Monday, January 17, 2011

Most of the prophets are...not!

One of the things that I find depressing about the esoteric field is the number of people who say (more or less):

"I am a prophet, authorized by the great spirit EERTYMFOTUO, to spread the word of my wisdom. And as a prophet, I do not have to worry about spelling, grammar, formatting, or even logic."

Yes, last night I was (trying) to read the writing of someone who claims such...and an army of goblin editors died in shame. The person literally came out and said that spending the word about their insights of a particular magical system was more important than making their insights actually readable.

(No, I am not going to mention names or the exact subject matter; just fill it in with the latest crackpot that you encountered and this becomes a timeless blog post.)

I am sorry, but unless your works (writings) make sense and are readable, no one is going to pass them onto their friends. And odds are that if a spirit has authorized you to spread unedited occult insights all over the internet, that spirit is the demon OGE. Even if the spirit is another one, maybe even IHVH himself, them telling you that you do not need to edit your material is a LIE.

The sad truth of the matter is that most prophets, both false and true, are not writers. There have been notably exceptations in the past, but odds are that you are not one of them. Especially if you think that the genius of your ideas is more important than making sure your insights confirm to the standards of educated, written English (or whatever lanuage you are writing in).

So please, if you are a prophet or guru, summon up an editor or ghost writer...because the world's best idea is useless if we consider flushing it down the toliet because your spelling and grammar stinks.

[I would like to extend a big thanks to my friend Stephanie J. Reisner, whose post "All the Frauds and Impostors are... Not?" inspired the title of this post. Her post was about how real writers tend to feel like frauds. I had been thinking about what to entitle this post for hours when I saw her title and realized the perfect title for this post.]

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hate to say it, but you need to do a bit of editing yourself. I won't insult you by pointing out the typos that change the meaning of the words, but do give this a careful proof read and you'll see what I mean.

Morgan Drake Eckstein said...

I always need an editor. And a typist. But given my own writing problems, just imagine how unreadable the person that I am complaining about is.