the data gap.
:eek:
Willow
10-17-2006, 06:06 PM
About Jesus bloodlines.
The bloodlines have been published in the west. HBHG or Bloodline of the Holy Grail...and ...who else? Oh yes. McGowan. There are a lot of claims but no proof so I think we are right to be skeptical.
However so little attention is ever given to the research on Jesus in India, and there are some points worth considering.
There are certain families in India who have retained ancient scrolls tracing their bloodlines back to Jesus and Marjan (Marriam-Magdalene) and those descendents are completely unaffected by HBHG & DaVinci Code books....western Merovingian bloodlines, and anyone named Prince Michael. So we can't accuse them of jumping on the bandwagon.
In early spring a film will be released that includes interviews with scholars who have researched the existing scrolls and are writing about them...primarily Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson, both have worked 10 and 20 years on this research. The scrolls actually exist and can be examined and checked for age and accuracy. They are estimated to be over one thousand years old. If this is true, then all this research takes a strange new and unexpected twist. The scrolls would have to be scientifically validated, but if they exist, then this can happen.
If Jesus does have a bloodline and the proof has been available in the east, there could be a trickle over effect, even from just one child who went 'west'. It could validate certain bloodline claims, but not in the ways western writers have hyped in their books.
In fact their books could become their greatest life embarrassments, revealing the complete fallacy of many of their claims and the false trails they followed.
All that's really needed after verifying the documentation is the DNA..
I think it's all going to happen. We just have be a little more patient. As RCH just said, ultimately it's the truth that matters, and truth can be stranger than fiction.
Surprises wait 'round every bend. :wink:
Willow
Willow
10-17-2006, 06:23 PM
DVB said
The problem is, they don't want reviews that are too negative, because they are a bookshop and they do actually want to sell books!
EEEKS! What must amazon think of the negative reviews about McGowan?
They would make DVB's review look intensly sane by comparison.
Willow
In early spring a film will be released that includes interviews with scholars who have researched the existing scrolls and are writing about them... The scrolls actually exist and can be examined and checked for age and accuracy.
I've got a book about Jesus in India... you're right, it's a fascinating theory that's been around for a while, so it's not jumping on the DVC bandwagon.
The veracity of the claims would depend on the analysis of the scrolls, so that seems to be the best way forwards.
Ultimately, though, I guess you would need Jesus' DNA - or a way to prove that they body that's buried in India if definitely Jesus.
If you could do this, the Vatican would go bonkers for a start...
I did a review of Laurence Gardner's "Bloodline & the Holy Grail" book for a mag some years ago, and actually read the book beforehand.
Argh, this is the book that ruined my life!
I got a copy of this book in December 95... and, in the back, was a url to a promotional website called Entropic Fine Art, with a discussion forum much like this one.
The book promotion was based on a "quest" to decipher clues embedded into paintings for sale on the site, in the style of Leonardo da Vinci, who the book claimed to be the a Grandmaster of the Priory of Sion, who were guardians of the bloodline of Jesus and MM.
For fun, I actually solved the clues and won the "quest", writing the whole process out on the discussion forum... and my life has been utter hell ever since I got dragged into the whole mess.
That would depend on two things:
(a) finding evidence that JC and MM had descendants; and
(b) finding evidence that Charlemagne was one of them.
If so, then absolutely.
Alpha :D
Brilliant answer, Alph!
I did a review of Laurence Gardner's "Bloodline & the Holy Grail" book for a mag some years ago, and actually read the book beforehand.
You and me both, Hawklord. Haven't been able to get through the whole of one since then, though, including HRH Michael the Belgian's Made-Up Monarchy of Scotland. Life's too short.
<snip>
However so little attention is ever given to the research on Jesus in India, and there are some points worth considering.
There are certain families in India who have retained ancient scrolls tracing their bloodlines back to Jesus and Marjan (Marriam-Magdalene) and those descendents are completely unaffected by HBHG & DaVinci Code books....western Merovingian bloodlines, and anyone named Prince Michael. So we can't accuse them of jumping on the bandwagon.
In early spring a film will be released that includes interviews with scholars who have researched the existing scrolls and are writing about them...primarily Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson, both have worked 10 and 20 years on this research. The scrolls actually exist and can be examined and checked for age and accuracy. They are estimated to be over one thousand years old. If this is true, then all this research takes a strange new and unexpected twist. The scrolls would have to be scientifically validated, but if they exist, then this can happen.
If Jesus does have a bloodline and the proof has been available in the east, there could be a trickle over effect, even from just one child who went 'west'. It could validate certain bloodline claims, but not in the ways western writers have hyped in their books.
In fact their books could become their greatest life embarrassments, revealing the complete fallacy of many of their claims and the false trails they followed.
I have several books on this fascinating subject, including one from Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant. It's a long tradition, which of course doesn't prove it's right, but it certainly pre-dates all the bandwagon-jumpers.
Interestingly, Suzanne Olsson is one of the people on the amazon.com forum who is most loathed by "Thomas", who the others there reckon is, if not St Kath herself, at least her soul-twin. Maybe she's scared, as you say, of being embarrassed! I must try to get hold of a copy of Suzanne Olsson's Jesus Last King of Kashmir: Life After the Crucifixion.
Willow
10-18-2006, 04:53 AM
DVB,
I know you cannot obtain an edition of Sue's book, and probably should not. She told several people that it was too hastily done, not well written, she lacked resources and proper notes, and it's no longer in print anyway. The rewritten book will include updated information, especially about the scroll and other artifacts. The information was not included in her first book specifically to protect the lives and privacy of those who are identified as the "bloodline". Now they want to come forward and they have given her permission.
I cut and paste this from Sue's forum. It's a discussion abouut the evidence for the history of the tomb (but no mention here about the bloodline or the scroll):
The Qu'ran says that Jesus did not die on the cross.
"They slew him not, nor crucified him." This means although he was
hung on the cross, that was not his death. This is verified by
several historians during the 1st century who claimed Jesus was
alive with his mother and still teaching the apostles 11 years after
the crucifixion, after which time he and his mother departed for
India.
I read about the tomb first in two books. Aziz Kashmiri wrote
"Christ in Kashmir'
and Fida Hassnain wrote
"The Fifth Gospel."
In both books the authors said that the tomb was first written
about in AD 120..which makes it about 2,000 years old.
On page 81 of Aziz Kashmiri's book, he provides 4 sources that
discuss Jesus in Roza Bal.
a.) Oral testamony based on local tradition and people who claim
they are descended from Yuz Asaf.
b.) Tarikh-i-Azami, which is an historical writing refers to the tomb
c.) Ikmal al-Din, which is an Arabic writing, refers to the tomb
1,000 years ago and says it is the tomb of Yuz Asaf the prophet.
d.) Joseph Jacobs is listed as another source, although this is
vague. I can't find a reference to him anywhere else.
e.) (pg. 84) Mulla Nadiri's statemment: he was the first historian
of Kashmir who wrote in Persian about 826-879 AD, and say that he
read HIndu documents that spoke of Issa in the tomb. I assume these
documents are now lost (?)
Then we have to jump ahead quite a few years to the time of Nicholas
Notovich and Mizra Ghulam Ahmad. Notovich investigated the tomb
through the Buddhist monks at Tibet. They spoke of Issa in the
tomb. Mizra Ghulam Ahmed sent six men from Quadiani to Srinagar to
investigate. They spent 3 months there looking over all the
historical evidence and stated clearly there was no doubt it was
Issa in the tomb.
Finally there is the evidence of the carvings and the relics found
with the tomb. Next to the tomb is a large rock and on it are carved
footprints. They clearly show the wounds of nails driven through in
a manner that was used by Roman soldiers when they nailed men to
the cross, that is one foot is painfully twisted on top of the other
and they are held with one long spike. The wounds on each foot are
different....only someone who had seen the wounds would have known
this. It's the same wound pattern visible on the Shroud of Turin.
So in conclusion, we have a 2,000 year old tomb with a man buried in
there who Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims have always known as
Jesus. Only Christians weren't looking for a body of Jesus, so they
never found him in Kashmir, or anywhere else. It's against their religion.
Sue
It's interesting to follow the discussions in this forum about what isn't true. We see how people deliberately mislead others. The only motives seem to be ego and greed. It's really important to discern truth from fiction. Because of deceptions and twisted truths of unscrupulous authors, this whole bloodline concept has become a source of ridicule.
Getting to the proof and getting the DNA is becoming very essential.
McGowan has expressed a dislike for so many people that I don't think Sue is taking it personally.
Willow
McGowan has expressed a dislike for so many people that I don't think Sue is taking it personally.
She seems to get awfully upset, and angry, quite incredibly easily. I can't find it now, but I read a review online a couple of weeks ago to which the reviewer had added a note saying that KMcG had threatened to sue her for something critical in the review. Dipping into various forums and blogs about the novel, they all refer to similar incidents. What's with this woman?
I also wonder what Simon & Schuster are making of it all... Publishers really don't like authors who cause trouble, or whose veracity is, shall we say, open to challenge. Book 2 of the trilogy, apparently about a gospel written in Jesus' own hand, is due out next autumn. I wonder if it'll ever appear, or if S&S will pull the plug.
Willow
10-18-2006, 08:27 AM
DVB,
Sorry to spend an inapropriate amount of time on Sue's work. This forum is not about Sue, or her work. This is about claims to bloodlines. There was a point I was trying to make here. The tendency is for everyone to discredit all claims about bloodlines, without taking into consideration that the research is far from complete.
India may seem an odd place to look for Hebrew descendents and Jesus' descendents, but it does figure into the history of Jesus and the Hebrews.
Researchers are following the links there and it may yield surprises no one expected.
McGowan's claims are based on her vivid dreams. Her book is based on fictional information. That is neither science nor research and obviously cannot lead to the right conclusions.
This is all the more reason to get the science done. Then, if McGo0wan has DNA linked with the other proven descendents, she can write books about her new memories riding elephants in battle as the wife of a raja... :rolleyes: or whatever.
Meanwhile I think I'll just sit back and watch the conversations here. This has been the best education and research imaginable, and the most entertaining forum on the internet!
Willow
Okay, back to the request for "facts"...
Furthermore, the legend of time anomalies around the tomb are also a myth - I still have a copy of the email from the person who told Kath about this.
Having said this, although the story about time anomalies at RLC is a myth, there is actually another more well known location in France that is famous for its "time slips", as they are called - Marie Antoinette's Versailles.
I have written about this subject at length in other places, but since this material will probably appear in a bestselling book next autumn, I'll just go through the short version here, so that you'll all know what to look out for.
In 1911, the Principal and Vice-Principal of an Oxford college for women, Miss Moberley and Miss Jourdain, published a book of their amazing "adventure" with Marie Antoinette at Trianon (her private palace at Versailles). Basically, they were just touring the grounds when they suddenly found themselves in vignette from Marie Antoinette's life.
Because this book was written by such respectable scholars, it caused a furor at the time and, despite the fact that it has been thoroughly analysed and debunked, it has spawned an intriguing legend of regular time slip phenomena at Trianon at a particular time of the year, witnessed regularly by investigators.
To stir the pot even more, there are legends about Marie's own occult interest... stories that she held regular seances to summon "spirits" from other times in a secret mirrored room at Trianon (which I have explored during my own investigations).
Some of you might recognise that this time slip legend was deployed in a Dr Who episode from the second series, when The Doctor time travels to Versailles - but, they feature Madame Pompadour instead of Marie Antoinette, to make the story a bit less predictable (although Madame Pompadour was also a very interesting personality in her own right).
Versailles itself is said to have been designed by "initiates" along Kabballistic principles, even the gardens. Unfortunately, Marie herself destroyed a particularly meaningful LABYRINTH devised by PERRAULT, built by Le Notre in 1666. Bad move...
Aside from locations known for time slips, there are other legends about people who travel in time.
The most well-known legend (and my own personal favourite literary device) is the one surrounding the alchemist Nicholas Flamel, which JK Rowling deployed in her first Harry Potter book.
Flamel was said to have discovered the "philosophers stone" on January 17th at NOON, which also ties in with a secret code in the Priory of Sion myth (in a huge leap of surreal irony, Baigent & Leigh's legal Appeal against Dan Brown is scheduled for January 17th next year!).
As a result of his success, it is said that Flamel attained immortality and appears every 120 years to pass on the secret.
Another well-known "time traveller" is the Count Saint Germain, who allegedly also had a hand in Marie Antoinette's fate...
Alphaville
10-19-2006, 02:43 PM
I did a review of Laurence Gardner's "Bloodline & the Holy Grail" book for a mag some years ago, and actually read the book beforehand.
The bastards hadn't sent a press pack with it, you see. (That's giving away some secrets of the reviewer.... but there you go...)
Anyway, I did spot that there was a considerable lack of evidence, and now I see that even the Internet, in all its glory, hasn't managed to fill the data gap.
:eek:
Did you also notice how many of the bloodliner's names were taken from myth and literature? Not very convincing.
Alpha
Alphaville
10-19-2006, 03:11 PM
She seems to get awfully upset, and angry, quite incredibly easily. I can't find it now, but I read a review online a couple of weeks ago to which the reviewer had added a note saying that KMcG had threatened to sue her for something critical in the review. Dipping into various forums and blogs about the novel, they all refer to similar incidents. What's with this woman?
I also wonder what Simon & Schuster are making of it all... Publishers really don't like authors who cause trouble, or whose veracity is, shall we say, open to challenge. Book 2 of the trilogy, apparently about a gospel written in Jesus' own hand, is due out next autumn. I wonder if it'll ever appear, or if S&S will pull the plug.
A lot will depend on how the first book sells. It doesn't look as though there will be a second printing before it goes to paperback. The initial run was 250,000 copies and hardcover copies were being put out to discounters almost from the date of release. Not much of a wildfire.
It can't make things easy for S&S that McGowan's past is catching up with her on various blogs and message boards, or that the media's reception has been tepid.
Some subscribers to her Yahoogroups board, The Magdalene Line, have described McGowan as autocratic and prone to tirades when questioned about her research methods and findings. The atmosphere in her small community of fans and supporters has been called cult-like and overprotective of the author.
Alpha
Willow
10-19-2006, 04:05 PM
Alpha said:
It can't make things easy for S&S that McGowan's past is catching up with her on various blogs and message boards, or that the media's reception has been tepid.
I am not familiar with the industry from publishers' postiions so I have some questions.
Do publishers ignore the internet and reviews posted at amazon and B&N, et al? I cannot imagine them sitting there breathlessly reading reviews and basing business decisions on them. If that were the case, then Kathleen and all her sock puppets would be flooding the gates with fake reviews...even thought the people are 'one notes' who are unknown and never reviewed a book in thier lives..or would publishers read these forums and consider only reliable and established reviewers?
Wouldn't their bottom line when making choices depend only on sales?
If by chance they do read the internet blogs and posts about Kathleen (or any other author) would this impact on their business decisions? Unless of course they had been unaware of her past legal problems with publishers, and would prefer to extracate themselves from a potentially embarressing position with a potentially embarressing client.
Is there a place where they publish each book's in-house rank in sales, a way to determine if they will continue with the book sequels or not?
Someone just sent me this newest review and blog about McGowan.
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2006/10/kathleen_mcgowa.html#comment-24152387
Willow
Unless of course they had been unaware of her past legal problems with publishers, and would prefer to extracate themselves from a potentially embarressing position with a potentially embarressing client.
There's usually a clause in publisher-author contracts which covers little problems like libel, plagiarism, your right to claim the work as your own, etc. This could probably be extended to "causing my publishers embarrassment", if S&S wanted it to.
If it is the case that KMcG has been less than honest about her past (I am not asserting this; I am referring to the fact that other people have asserted this), then I think S&S would (a) have a legal right to drop her and (b) quite possibly wish to grasp that opportunity.
Someone just sent me this newest review and blog about McGowan.
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2006/10/kathleen_mcgowa.html#comment-24152387
The author of this blog, Carl E Olson, is a Catholic scholar. If you look back to my l-o-n-g review of 20-odd books on DVC in Another Place, you'll find that I refer to the book cowritten by him as "one of the most scholarly of the Christian books, and the most professionally written and presented, with copious footnotes." Some months ago I emailed Olson to let him know about this article, because he'd previously made a negative and incorrect comment on me, based on an interview with me in the Guardian newspaper. But someone on his blog has more than compensated for that! -- "Try to get to the Book Review done by 'DVB' who is a well-respected author and reviewer in the UK..." and refers back to here. As the great Richard Thompson wrote, "It all comes round again"...... :)
Someone else on Olson's blog writes about KMcG: "She, and her books, have the spirituality and trust of a mud puddle. It's not about Jesus or Magdalene. It's about the author's ego and narcissism. Avoid." That seems to tie in with Alph's comments above:
Some subscribers to her Yahoogroups board, The Magdalene Line, have described McGowan as autocratic and prone to tirades when questioned about her research methods and findings. The atmosphere in her small community of fans and supporters has been called cult-like and overprotective of the author.
My understanding was that subscibers to her Yahoo group weren't allowed to make any negative comments at all, let alone question anything. But as I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed on there, I'm only going by hearsay.
Alphaville
10-20-2006, 01:04 PM
Do publishers ignore the internet and reviews posted at amazon and B&N, et al? I cannot imagine them sitting there breathlessly reading reviews and basing business decisions on them. If that were the case, then Kathleen and all her sock puppets would be flooding the gates with fake reviews...even thought the people are 'one notes' who are unknown and never reviewed a book in thier lives..or would publishers read these forums and consider only reliable and established reviewers?
Wouldn't their bottom line when making choices depend only on sales?
Consumer feedback is vital from a marketing standpoint, especially for contracted sequels. Industry reviews can be too technical and their effect on consumer choices is so-so; but the book-buying public relies heavily on word-of-mouth and the reactions of average readers. So yes, the publishers do pay attention.
Alpha
Alphaville
10-20-2006, 01:11 PM
Someone else on Olson's blog writes about KMcG: "She, and her books, have the spirituality and trust of a mud puddle. It's not about Jesus or Magdalene. It's about the author's ego and narcissism. Avoid." That seems to tie in with Alph's comments above:
I agree wholeheartedly with another point made on Olson's blog:
What is very evident in reading the interview with McGowan (as well as other articles about her) is that she is interested in Jesus only to the degree that he can validate her obsession with a mythical, neo-Gnostic Mary Magdalene.
Alpha
Willow
10-20-2006, 07:18 PM
Alpha said:
Consumer feedback is vital from a marketing standpoint, especially for contracted sequels..... the book-buying public relies heavily on word-of-mouth and the reactions of average readers. So yes, the publishers do pay attention.
This is interesting...but in the case of McGowan, from day one questions were raised about her 'reviews'...It began when the Irish Press review was traced back to her. At the Slugger O'Toole forum, they were able to pinpoint the double-speak McGowan used when claiming she was "interviewed" by the Irish Press. It turned out the real Irish Press and for that matter all Irish newspapers, denied ever having an interview with her. Nor could anyone locate any Irish newspaper that ever printed anything McGowan wrote. Nor could any be found that ever retained McGowan as a reporter or writer.
So her claims to have worked abroad as a published author or reporter in umpteen languages and umpteen contries around the world seems quite an exaggeration that has never yet been proven.
At the amazon forum and various sites around the internet, time and again McGowan has been suspected of writing her own 5-star reviews under scads of different names...this suspicion arose because of the redundant use of certain phrases and tell-tale inability of the author to remove herself emotionally from her book...so reviews that say such trite lines as "written in a lyrical voice" (I think this was repeated at least twice; it must be one of her favorite opinions of her writing style) "based on her 20 years of research" (then fail to site any research because actually none is given) "the truth is finally told!" (..that's the whole point...nothing she wrote has yet proven to be true or accurate.) "just buy this book and you'll love it" et cetera..these are obviously not written by the average reviewer off the street. Books simply are not approached this way when reviewing...
To worsen the problems, at her "interview" at Beliefnet, she made the bold statement that she knows she is the first and only person to come forward claiming to be a Jesus descendent with a bloodline...Yet there is no proof anywhere that she "came forward" or made even one written claim before Prince Michael (and others since ).
There was one young woman in her very own forum who had a web page devoted to tracing her bloodline to Jesus, based largely on the first three generations from Jesus that appeared in Gardner's books. McGowan knew all this yet never once mentioned at her forum or anywere else, that she was preparing a book to claim she was a Jesus descendent, or asking these other claiments to come forward with her. In fact, that particular 'friend' of hers was totally surprised, shocked and hurt by what Kathleen did. Yet Kathleen claims she had no prior knowledge of these other people even thought she courted their friendship and knowledge...
McGowan directly claimed to be a new "Indiana Jones" of France (where she claims she goes on 'expeditions'...but prior to her book release she apparently only went there once or twice before) But in fact this association with Indian a Jones had first been given to another author two years prior by 'Fortean Times' magazine. McGowan was emulating this author intently.
Finally, there is the matter of her two prior publishing attempts that both ended in her being defeated in the courts. Highly suspicious is the Linda Goodman case, involving more of McGowan's claims of "visions' that provided her with knowledge, just like she now claims with this latest book. The matter of truth and proofs still remains to be established. At other posts in this forum (and elsewhere on the internet) we are realizing that in fact McGowan doesn't have a clue what is truth about RLC or much else for that matter.
So the conclusion is that McGowan seems to be writing her own reviews and embellishing herself at the expense of others. Then there is the matter of poor and inadequate historical fact. If she's getting her information through visions and channeling, I'd demand the immediate dismissal of that Magdalene vision and get a guide with a phd in history instead!
Do you think editors like Trish Todd and Simon and Shuster can really see through "apparent" facades and fabrications and redundant
5 star reviews of herself, by herself, and for herself? :headscratch:
I would think people in such responsible postions would be aware by now that unscupulous authors would flood the market with rave reviews and false information precisely in hopes of garnering continued lucrative contracts...
Editors and publishers must be aware of authors' games, and have ways to get to the truth behind the facades.
Willow
AdrianGilbert
10-21-2006, 05:42 AM
Willow wrote:
'Do you think editors like Trish Todd and Simon and Shuster can really see through "apparent" facades and fabrications and redundant
5 star reviews of herself, by herself, and for herself?
I would think people in such responsible postions would be aware by now that unscupulous authors would flood the market with rave reviews and false information precisely in hopes of garnering continued lucrative contracts...
Editors and publishers must be aware of authors' games, and have ways to get to the truth behind the facades.'
Unfortunately, authors like McGowan it would seem (although I haven't read her book) have brought this whole area of publishing—what I call "history with mystery"—into disrepute. We had the same thing with the notorious Nigel Appleby book 'Hall of the Gods'. In this book he claimed to know the precise location of the Hall of Records spoken of by Cayce and others. In fact he claimed to be putting together an expedition (with Egyptian approval) to go into the desert and dig it up. The book was beautifully produced, in hardback, by Heinemann, who were by then an imprint of Random Century.
Unfortunately for Random Century, Appleby had stolen whole chunks of other writers work, at times word for word, to fill the pages of his opus. He had plagiarised nearly everyone writing in the field (including myself and Robert Bauval) to the point where the publishers were forced to withdraw the book and offer compensation.
In another memorable case, two authors, Richard Andrews & Paul Schellenberger, wrote a book entitled 'The Tomb of God'. This book claimed to have found geometric clues in secret documents found at Rennes le Chateau that gave the location (in France) of the tomb of Jesus. For this work the authors were paid an astonishingly high advance by publishers Little, Brown. They were no doubt anticipating anopther 'Holy Blood and Holy Grail' success story.
Unfortunately, a documentary made to coincide with publication turned out to be a hatchet-job. Their so-called discoveries turned out to be based on hoax material. Important, 'historic' buildings turned out to be Victorian in construction. The maps and plans on which their theories were based were revealed to be forgeries perpetrated by pranksters in the 1950s.
Needless to say when this was all revealed, the book failed to sell in the numbers anticipated. Little, Brown lost a lot of money on the project and went cool on doing further books in this genre.
This, I am sorry to say, is what has happened to publishing in general. Today it is very difficult for even established authors with a good track-record of producing quality books in this field to get published by major publishers. The reason is that it is easier for editors to make a case for publishing 'celebrity' biographies than for books on our sort of interests.
The bogus, band-wagon jumpers are not wholly to blame for this about turn: there are other reasons for the decline of the genre including the growing power of the booktrade at the expense of publishers, the internet, amazon, changing tastes and so on. However, the infiltration of the market with books of bad scholarship that are packed full of lies has undoubtedly damaged us all. We can only hope that this is a temporary situation and that in time things will improve. In the meantime, thank God for magazines like Phenomena that are trying top keep alight the torch.
Adrian.
Willow
10-21-2006, 04:02 PM
Here is the link to the trailor ....
http://www.bloodline-themovie.com/trailer.html
Not much there to see...
Willow
10-22-2006, 01:16 AM
Adrian said:
the infiltration of the market with books of bad scholarship that are packed full of lies has undoubtedly damaged us all. We can only hope that this is a temporary situation and that in time things will improve. In the meantime, thank God for magazines like Phenomena that are trying top keep alight the torch.
So true...years ago people could write bad books, dishonest books, plagerized books, and there were no places like Phenomena to get reality checks. Now, with the internet, it's getting harder and harder for unscrupulous authors to get very far. Seems about once or twice a year an unscrupulous author sneaks under the radar and makes headlines when they're exposed. But the point is that now they do get exposed, and a lot sooner!
Your point is well made, Adrian, they do spoil it for the serious research and excellent writers and thinkers in this, or many other fields.
I think in the situation of bloodlines, RLC, HBHG, all having been done to death, what's needed is some exciting new discovery or twist or turn to get the whole field regenerated and revitalized again. Until then, it has become a quagmire and I feel as though we're all sinking in it.
McGowan has adversely set back the entire genre...
Willow
Here is the link to the trailor ....
http://www.bloodline-themovie.com/trailer.html
Not much there to see...
It crashed my computer. I'll take that as an omen and not bother...
There are dodgy agents out there as well.
About the same time as Andrews & Schellenberger's dreadful book, for which they received a reputed £300,000 advance, my first book on new religious movements was published; my advance was £2,500.
At the time I was looking for an agent, and met one for us to check each other out. I mentioned the slight disparity in publishers' enthusiasm and reward for authors for sensational rubbish and for carefully researched work.
"If you want to make that sort of money, why don't you write that sort of book?" she said.
"And destroy whatever reputation as a serious writer I'm beginning to build up?"
"You could write it under a pseudonym."
"I'd still have to live with myself," I said.
Needless to say she didn't become my agent.
Incidentally, publishers Little, Brown produced a little leaflet after the BBC Timewatch programme demolished The Tomb of God, bleating "Unfair, unfair!", and distributed it to every bookshop that had the book. Those bookshops that didn't throw them straight in the bin put them in a little pile next to the book -- so ensuring that potential readers were reminded that the book had been comprehensively rubbished!
In the meantime, thank God for magazines like Phenomena that are trying top keep alight the torch.
We always had a strict policy not to promote anything we knew to be fabricated or questionable. Sometimes we would publish questionable material if it had merit of some kind, but always with a disclaimer. Sometimes the disclaimers caused so much trouble that it became easier to simply avoid reference to swathes of material.
If if ever gets to the point where I am put under commercial pressure to promote questionable material, I'm not sure that I would want to be associated with that philosophy...
Here is the link to the trailor ....
http://www.bloodline-themovie.com/trailer.html
Not much there to see...
Alpha has actually started a new thread on this... I know all the people behind this project, so I'll post there.
Willow
10-22-2006, 05:38 AM
Adrian said:
Unfortunately for Random Century, Appleby had stolen whole chunks of other writers work, at times word for word, to fill the pages of his opus. He had plagiarised nearly everyone writing in the field (including myself and Robert Bauval)
Adrian, I know of two authors, Robert Bauvelt and Sue Olsson, who had wholesale theft of their works. A fella named Eric Wijnants had (has?) a website where he claims to be a great debunker and demyther and analyst.
A few years ago he claimed to be associated with the University of Vienna. This later proved to be untrue. Both Baulvelt and Olsson confronted him and demanded he stop plagerizing their material. He refused! He took the attitude :"Go ahead and try to make me.."
His entire website was actually cut and pastes from anything he could find on the internet and string together. No references. No names. No credits. Just wholesale plagerisms. He was spending most of his time in Thailand then, so it became very difficult to get compliance. It was only the repeated efforts of a few who kept posting alerts on the internet that made him finally cease and desist.
What a thoroughly unpleasant experience for Olsson and Bauvelt! They've had not one, but several such experiences like this. I wonder how rampant this problem really is?
So it seems that forums and discussions on the internet (like this one at Phenominum) can have a positive effect and can act as a hinderance to unscrupuloous authors who would steal everything they can get away with..the idea is not to let them get away with it, and to expose them when they try.
Their egos are like the yearnings of drug addicts. Reason flies out the window in their compulsion to feed their insatiable appetites. They are like compulsive, driven drug addicts who can't comprehend the damage they cause, or why 'no one understands their genius." Even cut and paste artists consider theirs as brilliant creations, and once created they are loathe to give up any portion of their little beauties. They long to be recognized for anything, even if it is only their incredible talents for cut and paste, not for any original creative thinking.
If not for places like this, how else could anyone find the truth.
Willow
AdrianGilbert
10-23-2006, 02:03 AM
There are other problems with plagiarism that authors are up against that the average reader is probably unaware of. The most obvious is straight forward theft of text (as in 'Hall of the Gods') but this is quite rare. What more often happens is that ideas are taken without attribution to the original author.
For example, an author might write: 'I was walking by the pyramids of Giza and there, in the sky, was Orion. Could the pyramids be intended to represent Orion's belt, I thought?'
Now who is to say that our mythical author didn't think this? Had he read about this in 'The Orion Mystery' or was this idea concerning Orion something that occurred to him independently? From the text above we don't know. The IMPLICATION is that this was an original idea. However, in a court of law he could deny this by saying: "Yes, I did read 'The Orion Mystery'. That's why I had the thought. No plagiarism was intended."
This sort of thing goes on all the time. It is even perepetrated by some of the most famous authors in this genre. Yet it is dishonest. The correct approach is to attribute the idea to its originator. The propert way of dealing with this would be to say something like: 'In the book "The Orion Mystery", Robert Bauval put forward the idea that the pyramids of Giza represent Orion's Belt. As I walked by them, with Orion in the sky, I wondered: could this be true?'
There the honest thing has been done and he has returned something back to the originator of the idea by giving a small plug for his book.
If you read through the best books in this genre, you will see that their authors do this sort of thing all the time. We are constantly referencing other people's work. This is done not just to anchor our own work with their research but to give something back for making use of their research as a spring-board for our own. This is the correct way of dealing with other people's ideas.
Unfortunately the problem of plagiarism extends well beyond the written word to other media such as television. One of the biggest fears that authors have is dealing with unscrupulous TV producers. It is all too easy to present a written proposal, have it turned down by a media company, only to see your ideas used by them in something else of their own creation. It is then very difficult to prove plagiarism. In any case, the chances are that they have more money than the poor, original author and can better afford a court case.
The worst offenders in this respect (certainly by reputation) are the BBC. Bauval and I were fortunate in that the BBC made the program 'The Great Pyramid: gateway to the stars" to launch 'The Orion Mystery'. It was an excellent programme but unfortunately turned out to be a one-off. This was not because we had no ideas for futher programmes. Rather it resulted from certain people taking ideas we presented for these and running with them themselves.
Because they didn't understand the mystical side of what was being presented, all they did was produce boringly predictable programmes that no-one bothered with. It was another case of genre kill by poor immitation products.
Now we have the internet there are more opportunities than ever for sharing ideas. However, again we hve an unfortunate situation that has developped. because most information on the net is free, people don't appreciate that real research costs money. In order for authors (other than those who have a lucrative second career) to carry on working, they need to sell books. If not enough people buy those books or they buy them second-hand on Amazon, then the authors cannot continue to research. It is as simple as that.
A case in point is my friends and co-authors of 'The Holy Kingdom': Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett. They put up an Arthurian website detailing their latest researches in this area. People flocked to the website to pick up the latest news, but they were unwilling to reciprocate by buying their books. As a result, Wilson and Blackett took down the site which they could not afford to run for nothing.
This, my friends, is the reality of the situation. It is also why people like myself are very reluctant to discuss new ideas on the web. We prefer to see them in print first. That way we do at least enjoy the benefit of a publisher's advance even if our ideas are later filched and plagiarised by all and sundry.
Adrian.
There speaks the voice of bitter experience!
The other problem is that if we want to interest a publisher in taking our next book, or a TV producer to make a documentary, we have to present a fairly detailed proposal to them. I think it's not always that person who can screw us, but the people who they show the proposal to -- most TV producers being (often very small) independent companies who have to sell the idea -- our idea -- to the TV networks. Similarly, UK publishers often aren't prepared to take on a book unless they can swing a US deal -- and although we might know and like and trust the editor we're dealing with in Britain, who knows how many people get to see our proposal in the States, who don't know or care who we are -- but who, at their next editorial brainstorming meeting, might say, "I've had this idea for a book on......"
It's not always an easy business to be in.
I also get very annoyed with journalists and documentary makers phoning me up to get an hour's worth of sound information on new religious movements or on secret societies, including rare leads to other people, then saying "Thanks very much" and hanging up. My knowledge, experience, research and expertise become a free resource, and I don't even get a credit, let alone any payment.
There also speaks the voice of bitter experience!
David
AdrianGilbert
10-24-2006, 05:08 AM
David wrote:
I also get very annoyed with journalists and documentary makers phoning me up to get an hour's worth of sound information on new religious movements or on secret societies, including rare leads to other people, then saying "Thanks very much" and hanging up. My knowledge, experience, research and expertise become a free resource, and I don't even get a credit, let alone any payment.
There also speaks the voice of bitter experience!
__________________________________________________ ______________
Oh yes! I know all about TV researchers. Half the time I don't think it even occurs to them that your time and knowledge are a valuable commodity they are stealing. They assume that whatever you know is in the public domain and therefore free like the Health service or school.
I have become much more circumspect when dealing with these people. I am fed up with them stealing my ideas and contacts and giving nothing in return. After all they don't work for free. Why should they expect us to?:angry
Bit of a rant there but you touched a raw nerve. Guess I better get back to what I was doing: editing a possible new book!:wookie:
Adrian.
Willow
10-24-2006, 11:19 AM
Oh Dear,
Seems we've all tred that path! Sue got a dozen inquiries this past year from independent film producers. Just a few nights ago she was filmed to discuss her research as part of a larger documentary that will appear on the Discovery Channel early next spring...she was never paid and I don't know what kind of acknowledgements they'll give.,
You are so right how they all expect authors to contribute valuable information with little if any compensation....
Od course her goal, like so many authors, is to sell the film rights...not give them away for free.
I hope she reads this and realizes how widespread the situation is!
But I have a question for David and Adrian....on the one hand you could say you've given away "free" help to independent film companies.; On the other hand, are you not garnering more public awareness of yourself and your efforts, thereby increasing your own visibility and price in a positive way?
Willow
Alphaville
10-24-2006, 11:47 AM
Okay, lessee, I'll have to take this bit by bit...
No... it was invented by an alleged Templar/PoS "operative" who lived in the RLC area at the time. This person was the source of information that appeared in a bestselling book by a duo of authors who are known for their habit of "borrowing" material to suit their purposes. In fact, this source allegedly took legal action to stop some of his material from being published against his wishes.
OK, the duo of authors who "borrow" (and isn't one of the duo rumoured to "channel" when her research comes up dry?) is clear enough; but as to the mystery "operative", might he be one-half of a composite source invented by the "dynamic duo" and passed off as an authentic "Priory" member? Or have I mixed my metaphors again? :wink:
Ironically, this source has also recently seeded even more mythical breadcrumbs to the same middleman who had leaked the time anomaly myth to Kath, who in turn fetched them to a TV producer who incorportated them into a new TV documentary, claiming to reveal the genuine "secrets" of the "real" Priory of Sion, due to be released any minute.
Dear, oh dear, this is going to be so much FUN!.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall when that one dawns on her!
Sorry to sound so cryptic, but I find it's easier to avoid the nutcases if I don't mention names. After a while, it really doesn't matter WHO said WHAT anyway... all that matters is what's REAL. We can analyse the TV doc once it's broadcast, that's probably the easiest way to do it.
Something tells me that's a certainty.
Alpha
Alphaville
10-24-2006, 02:35 PM
This is interesting...but in the case of McGowan, from day one questions were raised about her 'reviews'...It began when the Irish Press review was traced back to her. At the Slugger O'Toole forum, they were able to pinpoint the double-speak McGowan used when claiming she was "interviewed" by the Irish Press. It turned out the real Irish Press and for that matter all Irish newspapers, denied ever having an interview with her. Nor could anyone locate any Irish newspaper that ever printed anything McGowan wrote. Nor could any be found that ever retained McGowan as a reporter or writer.
So her claims to have worked abroad as a published author or reporter in umpteen languages and umpteen contries around the world seems quite an exaggeration that has never yet been proven.
It was more convoluted than that, Willow. On the Amazon product page for her first (self-published) edition of TEO, McGowan had posted a glowing, though unsigned editorial review, "reprinted with permission" from The Irish News, which is the name of a large daily newspaper in Ireland. When the second edition of TEO was released by Simon & Schuster, McGowan's bio on the S&S website carried the claim that McGowan herself had at one time lived and worked in Ireland and had been the editor-in-chief of The Irish News. This understandably led to questions concerning the authorship of the editorial review featured on Amazon. To make matters worse, another Irish daily paper, The Tribune, picked up the discrepancy and published a statement from The Irish News saying they had no idea who she was. Shortly thereafter both S&S and McGowan herself amended their websites to read that she had been the editor-in-chief of The Irish Times of Los Angeles, purportedly a newsletter of interest to the local Irish community although local Irish bars, restaurants, import stores, social clubs, entertainers, etc. seem not to have ever heard of it.:rolleyes:
Alpha
But I have a question for David and Adrian....on the one hand you could say you've given away "free" help to independent film companies.; On the other hand, are you not garnering more public awareness of yourself and your efforts, thereby increasing your own visibility and price in a positive way?
Willow
That depends. You only get public awareness of yourself if the public are aware that it is you. If you give a whole load of information to a TV researcher, and they use it in a documentary without crediting it to you, there's no "public awareness of yourself and your efforts", only of the people who nicked your work.
An example of how it should work. I did one BBC radio, one BBC TV and one Sky News interview this weekend, on the Church of Scientology, because they'd opened a new church in London with lots of razzamatazz and John Travolta. I was captioned "Author David Barrett" on the TV News programmes, and the radio News programme named the book. From their point of view, this was to establish my credentials as someone who could speak knowledgeably, perhaps authoritatively, about Scientology. From my point of view, it was a good plug, even when the book title wasn't mentioned. That was all absolutely fine.
Both BBC interviews were live -- much to be preferred. The Sky News interview was pre-recorded. The following day the Sky reporter, speaking live at the opening of the church, used not just concepts but actual phrases of mine recorded in the interview, but not in the edited broadcast, without attribution -- passing them off as his words, his ideas. That was somewhat less pleasing. And that sort of thing happens all the time.
It was more convoluted than that, Willow.
<snip>
Shortly thereafter both S&S and McGowan herself amended their websites to read that she had been the editor-in-chief of The Irish Times of Los Angeles, purportedly a newsletter of interest to the local Irish community although local Irish bars, restaurants, import stores, social clubs, entertainers, etc. seem not to have ever heard of it.:rolleyes:
Alpha
Ah-hah. I hadn't heard the end of the story. Convoluted indeed. Oh what a tangled web...
Willow
10-24-2006, 05:40 PM
This is a test of my new avatar...has it appeared?
Will this do?
Can someone tell me how to remove the "untainted newbie" phrase?
I don't smell like an untainted newbie anymore.
Now I smell like "Chanel # 5" combined with
oil from my Indie 500 car after I've walked through the stables...
It's quite a charming blend once you get used to it.
Willow
This is a test of my new avatar...has it appeared?
Will this do? Can someone tell me how to remove the "untainted newbie" phrase?
Your avatar looks great, I suppose I should try to find one, too. I'm just ecstatic that I got my sig line to show up.
The only way to progress from "untainted newbie" is to post 50 posts... then you're upgraded to "Thinks Phantoms is the bomb,Yo!"
Oh, goodie...
Willow, I've also experienced the person you referred to in an earlier post - I also know all his friends.
They all stick together and re-invent their own version of reality and promote it as the Truth.
In my case, there are hate-pages created to discredit me in case anyone might actually try to contact me to find out the real story.
Like Adrian and David, I have scores of producers and researchers contacting me, but they're always astonished to discover that what they've read about me on the internet isn't true.
They think they're going to set me up as a gullible wannbe and are completely shocked when I not only DON'T believe anything they've been told I believe, but can tell them the real story.
They never want to broadcast the real story, though - they usually have a sensationalistic angle that they're trying to "demonstrate". I've watched more than one "respected" presenter make a fool of themselves on TV because their producers and researchers believed the utter rubbish they've been spoon-fed on the internet.
OK, the duo of authors who "borrow" (and isn't one of the duo rumoured to "channel" when her research comes up dry?) is clear enough; but as to the mystery "operative", might he be one-half of a composite source invented by the "dynamic duo" and passed off as an authentic "Priory" member? Or have I mixed my metaphors again?
Uhhh, partially. This one actually gets a name check, but stopped confidential material from being published by taking legal action.
Anyway, I've replied to your Bloodline movie thread now. I'm a bit buried at the moment, so it's hard for me to keep up.
This, my friends, is the reality of the situation. It is also why people like myself are very reluctant to discuss new ideas on the web. We prefer to see them in print first. That way we do at least enjoy the benefit of a publisher's advance even if our ideas are later filched and plagiarised by all and sundry.
Amen. I've actually had someone so determined to access my material that they hacked my email account after I stopped writing publically on the internet - I had him officially cautioned by the police.
I still see material from private emails of mine to various sources being published in books or on websites - I was shocked to recently stumble across an extremely private discussion I'd had with someone embellished and transformed into a webpage by them, they'd even gone to the location I'd referenced and filmed it! - but it happens all the time now.
Sometimes I even get threatening emails from authors or lawyers warning me not to talk about my personal experiences or even people I know because the material is already copyrighted by the person who published my personal account as their own material!
It's very bizarre being told that your own memories belong to someone else now and you will be sued if you write about them...
But, there's so much money in DVC bandwagon-jumping now, that "authors" have become vicious. It's really a shame that publishers don't know the material well enough to be discriminating. At this rate, there's so much crap being published that by the time the genre settles down everyone will be so sick of the subject that no one will be interested in reading the real truth.
Are we allowed to say crap on this forum? I haven't tried swearing yet...
Further to RCH's comments...
In 1989 Whitley Streiber published Majestic, "a work of fiction that is based on fact" (ahem... sound familiar?). In Chapter 3 he quotes a 1947 "Intelligence Estimate on Flying Disk Motives" which covers "a number of cases of an unusual nature that appear to be related to the presence of strange nocturnal lights and/or flying disk activity". The next two pages tell the story of one William Robert Loosley who in 1871 had a UFO experience, concluding "The fact that this account was written in 1871 greatly diminishes the likelihood of hoax."
In fact, the whole William Robert Loosley story came from a spoof book, An Account of a Meeting With Denizens of Another World 1871, published in the States in 1980, which was supposedly by William Robert Loosley "edited and with commentary by" my old friend Dave Langford, a much-loved humorist on the British science fiction scene. Langford found it something of a hoot that the great Streiber had fallen hook, line and sinker for his spoof, and produced a one-off newsletter with the Majestic text and his original text in parallel columns. As a courtesy he sent a copy of this to Streiber.
Streiber's response was to threaten to sue Langford for plagiarism and copyright infringement, for reproducing his (Streiber's) text without permission.
How long, I wonder, before Kathleen McGowan threatens to sue any of the people whose ideas she appropriated, for daring to have had those ideas first without her permission...?
David
AdrianGilbert
10-25-2006, 07:53 AM
But, there's so much money in DVC bandwagon-jumping now, that "authors" have become vicious. It's really a shame that publishers don't know the material well enough to be discriminating. At this rate, there's so much crap being published that by the time the genre settles down everyone will be so sick of the subject that no one will be interested in reading the real truth.
Is there still any money in Da Vinci? I would have thought most people are as sick of the Da Vinci Code as I am! What a shame, though, that we have so far been denied your book on the subject Robin.:popcorn:
Willow
10-25-2006, 03:36 PM
How long, I wonder, before Kathleen McGowan threatens to sue any of the people whose ideas she appropriated, for daring to have had those ideas first without her permission...?
I for one would relish seeing McGowan embroiled in another legal battle...it might produce questions and answers we'd all like to hear about..and it should keep the internet hopping for quite a while! :) just when we thought it was getting dull again.
Willow
Alphaville
10-25-2006, 04:30 PM
Is there still any money in Da Vinci? I would have thought most people are as sick of the Da Vinci Code as I am! What a shame, though, that we have so far been denied your book on the subject Robin.:popcorn:
It does look like the party might be over, at least in terms of what publishers and producers are considering money-makers. This article was published back in July:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/278923_davincicoldap.html
It's no secret: 'Da Vinci Code' mania is losing its grip
By HILLEL ITALIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
It couldn't last forever, right? Simmered by three years of lawsuits, religious debates and conspiracy theories, brought to a boil in May by the Hollywood movie, the craze for all things "Da Vinci Code" is finally fading, publishers and booksellers agree.
"I would definitely say it's slowing down," Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley says. "Once everybody got past the movie, the whole thing peaked."
"The spring definitely was the hottest time for this kind of book," says editor Mark Tavani of Ballantine Books, which released Steve Berry's "The Templar Legacy," one of many "Da Vinci"-like novels to make best-seller lists earlier this year. "It seems now that the wave has reached its end."
Dan Brown's conspiracy thriller, with its suggestion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, came out in March 2003, has sold more than 60 million copies and produced a parade of critical scorn, church condemnation and (unsuccessful) allegations of ripping off other writers.
Not only did "The Da Vinci Code" keep selling, but the market for anything similar -- whether spinoffs such as "Cracking the Da Vinci Code" or thrillers like "The Templar Legacy" -- kept growing, too. It was a phenomenon that apparently peaked with the May 19 release of the "Da Vinci Code" film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks. The movie was a box-office hit worldwide.
" 'The Da Vinci Code' certainly created great opportunities for a number of authors to expand their readership, but in all likelihood we will not see a market like that again," says Allison Elsby, category manager of genre fiction for Borders and Waldenbooks.
"The Da Vinci Code" itself is still a best seller, in the top five on The New York Times' paperback fiction list, but no longer can a book simply be compared to Brown's and expect to catch on. Noting a drop in demand, Barnes & Noble is taking down the special display tables dedicated to "Da Vinci Code" games, puzzles and related books. Publishers also report a decline in the number of proposals that cite "Da Vinci" similarities.
"There was a point where I felt like every week I was getting something that mentioned 'The Da Vinci Code,' and that has fallen off," says Mitch Hoffman, a senior editor at Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA that published Raymond Khoury's "The Last Templar," a best-selling novel that came out in January.
Hoffman and others refer to a "maturing" of the market. They note that "The Da Vinci Code" didn't invent the religious/historical thriller, and they expect the genre to continue as it once did, with books failing or succeeding on their own, as opposed to being tied to the fortunes of "The Da Vinci Code."
I think the best parallel is the rise of legal thrillers," Hoffman says. "Lawyers were writing thrillers before John Grisham and Scott Turow, but the perceived market coalesced in their wake. Over time, it's the authors who deliver the goods that readers come back to."
One sign of maturity: a reluctance to compare a book to "The Da Vinci Code." Barnes & Noble's Hensley notes a shift in the promotion for Brad Meltzer's "Book of Fate," a thriller about a young political aide coming out this fall.
During the annual booksellers convention, held about the time the movie was released, publisher Warner Books emphasized its "Da Vinci"-like elements: ancient Masonic symbols, a code devised by Thomas Jefferson. Now, Hensley says, Warner highlights the track record of Meltzer, author of such popular legal-political thrillers as "The Tenth Justice" and "The Millionaires."
"They're a smart publisher, so they're probably backing away from it," she says.
"I can't speak for our sales people, but I never compared it to 'The Da Vinci Code,' " says Warner Books publisher Jamie Raab. "I've always thought of it as the next step in Brad's career. It involves a secret, but it's more political than religious."
A test for the current "Da Vinci" market will be Kathleen McGowan's "The Expected One," a speculative thriller about Mary Magdalene released this week with a substantial push from publisher Simon & Schuster and a special personal twist: The author hints that she is a descendant of Jesus and Mary.
"We could have put it out before the movie, but we decided to take our time," says Mark Gompertz, publisher of Touchstone and Fireside, imprints of Simon & Schuster. "We think summertime is a great time for reading 'The Expected One' and we feel we're marketing a very different kind of book, told from a woman's point of view."
Alpha :lol:
Suzanne Olsson
10-25-2006, 11:30 PM
Just stumbling in....Hello.
Just stumbling in....Hello.
Hi Suzanne. Good to see you.
Be interesting to hear your thoughts on St Kath's auto-hagiography...
David
Suzanne Olsson
10-26-2006, 09:05 AM
Hello David,
Excellent use of the word 'auto-hagiography'...
I tend not to attempt moments of brilliance in thought and speech, but I enjoy those abilities in others.
As I meditate on what I could contribute regarding McGowan, probably very little that would hold your interest, or hers.
My experiences with such people are limited for two reasons:
1.) They aren't allowed out unsupervised too often
2.) They're usually on prescribed medications for their hallucinations.
Either way, I like to avoid them in the course of my normal daily life.
But it appears we're outnumbered now. :romy:
Tis brave of me to post under my real name here....especially after reading what poor Robin has been through! What fascinating information.
Any book she writes is one I will read eagerly.
Suzie
AdrianGilbert
10-26-2006, 12:20 PM
Auto-hagiography is a new one on me. Maybe it's the newbie freshness that seems to have affected us all here. One thing seems to be clear: this Cathy McGowan woman (whoever she is) seems to have made a lot of enemies. I am sure that in her own eyes (clearly not those of either you or Willow) she is a martyr: St. Cathy McGowan.
I have one question though. When you read the New Testament, it is clear that Mary Magdalene is what Americans would today call a fox. Not only that, she has class (think of the spikenard). Is her supposed successor Cathy similar? We should be told!:jump2:
Glad you liked auto-hagiography, Suzanne. It just seemed apposite. The way that she so adores her character Maureen Paschal -- who we learn is basically herself -- and the way she encourages her little love-group of acolytes...
In answer to Adrian's question, going by the evidence available to me (her soppy novel, her self-serving Afterword, her me-me-me media interviews, her fan club, the 5* reviews that several people have said she wrote herself, etc), I would say... No, to both the fox and the class. But as I said in my review (which seems so long ago), I've never met her, so it's possible that I'm completely misjudging her. And knowing her propensity to issue legal threats (what a loving thing to do!), I'm treading carefully in my remarks.
About her, anyway. But her book's rubbish!
David
Alphaville
10-26-2006, 01:25 PM
In my case, there are hate-pages created to discredit me in case anyone might actually try to contact me to find out the real story.
How effective do you think these "tributes" really are at persuading unsuspecting readers that you're a lunatic? Obviously if someone expends the time and effort to put up a page-long diatribe to discredit you, you aren't the inconsequential non-entity they make you out to be. People clue into that kind of tactic quickly.
They think they're going to set me up as a gullible wannbe and are completely shocked when I not only DON'T believe anything they've been told I believe, but can tell them the real story..
Gullible wannabes tend not to elicit the sort of sustained vilification that gets thrown at you.
They never want to broadcast the real story, though - they usually have a sensationalistic angle that they're trying to "demonstrate". I've watched more than one "respected" presenter make a fool of themselves on TV because their producers and researchers believed the utter rubbish they've been spoon-fed on the internet.
Rubbish sells better than reality. Even reality shows aren't real anymore.
Alpha
Suzanne Olsson
10-26-2006, 09:12 PM
In Muslim culture,people can trace their lineage back to Mohammed. It's a source of great pride. Among Jews are those who still trace their lineage directly back to King David, and this too is an obvious source of great pride. So claims of lineage thousands of years old is not at all unusual, in fact is quite accepted in other cultures.
Which leads me to an interesting experience I had in Murree, Pakistan. I was gathering the permits for research at the alleged grave of Mother Mary ...the local people fully accepted the possibility that I might be an actual descendent of Mother Mary..and that's why the DNA was so important to me. I was there in search of family lineages and this was something they respected and understood very well.
After I was there a week or two rumors began to spread that I was the actual great grandaughter of Hazrat Marriam, (Mother Mary) therefor I must be a holy person myself. People would show up at my door from early morning on, asking me for blessings and prayers for someone they loved. It was embarressing. On the one hand I wanted to scorn them and turn them bruskly away. On the other hand you could see from the look on their faces that they were desperate to believe anything that would alleviate their suffering. Some had traveled on empty stomachs great distance to see me. It broke my heart to see these poor desperate and ignorant people in search of any slim chances to alleviate their great suffering. This was at the height of the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees had flooded into Pakistan. Entire families were living in dirt holes covered with cardboard boxes (and they were the lucky ones).
Eventually I found the best course of action was to give them a few rupees for food or medicines and send them quickly away.
I called this my "holy cow" phase of life but it was no joke.
It did not feel good and it was a very uncomfortable position to be in...
Which brings me to McGowan. Someone told me there was a girl in McGowan's forum that seemed thoroughly convinced by Kathleen's visions and claims, and regarded Kathleen as somehow "holier" and worthy of extra merit, if the blood of Jesus coursed through her veins that made her special. ...And apparently McGowan did nothing to dissuade her.
That's what's so dangerous. This can be heady stuff. It feeds the ego, and if one is already egocentric, this just fuels and inflates their dillusions of grandure. They get worse and believe they themselves are really special and set apart from the human race..
One example of this attitude that really troubles me is McGowan's story of the ring. She claims a stranger identified her as someone he "expected" and handed a rare and ancient ring to her.
It's been hard for me to keep a straight face about this ever since I heard this.
I have spent some time in Jerusalem and I know the shops and streets well enough to have similar encounters there on a regular basis. The place is full of phony "guides" and con artists just waiting for gullible tourists. I've been offered antiquities and secret scrolls too, but I never thought of it as anything but a con game played out every day by street hustlers.
If he gave her the ring as she says, I suspect she's leaving out a lot of details. My guess is that he made at least a hundred shekles off that ring by taking her on a special guided "tour" of side streets and shops that few tourists ever get to see, because they always lead to another bridge for sale (or another secret scroll) . It's a standard con game played on the gullible and unwary in cities all over the world. I can't believe she bought into that one hook, line, and sinker!
I look back on my holy cow days and wonder what ever happened to those suffering Afghanies. They were wonderful people who deserved much better...
One of them gave me a ring as a gift...it's a beautiful lapis lazuli that came from the Afghan mines near there.
I'll cherish this ring forever for its sentimental value.
Hmmmm...I wonder if I rub it three times, will a genie appear? :)
That's what's so dangerous. This can be heady stuff. It feeds the ego, and if one is already egocentric, this just fuels and inflates their dillusions of grandure. They get worse and believe they themselves are really special and set apart from the human race..
Yes, I agree entirely... I have seen this pattern over and over in the course of my "secret society investigations", manifesting in faux "grandmasters" and even in smug researchers who claim to know the answers but couldn't possibly reveal them because it would be too "dangerous". It's always unravelled in the end - look at the whole Prince Michael of Albany saga, for instance.
It's not even down to the money in most cases... there's a certain type of messianic personality who, years ago, might have been institutionalised... but nowadays they write books and build cult websites.
One example of this attitude that really troubles me is McGowan's story of the ring. She claims a stranger identified her as someone he "expected" and handed a rare and ancient ring to her.
It's been hard for me to keep a straight face about this ever since I heard this.
Yes, me too. I actually heard this story from McGowan long ago, albeit a slightly different version of it, geared towards Egypt and the Emerald Tablets rather than Mary Magdalene.
If he gave her the ring as she says, I suspect she's leaving out a lot of details. My guess is that he made at least a hundred shekles off that ring by taking her on a special guided "tour" of side streets and shops that few tourists ever get to see, because they always lead to another bridge for sale (or another secret scroll) . It's a standard con game played on the gullible and unwary in cities all over the world. I can't believe she bought into that one hook, line, and sinker!
Exactly. When you begin to investigate this material, odd things DO sometimes happen... it's tempting to romanticise events, but there are almost always "mundane" explanations. Especially in the Priory of Sion world, fake artifacts and documents are rife.
I have dozens of artifacts, secret documents, and other various bits of esoteric curiosities that I have acquired in one way or another along the way. A group of us have vowed to open a museum someday, to pool and display our collections... between us, we have most of the "secrets" that have been written about in "bestselling" books over the years. I guess we could call it The Museum of Fabricated History.
Half the intrigue was in letting people think they're conning me, seeing how deep I could go. Playing them at their own game. These stories, and how the histories are fabricated, are even more interesting than the mystical fabrications, that get passed off as "secrets", themselves - a bit like drawing back the curtain and watching the Wizard of Oz pulling the levers.
But, it's a story that will probably never get told. I've got all the information I need now - along with a whole gaggle of con-artists gunning for me. I can remember, when I first began investigating, people closely involved in the saga declaring that they didn't want to talk about it because it just wasn't worth the aggravation... now I know exactly what they mean.
I may well write a book... but, if I do, it won't be at all what people expect.
Willow
10-27-2006, 05:12 AM
RCH said
I may well write a book... but, if I do, it won't be at all what people expect.
That's the point! It wont be what people expected and it may be a great public service to the world to alert them to the con games and dilusional authors who have flooded the market and trivialized the genre.
I have dozens of artifacts, secret documents, and other various bits of esoteric curiosities that I have acquired in one way or another along the way. A group of us have vowed to open a museum someday, to pool and display our collections... between us, we have most of the "secrets" that have been written about in "bestselling" books over the years. I guess we could call it The Museum of Fabricated History.
WOW! This is the stuff great books are made of! Be sure to include lots of B&W photos...
Write the book RCH! I'm ordering my advanced copy now. :jump2:
Willow
P.S. Suzie should rub the ring three times and make a wish... maybe Osama will appear. :-)
P.S. Suzie should rub the ring three times and make a wish... maybe Osama will appear. :-)
Or maybe St Kath will disappear!:jump: :jump:
AdrianGilbert
10-27-2006, 09:22 AM
To change the subject slightly: does anyone know the latet on the trial of Dan Brown for plagiarism? He produced a successful defence, I know, but there was an appeal made by Baigent and Leigh. Are they still having to pay millions in costs? I still find it hard to believe that Dan Brown had not read Holy Blood and Holy Grail when he was writing his book. Am I alone in being skeptical?:headscratch:
To change the subject slightly: does anyone know the latet on the trial of Dan Brown for plagiarism? He produced a successful defence, I know, but there was an appeal made by Baigent and Leigh. Are they still having to pay millions in costs? I still find it hard to believe that Dan Brown had not read Holy Blood and Holy Grail when he was writing his book. Am I alone in being skeptical?:headscratch:
But the judge did find that Dan Beige's wife Blythe had read HBHG quite early on in her research for the novel -- and had copied from it.
Baigent & Leigh paid off Random House's costs some time back.
Their appeal is currently scheduled to begin on January 17 next year. Robin and I will be there........
David
AdrianGilbert
10-28-2006, 03:28 AM
Baigent & Leigh paid off Random House's costs some time back.
Their appeal is currently scheduled to begin on January 17 next year. Robin and I will be there........
David
Unless they have got some fresh evidence, that could prove a further expense. Sounds to me as though they are trying double or quits. Rather them than me!:rolleyes:
As the previous case pretty much established that HBHG had been copied from, my guess is that all that is required is presenting the information in a way that demonstrates how this was done in a manner that contravenes copyright law.
The problem with this case is that copyright law itself is quite complex, but hopefully they can crack that.
But the aspect of this case that concerns most of us directly is that it transpired during the court case that most of the research was done by Blythe Brown on the INTERNET.
She would simply cut and paste from websites without noting the sources, printing out page after page of cut and pasted material in this manner, so Dan was just getting piles of material at random - some of which was quoting HBHG and some of which was embroidering fabricated history into factual history in a manner that seemed plausible when read out of context.
So, listening to Dan's testimony, it appeared to me that he genuinely believed that most of the research was factual and historic and therefore not plagiarised... which is probably WHY he believed that the Priory of Sion was a genuine organisation and that their duty was to protect a genuine Bloodline descended from Jesus and MM.
It was extremely frustrating sitting in court... swathes of material in Blythe's files culled from the internet were read out, which Dan genuinely didn't know the sources of - but, I recognised ALL of them. From this, it was easy for me to piece together which websites Blythe had probably used at the time, whose research she had culled, and the course her own research had followed.
In fact, it would be an extremely interesting exercise to compare Blythe's internet printouts from that period with MY internet printouts from that period, while surfing simultaneously through the Wayback Machine.
Anyway, once one can demonstrate which websites Blythe had culled from, it would be a fairly easy exercise to show how these websites were in turn underpinned by HBHG, sometimes outright citing the book by name in the text or in footnotes.
As so many books these days are based on uncredited internet research - either from websites, discussion forums, or even private emails - I think it's important to set a precedent on how this type of material can be used.
Most people are happy with a credit or an acknowledgment - that's all Baigent and Leigh want.
It's not even about money. It's about reclaiming the truth in order to prevent the distortions from getting out of control.
Which bring us neatly back to the discussion at hand...
Unless they have got some fresh evidence, that could prove a further expense. Sounds to me as though they are trying double or quits. Rather them than me!:rolleyes:
I don't know precisely how it's worked out, but the Court of Appeal simply doesn't allow an Appeal unless it (the Court) believes there is sufficient cause. When Mr Justice Peter Smith gave his Judgment in April he said he wouldn't allow them the right of Appeal, so overcoming that was Baigent & Leigh's first hurdle. If you read the Judgment, with all the points which the judge concedes to B&L, it's very strange that he came to the decision that he did. I would guess that this is part of the reasoning of whoever it is in the Court of Appeal who decides whether Appeals can happen or not.
I'm not going to go into it all again now, but I've argued at length in Another Place (and in other places!) why this case was so important, and why B&L should have won, and what the implications are for all authors, of fiction and non-fiction. For you and me, Adrian (and one or two others here), this is our livelihood we're talking about. If we spend blood, sweat and tears, and years, researching and writing something, and some pillock comes along and steals it without a by-your-leave, I for one would get pretty p*ssed off about it. So even though I don't agree with the factuality of HBHG, I'm fully in support of B&L in their fight for protection of the ownership of their own work.
David
AdrianGilbert
10-28-2006, 07:39 AM
I'm not going to go into it all again now, but I've argued at length in Another Place (and in other places!) why this case was so important, and why B&L should have won, and what the implications are for all authors, of fiction and non-fiction. For you and me, Adrian (and one or two others here), this is our livelihood we're talking about. If we spend blood, sweat and tears, and years, researching and writing something, and some pillock comes along and steals it without a by-your-leave, I for one would get pretty p*ssed off about it. So even though I don't agree with the factuality of HBHG, I'm fully in support of B&L in their fight for protection of the ownership of their own work.
David
Ah, but this is the irony of the situation. Dan Beige can copyright his book as a work of art, i.e. it is his fictional creation. Baigent and Leigh are somewhat less protected. You cannot copyright 'discoveries': only the form they are put into. By calling their work non-fiction, they are basically saying they 'discovered' that MM was married to JC and had one or more children. DB can say that because this is a matter of historical 'fact' he is free to use it in just the same way as using the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn in a work of fiction.
I am still very curious to see how this case turns out in the end. As you say, we authors have a lot to gain by Baigent and Leigh winning. It might stop all and sundry using my discoveries concerning 'star-gates' without giving me so much as a mention.:eyebrow:
Willow
10-28-2006, 08:56 AM
I am intently following this discussion here about the legal rights to creative property and ideas. When McGowan claimed she had the idea of a marraige between Jesus and MM long before HBHG, where is her proof? She claims she sent a query around to publishers while she was still basically a teenager? I am having trouble following her claims about herself, especially because no matter how far back she has tried to nudge that line, I know of others who still have her beat and who she may well have copied from.
Then we get to this problem about is it fiction? Or fact? All I have for clarification is the case between Oprah and James Frey. He tried to tout his book to publishers as a fictional piece, and failed. But when he switched to claim it was a true story, suddenly he was a best seller. That bubble burst when it was discovered he told a million little lies in his book, "A Million Little Pieces." Yet no one could 'sue' him. He just got hounded to death on the internet until it forced Oprah to withdraw her support of him, and forced him to recant his claims. I wonder how close McGowan has come to being in the same position?
Here is a good discussion about the Oprah-Frey case. This link was apparently posted at the amazon forum (sent to me by someone who was reading it there)
[URL="http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/oprahfrey.htm"[/URL]
I did read this above discussion a few moments ago, and I did see a lot of similarities between this case and McGowan's claims.
So there are several considerations that overlap; defining fraud, lies, misrepresentation, deceit, and theft of creative property..
and trying to 'cover' yourself in a format of fiction vs. non-fiction...
whew. No wonder we need lawyers!
AdrianGilbert
10-28-2006, 09:15 AM
I am intently following this discussion here about the legal rights to creative property and ideas. When McGowan claimed she had the idea of a marraige between Jesus and MM long before HBHG, where is her proof? She claims she sent a query around to publishers while she was still basically a teenager? I am having trouble following her claims about herself, especially because no matter how far back she has tried to nudge that line, I know of others who still have her beat and who she may well have copied from.
You guys really don't like this McGowan woman do you! And I still haven't seen hide nor hair of her book. :dunno:
But what if it's true? What if she really is descended from the bastard seed of JC and MM? Would that make us like her any better? Would men fancy her more and take her shopping? I doubt it. so what's the point. If she's telling the truth we won't believe her and if she's lying then she is betraying the very teachings of Jesus. All it will do is earn her a place in Hell.
More to the point: when is my avatar going to appear?:angry
Willow
10-28-2006, 09:22 AM
I just did a little cruising around amazon.com to read reviews of books similar to McGowan's. This review appears at amazon about the book Resurrection by Tucker Malarkey (Yes, 'Malarky' is her pen name). Someone made some very astute observations. Notice any similarities with critical McGowan reviews?
And do chickens really act like that? , August 12, 2006
Reviewer: David Marshall
I am trying to decide how much slack to cut Ms. Malarkey. Not too much, I think. This is an historical novel, a piece of fiction that, like the Da Vinci Code, claims to be based on fact. She even gives a Brown-esque preface: "The historical, archeological, and biblical material is real." It appears, from reviews below, that some readers will buy this. So I'll review the book in two parts: briefly as a novel, then as a novel that claims to offer historical fact as backdrop.
The story itself I found moderately intriguing, and mildly well-written. The winding adventure gives a certain somnolescent pleasure at times. Knowing an MD who worked in London during the Blitz, I'm not as fond of her overbearing nurse character as everyone she meets in Cairo seems inexplicably to be. But the plot isn't bad, and some of the lines (when she's not talking about religion) show insight.
But would it hurt to get her historical facts straight? Malarkey has a hard time doing so. She repeats Dan Brown's error of quoting the "Gospel" of Philip as saying Jesus "kissed Mary often on the mouth." (In fact the text has a hole where "on the mouth" might go; no one knows where the original text placed the kisses.) She has her heroine read in 1948 how Clement "disclosed in the second century that there were two versions of the Gospel of Mark." (In fact "Secret Mark" would not be "discovered" until 1973, by the eccentric historian Morton Smith. And there is strong evidence he made it up.) Marcion did not choose the four Gospels; he chose Luke, and rejected the rest. Is it not true that "there were a number of well-known sorcerers at the time" who did miracles like Jesus; attempts to find them have turned up only imaginary parallels, like Hanina ben Dosa and Apollonius. The "Church Fathers" did not make the apostles "infallible" or "above sin:" the Gospels they chose show the disciples full of error and sin. (It is only Gnostic texts like the "Gospels" of Mary and Judas that put certain disciples up on a pedestal.) And Geza Vermes was not a second Century Christian as Malarkey proposes: he was born in 1924, and taught Jewish Studies at Oxford University.
These are minor errors; the big ones are coming up. And these she shares, not only with Brown, but also with Elaine Pagels, whom she thanks profusely in the preface of this book, and who in my opinion is one of the greatest sources of disinformation about early Christianity on the planet. (Pagels admitted to me that she had not even bothered to read critiques of her early-Thomas views by eminent scholars like John Meier and N.T. Wright, before proposing wild theories based on that text.)
I apologize if, in making some of the points below, I seem a bit peeved. I am. As a Christian scholar I am getting tired of being shot at by people too intellectually lazy to look at their target before shooting. It would be nice, for a change, to read an anti-Christian screed like this one and have to think a few moments before pointing out its errors!
One reader below calls the book "a refreshing and inoffensive perspective on the roots of Christianity." In fact, Marlarkey seems terribly bitter, and wears her heart on her sleave. Unlike Brown, who made a few feints towards balance, she does not have a single kind or even neutral thing to say about orthodox Christianity. Every comment she makes on the subject is vitriolic; almost every one is demonstrably false, and many are the opposite of the truth.
Before Irenaeus, the Gospels "were all considered equally authentic, equally valuable." Hogwash. At least one of the four Gnostic texts Malarkey choses for her alternative New Testament was not even written until after Irenaeus' time.
The evil Irenaeus "codified Christianity all by himself," and then "all others were ordered destroyed." In fact, Christianity wouldn't even be legal for 140 years after Irenaeus wrote!
One of Malarkey's favorite claims is the popular myth that women were "a threat" to orthodox Christianity, which suppressed them. In fact, most early Christians were women -- and became Christians not because they didn't know any better, but largely because the Church treated them well. Nor is the later Christian record so dark: the Gospel ended female infanticide, child marriage, widow burning, footbinding, and forced prostitution -- all in countries where the worship of female goddesses was popular! Even today, the status of women is far higher in countries with a Christian heritage. (Take a close look at the 1988 UN study on the status of women in countries around the world, for evidence.)
Malarkey's story requires us to take the "Gospel" of Mary seriously as source material for the life of Christ. In fact, of the four "Gospels" that her scholar hero suggests could form the basis of a new New Testament, even radical scholars only claim one has any historical information about Jesus, and that isn't Mary, it's Thomas. And even radical scholars only find two new sayings in Thomas they think are historical. And those two sayings don't say much!
Perhaps the most irritating error in this ignorant novel is the old "faith versus reason" trope which Malarkey repeats. The author puts it with comic book clarity: "(Christians) have been told to replace thought with faith. A good Christian does not question. A good Christian accepts what he is given. It does not matter if he understands it." Such a load of hogwash, from the pen of a writer as ill-informed as Dan Brown, is hard for someone aware of the facts to swallow. I know the Christian tradition, and what great thinkers from Justin to Augustine to Aquinas, Locke, Pascal, and C. S. Lewis have said about faith and reason. (See the anthology on "Faith and Reason" on my website, christthetao.com.) Uncritical acceptance of such ill-informed rubbish is what I call "blind faith," and something orthodox Christian thinkers do not recommended.
What I do recommend is a close reading of the Nag Hammadi writings. Having read them all, I happen to agree with Irenaeus that most of them are a "stupefying roar of bombast with little or no intrinsic value." But read them for yourself, and see. Pay particular attention to what they say about women, helping others, social compassion, or any reasons for believing any of this stuff is true.
Finally, Malarkey's villain is even worse than the albino in Da Vinci Code. I've been to hundreds of churches, and have never met anyone like this guy. If you want a psychopathic Christian murderer, at least make him coherent! Not a single word or action he partakes of even makes bad sense.
Other than that, it's a fine novel! Let no one henceforth say a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop can't describe a tour down the Nile River with a chicken named for a goddess!
Two things... firstly, HBHG was labelled as "non-fiction" because it actually happened - it was a true account of BLL's "adventures" with the PoS. It wasn't until Baigent drummed this into my head and I went back and re-read it that the implications sunk in. They have been accused of deliberately fabricating history, but if you read the book carefully it's clear that they are relating an account of a very curious adventure that they experienced in as objective a manner as possible (under the circumstances!). This doesn't necessarily mean that everything in it is TRUE.
Within this context, the concept of the marriage and bloodline of Jesus and MM, her womb as the Grail, and the PoS as a secret society to protect the Bloodline is their HYPOTHESIS - their original idea, NOT a historical fact - and this was stressed over and over at the trial. It's possible to source accounts of heretical claims that MM was Jesus' wife or consort, but you can't find anything that states that they had children, and their bloodline exists today with a secret society called the PoS to guard it. This is BLL's own material, without which the plot of DVC (and dozens of other books!) would completely fall apart.
At one point there was a hysterical argument by Brown's lawyer insisting that Brown's use of the PoS as the protectors of the Bloodline in DVC was based on historical fact that Brown had independently confirmed, citing the split of the PoS from the Knights Templar in 1188 as per the Dossier Secrets.
Of course, anyone who knows this material is aware that it would have been completely impossible for Brown to have independently confirmed the split of the PoS from the Templars in 1188 because the PoS didn't exist until 1956. Furthermore, the only publically available version of the material in the Dossier Secrets at that time was the version created in HBHG which was copied onto the internet. When Brown was asked to describe the actual Dossier Secrets that were available in the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, he couldn't do it - it was obvious that he had never seen it and therefore could only have been aware of it secondhand through HBHG.
Secondly... Richard Leigh's sister, Liz Greene, market tested the MM-Jesus hypothesis for them in a novel about Nostradamus called Dreamer of the Vine (which I have an original copy of) in 1980, two years before HBHG came out.
So, if Kath wants to prove that she originated that material before BLL, then she would have had to have circulated it to publishers in 1979 at the very latest - when she would have been 16.
Chebogue
10-28-2006, 02:48 PM
Alpha wrote ...
I agree wholeheartedly with another point made on Olson's blog.
My question is ... where does one find Suzanne Olsson's blog?
Chebogue
Within this context, the concept of the marriage and bloodline of Jesus and MM, her womb as the Grail, and the PoS as a secret society to protect the Bloodline is their HYPOTHESIS - their original idea, NOT a historical fact - and this was stressed over and over at the trial. It's possible to source accounts of heretical claims that MM was Jesus' wife or consort, but you can't find anything that states that they had children, and their bloodline exists today with a secret society called the PoS to guard it. This is BLL's own material, without which the plot of DVC (and dozens of other books!) would completely fall apart.
At the beginning of the "Skeleton argument for the claimants" in the trial it states "HBHG... is a book of historical conjecture setting out the authors' hypotheses. It is not, however, an historical account of facts and it does not purport to be such." Both sides and the judge made it clear that the factuality or historicity of any of the material was irrelevant to the case.
Secondly... Richard Leigh's sister, Liz Greene, market tested the MM-Jesus hypothesis for them in a novel about Nostradamus called Dreamer of the Vine (which I have an original copy of) in 1980, two years before HBHG came out.
And a very dull novel it was too. Her later one, The Puppet Master (1987) is about "the Spider King", Louis XI, and is far more readable.
D
PS Your avatar has awoken!
I just did a little cruising around amazon.com to read reviews of books similar to McGowan's. This review appears at amazon about the book Resurrection by Tucker Malarkey (Yes, 'Malarky' is her pen name). Someone made some very astute observations. Notice any similarities with critical McGowan reviews?
<snip>
These are minor errors; the big ones are coming up. And these she shares, not only with Brown, but also with Elaine Pagels, whom she thanks profusely in the preface of this book, and who in my opinion is one of the greatest sources of disinformation about early Christianity on the planet.
An excellent review (thanks, Willow), though I think he is being too readily dismissive of Elaine Pagels, who is a well-respected scholar -- though clearly one who David Marshall, being a traditionalist Christian, is bound to disagree with.
I'd imagine Marshall also doesn't like the academic work of Bart D Ehrman, a radical (and to my mind very sound) NT scholar -- who wrote one of the best books criticising Dan Brown's DVC for its historical inaccuracies.
Suzanne Olsson
10-28-2006, 06:28 PM
I had to look up what a blog is. Wikipedia says: A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.
The term "blog" is a contraction of "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
I don't have a blog. I don't want a blog. A blog seems like talking to oneself...
Here, Chebogue, is my commentary about an experience in Afghanistan that I'm including in my forthcoming book. It's the closest I can come to a blog for you:
March 2001 Afghanistan
author: Suzanne Olsson (excerpt from her book)
By now it’s a world gone mad. The Taliban are very strong, especially in and around Kabul. They destroyed the Kabul Museum and all its art. Women are confined to their homes. Those who venture outside risk beatings and beheadings for not being completely covered in chadris. Here, further up north, is Northern Alliance. How does one tell the difference between Northern Alliance and Taliban? When brothers meet and talk, they express their views and one must listen intently. That's the only difference. My life hangs by tenuous threads of friendship among such families and such brothers.
There was a team of researchers in Afghanistan sent by the United Nations and led by the Swedish Government to restore the face on the Bamiyan Buddha; the oldest and tallest rock-carved Buddha in the world. It was located in Bamiyan, which is now just another forgotten bombed out village along the Old Silk Road. The Taliban approached this team with a request. They wanted the money that was being used for the restoration to be given to them to feed hungry children. The team, of course, had to refuse the request because it was not their money. The money was specifically given to them for the restoration project. Money for the children was being donated in very large amounts through other agencies. In retaliation the Taliban were destroying the Buddha, and today the fatwa (sentence) would be enforced. Death by dynamite was decreed to be its fate.
Trekking the Hindu Kush Mountains we were looking for yet another ancient and nearly obliterated shrine. I had a rare opportunity to be shown places forgotten by the outside world. We were far enough from Bamiyan that it shouldn't have affected us but the men were more jittery than usual. The whole world was watching Bamiyan and Afghanistan intently. Mujahideen (guerrilla fighters) were watching us intently. Everyone knew about the American in the area, hardly a secret that could be kept here, but at least I managed to stay under their radar and of little interest to them on most days.
I recently 'adopted' these sons and become part of their extended families of brothers, sisters, wives, and mothers, weddings and funerals and constant desperate needs for food and safe shelter. I trusted them with my life. I had no other choice because there was no other law out here. Laws got made up from moment to moment to survive each day to changing day. By now my sons were more nervous than I’d seen them before. They constantly scanned the horizon and listened to every pebble rolling down an unseen hill close by. For the past hour they repeatedly swung their Kalashnikovs off and on their shoulders. The cold blue-grey gun barrels could be protective one moment, menacing the next. Unseen refugees and bandits and soldiers were constantly jostling for space.
They called a hasty meeting to announce their decision that we would not try to leave by way of Khyber Pass this evening. It was the only road out of here, but it was bustling with unusual activity. We would have to make our way further up the mountain and make camp for the night. Their own code of Pashto ethics and hospitality would protect me now, even with their lives. These tall handsome Afghan men were regal in bearing and conscious that all they had left were cave-like homes of rubble and dirt. They carried themselves like relics of a distant and noble breed even though their shoes were held together with string and duct tape and their heads were wrapped in traditional black and white lunges (turbans) with the long end hanging down from their shoulders. Their eyes sparkled with alertness and keen intellects shone through. They spoke English and Dari peppered with hereditary Hebrew words. My effort to learn to speak Dari was an endless source of mirth that gave them an edge of accomplishment and historical pride. We were a strange family, bound together by our common goal to survive as best we could out here.
After hiking further up into the hills, somewhere at an elevation between 11,000 and 12,000 feet, a reasonable spot was chosen and we settled under a rock outcropping for the night. I unfolded the huge warm pashima shawl and wrapped it twice around my black burkha and settled onto the stony ground. The shawl was the color of dirt so the rocks and I melted together in perfect camouflage that gave me a new sense of safety. I had a few dried nuts and berries left in my pocket. These would last another day or two. I felt rich and decadent knowing this meager substance was even more than most people would have out here tonight.
Maybe it was the effects of the high altitudes and cold mountain air, but all night I tossed restlessly with strange, vivid, disturbing dreams about ancient times. I awoke to change positions. My skin felt a touch like a kiss from the cold hard steel of Kalashnikov, a strange, comforting bedfellow for a lone woman. Everything about Afghanistan could be wonderful in an insane illogical way, but now life here was being measured by chadris and burkhas, madrassas and Kalashnikovs, tribe against tribe, brother against brother, and religious mullahs against their own rich heritage, a heritage that included the magnificent and ancient Bamiyan Buddha they had by now blown away to eternity.
It's believed that 2,000 years ago Christ passed through here. Surely he would have known the monks who were working diligently to carve the massive Buddha. It had taken over a hundred years to complete. The vast irrigation canals and the famous hanging gardens, once one of the Seven Wonders of the World, are long gone. Only bombed out towns and robbed holy sites and lives in chaos define Afghanistan now. The prospect of an unpleasant, unremarkable death by cruelty and temporary insanity is the reality for all who dally here too long.
In the twilight just before dawn, pink glows looked like fireflies on the nearby hills, where cigarettes gave away the presence of other camps and other mujadideen stirring. The glow of their cigarettes was all we would ever know of their presence. By morning everyone silently faded away on different personal errands of life and death, never recognized as friend or foe.
Later that morning we made our way down the mountains and back to the house where our driver met us. We smiled and made small jokes in the car, relieved to be on our way back to the comparative safety and civilization of Pakistan. We sat in the back seat, Kalashnikovs propped between us. I saw sadness and pain written all over Ahmed's face now. For the first time he was seeing his home through my eyes and it was painful for him. I didn’t know the words to help his pain go away. All I could do was reach over and give his hand a squeeze. In a land where it was a cultural taboo to touch the opposite sex and even a handshake was forbidden, this was a bold and compassionate gesture made in complete trust. We rode on in silence for a while, thinking of our requiems for the late great Bamiyan Buddha, and for the late great Afghanistan that was his home.
We got through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar in a long slow caravan of humanity that stretched back thousands and thousands of years; refugees and camels and ox drawn carts and black marketeers endlessly shuffling between countries. Like us, Alexander the Great, and Buddha, and Jesus once traveled this road. Like Osama and the mujahideen, like the Russian and American soldiers, we were all in this together, each trying to finish a personal agenda of great historical importance.
Later in the week I checked my emails from home. My sister wrote to tell me about the afghan she was knitting. I stared, puzzled by these illogical words. Then I understood her. I smiled when I joined my friends outside. The men swung their Kalashnikovs over their shoulders as we women pulled our veils up over our hair, and we set out together for the mountains. These were my kind of Afghans.
Suzanne Olsson
10-28-2006, 06:35 PM
RCH,
COOOOOL! Love your avatar...
And Chebogue's is pretty neat too!
Now when will Adrian and DVB get theirs up? (avatar I mean)
Willow
10-28-2006, 06:40 PM
Chebogue,
I think there is a mixup...Comments by Olson from his blog were posted here as I recall....but he's not the same as Sue Olsson...were you aware they are different people?
Willow
RCH, COOOOOL! Love your avatar...
If it's Tigger then it's only an experimental avatar by DJ - I can't get my rose to show up on my browser, I think the file is too big, so I might have to change it. Which would be a shame because the rose was actually on my desk when I wrote my column about my quest for Dan Brown's esoteric sex rituals, so it has great sentimental value. Ah, those were the days...
I love your Afgan "blog" Suzanne, you should think about getting one of those blog-page things - I think they're free.
If it's Tigger then it's only an experimental avatar by DJ
I did wonder. Tigger didn't quite seem to be you, Robin! Also confusing for me, because we named our band's vocalist's husband Tigger because he was up and bouncy first thing every morning (arghh) when we were all camping in France a couple of years ago.
I love your Afgan "blog" Suzanne, you should think about getting one of those blog-page things - I think they're free.
I had to join a blog site a few days ago in order to post a comment on a friend/colleague's blog. It's very straightforward: go to http://www.blogger.com/ and follow the instructions.
I also found your Afghan piece fascinating, Suzanne -- an experience I can't imagine in a world I can't imagine -- for me, that is. I see it on TV and it's so far outside my own reality that it's kind of scary.
To bring it back to the subject of this thread, can you imagine either Kathleen McGowan or Maureen Paschal living that sort of experience? -- or writing about it so beautifully?
D
Now when will Adrian and DVB get theirs up? (avatar I mean)
Naughty, naughty!
I know what mine will be, but the complication of setting it up is putting me off at the moment. On another thread DarkJedi explained all about PhotoBucket, which seems like yet one more thing I have to belong to online in order to be able to do something useful. I'm rapidly beginning to lose track of all my virtual identities...
Willow
10-29-2006, 02:11 AM
DVB: I think Sue asked a fair question.
When will you and Adrian get it up?
And you gave a fair answer...you can't get it up (yet) That says it all. :lol: So in the category of friendship and helpfullness, I'm sending you a heafty dose of spiritual Viagra to help you with the avatar..
Have a great day...:)
Willow
Suzanne Olsson
10-29-2006, 04:55 AM
Hello Adrian,
I hadn't really had a chance to look over your work until now..I am impressed! Looking over your home page, I see you are asking the same questions I asked...the sudden dispersal across the world of the same information at the same time. Did we arrive at the same conclusions about how this happened? I look forward to reading your book to find out.
I am presently compiling a chart showing the dates of the Biblical patriarachs starting with Adam, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and up to Jesus...showing what had developed around the world at that time...for example the ancient wisdom appeared in all cultures under different names. Tao in China, Ma'at in Egypt, Yoga Dharma in India, Asha in Persia, and Liga Natura (Natural Law) in Latin...But they were basically all the same and developed along the same time scales.. which seems to indicate widespread travel and dissemination of information...even the star charts are similar!
Following the DNA dispersal patterns, one sees they are in fact all coming from the same family. For example the DNA trail shows a definate link to all families who carried the Noah-flood stories with them.
I never considered Mayan civilization individually, prefering a broad label under "New World"...but now you've really peeked my curiosity. I see our work dovetails in several places. I assume you are familiar with the work of Gene Matlock?
I wanted to listen to samples from the music CD's you recommended .
I searched the internet for quite some time...but could not find even one 30 second sound sample...so I didn't order anything..perhaps another time..
Well, I have disgressed far off the topic at hand (as usual) my apologies to the moderator.
Sue
AdrianGilbert
10-29-2006, 08:56 AM
DVB: I think Sue asked a fair question.
When will you and Adrian get it up?
And you gave a fair answer...you can't get it up (yet) That says it all. :lol: So in the category of friendship and helpfullness, I'm sending you a heafty dose of spiritual Viagra to help you with the avatar..
Have a great day...:)
Willow
I can't speak for anyone else but I don't think viagra is what I need: rather a degree in computer science. I have tried following all the rules for uploading a picture. It is less than 100 x 100 pixels and only 7Kb in size. It should be a doddle...only it isn't. I've tried uploading both from my computer and from the images folder on my own website. Neither technique seems to work. I can only think that there is some parameter that stops people without the right level of permission to upload a picture. It is all very frustrating!:angry
AdrianGilbert
10-29-2006, 09:08 AM
What can I say? What an excellent piece of writing. I have never been to Afghanistan and given the way it is now, I doubt I shall ever go there. Yet it is one of those places that you feel conceals secrets. It would not surprise me at all to hear that there is a hidden brotherhood operating there of the type investigated by Gurdjieff.
What a rich experience you have had Suzanne. Thank you for sharing it with us.:cool:
Chebogue
10-29-2006, 02:30 PM
As originally posted by Willow ......
Chebogue, I think there is a mixup. Comments by Olson from his blog were posted here as I recall, but he's not the same as Sue Olsson. Were you aware they are different people?
Not at all. Now I am really confused. Would someone care to enlighten me? It would be greatly appreciated.
Chebogue
Chebogue
10-29-2006, 02:36 PM
Sue, thanks for your kind words regarding my Avatar. Truth be told, if it were not for a literacy course last winter, I would never have known what an Avatar was. The course revolved around internet gaming, blogging and course reading. The one that you see here is the same one that I chose for myself back then. Given my spiritual journey, and the fact that she looks very mystic, this was, and still is, the appeal. Does not yours pertain to a famous painting?
Chebogue :D
Suzanne Olsson
10-29-2006, 05:04 PM
Hi Chebogue,
I went back through the posts here...if you go to post # 38, there is a discussion about the blog site by another Olson..who is a Christian scholar....he reviewed Kathleen's book there.
Here is the link :
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2006/10/kathleen_mcgowa.html#comment-24152387
It's not me...no relation either...
Yes, your avatar is very nice!
I am borrowing a much overdone Michelangelo avatar until I come up with something more personal and unique...
Maybe you can offer some assistance to Adrian...he still cant get ...err....the avatar up. :-)
Sue
Just to let all of you know that tomorrow (Halloween) the Cinescape site is going to move to its upgraded incarnation at mania.com
I think that diverts will automatically take us there... at the moment we can reach these forums via the Forum link on the Mania site, but I expect that the url will probably change at some point, so look out for this if you bookmark this forum.
Once this site morphs, then the site in Another Place should go dormant for an undisclosed amount of time, so we'll pretty much lose everything that's there.
I'll keep everyone updated.
Suzanne Olsson
10-30-2006, 03:13 PM
Hi all,
Thanks for kind words about my nostalgic piece on Afghanistan...sometimes I get frustrated living in America...endless importance on malls and things to have...all I want to have is a few more years back in Central Asia again..I do miss it at times..shopping and malls leave me flat. I have no desire for them, which frustrates the heck out of my sister, whose soul reason for waking up every morning is to bathe, dress, have a fast cup of coffee, and start shopping..:rolleyes:
Speaking of books...I hope Robin writes that tell-all book...just reading posts at these forums has been interesting and makes me eagerly anticipate a book from her...and from David too! Now THAT would be a best seller for sure!
You have access to the kind of privileged information few know about ...all the makings of an excellent book...
I visited the mania site and signed in...but can't find a way to have avatars there...maybe I missed something? At any rate, hope to see you all there tomorrow...ooops...it IS tomorrow for you over on the far side of the pond.
Sue
Well, if I can think of a way to write my book without getting sued or killed, then I'll do it. I actually like writing columns better, though, maybe I'll write one for Mania ocassionally.
So, it looks like the Mania Migration went okay - there's a divert into the new site from Cinescape. These are still the Cinescape boards, though... I can see your avatar just fine... are you trying to set up a new account on the Mania site? I haven't tried that yet...
Speaking of books...I hope Robin writes that tell-all book...just reading posts at these forums has been interesting and makes me eagerly anticipate a book from her...and from David too! Now THAT would be a best seller for sure!
I'm hoping to sign a contract shortly for at least a reprint edition of one of my out-of-print titles; I'll let you know if and when it happens.
Yes, I'm looking forward to Robin's Revelations as well!
D
hawklord
10-31-2006, 11:03 AM
Well, if I can think of a way to write my book without getting sued or killed, then I'll do it.
Dying can do wonders for one's sales. Look at Elvis. It's the classic publicity stunt, really. If you can arrange to be crushed by a landing UFO then we're talking MEGA sales :D
AdrianGilbert
10-31-2006, 11:26 PM
Dying can do wonders for one's sales. Look at Elvis. It's the classic publicity stunt, really. If you can arrange to be crushed by a landing UFO then we're talking MEGA sales :D
Trouble is, once you are dead the clock starts ticking. You only retain your copyrights for I think 70 years from the time you die. After that your work goes into thenpublic domain and anyone can print it or use it. What'sthe good of that?:headscratch:
I'm not sure about music though. How long before Elvis is in the public domain? Oh, I forgot, he more or less is already.:D
Gawd, if I ever DO write a book, remind me NOT to hire you guys to do my PR!:jump2:
Cool avatar, though, David - the Dragon Guardian of the City of London, no less! I'm still working on finding the "right" one - Monty Python's Holy Grail is just a temporary place holder. Adrian, I think you're right about the millions of colours.
Also, thanks for the great account of the October Plenty event, David. It was a wonderful celebration, but unfortunately I had WORK to do, so I couldn't stay around to dismantle John Barleycorn.
Having said that, I think I would have preferred to have dismantled The Berry Man, he was rather lovely...:wink:
Suzanne Olsson
11-01-2006, 01:29 AM
Dear Adrian and all,
The best way to creat avatars is to download a sweet little free program from the internet...
http://www.j-q-l.freeserve.co.uk/avatarsizer.htm
Even if the picture is 8 1/2 X 11 on your scanner, it will immediately create it as a 100x100 pixel avatar.(after you set the dimensions you want).no matter how complex the colors.. what I recommend is that you create a new desktop folder "avatars" and dump a bunch of pics into it so you can always quickly grab the ones you like...already sized..it's super easy to do with this program.
If you want to use animated avatars, they offer that program too
(I dont care to use them so I didn't download that program)
They ask for a one-time 5 dollar donation, and they're well worth it..but I haven't sent it in yet..
All the best,
Suzie
Suzanne Olsson
11-01-2006, 02:54 AM
RCH and DVB...
You can review my book anytime it's ready. I might wince now and again reading your reviews, but I would certainly know you're being fair and honest...for a five star review I even send rewards through Visa and Mastercard. :o
Sue
Cool avatar, though, David - the Dragon Guardian of the City of London, no less!
This dragon stands in the middle of the road -- the Strand -- very near the Royal Courts of Justice, of Baigent & Leigh vs. Dan Beige fame; Fleet Street, where all of our national newspapers used to live; the London School of Economics, where I'm pursuing my PhD; and the Devereux Inn, which hosts the best esoteric pub meetings in London, which I organise... :lol:
And the only way to take a photo of it against the sky, without the clutter of buildings, is also to stand in the middle of the (very busy) road......
But it's a damn fine dragon, and I'm proud to be associated with it.
David
RCH and DVB...
You can review my book anytime it's ready. I might wince now and again reading your reviews, but I would certainly know you're being fair and honest...for a five star review I even send rewards through Visa and Mastercard. :o
Sue
Sue, I can be a very hard reviewer, though I do aim to be fair and honest (thank you). I think Adrian breathed a sigh of relief when we left Another Place, that I wouldn't be reviewing his latest book there!
But do you mean an amazon review? And is that really how people get 5* reviews there? :D
AdrianGilbert
11-01-2006, 09:05 AM
I think Adrian breathed a sigh of relief when we left Another Place, that I wouldn't be reviewing his latest book there!
:D
I assumed you just hadn't had time to read it. :D
Suzanne Olsson
11-02-2006, 12:10 AM
Someone just emailed me who is a member of McGowan's forum saying they were discussing her book being made into a movie. McGowan said it is still in the early stages. She wants a say in all creative aspects of the film, and she's helping her forum members suggesting who should play the various roles, including that of Maureen Paschal.
Would anyone here have suggestions for Kathleen who should portray her as Maureen?
Sue
Someone just emailed me who is a member of McGowan's forum saying they were discussing her book being made into a movie.
Inevitable, I suppose, but may I gibber?
McGowan said it is still in the early stages. She wants a say in all creative aspects of the film, and she's helping her forum members suggesting who should play the various roles, including that of Maureen Paschal.
Control freak again. If you're well-known and well-respected, and have a strong agent, and the film people really want to do the film and so are prepared to suck up to you a bit, you might be given some input on the script, though even that's quite rare and your contributions will probably be cut at the final edit anyway. But I have never heard of any author being allowed to interfere in Casting.
Would anyone here have suggestions for Kathleen who should portray her as Maureen?
Oh, don't tempt me......
AdrianGilbert
11-02-2006, 02:43 AM
Surely there can be no doubt about this. From all that I have heard about this book (which I have still not seen), there can be only one person to play its leading female: Kathy McGowan herself. Who else could possibly take on such an important and complex part but its author who, coincidentally, is really her anyway? Despite David's flippant remarks, she should insist on this or not allow the film to be made at all!
That's what I think anyway but then what do I know?:dunno:
Willow
11-02-2006, 11:02 AM
Adrian ,
In this case I am inclined to agree with you. Kathleen should insist on filling the acting role of Maureen- the cute-petitie -red haired -sweet reticent adorable brilliant ...did I forget anything?
In America the singer-actress Dolly Parton created a theme park named after herself, called Dollywood.
I'm sure Kathleen could get her husband-band player to do the music score for the movie.
She claimed before that she has helped him write music or compose songs..then she tried to direct all her 400 forum groupies to her husband's website to listen to the music, buy his CD's, and offer their priase for her multi-talents. Let's see...400 CD's at 15 U.S. dollars each is about $6,000.00 She could buy a lot more designer shoes with that money...things she could sell on EBay again if the movie goes bust.
Why the mind boggles to think of all the inuendos.
Miss Kathywood! Fame has come to Kathleen at last!
And to think so many people claim they knew her when she was a mere offensive, untruthful , untrustworthy nut case.
Willow
Willow
11-03-2006, 11:55 AM
I had this idea that McGowan might be using some of Starbird's consclusions in her own research, especially the confusion about the 3 Maries, so I visited amazon (usa) to read about some of Starbird's ideas as written in her books. (no I haven't read any of them)
The negative reviews were more helpful than the 5 star reviews. After I read these, it felt like a thunderbolt struck , that's how powerful the connections between Starbird and McGowan jumped off the page. It left me stunned.
This only serves to heighten the importance of getting truth out there for the public, something that only intrepid people like DVB and RCH can provide.
http://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Gospels-Reclaiming-Sacred-Feminine/dp/187918155X
I urge you to visit the link and read the 1-star reviews, especially the comments about Dan Brown citing Starbird in his book.
I don''t know what to say. Has the whole world gone daft on Jesus head trips?
I feel left out. No spirits have contacted me yet. :confused:
Thanks, Willow -- that's fascinating. The three or four longer 1* reviews really do take Starbird's scholarship apart. (RCH and I possibly disagree on Starbird's scholarship and her conclusions, but that's fine.) What amuses me is that Kathleen McGowan has leapt on Starbird's "all the Maries are one Mary and she is the Magdalene" conclusion (which is now accepted by almost no scholars, Christian or secular) and made it the central plank of her novel. But with all the rest of the pseudo-historical garbage that is in that novel (or is it... The Truth???), I would think that Starbird would be trying to distance herself a little.
Meamwhile, over at amazon... I don't know if anyone else does, but I check in there every week or so to see if anything is happening. And in the last few days it's exploded into life again, both in the forum and in the reviews. Someone called Anna seems to be the latest defender (or incarnation?) of the great Kathleen, laying into everybody who dares even whisper a word of criticism. She's on the forum, and she's also attacking the 1* reviewers in the comment boxes. Here's her latest accusation, attacking one poor reviewer:
The facts don't lie. You are so out of touch blinded by anger. Hiding out in England because you can't come back to America. Tax Evader.We know who you are now and that is why it has become entertaing.Really it's quite amusing. We are dedicaretd to the Magdalene and Kathleen at the Yahoo forum which is why we dug until we found out who you were. Death and taxes.And you've been caught. Also ripping off Linda Goodman buried you in the end. She is watching you and your sock puppets.
In the forum she says:
I Just found out that the person who is using all the fake names to beat up on "The Expected One"is someone who stole from Linda Goodman and is unable to return to the states because of tax evasion. That certainly made this whole thing more amusing. Kathleen outed her a few years back to those who didn't know she stole from Linda and now it's pay back time.
Does anyone here have any idea what she's going on about? She seems fairly rabid (and semi-literate), but then St Kath's devotees always do seem to -- remember "Thomas"?! "We are dedicaretd to the Magdalene and Kathleen" -- at least now they're open about who they worship...
Also, St Kath has obviously been encouraging her believers to post 5* reviews; there have been loads of them in the last few days.
Incidentally, someone posted a long critical review of The Expected One in the amazon forum, borrowing quite a bit from my review here. Someone on the forum gave a link to it in its original incarnation in Another Place, some time ago. If anyone here is on that forum (Suzanne, weren't you there for a while?), would you like to give the current link, http://www.mania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2469 ? Thanks.
David
Suzanne Olsson
11-03-2006, 07:51 PM
Hi DVB...
On the advise of my attorney, I should not post at amazon if it has anything to do with McGowan because we may yet go to court someday. I can't post a link to your forum either. On second thought, I suppose I could if it will help you, so long as I dont use my real name....which is almost like a contagious disease at her amazon site!
The best advise I can give you is this: if someone borrowed heavily from your reviews, then that person probably read the review here first. Hopefiully they're still reading, saw your post, and will get the message. I agree if they're going to quote you they should credit their source. I see also where that person is a one time visitor who used someone else's account info to log in and post a review. Is the review a composit of reviews from the internet.? I think if they felt so strongly about posting a review, they should have used their own voice and credited others they borrowed from.
I have worked with an attorney about certain matters between McGowan and myself, but I have hesitated to 'jump in" to any litigation. I prefer to observe from the sidelines what fate has in store for McGowan. I have other matters going on in my life about my research and my book and I don't want it tainted by any association with her.
Her latest contributions, presumably as "Anna" refers to someone in England? I tried to see what posts you are refering to, but I couldn't find them all...however, it does seem obvious that it's Kathleen behind all those posts. She seems to be making only the flimsiest effort to hide her identity..
Is she trying to imply that someone here ( this forum) stole from Linda Goodman and is known at this forum? I came into this McGowan saga rather late, after someone contacted me about Kathleen and her seeming use of my creative material, ideas from my book, and ideas from my life.
That's why I took such an interest in this forum and the discussions about McGowan. And why I am interested in the outcome of the Dan Brown case..
I know there was a past between RCH and Kathy because RCH is mentioned as having emials and inside info. Does anyone know how to contact that Crystal Bush woman or her children? I've seen them refered to several times in internet posts. They would probably know more.
Regarding the reviews about Starbird, I have never read her books, and what little I know about her, she is an ordained minister in a new age church movement for the feminin divine. (?) .I know several very nice women involved in these movements but I personally have different interest and certainly very different conclusions about history and who/what Magdalene was. Otherwise, I know little or nothing about Starbird except that I don't agree with her conclusions. Again, this is a reflection of my years investigating the entire Biblical story from the eastern perspective on the Old Silk Road.
Well, interesting new developments, eh? . Thnaks for posting the info DVB..
Suzie
Suzanne Olsson
11-03-2006, 08:06 PM
Hi Adrian,
You asked me if this avatar was me? Or a child of mine? The answer is no...my children are prettier. :-)
After scouring the internet looking for an unusual avatar, I selected this picture because it goes so well with the "newbie" phrase....plus there's something refreshing and innocent about youth...it just appealed to me..when the "newbie" title dissapears, I'll probably replace the avatar..
meanwhile, please don't cuss around the children. :)
Sue
(RCH and I possibly disagree on Starbird's scholarship and her conclusions, but that's fine.)
Yeah, it's completely fine. I don't think we actually disagree per se, I think I just have a soft spot for Starbird because she and I started out on the Magdalene journey around the same time in the early 90s (when I was seeding MM archetypes in pop records) and we're still in contact on a regular basis.
She knows that I don't agree with the idea of a historical Bloodline of MM and Jesus, but we both totally agree on the need for the concept of the Divine Feminine as an archetype.
But my fondness for Starbird on a personal level doesn't preclude us from analysing her material here and, in some cases, I may be able to shed some light on it from a behind the scenes point of view.
As I said sometime ago... I personally know all of the real personalities - and the material - incorporated into the Da Vinci Code, which gives me quite a unique perspective.
It also means that, as soon as I open my mouth in public, I get battered with abuse and threats...
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 04:04 AM
Hi RCH,
You said:
I don't agree with the idea of a historical Bloodline of MM and Jesus
This is such an emotional point with me. First, because a certain family in Kashmir has the actual scrolls taken from the tomb of Yuz Asaf (Issa) that show their family line. We are cousins and we are going so far as to get our DNA compared. Then of course the DNA from Roza Bal must be obtained for further comparison. Plus there is a grave nearby in Kashgar where "a lady from the Bible" is entomed aboveground...I am involved with certain archaeologists (who work in the Tarim Basin every spring with ancient Tocharian mummies) hoping they can get the interest and the funding to examine that site and get the DNA...it's apparently one of the "Marys.."
I was so devastated when McGowan pulled her cheap publicity stunt about "bloodlines." We were on the brink of releasing the scientific and historical evidence for our case, but in view of the terrible way she handled things and the negative publicity she generated, we went into secret mode again..she has set the entire research project back a long ways..and with 99% certainty I can say Kathleen is NOT related to this bloodline.
so you see Robin, there are ancient scrolls, there are bloodlines to examine, and there is a wealth of supporting evidence not yet published..this is an exciting field and the work is just beginning..
but we both totally agree on the need for the concept of the Divine Feminine as an archetype.
You lose me here...in Buddhism there are no gender-specific approaches..all are one and one is all..the soul is sexless. If there are other problems, such as male-dominated prejudices, these should be addressed through the law and through activism...which has nothing to do with the refinement of a soul.
I personally know all of the real personalities - and the material - incorporated into the Da Vinci Code, which gives me quite a unique perspective.It also means that, as soon as I open my mouth in public, I get battered with abuse and threats...
NOW you're getting ino the meat! Robin, look at what's going on around us..people are buying into these "divine revelation" themes..It's so dangerous..it's pathetic to those watching on the outside who dont buy into this stuff. I get the occassional email from someone somewhere i the world telling me about their latest visionary experience.. sometimes going into depth about the day the world will end, or how Jesus spoke to them personally and told them exactly what happened.
I know at least two-three people who believe in reincarnations and send me their detailed "eye-witness" accounts of what they saw in Jerusalem the day Jesus died there...and none of the visions are "universal"...each is a very different account. One man even told me about the earthquake that day and how his friends pulled him out from the huge crack in the ground on Golgoth while an entire Roman garrison fell to their deaths. Surely such an event would have recorded by the Romans themeslves? Or other eye-witnesses? Yet he believes this is the absolute truth because his vsion was so real to him that he believes it could only have come from God.
Well, I could go on, but the point obviously is this: There has to be a way to check visions against reality.
You can provide that kind of reality check and save a lot of gullible mid-western housewives from a foolish and wasted fate..plus help those scholars and writers whose main objective is the truth in all things..
Don't worry about the abuse and threats part...we've got some good men onboard who will do the manly thing and protect you. Right Adrian? Right DVB? Hawklord? Alphaville? Fellas? Hey, fellas? Where are you?
Hmm...now the room is empty. Better bring your own ammo, Robin, looks like you might be alone after all. :-(
__________________
AdrianGilbert
11-04-2006, 04:16 AM
Meamwhile, over at amazon... I don't know if anyone else does, but I check in there every week or so to see if anything is happening. And in the last few days it's exploded into life again, both in the forum and in the reviews. Someone called Anna seems to be the latest defender (or incarnation?) of the great Kathleen, laying into everybody who dares even whisper a word of criticism.
Just a minute: Anna is the name of the Virgin Mary's mother. So that would make her MM's grandmother-in-law (according to the warped logic of the 'Jesus married Mary Magdalene tribe'). So perhaps this 'Anna' is Kathleen's, husband's grandmother. When you think about it, who else could it be? Just a thought:wink:
What is more interesting to me is the Linda Goodman connection. Is St Kathy also a reincarnation of LG? Actually that would be impossible as Linda didn't die all that long ago. So what is the LG material that people are 'ripping off'? Her 'Sun Signs' and 'Star Signs' books are obviously subject to copyright. So if anyone is copying from them, her publishers are going to have something to say about it.
As far as I know LG was a more than competent astrologer: much more than her books insinuate. So should we be looking for a renegade, American astrologer who is living in tax-exile in Britain? That should narrow the field down. Who could she mean? It can't be our 'Pole Star'. She's not an astrologer, is not in tax-exile or a thief of the LG legacy. It must be someone else. I want to know who. We should be told!:Eyebrow:
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 04:29 AM
So should we be looking for a renegade, American astrologer who is living in tax-exile in Britain? That should narrow the field down. Who could she mean?
OK...Now I'm confused.
It's all your fault Adrian...are you trying to tease me because I'm blond?
Don't worry about the abuse and threats part...we've got some good men onboard who will do the manly thing and protect you. Right Adrian? Right DVB? Hawklord? Alphaville? Fellas? Hey, fellas? Where are you?
Hmm...now the room is empty. Better bring your own ammo, Robin, looks like you might be alone after all. :-(
I suspect if I tried to "protect" Robin I'd end up with a black eye... She's one tough lady -- and she's blonde! :wink:
David
PS Hey, we've got the extra emoticons back!
AdrianGilbert
11-04-2006, 06:09 AM
OK...Now I'm confused.
It's all your fault Adrian...are you trying to tease me because I'm blond?
Well I'm as confused as you are...probably more so. Mary Magdalene in Kashmir? What's she doing there of all places? In our British traditions it is recorded that Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain, bringing with him twelve 'disciples'. One of these is named as Mary Magdalen and another as her sister Martha. Lazarus came too. I don't know much about Kashmir (mostly Muslim isn't it?) but I sure know about Britain. I would lay odds that if MM went anywhere it was here. After all the climate is a lot milder and according to Gildas the people converted to Christiainity as early as 36 AD.
As for teasing blondes, I've been doing it all my life. Although I used to have brown hair (it's grey now) I've got three blonde sisters.:D
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 06:45 AM
Hi Adrian,
No. I didn not say that the Mary buried in Kahgar is Magdalene.
I did say that the Kashgar Mari is known as the "lady from the Bible" and also by the name Marjan (Mari)..There were at least 3 Marys in the Bible. We can place Mother Mary very near to Kashgar at one time...I'm sure Magdalene died in France, but are you aware the Thomasian churches in India believe Magdalene went to school there? And they believe that's where Jesus and Magdlene met? Remember Jesus left for India when he was about 13-14 years old according to most traditions..his so-called 'lost years." One of the numerous "coincidences" is that they both attended schools at Magadha! Those were elite schools that many Roman families sent their children to...
There is a strong link between Hebrews and Hindus in India, everything from Abraham and Sarah as Brahma-Sarasvati, to the DNA of Hebrews and Brahmins...
Pakistan TV did a documentary a few years ago about the grave of Joseph, Jesus' father, well-documented on the Old Silk Road....
Now about the 'Muslim" connection.
This is a problem and the reason most westerners reject these graves. They think these are figments of Muslim imagination. But recall that Islam did not arrive until 500-600 years after Jesus died. They raided holy sites all over their newly conquered lands, and destroyed many historical records..they acquired and adopted whatever was there previously, including legends and historical sites. So if there was an existing grave for someone who was Christian, or Hebrew, it appears to the outside world that is now a "Muslim" site...forgetting its ancient pre-Islamic history. The only way it can be verified is if it appears in Indian-Tibetan literature that pre-dates Islamic claims...and these graves in the Himalayas were all recorded in Indian literature before the arrival of Islam.
Plus you must realize that Christians are not looking for a grave for Jesus because they don't believe he had one...the 'empty tomb' exists because they believe he went physically to heaven...yet enough literature exists about Jesus surviving the crucifixion...you might try the Askew Codex for one, which states that Jesus was still alive and still teaching the apostles 11 years after the crucifixion. That brings us up to about 44 AD, when Jesus and John Mark had business in Central Asia, and Magdalene, left alone during a crisis, fled quickly to France for safety, apparently under the protective wing of Jesus' uncle, Joseph of Aramethia.. Gardner mentions this trip of Jesus and John Mark in BHG..and it's supported by records in India.
This brings us to around 45 AD, (11 years after the crucifixion, just as the Askew-Codex claims) the year Jesus was recorded at the court of Gondopharnes (at Taxila) He and Thomas visited the temple of Solomon and left stones carved there as reminders of his visit, sort of like graffitti claiming "Kilroy was here!" These are in the possession of the Indian Archaeological Department..removed when the Temple of Solomon was "remodelled" for a new shiva lingam inside the temple rotunda.
and MM is alleged to have arrived on the shores of France around 44-45 AD ..So why would we have records in India supporting these events at that particular time? Can they all be explained as a lot of unusual "coinsidences?"
There are records in India, records in Tibet, records in Kashgar from Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims...but no records in Christianity because Christians closed their hearts and minds after the events of the crucifixion...when they believe Jesus should have died..they simply stopped looking anywhere else..
There are alleged graves for Jesus in India, in France, in Japan..but none come with the overwhelming evidence that is found with the grave in Kashmir...everything from ancient scrolls to local witnesses ...and all I've ever asked is that science examine the evidence, especially the physical evidence. This is not about dreams and visions. This is about solid hard core evidence that can finally prove or disprove the claims.
Well, nuff said..this is about my work and my beliefs and this forum is not the place to be discussing anything more than fleeting mention...just to keep my views here in proper perspective to the McGowan claims... I know most people don't understand and don't agree with me but That's what gathering evidence is all about, isn't it?
Sue
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 07:17 AM
As for teasing blondes, I've been doing it all my life. Although I used to have brown hair (it's grey now) I've got three blonde sisters
I had to revisit your forum site so I could count the hairs on your head and be sure you weren't fibbing...yupper, Adrian still has hair, all three of them...
Hee hee :p
I know most people don't understand and don't agree with me but That's what gathering evidence is all about, isn't it?
You know, Suzanne, I am really looking forward to reading your book. One of the things I like and respect about Adrian (as well as him being a nice guy) is that he doesn't blow his top if I tell him I don't agree with something in one of his books (so long as I'm reasonably polite about it!). He puts forward his arguments, and then it's up to the reader to accept them or not. There is a huge difference between this attitude and that of some of the writers in this broad field (alternative history, archaeology etc). I've been yelled at by Graham Hancock for (very mildly) challenging him; I've been pinned against a bar by Andrew Collins for daring to write a negative review of one of his books. Adrian's attitude is far more healthy. And from what you've said, I suspect yours would be very similar.
But (quick flip back to the main subject of this thread) there are some writers who simply cannot accept being challenged.........
That's not only dictatorial, it's also very unhealthy. And such a person cuts herself off from learning, from developing. Her choice -- but she has no right to impose it on her readers and followers.
AdrianGilbert
11-04-2006, 08:06 AM
Hi Adrian,
There are alleged graves for Jesus in India, in France, in Japan..but none come with the overwhelming evidence that is found with the grave in Kashmir...everything from ancient scrolls to local witnesses ...and all I've ever asked is that science examine the evidence, especially the physical evidence. This is not about dreams and visions. This is about solid hard core evidence that can finally prove or disprove the claims.
Well, nuff said..this is about my work and my beliefs and this forum is not the place to be discussing anything more than fleeting mention...just to keep my views here in proper perspective to the McGowan claims... I know most people don't understand and don't agree with me but That's what gathering evidence is all about, isn't it?
Sue
Not really my thing. I tend to believe the risen Jesus had a body of Light and he went off to Orion after he ascended. I seem to remember a famous book called 'Jesus Lived in India' which sold half a million copies in the 1980s. It talked about a tomb in Kshmir. I presume this is the same tomb you are talking about. My only concern is that even if they find a body in there, complete with holes in the hands etc. how could you prove it was Jesus? Even a DNA test won't do that since we don't have a definitive DNA source to compare with.
At the end of the day it all comes down to faith. People in Pakistan believe Jesus was buried in Kashmir. Some people (St. Kathy?) believe he was buried in France. I believe he went to the stars. Can any of us really prove anything about this very strange man?
What matters much more, of course, is how and when he is coming back. My research indicates that if there is any truth to the prophecies contained in the Bible then it must be very soon. That's what exercises me and to be honest I couldn't give a damn where the physical remains of his last incarnation ended up.
AdrianGilbert
11-04-2006, 08:14 AM
I had to revisit your forum site so I could count the hairs on your head and be sure you weren't fibbing...yupper, Adrian still has hair, all three of them...
Hee hee :p
Now this is getting personal. I've got a whole horse-shoe of hair besides the three on the top of my head. It's called male-pattern baldness and I've heard it's a sign of virility. That's what my father told me anyway and he was even balder than I am. At least it proves I am my father's son. :Laugh:
As for teasing blondes, I've been doing it all my life. Although I used to have brown hair (it's grey now) I've got three blonde sisters
I had to revisit your forum site so I could count the hairs on your head and be sure you weren't fibbing...yupper, Adrian still has hair, all three of them...
Hee hee :p
Now that's cruel! :Laugh:
You'll have to search a bit harder to find a photo of me online. Unlike Adrian's, my hair used to be grey...
AdrianGilbert
11-04-2006, 08:49 AM
Now that's cruel! :Laugh:
You'll have to search a bit harder to find a photo of me online. Unlike Adrian's, my hair used to be grey...
I notice, though, you've lost your newbie freshness. Is that like losing your virginity? If so, can you tell me how I can lose mine?:Smirk:
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 11:04 AM
At the end of the day it all comes down to faith. People in Pakistan believe Jesus was buried in Kashmir. . I believe he went to the stars. Can any of us really prove anything about this very strange man?
Yes, we can prove many things if we care to look.
As for his physical grave verses his flight to the stars. don't ya know both are probable?
Ever read 'Anna and the King of Siam" ?? (1870-became the movie, 'The King and I.")
Anna Leonowens wrote about the Buddhist monk who sat in the middle of the temple after declaring he was leaving his physical body for the last time to journey to the stars. His physical body sat there in that exact position for a week before anyone realized he really was long "dead"....he had simply seperated his soul from his body and left the old body behind.
Or descriptions by Paramhansa Yogananda how his guru (master teacher) would be in two places at once, lecturing students while visiting people who needed him on an emergency basis...
there's an account in India how Jesus visited (in spirit) the magi who had seen him at his birth. They met at the palace of Ravanna.
"Ravanna, a Prince of India, gave a feast. His palace was in Orissa (near ancient Magahda) and was a place where wise men gathered from all over the Far East. Ravanna was the prince with whom the young Jesus travelled to India many years before. The feast was made in honor of the visiting wise men. When Jesus appeared in the spirit, the magian priests from Persepolis and Casper were in silence, and the magian masters listened in awe and wonder as Jesus spoke to them, saying
"What I do all men can do. I am the proof that God exists."
Then King Ravenna replied:
"This man has just demonstrated to us the power of man to rise from carnal flesh to the spiritual body of Godliness. We knew him as a babe in Bethlehem, and of his many years of human life and his sufferings of trial and woe and sore temptations ." (source Aquarian Gospels).
Now of course one can debunk the Aquarian Gospels as mythical and imaginary source material...however several things do coincide. In addition to the descriptions of being able to seperate a body from a soul and be in two places at once (Jesus) , there are the names of the magi who visited Joseph and Mary at his birth.
There were not three magi. In fact the Thomasian account mentions 18 magi in that caravan! The Aquarian Gospel rightly identifies several others besides the most famous 3: Casper, Melchoir, and Balthasar. Furthermore, descriptions of the Star of Bethlehem say the star traveled with the magi, stopping when they stopped; resting when they rested.
And also from India is this:
The Rajatarangini picks up the story of this seperation of his old body and his 'new' body at death, and his travels at his death by adding this:
"He ascended to the Heavens and the people saw him go towards Kailas across the clear skies like another sun. And the streaks from his vimana are visible on the rocks to this day."
The Catholic Church calls the death of Mother Mary 'The Dormition"..a time when she seemed to have entered a long sleep. Then the angels, according to Catholic tradition, took her physical body to Heaven (which means they don't know where the body eventually went) A dormition is about the same description as the Buddhists gave us of seperating the soul and body..Yes? :)
So you may be absolutely correct, Adrian. And so might those families waiting patiently in Kashmir and the lady from the Bible who has her physical grave in Kashgar..
We have a long way to go in our understanding. A long way to go.
P.S.
Gee Adrian, I think you're kinda cute and sexy, even with three silver hairs.... :)
Suzanne Olsson
11-04-2006, 01:41 PM
I'm not going to ask Loretta if I can bring posts from her forum over here ...I'll just post these links to her current discussions about McGowan's "visions" and about Barry Gardner and McGowan::
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6087
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6092
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6096
sorry. I tried to make the hyperlinks but it didn't work.
They have mentioned that they're also reading this forum to gain information..which is a good thing,
to exchange information! I see the viewing count here is very high...only a handful posting here, but apparently being read by many many more..
No wonder. This is Interesting stuff.
Suzie
I'm not going to ask Loretta if I can bring posts from her forum over here ...I'll just post these links to her current discussions about McGowan's "visions" and about Barry Gardner and McGowan::
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6087
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6092
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DaVinciCodeForum/message/6096
sorry. I tried to make the hyperlinks but it didn't work.
They have mentioned that they're also reading this forum to gain information..which is a good thing,
to exchange information! I see the viewing count here is very high...only a handful posting here, but apparently being read by many many more..
No wonder. This is Interesting stuff.
Suzie
Like some other Yahoo groups, you have to join this one in order to read the posts. I agree, there are some good discussions there -- and they posted the whole of my review of the novel, with full attribution and link to our old home, but not to here.
Incidentally, the person who "borrowed" much of my review of The Expected One on the book's amazon.com page has now provided a link to here -- and also to the DaVinciCodeForum Yahoo group! So now everyone is talking to each other...... :)
Willow
11-04-2006, 07:44 PM
I found this interview with McGowan. Is this the one everyone was concerened about?
This is where she originally claimed she was an editor for the Irish Times of Belfast?
http://www.stonescryout.org/archives/2006/07/da_vinci_part_d.html
I got snowed under again, but I wanted to get back to this part of the discussion:-
What is more interesting to me is the Linda Goodman connection. Is St Kathy also a reincarnation of LG? Actually that would be impossible as Linda didn't die all that long ago. So what is the LG material that people are 'ripping off'? Her 'Sun Signs' and 'Star Signs' books are obviously subject to copyright. So if anyone is copying from them, her publishers are going to have something to say about it.
As far as I know LG was a more than competent astrologer: much more than her books insinuate. So should we be looking for a renegade, American astrologer who is living in tax-exile in Britain? That should narrow the field down. Who could she mean? It can't be our 'Pole Star'. She's not an astrologer, is not in tax-exile or a thief of the LG legacy. It must be someone else. I want to know who. We should be told!
Okay, this is part of the story that happened back when we all involved with Kath back in the late 90s, after the Disney book fiasco. Before Kath became Mary Magdalene's descendent, she was claiming to be Linda Goodman's successor. It should be noted that Kath, by her own admission, never actually personally met Linda herself.
I know the whole Linda Goodman saga both originally from Kath's own version of events and later from the view of the woman who was Linda's mentor at the end and had promised Linda that she would publish Linda's last book - Kath had been introduced to this woman by a literary agent in LA (who I also knew) in an attempt to do them both a favour. I watched the end of the saga unfold as it happened, so I have personal experience of this situation as well and I also still have all of THOSE emails, which are extremely revealing.
Basically, this involved a relatively small circle of people and we all knew each other.
Then, last summer, when I read on the internet that Kath was repeatedly accusing this woman of libelously attacking her, I did the legally responsible thing in my capacity as an investigative journalist and tracked this woman down to get her version of the story firsthand...
It transpired that not only was this woman NOT perpetuating these attacks against Kath, but she didn't even KNOW that Kath had a book out until I had told her! She was STUNNED to hear that she was being accused of perpetuating internet attacks against Kath.
This woman is quite elderly now, in her 60s, and is quietly minding her own business running a company that has nothing to do with this genre at all. She fulfilled her promise to Linda by publishing Linda's last book posthumously, in the way Linda wanted it, and has moved on.
I asked her if I could publically write the truth in an article and she said that she didn't want to be involved, that the whole saga was sick enough the first time around. At this point, she and I made an agreement to stay out of this mess and let Kath's own karma take care of events and that's what we've both done, despite what Kath has publically claimed about both of us.
So, out of respect for this woman's wishes, I can't tell you the whole vile story, not even my own personal side of it... all I can say is that, from what I know, Kath's claims against her are wholly untrue and, in my opinion, extremely malicious.
AdrianGilbert
11-05-2006, 04:13 AM
...I asked her if I could publically write the truth in an article and she said that she didn't want to be involved, that the whole saga was sick enough the first time around. At this point, she and I made an agreement to stay out of this mess and let Kath's own karma take care of events and that's what we've both done, despite what Kath has publically claimed about both of us.
So, out of respect for this woman's wishes, I can't tell you the whole vile story, not even my own personal side of it... all I can say is that, from what I know, Kath's claims against her are wholly untrue and, in my opinion, extremely malicious.
Oh come on Robin, you can tell me! Perhaps in private over a couple of glasses of vino. This saga gets more and more bizarre all the time. You've really pricked my interest now.:D
Willow
11-05-2006, 04:20 AM
Robin,
Hmmm...gets more interesting by the moment.
what actually happened with Disney that resulted in another lawsuit?
I heard that Disney sued her and won, but the actual circumstances are vague.. What was that all about?
I've heard internet rumors of course.....but not the same as hearing it from those closest to the truth.
what actually happened with Disney that resulted in another lawsuit?
I heard that Disney sued her and won, but the actual circumstances are vague.. What was that all about?
I've heard internet rumors of course.....but not the same as hearing it from those closest to the truth.
That's the problem: most of us have just seen the same stories being circulated on different forums and blogs. Here, from the Barnes & Noble reviews of The Expected One (some of which are fascinating), is an (alleged) biographical round-up:
So let's examine the other claim the author made, that this is based on her life, this is 'autobiographical' and she really wants us to believe her and her visions because she is such a nice trustworthy person after all. In the buy another bridge category, I examined the author's online presence. That was better than the fictional autobiography she wrote! The author's background is a wonder in itself. She has religious visions and experiences that are very real to her. She also has a former life as a proclaimed hereditary Wiccan goddess, and as a covert operative for the Government, and as the sole and rightful possessor of Linda Goodman's work (which coincidentaly Linda Goodman herself placed online years before to share with the world). Threats of lawsuites followed her claims. Finally, we have her experience as a 'certified hypnotherapist' (total educational requirement is 2 days online) As a Disney 'special events' coordinator, she was hypontizing Disney employees as a sideline. She gathered so much 'secret' information that she broke with the code of ethics for hypnotherapists to write a 'tell-all' expose about Disney and Eisner. Threats of lawsuites followed. That book flunked mightily. Are you surprised? Well, you get the idea. Neither this book, 'The Expected One' nor this author, Kathleen McGowan, have the credibility required to make this combination work. Save your money and buy lunch instead. The slight indigestion would be 'The Expected' One' and much more palatable than this book.
And these allegations about McGowan's lawsuits come from a site called NewsBusters:
She has made many public claims through the years that include being associated with secret witch covens and being a spy of one sort or another. She caused a ruskus at the old "entropic" forum (Laurence Gardner) several times, and much of the material in this book has apparently been traced back to her days copy and pasting from that forum.
After getting a "24 hour" type hypnotherapist degree online, she "hyponotized" Disney employees into telling her their troubles, then tried to cash in with a tell-all book about Disney. Lost in the courts when Disney apparently sued her first. Then, undaunted, she tried writing another book based on "visions" . This time it involved copyright protected material from the Linda Goodman heirs when she worked for Crystal Bush as a secretray. . When McGowan tried to publish 'Star Cards' as her own work, acquired from more visions of course, the courts again ruled against her.
A third lawsuit involved someone named 'Oxenberg' and she apparently lost that one too.
Now we have "The Expected One" , her next novel based on more "visions" and information she claims was acquired through "secret documents".
Then this comes from a site called SlushPile.net:
Do a little more research and what comes up is that Kathleen McGowan has had three prior publishing efforts. Each ended badly for her in the courts when it was determined she acquired her “original” material unethically. Eisner sued her and won at the Disney court case. The estate of Linda Goodman and Crystal Gail won a lawsuit against her when she tried to publish protected material as her own. Then there’s a lawsuit with someone named Oxenburg.
The problem is, these accounts all seem to be referencing each other (as, of course, am I at this moment!). It's possible that the whole thing is just the result of a series of Chinese whispers whereby if you repeat rumours often enough (especially on the internet) they become accepted as fact. I would like someone to set down the actual facts, with supporting documentation.
But then, in a spirit of fairness, I'd want McGowan to do the same for the supposedly factual claims in her novel. Somehow I doubt if that will ever happen.
Honest, that's the name of the site! It ran one of those silly "10 Interesting Questions" interviews with Kathleen McGowan. Here's one response:
Interesting piece of fiction, given that this author has changed her name and her life story so many times over the last ten years it's difficult to guess what she's going to "be" next: covert IRA operative, hereditary high priestess of an Irish witch coven, editor of a newspaper that denies she ever worked there, beneficiary of the estate of astrologer Linda Goodman (denied by the executor of Goodman's estate), and now the "expected" descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Hopefully once day she'll invent a new persona she'll stick with.
As I suggested in the previous post, it's quite possible that things become distorted in the telling, so here's a response to that from the same site. I don't know which (if either; or both) is true.
I have known Kathleen McGowan for 12 years. I know her family and we spent time in Europe together so I am qualified to set the record straight. This person is posting these lies all over the internet. She has 6 different identies on Amazon. She even stalks Kathleen on Amazon.com USA, Amazon, UK,Amazon Canada and Amazon Germany posting the same lies. Here is why. But first,The post regarding Kathleen McGowan changing her name,(She married someone with the last name McGowan) wow. Regarding IRA operative, she worked as a writer for a Los Angeles based newspaper called "The Irish Times & Entertainment" and lived in Ireland. While living in Ireland she interviewed people who claimed connections to all paramilitary groups. The author of the post is related to a person who stole from Linda Goodman and is bitter because Kathleen knew Linda and knew this person stole from Linda. kathleen outed this person and now she is bitter. And last but not least, Kathleen is a decendant of JC & MM but so are millions of others that is except this bitter bitter little woman.
Oh, what a wonderful, warm, loving, forgiving, beautiful world we all live in.
As Pilate is supposed to have said, "What is truth?"
And finally, for now (I really must get some work done this afternoon!), here is Kathleen McGowan's amazon.com review of the Linda Goodman Star Cards. Remember, RCH says "It should be noted that Kath, by her own admission, never actually personally met Linda herself."
* Buyer Beware - This is NOT Linda's Work!!, December 28, 2005
Reviewer: Kathleen McGowan "Author, www.themagdaleneline.com" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
I was involved with the conception of this project and I even wrote the original drafts. I knew Linda Goodman and I knew Crystal Bush. It is, in my constitutionally protected opinion, a fraud of the highest order to put Linda's name anywhere on this product.
<snip>I've edited this post, as amazon claim ownership of all reviews on their sites, and I don't want to infringe their copyright. To read the whole thing, just look for "Linda Goodman's Star Cards" on amazon.com. DVB<snip>
The dishonesty and evil intent that surround this product are unworthy of Linda's beautiful energy.
Avoid at all costs.
If, as all the reports say, Ms McGowan sued over the Linda Goodman cards and lost, it's strange that she's claiming all this stuff.
Is there any truth, anywhere, in this whole messy saga?
Okay, folks, compare and contrast. Both these statements are by Kathleen McGowan.
1.From amazon.com:
I knew Linda Goodman
2. From http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000100.html
Although I had never met Linda face to face, I once had a memorable encounter with her on the telephone, and had made contact with her on several occasions through a mutual friend.
So it all depends on what the word "knew" means......
The Linda Goodman forum cited here contains two long passages by McGowan telling of her involvement with the Linda Goodman Star Cards project -- obviously very much her side of the story. It also has a link to McGowan's old site http://www.emeraldtablets.com, most of whose links are either dead or non-existent or connect to http://www.theexpectedone.com/. It doesn't seem to have anything about the Linda Goodman cards, though it does contain two "Mystical Teen Stories", one entitled "Saga of a Real Life Teenage Witch" and the other beginning It has been one of the great blessings of my life to be born into a family of "hereditary witches," where ancient magical practices were passed down from generation to generation. My magical druid of a mother encouraged and nurtured my psychic gifts from early childhood...
Does the word "stories" mean they're not supposed to be taken as factually true, but contain Inner Truth? Who knows.....
You've done such an excellent job of cyber-investigation, David, that I really don't need to add much more. Maybe if you and Adrian get me drunk enough, I'll spill the poop behind the internet gossip - off the record, of course. Who knows, I might even bring along some of her email printouts with me...
The only thing I would add is that Kathleen Harkey's married name is actually... Smith. If you do a bit more investigating you'll discover that "gowan" is gaelic for Smith:-
http://www.rampantscotland.com/clans/blclansmith.htm
Quite clever, eh?
I must admit that I was highly tempted at one point to create a fictional character called Mary Magdalene Smith... ya never know, I might even still do it. :Tongue:
Maybe if you and Adrian get me drunk enough, I'll spill the poop behind the internet gossip - off the record, of course. Who knows, I might even bring along some of her email printouts with me...
Hey, girl, you asking us out?
A threesome?
:eek: -- or to spell this one out, EEK!
Okay, folks, compare and contrast. Both these statements are by Kathleen McGowan.
1.From amazon.com:
I knew Linda Goodman
2. From http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000100.htmlAlthough I had never met Linda face to face, I once had a memorable encounter with her on the telephone, and had made contact with her on several occasions through a mutual friend.
So it all depends on what the word "knew" means......
I've been thinking about this. As a journalist, over the years I've spoken to all sorts of people on the phone, including bishops, lords and MPs (that's Members of Parliament, not Military Policemen!). I wouldn't claim to know any of them. At conferences and at parties I've met and drunk with and talked to a fair number of dignitaries and celebrities; does that mean I know them? I once interviewed Art Garfunkel's brother over dinner; so do I know him? As an author and musician I've met plenty of other authors and musicians; but if I'm honest I would only claim I know some of them, certainly not all of them. Probably the two most unique people I've met in the last ten years, for a few hours each, are Britain's first astronaut Helen Sharman, and the Siberian Messiah Vissarion; I'd love to say that I knew them -- wishful thinking? arrogance? -- but it would be a lie.
AdrianGilbert
11-05-2006, 10:51 PM
Probably the two most unique people I've met in the last ten years, for a few hours each, are Britain's first astronaut Helen Sharman, and the Siberian Messiah Vissarion; I'd love to say that I knew them -- wishful thinking? arrogance? -- but it would be a lie.
Sounds like we need a definition of what it means to 'know' someone. I would say that one condition is that they also 'know' you. If you met them again at a party or disco and they came up to you saying 'How you doing?' then you know you know them. If you walk up to them and they give you a blank look while shaking your hand, then clearly you don't.
In your case Robin I think you are being hard on yourself. Not only do you know millions of people but unlike me You remember their names after only hearing them once. That's a major achievement. I suppose it has something to do with memory mapping. Does it?:)
I've been thinking about this. As a journalist, over the years I've spoken to all sorts of people on the phone, including bishops, lords and MPs. I wouldn't claim to know any of them. I'd love to say that I knew them -- wishful thinking? arrogance? -- but it would be a lie.
Now let's hypothetically imagine that you were Linda Goodman's mentor for the last couple years of her life and Linda implored you as her last wish to finish her manuscript and publish it and then someone starts a decade long internet crusade, claiming that THEY are Linda's true successor because they once had a telephone conversation with her...
In your case Robin I think you are being hard on yourself. Not only do you know millions of people but unlike me You remember their names after only hearing them once. That's a major achievement.
Heh-heh. Well, under your criteria, I guess I could say that I KNOW the Priory of Sion and that it's my god-given mission to carry on their work.
I should write a book about all the strange experiences I've had and the documents I've been given along with the fake Sekhmet artifact from the underground Temple of Isis in Arques that I have on my desk. Then I could carry on as the true grandmaster of a secret order that I couldn't possibly talk about because it's far too dangerous... I might even be able to re-enact ancient rituals culled from long-hidden family documents and sell fake titles for £5000 a pop.
Sir Adrian Gilbert has a nice ring to it, don't you think?:wink:
In fact, hang on. I think I can hear Linda Goodman calling out to me from beyond the grave... YES! Sorry, I can't type any more now, I've got to go dye my hair orange...
AdrianGilbert
11-05-2006, 11:54 PM
Sir Adrian Gilbert has a nice ring to it, don't you think?:wink:
Very nice. You know this has got me thinking: why is it that only the monarch (on the say-so of Tony Blair) can make someone a knight these days? In the past you could be knighted by any Lord, say the local Earl. All you needed to do was prove you were worthy. When was it that this power was taken away from the nobility and concentrated into the hands of the king? My guess would be during the reign f Henry VIII. Does anyone know any better?:headscratch:
Very nice. You know this has got me thinking: why is it that only the monarch (on the say-so of Tony Blair) can make someone a knight these days? In the past you could be knighted by any Lord, say the local Earl. All you needed to do was prove you were worthy. When was it that this power was taken away from the nobility and concentrated into the hands of the king? My guess would be during the reign f Henry VIII. Does anyone know any better?:headscratch:
The centralisation of honours, huh? I'd blame Tony Blair... :Laugh:
Within the higher degrees or side degrees of Freemasonry there are all sorts of titles, including knighthoods, but these are only relevant within the context of that Order. The same applies to some other esoteric religious Orders. There are some not-so-serious exceptions. John Rimmer, founder-editor of Magonia magazine, is sometimes referred to amongst friends as Sir Sir John Rimmer, because he's been knighted both by King Arthur Pendragon and by the weird-&-wonderful humorous writer Robert Rankin as a character in a couple of his novels.
(I've been offered a knighthood by King Arthur a couple of times, but he didn't have Excalibur with him -- would you travel on the London Underground with a wacking great sword? -- and I refused to be knighted with a table knife. Incidentally, King Arthur once wrote to Prince Charles offering him a knighthood, but I don't think he got a reply.)
The problem (sorry: one of the many problems!) with Laurence Gardner and "HRH Prince Michael of Albany" and the rest of that idiotic crew is that they give each other all sorts of made-up honours but then, unlike Freemasonry etc, they use these honours outside their context. So Gardner claims to be Le Chevalier Labhran de Saint Germain, Prior of the Celtic Church's Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes, the Jocobite Historiographer Royal, et cetera ad infinitum/ad nauseam -- none of which has any meaning or validity whatsoever in the "real" world.
Sounds like we need a definition of what it means to 'know' someone. I would say that one condition is that they also 'know' you. If you met them again at a party or disco and they came up to you saying 'How you doing?' then you know you know them. If you walk up to them and they give you a blank look while shaking your hand, then clearly you don't.
Exactly. I was going to use this example myself. If you start a conversation with "Excuse me, you probably won't remember, but we met three years ago at..." then it's safe to say that you don't know them.
But what is really nice is when the opposite happens: when you're at a party and someone very well-known who you've met a couple of times but don't expect to remember you, walks up and greets you by name. That feels good!
AdrianGilbert
11-06-2006, 02:50 AM
The centralisation of honours, huh? I'd blame Tony Blair... :Laugh:
The problem (sorry: one of the many problems!) with Laurence Gardner and "HRH Prince Michael of Albany" and the rest of that idiotic crew is that they give each other all sorts of made-up honours but then, unlike Freemasonry etc, they use these honours outside their context. So Gardner claims to be Le Chevalier Labhran de Saint Germain, Prior of the Celtic Church's Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes, the Jocobite Historiographer Royal, et cetera ad infinitum/ad nauseam -- none of which has any meaning or validity whatsoever in the "real" world.
It used to be possible to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and get yourelf initiated (and knighted) into the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. However, HRH has closed this loophole. If you are a British citizen (sorry: subject) you are not allowed to receive a foreign knighthood. It is considered treasonable to do so. Rats!:Tongue:
It used to be possible to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and get yourelf initiated (and knighted) into the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. However, HRH has closed this loophole. If you are a British citizen (sorry: subject) you are not allowed to receive a foreign knighthood. It is considered treasonable to do so. Rats!:Tongue:
But Britons are from time to time given a papal knighthood. Can't remember who, but I've written a couple of news stories about them in the last year or so.
Maybe you're allowed to receive it, but not to use the title. This is the case with British honours given to foreigners. The journalist Alastair Cooke was given a knighthood, but as an American citizen couldn't be called "Sir Alastair". The same applies to Bob Geldof, an Irish citizen, though he's often (incorrectly) called "Sir Bob Geldof".
While we're on incorrect title attribution, I want to scream every time I hear people (even BBC newsreaders) saying "Princess Diana". Her correct title was "Diana, Princess of Wales". She was a princess only by marriage, not in her own right, so cannot be "Princess Diana".
AdrianGilbert
11-06-2006, 05:21 AM
While we're on incorrect title attribution, I want to scream every time I hear people (even BBC newsreaders) saying "Princess Diana". Her correct title was "Diana, Princess of Wales". She was a princess only by marriage, not in her own right, so cannot be "Princess Diana".
Ah, but she was the Queen of Hearts.:D
Ah, but she was the Queen of Hearts.:D
Or Tarts, in the opinion of some...
AdrianGilbert
11-06-2006, 06:37 AM
Or Tarts, in the opinion of some...
Does that qualify her as a relative of Mary Magdalene?:rolleyes:
Does that qualify her as a relative of Mary Magdalene?:rolleyes:
In one of the more ridiculous Diana conspiracy theories, yes. I think she was supposed to give birth to the new Christ Child (fathered by Bill Clinton, I'm sure I read somewhere!) -- so her removal from the scene might mess up the calculations for your other thread, which I'll respond to later...
Dammit, I've just given KMcG the plot for her next novel.
Alphaville
11-15-2006, 11:26 AM
In one of the more ridiculous Diana conspiracy theories, yes. I think she was supposed to give birth to the new Christ Child (fathered by Bill Clinton, I'm sure I read somewhere!) -- so her removal from the scene might mess up the calculations for your other thread, which I'll respond to later...
Dammit, I've just given KMcG the plot for her next novel.
Bill Clinton? This can't be true, I'm quite certain the father was to have been King Juan Carlos of Spain (that French bloodline, you know).
I wouldn't worry too much about giving a good plot device to Madame McSmith, it's fairly certain where her plotline is headed (Atlantis).
Alpha
Alphaville
11-15-2006, 12:02 PM
If, as all the reports say, Ms McGowan sued over the Linda Goodman cards and lost, it's strange that she's claiming all this stuff.
Is there any truth, anywhere, in this whole messy saga?
Note the inclusion by McGowan of the bit about her "constitutionally protected right" of free expression. She's no longer claiming to have co-authored "Star Cards" (which the legal judgment against her would prevent her from claiming) but instead asserting that the finished product is not the work of the late Linda Goodman, published posthumously. She's skirting the law by saying as much as she can say under her constitutionally-protected right of free expression to cast aspersions at the woman who she sued unsuccessfully.
As to the "Oxenburg" allegation, that involves the actress Catherine Oxenburg, who hired McGowan to assist her in getting a novel on paper. Once Oxenburg had a publishing deal for the work lined up, McGowan sued her for half the royalties that would be due to a co-author. Because Oxenburg hadn't covered her bases well enough with a formal contract, she killed off the publishing deal rather than give in to McGowan's blackmail.
Finally, McGowan didn't marry a man named McGowan, she married a man named Smith. It's doubtful that she legally changed her name to McGowan. Her husband isn't a U.S. citizen and couldn't change his name in a U.S. court, and county court records from a small claims settlement dated in June 2006 show that her legal name is still Kathleen Harkey Smith.
Alpha :popcorn:
I hadn't come across this story before; I can't find anything about it online. It all seems thoroughly unpleasant. Presumably McGowan's devotees either don't know any of this, or only hear her version of the stories.
Having said that, it's very easy to get into a messy situation if you don't have a contract. Ten years or so ago I edited a non-fiction book by my Nigerian upstairs neighbour, to tidy up his English. I took on the job as a favour and we agreed a fee (much reduced because he was my neighbour) and shook hands. Then I started work. I had to not only rewrite every sentence of the book from start to finish, but also to restructure the whole thing. It was about ten times as much work as I'd expected. I did the work, he paid me, and eventually the book was published. I didn't even get an Acknowledgement. (I wasn't even given a courtesy copy of the book.) Yet without my work it would certainly never have been published.
Did I sue him? Of course not. I'd have had no grounds whatsoever. Our agreement was on a handshake, I'd agreed the fee before knowing how much work it would entail, I was prepared to accept a reduced fee; I had no one to blame except myself. I chalked it up to experience and walked away from it.
Whether McGowan had any more of a moral or a legal case than I had, I don't know, but I really dislike what appears to be her sue-first-ask-questions-later approach. It's unnecessary, it's aggressive, and it increases the amount of unpleasantness in the world.
Suzanne Olsson
11-16-2006, 04:23 AM
Hmmm...McGowan-Smith seems to have more than a fair share of legal entanglements and misunderstandings. I could accept one, even two as normal in life, but this seems to be an ongoing saga with her.
How many times can she be "misunderstood" and "the victim" without it seeming like an unhealthy pattern emerging? As I recall at the amazon forum, whenever someone dissagreed or asked for reasonable explanations, rather than discuss anything or explain anything,she immediately went into defensive mode. Then she went into "victim" mode and wanted everyone to believe she was being attacked by lone mad women stalkers and was somehow the "victim" again... she even dragged her family into the discussion claiming they were stalked and victims too... oh my. The drama of it all. The wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth...
I had a relative with a behavior pattern something like that....a hyper-emotional drama queen who we all avoided because it always led to deep entanglements and burned out emotional impacts...everything in her life had to be high drama...she was never wrong; it was the rest of the world wrong for not understanding her..her outlook on life was so confused and distorted that she'd need years of therapy...and that wasn't likely to happen. I felt sorry for her husband.
I don't think they ever change...I think they're incapable of that. It's about psychological (pathological?) and emotional problems, not about legal problems..
So I half-expect that courts will always be in Smith-McGowan's future in one way or another...for one reason or another..
the lawyers may come here and garner background information...at least it's all in one place! Not like the old days when they actually had to work hard to research their cases. :)
Although I'm not qualified to make any sort of judgement on Ms McGowan's state of mind, your comments do seem pertinent, Suzanne. But I'll make my comments general, rather than applying them to any particular person.
In my work on new religious movements I've come across a fair number of "professional victims" who, sadly, the anti-cult organisations seem to encourage. Today's flourishing therapy culture also encourages the "I want to be a victim too" mentality, and in such highly dubious areas as UFO abduction, past life analysis, Satanic Ritual Abuse and "recovered memories", there often seems to be a competitive element: "I want to be a bigger victim than you".
The only time I've been threatened with legal action was by the Church of Scientology, and in that field they are the professionals; they can afford the best lawyers -- and letters from their lawyers are seriously scary. They were mainly claiming defamation, though as L Ron Hubbard is dead, he can't be defamed... I'm reminded of what an LA judge said about them (and I can quote this safely because it comes from a court case):
The organisation clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of the founder, LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements... [Also his] vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile.
Judge Paul G Breckenridge, 1984
Hmmm.
Suzanne Olsson
11-16-2006, 07:41 AM
well said David...that about sums it up...
Hmmmmm
You're a man of few words...but dam good few words. :)
They say it all.
AdrianGilbert
11-16-2006, 08:41 AM
The only time I've been threatened with legal action was by the Church of Scientology, and in that field they are the professionals; they can afford the best lawyers -- and letters from their lawyers are seriously scary. They were mainly claiming defamation, though as L Ron Hubbard is dead, he can't be defamed... I'm reminded of what an LA judge said about them (and I can quote this safely because it comes from a court case):
Hmmm.
Oh yes, Scientology. Look what it's done for Tom Cruise. Need I say more?:eek:
Oh yes, Scientology. Look what it's done for Tom Cruise. Need I say more?:eek:
And guess who's going to be interviewed about this at 10.30 on BBC Radio 5 Live tonight? On my mobile, of all things -- I'm going to be at a pub meeting (Skeptics in the Pub) with ace investigative reporter Jon Ronson speaking, and will have to excuse myself to slip out and talk about Tom bloody Cruise and his wonderful, wonderful religion.
It was originally going to be the 10pm BBC TV News, but they rightly decided that there were more important stories to cover.
Of course, having been in a pub for 3-1/2 hours before the programme, I may not be quite as cogent as I might want to be...
well said David...that about sums it up...
You're a man of few words...but dam good few words. :)
They say it all.
Why, thank'ee kindly, ma'am. :cool:
Alphaville
11-16-2006, 12:45 PM
I hadn't come across this story before; I can't find anything about it online. It all seems thoroughly unpleasant. Presumably McGowan's devotees either don't know any of this, or only hear her version of the stories.
Her devotees typically know nothing of McGowan's dirty laundry until it gets aired in public and she tries to sanitize it.
Alpha
Alphaville
11-16-2006, 01:11 PM
Hmmm...McGowan-Smith seems to have more than a fair share of legal entanglements and misunderstandings. I could accept one, even two as normal in life, but this seems to be an ongoing saga with her.
How many times can she be "misunderstood" and "the victim" without it seeming like an unhealthy pattern emerging? As I recall at the amazon forum, whenever someone dissagreed or asked for reasonable explanations, rather than discuss anything or explain anything,she immediately went into defensive mode. Then she went into "victim" mode and wanted everyone to believe she was being attacked by lone mad women stalkers and was somehow the "victim" again... she even dragged her family into the discussion claiming they were stalked and victims too... oh my. The drama of it all. The wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth...
I think it's fairly clear that the problem lies with McGowan, as she is the one repeatedly filing lawsuits and claiming victimization. Whether one is hired as an editor/proofreader or as a ghostwriter, the implication should be clear from the start that the person doing the hiring is the one whose name will appear as the author on the finished product. To accept a paid assignment under one set of terms and then sue for better terms after the fact shows a profound lack of integrity. It's not difficult to see why she had difficulty getting paid jobs after her disgrace at Disney - or why she changed her name.
Alpha
Whether one is hired as an editor/proofreader or as a ghostwriter, the implication should be clear from the start that the person doing the hiring is the one whose name will appear as the author on the finished product.
You would think so, but not quite necessarily. Some years ago a novelist friend of mine took on a hack job in order to pay the bills: to ghost-write the autobiography of a well-known but very boring soap star. This was on the condition of anonymity. He was horrified when the book was published to find his name on the cover as co-author, for all the world to see...
Suzanne Olsson
11-18-2006, 08:07 AM
note to all: I spent a few moments looking at the topics, wondering where the best place to post this would be...finally I decided here only because we all meet and read here..Please feel free to move this post to an area you consider better suited.
Dear Adrian,
Just finished reading your wonderful book, the Magi. There were a few
moments while reading that I feared we were saying almost verbatim
exactly the same things about the magi....but then you made a quick
left where I made a quick right, and our paths of discovery seperated
yet again...Also there was a moment or two when we trod the same paths
of experience and felt the same pangs of loss standing amid desecrated
tombs and scattered bones..and I had to smile at your experiences with
backsheesh...I always wondered how to spell that word..it's such an
integral part of protocol in many places around the world.
I enjoyed your book. My book has taken a very different direction. But
I learned much from the direction you chose...and after all isn't that
what a good read is all about?
I wish you very well deserved success with your book(s)..You're a
terrific scholar, researcher, and writer..the world is blessed to have
your contributions, which help shed much new light on the enigma that
is Jesus..
Shalome.
Sue
AdrianGilbert
11-20-2006, 12:11 AM
Dear Adrian,
Just finished reading your wonderful book, the Magi.
I enjoyed your book. My book has taken a very different direction. But
I learned much from the direction you chose...and after all isn't that
what a good read is all about?
I wish you very well deserved success with your book(s)..You're a
terrific scholar, researcher, and writer..the world is blessed to have
your contributions, which help shed much new light on the enigma that
is Jesus..
Shalome.
Sue
Well thank you for your endorsement Sue. I have to say that although I wrote Magi over ten years ago, it remains my favourite book that I've written. Perhaps that's because it is a very personal journey and reflective of my inner beliefs.
Now you've read 'Magi', may I recommend you move on to 'Signs in the Sky'? This forms the next chapter, so to speak. Whereas 'Magi' is mostly concerned with the 'hidden history' of the time of Jesus, 'Signs' follows the same lines of reasoning but brings matters up to the present. I think you would enjoy it.:)
Meanwhile I look forward to reading your won book some time.
Best wishes,
Adrian.
Suzanne Olsson
11-23-2006, 01:00 AM
Oh my...McGowan has now linked me with this forum and has me in her sights.
I am officially a nut case, along with Robin and a few others.
I am glad I'm being lumped together with such good comapny.
Oh my...McGowan has now linked me with this forum and has me in her sights.
I am officially a nut case, along with Robin and a few others.
I am glad I'm being lumped together with such good comapny.
And it's good to have you with us, Suzanne. :)
I'm surprised that she and her forum of devotees haven't burned effigies of me, after my review of The Expectorant One here. But maybe she hasn't wanted to draw their attention to something which shows what a poor researcher and writer she is! And, unlike some of the amazon reviewers and forum writers, I was quite polite. (Actually, so are most of them -- it's her supporters who are so offensive.)
Alphaville
11-23-2006, 08:51 AM
I'm surprised that she and her forum of devotees haven't burned effigies of me, after my review of The Expectorant One here. But maybe she hasn't wanted to draw their attention to something which shows what a poor researcher and writer she is! And, unlike some of the amazon reviewers and forum writers, I was quite polite. (Actually, so are most of them -- it's her supporters who are so offensive.)
It's a sure sign of panic setting in. I used to think that McGowan's acolytes were simply naive and easily misled. That may be true of some, but there are a good number of them who know her story is fatally flawed and yet choose to keep the fantasy alive. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
Alpha:popcorn:
Suzanne Olsson
11-24-2006, 04:24 AM
I just read as many forums and comments online as I could find about McGowan...like David, I found several were cut and pastes from other places..I found some of my own comments posted by people I dont know. The amazon fourm was interesting too...everyone who posted got accused of being someone else.
I was accused of being someone else when I know I never made the posts I was blamed for. That's a common mistake.
I made it here at this forum when Chebogue posted. I could swear she was McGowan,. It turned out to be a very sweet lady I knew from somewhere else..not at all what I expected..I felt awful. Goes to show how wrong we can be.
I think lawyers would be a good thing. It would sort out who is who, plus a whole lot more..
Meanwhile, David will keep us all in garlic.
Sue
Suzanne Olsson
11-24-2006, 07:48 AM
An open letter to Kathleen McGowan
Ms. McGowan,
You are making a lot of threats and accusations and I will gladly respond to these.
First, you accuse me of being jealous because my book ‘failed’ and yours was accepted by a publisher. My book has not failed.
When I was living in Bangkok, Thailand, a few months after leaving Pakistan and India, someone represented himself to me as a college professor-lecturer with the University of Vienna. He offered to look over my research material and book outlines, and assists me because he said this was his area of specialty. I saw his web pages associating him with the University of Vienna, and I accepted his offer and sent him my material. I asked him how he thought I should best compile it. Within a few days he published all my research material, including my hand-drawn maps and charts, on his website. There was no mention of my name to any of it. The man was a fraud.
It took many months to finally get the removal of all that copyright material. It made me realize how valuable this research was to the world, that people would do anything to get it. Meanwhile, I was advised to publish everything I had, even though it was all in a very unfinished state. At least this would ensure my copyright protection. I self-published that book through Authorhouse. A few weeks later I redid the book slightly and republished with Booksurge. During all this time I was hoping that certain information from Kashmir could be made public. It was central to my book’s claims.
I realized it still was not a proper “book” and it lacked these certain documents as proof. I did not want people to misunderstand and judge this as the finished book so I withdrew it again after only a few weeks until I could organize it and write it properly. That’s the state of the book now. It is not failed. It is not even launched yet. It is here on my desk being edited.
On one forum you accused me of having only two five-star reviews from fake sources.
I would not consider ‘Church of the East’ a fake source. I especially will not allow you to imply anything so derogatory about an 85 year old scholar, who held the highest positions of office in Indian archaeology, to be called a fake. He has devoted his life to uncovering the truth about Jesus in India, and he has risked his life for his beliefs. Every few months another bomb goes off near his home. We all live in fear for his life. That he has continued in the face of extreme dangers and obstacles is a credit to his deep and unshakeable beliefs that Jesus was there, in Kashmir.
Kathleen, you published your book based on sensational claims that you were somehow the “Grail child,” the “Expected One based partly on your claim of 'visions." ”I know that regardless how many years ago you were a member of the entropic and other forums, you were never claiming to be a grail child or an expected one until after you became aware of my website and my research. This is verified by people who have known you and the general contents of your book for many years. These are the people who first contacted me about you. They realized immediately that you and your book were morphing into some imitation of me and my book. They spotted this and contacted me because you raised that alarm with them. I didn’t even know you.
I have a genealogy in my family that goes as far back as a generation or two after Jesus. It is irrefutable and unwaiving. It has nothing to do with Laurence Gardner’s books or Dan Brown, or Michael Baigent claims. Why do you think I followed the trail to India? There is a scroll with the family genealogy on it. There are people there who claim direct descent to Jesus through that scroll and the location where it was found. It is not a “secret’ scroll. We were getting ready to make it public.
One man has dedicated years of research into this before making a public statement and publishing his findings. We were all waiting until he was ready. His research is due to be released by spring. I knew this. I was supposed to be the co-author of this book, but I felt I did not contribute as much as he had.. He has done most of the work, so a few weeks ago,, I suggested he release the book in his name. It seemed the right thing to do.
I held back everything pending this book's release. And now I presume you were aware of this too. In your book, you made claims to a secret bloodline and secret documents AFTER you and I met, and AFTER we discussed these issues.
,
The only conclusion I have about you now is that you deliberately used my research, and information from me to create your own publicity stunt and sell your book to publishers. Your entire publicity campaign was centered on those claims. They were never your claims; they were mine and those of my friends and family in Kashmir. In Kashmir there is a real grail child. She is 14 years old, a very beautiful girl. We have spent years gathering the records and trying to obtain the DNA proofs, especially from the tombs.
You have destroyed her life and broken her heart with the cheap publicity stunts you pulled. No, it gets worse than that. You have blocked the research into the tombs and set us all back because now certain authorities in India fear another publicity stunt like you pulled. Such publicity antics cause zealots to threaten to blow things up again. You have unleashed hell on the reserachers there. Eveyone has dove for cover until you and your book fades away from memory. That's how much damage your claims have done to others.
You have shattered the hopes of an entire country, of people who know this work and support it, of people who know the value of going very slowly and very carefully to gather solid evidence. Not only peoples’ lives, but the destinies of countries , and even of religions, depend upon this research and a provable outcome.
I first heard about your publicity claims from friends in India. Apparently your publishers released your book there first, with much hype. They were shocked when they saw your claims. They emailed me full of anguish over what you had done; realizing immediately that what you had done was a direct theft of my property rights. That’s how I found out about your claims.
It felt like a knife in my heart, but I was still willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I began reading what others had to say about you.
Now I have NO doubt at all that what you have done is legally and morally reprehensible, and I am prepared to enter any courtroom against you anywhere in the world to let the law decide about your visionary claims.
Suzanne Olsson
Suzanne wrote: Now I have NO doubt at all that what you have done is legally and morally reprehensible, and I am prepared to enter any courtroom against you anywhere in the world to let the law decide about your visionary claims.
I think when claims of visions and other religious experiences have ended up in court, the courts have usually decided that such things are beyond their judgement. But intellectual property disputes are another matter, as Dan Brown found earlier this year.
Everything I've read about your book seems fascinating, Suzanne. I'm really looking forward to reading and reviewing it when the new edition appears. Where has KMcG been attacking you? I just looked at the amazon page for your book; I'd say those reviews are pretty damn impressive! Then I looked at the amazon page for her book. A few new reviews since I last looked, and nothing new in the forum there for a couple of weeks. Is it on her Yahoo group? -- I don't think there's any way she'd allow me to join that, with her devotees-only policy. From what I've heard about it, I suspect it's a club I wouldn't really want to belong to anyway...
Suzanne Olsson
11-24-2006, 03:57 PM
Hi David,
Kathleen had posted something implying my friends were somehow fakes..
I turned livid...Church of the East and an old man who is considered a national treasure in his country, and has authored over 30 books and articles on archaeology and religion are not exactly fakes. So I responded immediately...we yanks call it 'shooting from the hip.' No rehersals. No legal advise. Probably a stupid thing to do. But it felt dam good.
Ok...I think I'll take Kayla, my little pound puppy, to the beach for a few days and regain my cool...I lost my cool, and that's embaressing. :romy: see why we needed that 'prayer' moticom??
Keep the coffee warm and see you all in a few days..
Sue
Keep the coffee warm and see you all in a few days..
Sue
And I'll put a drop of whiskey in it...
Suzanne Olsson
11-27-2006, 05:07 AM
Hi Folks,
Kayla and I are back from the beach...much needed R&R...
Hope you are well and Robin is solving that Marantha puzzle...Sounds very diffiuclt to me!
Sue
Ok...I think I'll take Kayla, my little pound puppy, to the beach for a few days and regain my cool...
This may be an Americanism, or is a pound puppy...
a breed I haven't heard of?
or one you bought for £1 (= c. US$1.93614 = c. E1.47632)?
or a small dog that weighs 1lb (= 454 gm)?
or one that you acquired from the dog pound (a canine rescue facility)?
D :headscratch:
Suzanne Olsson
11-27-2006, 08:03 AM
Kayla was 'rescued' from SPCA the day before her 'expiration' date. She is a pure-breed Llasa Apso, 3 years old. Early in life she was trained and prepared for show....she is very well trained and obedient. But then she fell on hard times and was passed from family to family..abused and neglected..and at times teased and tormented.
Lasa have very long hair that is time consuming to keep well groomed. It matts, and Kayla was so matted they thought she was lame and blind when they got her. She had to be anesthetized so they could shave off thick, stinky, dirty matting that was criippling her legs and blocking her vision.
Terrified of men, children, black plastic bags, and rainwater...they had given up on ever rehabilitating her or finding a home for her.
I took her on a trial basis..after all, there was always euthenasia if she didn't work out.
Well, by golly, she's the best dog I ever had! What a sweetheart. Eager to please, outgoing, happy, obedient...what more could anyone ask for?
Her pedigree is from a championship line in India, that's probably what attracted me to her. Her name was Kalalaya...I dropped the xtra syllables.
And that's Kayla's story. :) Oh, I forgot to mention, I love her very much, and judging from all the attention and love she gives me, I think the feeling is mutual...
After several weeks' silence the amazon forum has suddenly woken up again. Sue, I thought you should know that you're being mentioned, in connection with a quotation from "the Kolbrin", about which I know nothing. I'm not quite sure what the point is that he's making; do you understand it?
D
Suzanne Olsson
11-28-2006, 02:07 AM
Hi Dave,
I think the point about the Kolbrin is that was the inspiration for the writing of McG.'s "secret scrolls of Mary Magdalene." Some lines appear to be directly lifted from passages in that book...and those are passages that I had permiission to use before the Kolbrin Trust published them in America or abroad..
The second point is that I covered the same information about Jesus and "The Way" several years ago..(and it's still a part of my current book) all McG. did was change the name from Jesus to Magdalene..and viola! "Secret sacred scrolls" are born..
Sue
all McG. did was change the name from Jesus to Magdalene..and viola! "Secret sacred scrolls" are born..
Oh, I do so love creative mistypings!
Now, if KMcG has a character called Viola in her next novel, we'll know that she reads this discussion... Voila!
Suzanne Olsson
11-28-2006, 05:13 AM
Sorry David...
My keyboard doesn't speak French. :-(
Poor Viola..I wonder who she is?
I Should have typed the French Voila with the accent on the 'a'
Sorry David...
My keyboard doesn't speak French. :-(
Poor Viola..I wonder who she is?
I Should have typed the French Voila with the accent on the 'a'
I tried that, but it didn't recognise my HTML. Let's try again: Voil[à]. Nope. Any gurus around?
D
AdrianGilbert
12-31-2006, 05:27 AM
Hey Guys, What happened to all the bitching about the bitch and her mongrel off-spring? Have you run out of things to say or are court cases looming? We on the side-lines love to watch a good cat-fight. so how about some more scratching and hair-pulling!:Tongue:
I think Robin and I are composing ourselves so that we will be calm and collected at the Baigent & Leigh Appeal beginning a fortnight from today.
When they win we can run down the Strand crying "Whoop-de-doop!" But until then a little decorum is in order.
David
the Baigent & Leigh Appeal beginning a fortnight from today....
...coincidentally about 10 seconds' walk from where I took the photo which is now my avatar.
AdrianGilbert
01-03-2007, 09:36 AM
I think Robin and I are composing ourselves so that we will be calm and collected at the Baigent & Leigh Appeal beginning a fortnight from today.
When they win we can run down the Strand crying "Whoop-de-doop!" But until then a little decorum is in order.
David
I would have come with you but alas I shall be cruising the Carribean at the time. It's a hard world isn't it.:)
Suzanne Olsson
01-03-2007, 07:06 PM
Hey David and Robin,
Be sure you don't leave us hanging! Let us know how the court case goes..
Some of us don't have time for Caribbean cruises, and, like you, we DO take an above average interest in such cases. :popcorn:
David, the picture you took is just stunning! I seem to recall feeding pidgeons near the base of that statue..
I trust you've all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...
Sue
AdrianGilbert
01-05-2007, 11:38 PM
David, the picture you took is just stunning! I seem to recall feeding pidgeons near the base of that statue..
They must have been very brave pidgeons. That statue is right in the middle of the road, where the Strand meets Fleet Street. There was once a Wren designed gateway there called Temple Bar. This was removed in Victorian times to allow better traffic flow. Just recently it has been returned to London and it now stands proudly at the entrance to Paternoster Square on the north side of St Paul's Cathedral. As this is a pedestrian precinct, you should have no difficulty feeding pidgeons. Except, of course, that that is banned under the diktat of the new commissar for London: Mayor Ken Livingstone (no relation I think to the more famous and certainly more saintly Dr Livingstone of Africa fame).
Perhaps one day they'll move the dragon too so that we can take photographs of it that aren't silouettes. Meanwhile, there is always Holborn Viaduct, which spans what was once the River Fleet and which has some impressive shields and supporters of the arms of London.:D
Hi... sorry I haven't been around, I got tied up liaising with the police about nutcases again and then when I came back there was a killer pop-up ad in residence that crashed my browser. It seems to have run its course now...
Have a great time on your lecture cruise, Adrian... maybe you can start a Mayan thread in here and update us as you cruise along?
Yes, David and I will be at Baigent and Leigh's appeal... it's no secret that we hope they win so that the real truth can finally begin to come out!
Anyway, I'll try to check in more often now that I can actually read the site without being attacked by a perverse white screen.
Willow
01-06-2007, 04:10 AM
Welcome Back RCH..
We missed you, and the place nearly fell apart without you.
Willow
PaulSmith
01-07-2007, 12:53 AM
Spamming is not tolerated. Read our FAQ before engaging in this messageboard system, Paul. -Administrator
DarkJedi
01-07-2007, 01:30 AM
Paul, your one link is not a contribution to any messageboard discussion. It's considered "spam". If you added text and perhaps tried to contribute rather then just use a post as providing a link, it might be another story.
I made this pretty clear in that pm you sent or email. If a person wishes to contribute to a community, it seems pretty clear in how they interact.
You have violated the FAQ & The Rules of Our Community. This name is now banned for that violation.
Willow
01-07-2007, 03:35 PM
Hey.Jedi..are you sure you're not my mum? Incognito?
I think I recognize that tone of voice from somewhere else.
:headscratch:
They must have been very brave pidgeons. That statue is right in the middle of the road, where the Strand meets Fleet Street.
Brave pigeons? Hah! Pigeons can fly away from oncoming traffic. I couldn't when I stood there taking the photo!
Perhaps one day they'll move the dragon too so that we can take photographs of it that aren't silouettes.
That was a function of the bright blue sky behind it, not of where it was. The main difficulty (apart from avoiding being run over) was making sure there was a patch of sky behind it, rather than bits of London's astonishing roofscape getting in the way.
Suzanne Olsson
01-09-2007, 03:01 PM
Brave pigeons? Hah! Pigeons can fly away from oncoming traffic. I couldn't when I stood there taking the photo!
I award you a medal for bravery. Well done David!
Have a nice day. :)
shidorak
01-11-2007, 04:23 AM
"...in our archives we have a note from the I.N.S.S.E dated 15 December 1954 advising us that Monsieur Pierre Plantard was sentenced on 17 December 1953 by the court in St. Julien-en-Genevois to six months imprisonment for a ‘breach of trust’ under articles 406 and 408 of the Penal Code." - Mayor of Annemasse, 8 June 1956
Three letters dated 22 March 2004, 20 April 2004 and 10 May 2004 from Monsieur Serge Champanhet, the Secretary General of the Sub-Prefecture of St Julien-en-Genevois (4 Avenue de Geneve, 74164 Saint Julien-en-Genevois, Haute-Savoie), have both confirmed the existence of the 1956 letter and Plantard’s conviction.
Now take legal action against Paul Smith.
LOL
Suzanne Olsson
01-11-2007, 07:47 AM
Dear Shidorak,
Yes, Paul Smith can throw some punches! I wrote him an email about his post…he hasn’t replied yet. If he posts things just for shock value and ego because it increases his page hits, then I doubt he’ll amend anything. However, if he’s a ‘truth seeker’ as he claims, then he’ll give a fair shake and make the corrections.
When Laurence Gardner published B.H.G., I was living abroad (in Fiji and all points south pacific; I used to scuba dive there a lot). By then I had already been involved in our own family history back home. It started when I helped my grandmother and the local museum directors gather family Bibles and chronologies from everyone and everywhere...usually attics and smelly old steamer trunks.
Several of these family Bibles had stories, you know, notes in the margins and all that, about the sword of Geodfry (First Crusade) It hangs in the Church of the Sepulcher in Jerusalem now. It took the monks half an hour to figure out where it was because nobody has asked to see it in about a hundred years, but eventually we found it and I got a picture of it...but it's nailed to a wall now, and impossible to see the sword out of the scabbard.
When Mark Twain was there, they took the sword out of its scabbard and showed it to him. In his book, (was it in ‘Innocents Abroad” or “A Tramp Abroad’? I don’t remember now…) Anyway he was smitten by it and wrote a glowing description…and it made us feel so proud to know this was part of our family history.
Like all families, we had some missing links in our records. It seemed that L.G.’s genealogies filled two or three of the lost names in, especially 2nd and 3rd century from Christ. I made up a rough genealogy and posted it online so the family could check it out and verify or discard. And yes, I did publish it online…a rush job done in Fiji several years ago.
It wasn’t until I returned to the States two years ago that I found out about the whole fake genealogy fiasco. I was very embarrassed and deleted all the links to that page. Apparently, as fate would have it, Paul managed to find one remaining link that I overlooked and of course he published it with much trashing…the man is consistent in his style, I’ll give him credit for that.
There was another post that he lifted with my name on it…from a gal named Carmen who has a website called ‘The Refiner’s Fire.” She contacted me this past year…very friendly and supportive, claimed to be a devout Christian. She supports a “Jews for Jesus’ website, and believes it is her holy God-given mission on earth to convert every Jew to Christ…Our relationship ended rather quickly over some minor disagreement about religion. Then she sent me a mocking email telling me about the web page she posted. She lied on that web page and quoted me for things I never said. After a few emails demanding she at least quote me correctly, , I gave up on her. She’s having too much fun and getting too many page hits off my name to change anything now…so much for decent and devout “Christians”…(remind me never to fall for that line again)
I went to Kashmir looking for new genealogy clues, new links to the Jesus stories…and lo and behold there are ancient scrolls there with genealogies on them…I even met ‘cousins’ there: we shared a common ancient grandmother or grandfather…but just to be sure, we're going one better...
We are working on the DNA…that’s already been in the news several times so I assume you know about that. But I can’t tell you more about the genealogy because Professor Fida Hassnain will do that soon. He has spent many years meticulously going over the background material so he can be the first to publish it. Then it will be out there and available for public scrutiny by everyone…even the scrolls will be made available. If they be wrong (or not) then so be it. You can all judge that for yourselves. There will be no “secret scrolls” or secret sources in our careers…
It sent me into a spin when I had to delete everything I 'thought' represented the serious research of serious scholars and start over. It sent thousands of us into a spin because so many families DO have lineages to within a century or two after Jesus’ death. Don’t you think we’d all like to know the truth? Don't you think we cringe at the damage people like McGowan have done to us?
We have all learned a painful lesson from people like L.G. and Kathleen McGowan. It is very important to be careful and honest, and do it right…or be prepared to be ridiculed and shamed.
I have deleted whatever genealogy pages were left online…and certainly feel foolish about them…we’ll see what Paul does next, if he will also kindly delete them from his forum... That’s entirely up to him, but it would be the gentlemanly thing to do...he can attack me for my book when it's released. then, I would consider that fair if he truly finds major faults with it..that's his judgement call. I looked over his forum, and he has made some good points there.
We’ll have to wait and see what Fida sends us out of Kashmir… I work constantly with people around the world trying to get DNA from “certain family tombs’ who were also Biblical characters…This summer I'm hoping for one grave ...just one...that may yield someof the most important DNA of the millenium...it's in Kashgar, China...and I am prepared to go there if we can get permission from the Chinese Government..That's a works in progress..
We have a long way to go…and I hope we have the support of the world because we're being open and honest about all this, and eager and willing to share our results with anyone who will listen. …as someone once said:
“The world doesn’t need more Islam, or Judaism, Hinduism or Christianity. The world doesn’t need more Buddhists. What the world needs is the truth.”
We’re still trying to stay grounded and achieve that for all of you.
Sue
Suzanne Olsson
01-11-2007, 12:53 PM
My. My. Mr. Paul Smith has problems with credibility too. Paul, I am saddened by all this. For a few moments I actually thought you were a sane, rational, and fair man...
I think you and Carmen (of "Refiner's Fire" fame) should meet and be engaged...Minds like yours with hers are a perfect match.
At least You ought to take her out on a date. You have so many quack and conspiracy theories to share!
Really you should get out more. What am I to think about all this now?
http://www.rose-croix-veritas.com/Priory%20of%20Sion.htm
Paul Smith has achieved fame as the arch debunker of the Rennes le Chateau mystery.
He now spends so much time on this that debunking this mystery has clearly become a nice little earner for him.
Paul Smith refuses to enter into debate with me. In short - I terrify him.
Every time I e-mail him pointing out his numerous anomalies, his response is to immediately change the subject, call me a Plantard junkie and ban my mail address.
He is the principle motivation for me constructing this website. Here his every argument is blown apart.
I hope that eventually this website will become so in his face that he will be forced into an open debate instead of his normal practice of sniping from a distance.
Henry Lincoln has challenged Paul Smith to a TV debate several times, Smith has refused on every occasion.
That tells a story about the validity of Mr Paul Smith.
More pedantic drivel from Smith. Smith says he reviews this book and hardly mentions it at all.
Smith's slight of hand designed to deceive.
Paul Smith is required immediately to alter a statement he made here.
This is a deliberate attempt at deception, Smith should immediately alter his ambiguous statement.
http://www.priory-of-zion.com/
He attempted to trade facts here for a short while, eventually after a very short while he resorted to name calling for a while he eventually chickened out completely when he realised his argument was being systematically taken apart.
Paul Smith has no argument that will stand up to being challenged, he runs and hides only in forums that consist of persons with little knowledge of this subject, that way he can thrive on their ignorance.
:confused: Is anybody around with a full deck?
Our egos are not sacred
Only the truth is sacred whoever said that, Thank you!
shidorak
01-11-2007, 02:45 PM
Eric Michael Tull of
http://www.rose-croix-veritas.com
does not know anything much about things like Rennes-le-Chateau and the Priory of Sion --- the books by Henry Lincoln are his Bible and Henry Lincoln is his Guru.
If you want to believe that the Priory of Sion exists, that Sauniere discovered something "special" and that his Church is "special" and that there are "mysteries associated with his activities 1885-1917, that Philippe de Cherisey's fake "parchments" are authentic, that there is sacred landscape geometry over the region of Rennes-le-Chateau, that Gino Sandri and Jean-Luc Robin should be taken seriously, then you should take Tull's website seriously.
There is not a single serious researcher anywhere who would take a second look at Tull's website.
Suzanne Olsson
01-11-2007, 03:31 PM
Shidorak...who is Eric Michael Tull?
I am way behind all you folks...I still dont understand the 'Priory of Sion" concept..I was far away while you were all exposing fake geneaologys... Dan Brown and Michael Baegent could have been engaged for all I know about them..and Laurence Gardner is their adopted son? And they all read and write bedtime stories about each other?
When I speak of Kashmir, and Jesus in India, you all draw the same blank look...
I dont mind listening and learning from you....but I'm afraid I cant contribute anything important or new...
What am I to think about all this now?
http://www.rose-croix-veritas.com/
http://www.priory-of-zion.com/
Suzanne, I'm no fan of Paul Smith; he's been unpleasant about me on his website, and I've watched him destroy Yahoo groups by his spamming and his thoroughly nasty vitriol. I suspect he's attempted to do the same here.
But I am instinctively very uneasy about any website which says, on its front page, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a genuine document". It's a proven fake, but is still being touted as real by anti-Semites. I'm just saying we need to be careful who we quote and, by inference, ally ourselves with!
townsland_works
01-12-2007, 03:19 AM
It would be fair to say that Yahoo Groups have tried to destroy Paul Smith
The success of Dan Brown's novel 'The Da Vinci Code' has spawned numerous satellite and terrestrial documentaries that have investigated the affair none of which to date have officially endorsed any of the ludicrous and popular claims (albeit the debunkings were sometimes extremely soft in nature). The Yahoo Groups took those allegations very seriously and debated them over around and around in circles in tens of thousands of messages. Of course, the owners of those Yahoo Groups did not welcome any messages that discredited any of the fanciful allegations contained in books like "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail".
Two points.
1. There are many Yahoo and other groups, message boards etc which expose the idiocies of DVC and similar works; we've done it ourselves here, and previously on Phenomena.
2. Paul Smith has exactly the same right and ability as everyone else to argue his point of view on such groups -- but instead he spams them with garbage, and hurls childish abuse at other people on the groups. That is not acceptable behaviour from any member of a group, which is why so many Yahoo groups ban him. If he behaved as a civilised adult human being, treating other people with respect even when he disagrees with them, then he would have no problem.
townsland_works
01-12-2007, 12:55 PM
Plantard's criminal convictions and anti-semitic activities are not a matter of opinion, conjecture or points of view - they are historical facts - historical facts that the vast majority of people on Yahoo Groups still cannot come to terms with even now.
Yahoo Groups are mainly comprised of people who want to believe in the existence of the fictitious Priory of Sion in one form or another - and the previous mentioned facts in relation to Pierre Plantard are rigidly not tolerated on the Yahoo Groups.
A lot of people believe and say a lot of things which are factually incorrect. That is no reason for anyone to be abusive, as the person in question frequently is. There is also no excuse for spamming a discussion group; that is simply bad manners and immature behaviour. It's because he behaves in this way that he gets himself banned. It's his bad behaviour that is "rigidly not tolerated", not what he says about Plantard or the PoS.
townsland_works
01-12-2007, 02:28 PM
It's his bad behaviour that is "rigidly not tolerated", not what he says about Plantard or the PoS.
So the folk on Yahoo Groups are going to tolerate Plantard's criminal convictions and the accounts of his anti-semitic activities if it is going to be presented in a reasonable manner. That is never going to happen.
Personally, I don't give a damn whether Plantard had criminal convictions or not, or why it's so important. As for him being anti-Semitic, sadly a lot of French people of his generation were, and far too many today still are (and I'm saying that as someone who loves France and has a lot of French friends).
But I find it strange how you generalise about "the folk on Yahoo groups"; it's certainly not been my experience that they all speak with one mind! Indeed, that's part of the fun of being on Yahoo groups: stimulating discussions with people with widely differing points of view.
townsland_works
01-14-2007, 08:09 AM
Plantard's criminal convictions cast doubt over his personal integrity as an individual - especially when fraud is involved - and indeed the whole of Plantard's content relating to both the Alpha Galates and to the Priory of Sion involved fraud and forgeries.
The same thing applies to his anti-semitism - anti-semites are usually right-wing nationalists - and Plantard first claimed to be a Messianic-type Saviour of France ("Pierre de France") during the 1940s before later putting Royal Blood in his veins by the 1960s claiming to be the direct descendant of Dagobert II.
Two important points relating to Pierre Plantard.
Your second point, I've already dealt with. Anti-Semitism was fairly common in France during WWII, and yes, it tends to be even more common amongst the right-wing, by definition. Plantard was hardly unusual in being anti-Semitic.
I'm not quite sure of the point of your first point. If Plantard had criminal convictions, and if indeed these were for fraud (although to date I have seen no evidence for either assertion), then yes, these might be an indication of his character. Or, of course, they might not, in that some people commit a crime, are convicted, serve their sentence, and reform -- that, after all, is supposed to be one of the aims of the criminal justice system. So a criminal conviction in the 1950s may or may not reveal anything about a person's character, his "personal integrity", in the 1980s.
However, all of your protestation seems to indicate that you are arguing against someone who claims that Plantard was a really nice cuddly guy, a fine, upstanding gentleman, a pillar of society. Otherwise, why protest so much? But does anyone claim this?
In other words, what on earth is all the fuss about?
zadek11
01-14-2007, 12:33 PM
Your second point, I've already dealt with. Anti-Semitism was fairly common in France during WWII, and yes, it tends to be even more common amongst the right-wing, by definition. Plantard was hardly unusual in being anti-Semitic.?
Plantard's anti-semitism was an integral part of his Priory of Sion creations of the
1960s, 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s linked to right wing Nationalism the best examples being the bogus Merovingian genealogies. The Merovingians were
anti-semitic.
If Plantard had criminal convictions, and if indeed these were for fraud (although to date I have seen no evidence for either assertion), then yes, these might be an indication of his character. Or, of course, they might not, in that some people commit a crime, are convicted, serve their sentence, and reform -- that, after all, is supposed to be one of the aims of the criminal justice system. So a criminal conviction in the 1950s may or may not reveal anything about a person's character, his "personal integrity", in the 1980s.?
Plantard did have criminal convictions. Quoting the Mayor of Anemmasse from
8 June 1956: ""...in our archives we have a note from the I.N.S.S.E dated 15 December 1954 advising us that Monsieur Pierre Plantard was sentenced on 17 December 1953 by the court in St. Julien-en-Genevois to six months imprisonment for a ‘breach of trust’ under articles 406 and 408 of the Penal Code." - Mayor of Annemasse, 8 June 1956". "Breach of trust" fits in with deception, fraud and confidence trickery.
Plantard may have not broken any further laws in relation to fraud after 1953 (although he served another time in prison between 1956-1957) but he continued committing fraud in relation to bogus historical allegations throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. See the Priory Documents.
What on earth is all the fuss about?
Plantard's blatant bogus historical allegations, hoaxes and forgeries remain highly popular. New books based upon Plantard's historical deceptions appear quite reqularly. See the titles on Amazon. The views found in those books fit in with the views of many of the members who belong to Yahoo groups. You yourself have already mentioned Eric Tull and have seen his website.
And there MUST be a fuss because rch keeps disabling posting!
The evidence lies HERE!
DarkJedi
01-14-2007, 12:55 PM
And there MUST be a fuss because rch keeps disabling posting!
The evidence lies HERE!
That's not true. First, only I can ban people or disable posting in forums. Second, the only ip and username I have banned from this discussion is a username named Paul Smith because his post was just a link to another site(therefore spam). All other usernames are still active and I don't ban users for presenting opposing opinions. As long as they go after the opinion and they don't spam, they're free to present their sides to the debate.
So there we are. Not rch's fault at all! An apology for the false accusation, perhaps?
I'm guessing that usernames Shidorak, townsland_works and zadek11 are all disguises for Paul Smith; why he should find this approach necessary, goodness only knows.
So people like made-up stories and conspiracy theories. We know that. It's hardly a great revelation. And there are people on Yahoo groups and elsewhere challenging these pseudo-histories just as there are people believing them.
And why you're making a fuss on this forum I don't know. Both in this incarnation and when we were on the Phenomena site (and, in fact, in Phenomena magazine when it was running), we have done our bit in pointing out some of the idiocies and errors in both Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Kathleen McGowan's Expected One. For myself, over the years I must have written dozens of critical reviews of pseudo-historical and astro-archaeological books.
And once again, I think you're protesting an awful lot against someone who I don't think I've ever read anyone supporting. Why?
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 04:21 PM
Well, I shouldn't do this because you guys seem to have your own history to hash out, but I would like to comment on the posts made by Paul Smith at his own website. Someone came into this forum and eagerly pointed out that Paul was making posts there about me. So I went over to Paul's website to look. Sure enough, he had cut and paste from several forums, including this one and Adrian Gilbert's...plus a long obscure (I thought deleted) post from my own website. He strung these all togther with a few negative comments...
I sent him several emails and asked him to make corrections. In the last email, I pointed out that he was demanding "sources" for my information. I explained to Paul that if I listed my sources online from my yet unpublished book, there would be a hundred copy-cat websites up overnight , all claiming to have the "real" inside scoop. Then I would be accused of copying them instead of they copying me! I can point you all to one website in particular that I have been accused of copying from.
In fact he was someone who took all information from my manuscript and built an entire website about "his" discoveries...Now he at least admits he got the info first from me...and the way he's butchered it because he doesn't have all the facts is even more disturbing to me...but he's a 76 year old man who has some very eccentric approaches and I'm not going to engage in a battle of the wits with an unarmed man...err, senior citizen.
But regardless that I tried to explain to Paul, he has not corrected the information or the charges he makes against me at his forum. Now I realize how Paul's inner mind works. It's not really about "Truth" and exposing people. He seems to have an angry streak and this is more about hurting people, about lashing out in anger toward others..otherwise he would respond and be willing to make corrections or enter into dialogue..but he never does...
Truth is a victim here, truth is NOT not the real reason Paul began all this..
Paul posts what he thinks will anger, insult, hurt, defame,and increase his website hits by piggy-backing off the names of others. He gleefully looks at his page hits as though that makes him something important: as though people are actually listening to him.
But where is he posting original ideas and intelligent discussions? It's all cut and paste for shock effects..with a few one liners thrown in by Paul...Sorry, but that's not a good display of Paul's wit and intelligence..just his mean streak..
Had Paul been interested in "truth" he would have asked about the material McGowan got from my website, or the creative book ideas she directly took from me.... Or he would have asked about her 'visions' and her 400 year old ring, and McGowan's own admissions that it was all a made up story for the money and fame...
Or he would have realized that these geneology pages have been around for years (McGowan never had one; that's why she had to fall back on claims about wierd 'visions'..)...I know that most of my geneology pages came straight from the Desmarets museum.. and so have several others. We are friends. We research and pool our knowledge because we know that even if B.H.G. and H.B.H.G. were not being totally honest, we still had these dam niggling little family geneologies that although missing some links here and there, were pretty darn convincing. A family Bible in Nova Scotia has the same information as a family Bible in New Jeresey...entered by two families who never met and lived hundreds of years apart.. That's exciting stuff to work on.. We wanted to know, to get as close as we could to 01 A.D., so we plowed along asking the whole world for help...never feeling ridiculed or ashamed of our efforts until now...until McGowan made us all look like fools..
It was McGowan who jumped onto our discoveries and proclaimed herself the "Expected One"... the Grail child...where have you been Paul? We didn't jump on the Da Vinci craze. We've had our websites up for years and years...quietly going about our business...What McGowan did was terrible...a cheap shot to fame that has hurt us all...Why didn't you catch on to this sooner Paul, instead of lumping us altogether as 'Sarah'; wanna-be's? You missed the bigger picture.
Paul should have tried to get to the truth. After all, it's the 'truth' according to Paul Smith that he wants to defend, but he's not given a fair chance to others to do the same...to defend themselves...and Paul would never EVER use the delete button to correct his own errors...that's too much a sign of weakness in his eyes..I realize that now after the past few days of emails..
Now I am sure Paul Smith is over 18 years old (barely perhaps, but over 18) and I'm sure he has a keen mind and could create a whopping fabulous forum and website..
I'm sure David and Robin, and myself would admire Paul greatly and make valuable contributions that would really attract a crowd for him and increase his fame and stature in the real world.....Woo! Woo!
but he needs a tad more maturity in his approach..
To criticize me about my facts that are in a book that is not yet published, and that Paul has certainly never read is not fair or logical. To refuse to even correct his errors is a sign of deeper psychological warfare within...that has nothing to do with me or my claims or my book...
I'm sure I would like Paul very much if he would lower his gun and offer a handshake instead..then we can work on the problems he presents, some of which ARE valid.
Hey Paul, I'm approachable, really I am...and cheap too!
Any time you're willling to try Plan 'B' let me know..you'll have a handshake and a friend in return.
All the best,
Sue
zadek11
01-14-2007, 04:39 PM
I'm guessing that usernames Shidorak, townsland_works and zadek11 are all disguises for Paul Smith; why he should find this approach necessary, goodness only knows.
Okay - Shidorak got banned, townsland_works could not post a reply.
The same old story - banning invites reapparances in alternative identities.
And those who criticise alternative identities use the same approach themselves.
I can cite past histories of folk who have criticised the use of alternative identities and yet have used alternative identities themselves.
And there are people on Yahoo groups and elsewhere challenging these pseudo-histories just as there are people believing them.
Examples? Provide me the names of these people and I will supply their real agendas.
Both in this incarnation and when we were on the Phenomena site (and, in fact, in Phenomena magazine when it was running), we have done our bit in pointing out some of the idiocies and errors in both Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Kathleen McGowan's Expected One. For myself, over the years I must have written dozens of critical reviews of pseudo-historical and astro-archaeological books.
What about The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail? Which is one big mistake and has inspired everything else, any comments on that? And Suzi Olssen - any comments on her errors and idiocies? Or have you just invited her onto this Forum to use as a weapon against McGowan and for nothing else?
zadek11
01-14-2007, 04:45 PM
Fact is that Suzanne Olsson is unable to distinguish between history, myth, legend, folklore and brazen lies created by 18th century charlatans. Suzanne Olsson has no historical "sources" anymore than Baigent or Gardner have historical "sources" to support their nonsense.
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 04:58 PM
Sorry Zadek...you need to read my post.. #222
zadek11
01-14-2007, 05:00 PM
Sorry Zadek...you need to read my post..
There's nothing to "read" except a lot of squirming.
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:02 PM
OK Dear ask me a question and I will do my best to answer you directly, since we both seem to be online at the same time..
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:04 PM
By the way Zadok, this forum thread IS about McGowan and the expected one...it is not about Suzie Olsson...I am here as a spectator, just like yourself..
zadek11
01-14-2007, 05:09 PM
OK Dear ask me a question and I will do my best to answer you directly, since we both seem to be online at the same time..
I have no questions to ask because you do not have any answers.
How many historians and academics have endorsed any of your claims?
Where is your material in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica?
When is your material going to be introduced into the School Curriculum?
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:13 PM
Zadok,
My book will be released next month...do you think you can wait a few more weeks before making such rash decisions about its merit or lack thereof?
How can any one comment on a book that hasn't been seen yet? And how "good" or bad, or lacking in lierary contributions is it? I think it's awful...I wish I could have finished what I started over there and completed the research..
You can never beat me up as badly as I beat myself up for not getting enough done.
zadek11
01-14-2007, 05:19 PM
Zadok,
My book will be released next month...do you think you can wait a few more weeks before making such rash decisions about its merit or lack thereof?
How can any one comment on a book that hasn't been seen yet? And how "good" or bad, or lacking in lierary contributions is it? I think it's awful...I wish I could have finished what I started over there and completed the research..
You can never beat me up as badly as I beat myself up for not getting enough done.
History as it might have been is always more exciting to history as it really was.
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:21 PM
Yes, Zadok..I agree with you...that's why we have these wondeful Holy Grail and King Arthur and Lord of the Ring histories...and Robin Hood...and Lost Atlantis...
the mind is an incredibly fertile field for imaginations, isn't it!
zadek11
01-14-2007, 05:23 PM
the mind is an incredibly fertile field for imaginations, isn't it!
You are living proof of that.
Your book will be another addition to the world of historical fiction.
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:28 PM
Zadok, you seem on quite a hate trip against someone you dont know and have never even read a book by... what happened between McGowan and myself has been very hurtful to me.
But would you like to tell me about yourself? Why are you so angry?
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:30 PM
By the way....what do you think the book is about that I'm publishing? Do you have any idea what the genre is? What it's about? Maybe it was meant to be historical fiction...maybe it's an adventure story!!...what does that matter? It's just another book out there..making no claims at all..
Suzanne Olsson
01-14-2007, 05:50 PM
Zadok..
I have to leave this forum now...I have other things to do outside the cyber world..
it's called 'a life'.... I'm sure it's not as exciting and interesting and rich and rewarding as yours seems to be...judging from your posts, but I shall have to get by on far less... deep sigh....and write very bad books ...I love reading good books...I'm not trying to write like them, but I do like to read them. Don't you?
I hope you write a wonderful book someday, and become rich and famous and beautiful (like Kathleen McGowan) Wouldn't that be nice for you?
(By the way, that has never been my goal..I was on a very different path of discovery...I'm certainly not jealous..I just wish she had approached it in a less hurtful and more honest way that would not have such a direct negative impact on my life's work)...
Well, nice chatting with you. Good luck to you.
All the best,
Sue
Suzanne Olsson
01-15-2007, 04:40 AM
The subject of my book is exploring Jesus in India. I follow the same path as Holger Kersten, Fida Hassnain, Aziz Kashmiri, Nicholas Notovich, Khwaja Nazir Ahmed, Nicholas Roerich, Maury Lee, Paul Pappas, and many others…some of whom are far outside mainstream, like Elizabeth Clair Prophet and Madam Blavatsky…Jim Deardorff also has a theory about Jesus in India based on some 'missing scrolls'..But there is enough to explore in verifiable Indian history without getting into the metaphysical psychic views..
It might interest you to know that Laurence Gardner and others have no interest whatever in ‘Jesus in India’.
The idea that Jesus married a woman named Marjan and that they had children is mentioned in the Sanskrit historical book ‘The Rajatarangini” or ‘The River of Kings.’ (c.1148) One should also be familiar with the writings of the Apostle Thomas that are followed by the Nestorian and Eastern Churches, in which he speaks of Jesus and Magdalene together at schools in India.
The ‘River of Kings’ describes two women named Mari. One was the Queen Mother, Amri-ta-Prabha. The other was Marjan was the wife of Pravarasena. Prava means ‘of noble birth’ and ‘ra’ means god, and ‘sena’ means ‘of light’.
In his late years he was a king of Kashmir, and headed the Fourth Buddhist Council in 79 A.D. He died soon after and his tomb is in Kashmir. It contains a carved rock with feet with scars on them….just as scars would appear from nails during a crucifixion after one foot was painfully twisted over the other. Very convincing because nobody would have kknown that unless they'd seen the scars first-hand. And crucifixion was unknown in India.. Plus there are other artifacts that have yet to be fully discussed. For certain political and religious reasons, some of this cannot yet be brought into the open. That is not by my choice, but by others and I am respecting their choices. I would love to be the first to wave banners and make exciting new headlines, but that's just not the way its done when their lives are on the line..Kashmir is like Palestine...same kind of daily turmoil and political unrest..
Pravarasena and Marjan had two sons. One of the sons was named Hiranya (Hibernia) …this is also an ancient name that appeared on maps of Ireland. (hiran means Erin,). The other son was named Toraman, which means ‘a man of the law.’ None of these are “Indian” names yet they are found in the ancient Sanskrit history. Why would a lad be known because he went to Ireland from India? He was accompanied by an uncle..Jayendra could this have been .Joseph of Arimathea? I jsut ask the questions. I suggest some answers, but that's all, I suggest the possibilities.
There's a lot of questions! I couldn't answer them all. My only hope is to leave a few more crumbs sprinkled along the path...I followed certain author's clues, and I hope I have also left some clues for the next generation of intrepid explorers. That's the best anyone can hope for.
I have read the authors I mentioned above. I have spent many days and weeks and months at the tomb in Kashmir. I wasn't in Europe or America when Dan Brown published his book. I was in places where it never even made the local evening news..I didn't sell shoes on Ebay. I was in places where people had no shoes. Many didn't even have feet because they lost them to landmines..
.I didn't hear about Dan Brown until less than two years ago, when I arrived back in the States..I dont have a clue what half this stuff is you guys argue over..or who these people are that you all analyz and bash..
I traveled to other Biblical graves and I have sought the DNA from these graves. There are families in Kashmir who take all this very seriously because they have records that go back to Toraman and Hiranya…..that’s why we had such high hopes for obtaining the DNA…but it got to the point where peoples lives were being endangered, there was terrorism around the tombs, and so the work was forced to a stop.
I firmly believe that Jesus had children, that there are clear records, and that much remains to be uncovered in very surprising ways. It’s all waiting for politicians, not authors, to open the doors to further research.
Sometimes, when I visit the Yahoo forums, I see some pretty ridiculous stuff! I cant really participate until after my book is released, and then I dont think I would have the time to participate because I'll be returning to Central Asia
more work there.
I don’t know that I have very much new to offer the world as far as the research goes. I said what I have to say. It is for others to decide if they want to explore the possibilities further. There are also graves for Jesus in Japan and Jesus in France.
I happened to live in India so I wrote what I knew best.
Now when you want to do some book bashing before you’ve even seen the book, and you obviously dont have a clue about the author either, you wont look so confused about the subject matter.
I don't know if this phrase translates into American, Suzanne, but in England we say "Good on you!" The only problem is, you've now given a certain person loads and loads of ammo to shoot at you. But you know something? If he ridicules you, that says a lot more about him than about you.
There's a lot of questions! I couldn't answer them all. My only hope is to leave a few more crumbs sprinkled along the path...I followed certain authors' clues, and I hope I have also left some clues for the next generation of intrepid explorers. That's the best anyone can hope for.
This is being honest. I like that.
As you've probably figured out by now, I'm naturally fairly sceptical, so when I come to review your book, or interview you for a Fortean Times article, I'll be asking some pretty searching questions, and I'll challenge you, and I'll question your evidence, and I'll look for any gaping holes in your logic. And I think you'd expect that of me, or of any serious reader. But what I won't do is attack you out of hand for the subject matter of your book, which certain others might. That's a somewhat pointless attitude, because (a) it immediately closes off any possibility of discussion, (b) it antagonises everyone, to no good effect, and (c) it means the reader will never learn anything new.
I might love your book. I might agree with everything in it. Or I might not. Even though I might disagree with your conclusions, I'm looking forward to reading it -- and even if, in the end, I think it's a load of tosh, I still defend your right to write it.
Henry James once said: "We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donne*: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it." He was talking about fiction, but the same precept should apply to non-fiction.
David
((* Dammit, why can't you do accents in this messageboard?))
Oh, and I forgot to say -- I'll do it politely. :)
David
Suzanne Olsson
01-17-2007, 07:48 AM
Hi David,
I wince every time I think of you posting a review about my book...it's that word 'honesty' that gets me...could I include my Master Card number for you?
Regardless the outcome of your review, I will treasure it because I value the keen mind and wit and intelligence behind it....that you would give so generously of your valuable time ...well...all I can say is 'Thank You, sir.'
All the best,
Sue
AdrianGilbert
01-26-2007, 03:32 AM
Just back from lecturing on a cruise ship, I have some catching up to do. I notice that the idiot Paul Smith has been posting about the equally stupid Pierre Plantard. Ignore him Suzanne, everyone else does. For reasons that only a psychiatrist could fathom, he has been pursuing a vitriolic vendetta against Robin for some years now. Eventually it will get him into gaol which, as long as they don't provide him with an internet connection, would perhaps be the best place for him.
To return to your own fascinating researches, you may be interested to hear that there are many genuine genalogies in Britain (not those published by Gardner) which trace back to the Virgin Mary. I have researched these in some depth and they are not a modern creation. Personally I don't believe that Jesus went back to India after the crucifixion. However, it is perfectly possible (and indeed in my opinion probable) that he went there during his adolescent years, between age 12 and roughly 30.
I have yet to see any convincing evidence that Jesus himself had children. However, he did come from a large family and clearly had brothers and sisters. What seems to have happened to Christianity is the same as happened with Islam: a split between adherents of 'the word' (Pauline branch represented by the church) and 'family tradition' (Grail legend). This is analogous to the split between Sunni Islam (law faction) and Shia Islam (followers of Mohammed's family line through his grandson Ali).
For followers of 'family' traditions, family trees are of obvious importance. To those only interested in 'the word' such material is irrelevant. Indeed the Catholic church has, over the centuries, made strenuous efforts to eradicate any trace of traditions saying that the 'Virgin' Mary had children other than Jesus himself. She has been re-branded as a figure analogous to a nun. In fact she has been almost turned into a goddess! A close reading of the Bible reveals that this is not the case and that some of the apostles were Jesus' own brothers. There is no suggestion that all these children were produced by the intervention of the angel Gabriel, which means that Mary was not, as church tradition claims, 'ever virgin'. A married woman, she clearly had sexual relations with her husband which bore children!
I have not studied the material you have based your book on. However, my immediate thought is that the man in the Kashmir tomb may well have been one of Jesus' brothers. What I do know is that we have written records in Britain that are anologous.
Hope this helps,
Adrian.
zadek11
01-26-2007, 01:11 PM
it will get him into gaol which, as long as they don't provide him with an internet connection, would perhaps be the best place for him.
Boring! There is no "Police investigation" - it's a lie!
AdrianGilbert
01-27-2007, 08:31 AM
Nobody cares about Plantard, Smith, so get used to it. Why don't you just do us all a favour and crawl back into your hole. If you persist in harrassing Robin you will certainly have the police on your back and that may be the least of your worries. :Tongue:
zadek11
01-27-2007, 08:56 AM
When are you going to write books that are suitable for the History bookshelves opposed to the pseudo-babble found on the "Mind, Body and Spirit", Adrian?
Oh I forgot, orthodox scholarship engages in acts of conspiracy and not the other way around - you have never published a conspiracy theory in your life.
hawklord
01-27-2007, 09:52 AM
Just who is this zadek person?
:eek:
zadek11
01-27-2007, 10:16 AM
Just who is this zadek person?
Someone who can recognise a confidence trick when he sees one; as opposed to someone who perpetrates confidence tricks under the guise of "historical research".
Suzanne Olsson
01-27-2007, 11:48 AM
Oh Dear Zadok, does this mean you wont come to my house for a cup of tea?
AdrianGilbert
01-28-2007, 04:36 AM
Just who is this zadek person?
:eek:
Someone:Tongue: who, never having had a book of his own published, hides behind a pseudonym while making insulting accusations concerning other people's work.
Just who is this zadek person?
He's one of several identities used on this forum recently by Paul Smith. Paul Smith is someone who is still fighting battles from a couple of decades ago, while the rest of us have moved on. He has a website which spends inordinate amounts of time debunking all the conspiracy theories and speculative "historical" bunkum that has been around for years about the Priory of Sion, Rennes-le-Chateau and Pierre Plantard.
That in itself would be fine (I myself spent some time on the Phenomena site pointing out some of the errors in The Da Vinci Code), but he has fixations on a number of things, one of which is Pierre Plantard's far-right history, and another is that Plantard has a criminal record. On the first, well, duhhh -- everyone knows that; Plantard was seriously not a pleasant person. On the second, so what? Personally I don't give a damn whether Plantard spent time in prison or not; it's a matter of supreme unimportance to me. I don't care. Smith can stop wasting energy trying to convince me.
A lot of the stuff on his website is well-known refutation of conspiracy theory garbage, which most critics would be happy to accept. But one of the odd things about Smith is his behavioural resemblance to fundamentalist believers. I've observed elsewhere that when (for example) Evangelical sects split from each other, there is far more vitriol between two schismatic groups that, to the outside world, don't have a Rizla paper's difference between them, than between either of them and Churches that are very different from them. So Smith attacks people who probably share 95% of his opinions over the 5% that they differ on. All a little pointless, really. It's destructive, not constructive.
He also has a very poor idea of what constitutes evidence. Try this:
1. Paul Smith tells us that...
2. Helene Viallet provided information in 1995 that...
3. the Mayor of Annemasse wrote a letter in 1956 saying that...
4. a note exists from the INSSE dated 1954 saying that...
5. Plantard received a prison sentence in 1953.
That's not historical evidence; it's little more than a chain of hearsay. Smith's argument, his "proof", rests on authority, not on evidence. "So-and-so said so, so it must be true." That's not been acceptable to scholars since the Middle Ages. (The 13th century monk and scientist Roger Bacon spent his last years imprisoned in his cell for daring to insist on empirical evidence instead of relying on the authority of Aristotle as mediated through the Church.) But Smith keeps trotting it out as "proof", despite the fact that it simply isn't. Why doesn't he show us the evidence, such as a scan of the Mayor's letter? That would take us nearer to the source. If there is actual physical evidence, Smith should show it. Otherwise, what reason do I have for believing a word he says? Especially in light of the following.
For several years, for reasons I don't understand at all, Smith has been waging a war of unpleasant innuendo against Robin. On his website he accuses her of having been a Gardnerian Wiccan high priestess, quoting "an e-mail from an individual claiming to have known Robin Crookshank Hilton during the early 1980s".
First of all, what would be the problem is she was a Wiccan high priestess? Would Smith have quoted an email claiming that she was a Methodist minister? Paganism is the seventh-largest faith group in Britain, and the British Home Office holds regular liaison discussions with representatives of Paganism (including Wiccans, Druids and others) just as they do with other religions. But Smith is clearly citing this as a way of discrediting her, as a slur on her character. That's religious discrimination.
Second, has he verified this information? No, he simply quotes the email from an [un-named] person who claims to have known Robin over 20 years ago. Is that the level of evidence Smith thinks is adequate for material on his website?
In fact it's not true that Robin is a Gardnerian Wiccan high priestess -- this is a complete fabrication -- though it shouldn't matter if it is true. Smith has been told that it's not true, but he still keeps unsubstantiated and incorrect information about a person -- in other words, libel -- on his website. Why? He has never explained.
His previous paragraph on that page is even less cogent. First he calls Robin "an esoteric New Age hippy-dippy believer in 'hidden mysteries' and 'esoteric secrets'". I suppose that could be justified as being his opinion, but his choice of adjectives actually says more about him than it does about her. Then he says "she is also part of a family involved in the Music Business". Correction. She was a director of a company in the record industry, but that was several years ago. But then comes the piece de la resistance: "as well as living a double-life involving mainstream politics".
Come again? The phrase "living a double-life" strongly suggests deception and underhand behaviour. She's an elected councillor; in what way is that "living a double-life"? Except, of course, insofar as most councillors have other employment as teachers, doctors, engineers etc -- are they all leading double lives?
As I said, Smith has been waging an online war on Robin for several years. His behaviour towards her is a fixation and is dangerously close to stalking, and that, like libel, is a legal offence. It's an online hate crime. Why is he doing it? I don't know.
His other offence, so far as I'm concerned, is being offensive on a number of internet forums. Sometimes he spams them, posting pages of irrelevant stuff he's picked up from one forum to half a dozen others, simply to annoy people. The whole point of good forums is for people to argue different points of view in such a way that everyone learns from everyone else, so that people are aware that there are viewpoints other than their own, and see the reasoning behind them. But if Smith disagrees with someone (or, as has often been the case, deliberately misinterprets someone in order to disagree with them), he doesn't put forward an opposing argument. Instead he calls people names, he insults them, he shouts and swears at them. If members of the forum ask him to behave himself he insults them. If the moderator loses patience with him and bans him, he comes back on with a different identity and continues being unpleasant. That's not the behaviour of a reasonable person. He shouts and screams and throws tantrums, then wonders why people don't want him around. If he behaved in this way in a town square instead of on an internet forum he would be at least cautioned for causing a breach of the peace; if he persisted he would probably end up being issued with an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. Decent people don't act this way.
The way that Smith behaves, both on forums and on his own website, casts grave doubt on the integrity of his website. He publishes unsubstantiated rumours and false accusations as if they are facts. He presents years-old quotations out of their original context. He constantly shows that he doesn't know how to discuss a subject in a rational and civilised way. He sets out to abuse people. He is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone around him. All of this is malicious behaviour.
And then he expects us to accept his word on undocumented allegations from half a century ago, simply because he says so -- and insults us if we have the temerity to challenge this.
That's who zadek11 is.
zadek11
01-28-2007, 08:48 PM
The comments from DVB demonstrate that he is of the Mystery Buff persuasion, and his comments concerning me come from that position and so can never be trusted. DVB's comments are distorted, misplaced, and full of boloney.
There is nothing on
http://www.priory-of-sion.com
that can be described as being dishonest or untrustworthy.
The content has been double-checked and verified by other researchers.
The Mayor of Annemasse was hardly "telling lies" about Plantard's prison conviction in 1953, and Plantard's prison-sentence was not a figment of a French author's imagination as recently claimed on this very forum by Robin Crookshank Hilton, who soon deleted the message when challenged about it.
Everything about Robin Crookshank Hilton on the website is correct, no matter how much DVB chooses to distort it - and the article is not "libelous" nor is it "stalking".
DVB chose to ignore parts of the article where the messages by Robin Crookshank Hilton are directly reproduced and as for her position towards Pierre Plantard I notice that her "Priory of Sion" article My Heart is at Peace at Saint Sulpice is still online.
If people choose to make public pronouncements about subject matters then others have the right to make comments about that. If people choose to masquerade as historical researchers but in fact are mystery buffs who are selective with the evidence then that, too, can be commented upon.
Sure people have "moved on" in relation to Pierre Plantard and his bogus Priory of Sion, but DVB forgot to mention the fact that was mainly due to the existence of the material found on the
http:.//www.priory-of-sion.com
website, most of the material of which was originally rejected and heavily attacked by the very believers who have eventually accepted it with the greatest of reluctance.
DVB left a long message. Most of which was biased and distorted and inaccurate.
I could go over it point by point and easily highlight the way everything in it was inaccurate. But that will not change his position. And I have nothing to prove to people like him, it only needs to be repeated that the material found on the website has been double-checked and verified by other researchers.
Non Mystery-Buff researchers.
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