h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A508961

This is my own general article on Carlos Castaneda which i posted cos i know about him and theres nothing on him in the guide. Please do the best with it.

Castañeda?

The problem with CC was that it was not obvious enough to many of his readers that his books were fiction.

CC fascinated me at the time (an ex-anthropology GS with roots into the Peyotl cult) But it never occurred to me at it was anything but fiction. The problem was that he never admitted openly the fiction ...

The open belief structures of many young people in the seventies lead constantly to true believers in fiction ... Illuminatus fanatics, Castañeda fanatics, Mao fanatics ... you name it.

~^M^~

Mao wrote fiction?

Pattern-chaser

Castaneda DID intend for his literature to be taken seriously. He often went through an endless speil about his journeys in interviews, and very very obviously tried to hoax people. Incidentally, its interesting how his excuse for having no pictures or audio of Don Juan fits perfectly with the theory he didn't exist !
Get your info correct mister anthropologist.

Mojo

Great article .. Mescalito would be proud!

~Beeblefish (Scout)

It might do with a bit more fleshing out though .. perhaps going into his purported sense of philosophy and why so many really wanted to believe for example.

~Beeblefish

I posted this on the other conversation thread, which has now been sin-binned...

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Interesting...

The big question is... what does it mean to say "Casteneda is a hoax"? Did he not exist? Then who wrote the books?? Similarly, it sounds more like a work of (new age) philosophy than a work of fiction...? So many questions... the entry itself is good - but to one such as I, who has never read the books, and only heard vague rumours of them, it poses more questions than it answers...

Perhaps a better structure would help - you could split it under a heading for "The Story" and "The Reality", or some such. Might make it easier to read.

Oh - one more thing: the guide tries to be balanced in matters spiritual and religious, and if some people still believe in the truth of "The warrior's way" and suchlike, then who are you to tell them they are deluding themselves? You'd be better off giving the facts, and letting people come to their own conclusions, I suspect...
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Hi mojo red - any chance of a response on the comments made here? Perhaps this thread should be moved to the workshop?

Well, there's still no response, so I'm thinking this should go to the Writer's Workshop. Seconds, anyone?


Mikey

Editorial Note: This Conversation has been moved to the new 'Flea Market' Forum.

This is where we move any Peer Review, Writing Workshop or Alternative Writing Workshop Conversations where the original author has *not* posted to h2g2 for three months. This prevents the active Review Forums from clogging up with dormant entries, but in the Flea Market they can be picked up by others and polished off.

Flea Market Clean Out:

Keep in FM.

A508961 While there is only a short paragraph or two, I think this might be worth filling out a little?