Byron Katie's partner in crime, Neale Donald Walsch, has been mentioned before in this thread, as he was promoting Byron Katie, and saying how he fell in love at first sight with her, blah blah blah. (that's a pre-frame to try and make people fall in love with Kate at first sight!)
He just made a bunch of stuff up, saying how Katie never lies, etc...meanwhile he just said he doesn't even know her! Utterly shameless and dishonest, and very creepy.
[
forum.culteducation.com]
well, well, well.
Now Neale Donald Walsch has been busted for plagiarism by the New York Times.
Followed by outright self-conscious fabrication, and then a cover-up and denial.
People have no idea of the kinds of people who go into this field. They will just make stuff up, they will lie. Over the years they get more cynical and lazy, and once in a while they get busted.
Carol Skolnick was also promoting Neale Donald Walsch. Are they now going to criticize him for his bullshit? Of course not, just more spin, lies, and fabricating.
If even just a tiny shred of journalism is turned on any of these people, their house of cards collapses, the problem is that there is not much journalism anymore, just celebrity puff-pieces.
But this story exposes the real Neale Donald Walsch.
___________________________________
[
www.nytimes.com]
Christmas Essay Was Not His, Author Admits
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 6, 2009
Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling series “Conversations With God,” recently posted a personal Christmas essay on the spiritual Web site Beliefnet.com about his son’s kindergarten winter pageant.
During a dress rehearsal, he wrote, a group of children spelled out the title of a song, “Christmas Love,” with each child holding up a letter. One girl held the “m” upside down, so that it appeared as a “w,” and it looked as if the group was spelling “Christ Was Love.” It was a heartwarming Christmas story from a writer known for his spiritual teachings.
Except it never happened — to him.
Mr. Walsch’s story was nearly identical to an essay by a writer named Candy Chand, which was originally published 10 years ago in Clarity, a spiritual magazine, and has been circulating on the Web ever since.
_________________________________________
____________________________________________________
[
blog.oregonlive.com]
The Truth and Neale Donald Walsch
Posted by Steve Duin, The Oregonian January 08, 2009 20:22PM
Charlatans have been passing themselves off as official spokesman for the Almighty for thousands of years, but Neale Donald Walsch set record marks for chutzpah -- and, book sales, of course -- with his Conversations with God. God had a message that only Walsch could hear and He was gracious enough to allow the author to either tape record him or quote him from memory.
But -- as The New York Times reported Wednesday -- we now have some new information about Walsch's memory: He has admitted that he tried to pass off another author's Christmas pageant story as his own in a blog post at Beliefnet.com.
This story is extraordinary in a variety of ways, particularly in what it reveals about Walsch and his disciples. Even as he copied a story by Candy Chand almost word for word, Walsch claimed in a Dec. 28 blog post that he was the lucky guy in attendance at a Christmas pageant 20 years ago in which -- let me quote the Times -- "a group of children spelled out the title of a song, 'Christmas Love,' with each child holding up a letter. One girl held the 'M' upside down, so that it appeared as a 'W,' and it looked as if the group was spelling 'Christ Was Love.'"
On his own blog, Walsch now admits, "I have made a serious error and this note is to apologize for it." That "apology" is amazing: Walsch contends the story was filed away on his computer, "written in the first person, describing an experience that occurred with my son 20 years ago. As I read the old story I smiled, actually experiencing it as a memory in my mind, from my own life."
And when Ms. Chand informed him that he'd stolen her anecdote?
All I can say now -- because I am truly mystified and taken aback by this -- is that someone must have sent it to me over the internet ten years or so ago. Finding it utterly charming and its message indelible, I must have clipped and pasted it into my file of "stories to tell that have a message I want to share." I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized...and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience. I am aghast at how improbable this sounds, even to me, yet I can find no other explanation for how this story came out of my mouth in Candy Chand's words.
I can certainly think of one.
Chand told the Times she's not buying Walsch's apology: "I have strong issue with anyone who would appear to plagiarize my work and pretend it is his own," she said.
But for the topper, gentle readers, go to Walsch's blog and read the comments by his adoring fans:
Neale, you are so awesome and so real. I don't see the big deal in what happened ...
If you have 9 or 10 children, how do you know it didn't happen?...maybe the 2 of you were at the same children's concert. No, I don't think Chand should be offended at all. Isn't that what the cosmic consciousness is all about? Minds and thoughts merging ...
For those who are addressing the severity of Neale's mistake and the fact that it questions everything he has written and words about "living with the consequences"... You are begging the universe to put you in a position where you will be asked to show the kind of courage and candor that Neale has ...
Courage and candor? Maybe the reason so many people traffic in delusion is that so many others are willing to swallow it whole.
_____________________________________________________