Neale Donald Walsch, a know author of the “Conversations with God” book series has admitted that he unwittingly use another writer’s anecdote as his very own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neale_Donald_Walsch
Neale Donald Walsch (also known as Neale Marshall-Walsch) (b. September 10, 1943 inMilwaukee) is an American author of the series Conversations with God. The books so far in the series are Conversations With God (books 1-3), Friendship with God, Communion with God,The New Revelations, Tomorrow’s God, What God Wants, Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends, and his newest book, Happier than God.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_en_ot/author_plagiarism;_ylt=Aott1z3qLVcd4OyUU0cnh8wDW7oF
Walsch had written about what he described as his son’s holiday concert two decades ago in which children were to hold up letters spelling “Christmas Love.” One of the children held the “m” upside down, so the audience got the message “Christwas Love,” according to the retelling.Neale Donald Walsch claims that he talks to God and has been a very well known author with his series of books, more notable the “Conversations with God” series, he now faces a plagiarism claim.
Now, that is quite specific, besides, he has admitted that it was indeed someone elses. You may be wondering his defense, he states in the same webpage:
Walsch wrote on his blog Tuesday he was “truly mystified” about what happened and apologized. He said he had been telling the story for years in public talks and “somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience.”
Hmmm. Is that believable? It is such a pity. I have read his first three books and find them very uplifting and reasonable. Reasonable in terms of the ‘morality’ it espouses. A big question arises, if he did plagiarize the book and did an immoral act, are his books really from god? Are they even from a higher spiritual entity or some fictitious character he concocted to make some money?
It’s possible to unwittingly plagiarize someone when it comes to short sentences or anecdotes. Putting them down on paper, they seem familiar but one cannot place where it came from. Memory is often a liar. The important thing is that Walsch owned up to the mistake.
His transgression falls in to the “much ado about nothing” category. As a man of recognition of sorts Walsch is exposed to a level of scrutiny most of us will never have to endure. Whether one buys his explanation (I for one do) by acknowledging the impropriety of his claim of originality Walsch demonstrates a kind of morality rarely seen among us commoners let alone those parading in the public purview.
I disagree. With the internet, everyone’s life is on public display. We have no privacy anymore. You can be sued for things you put on twitter, myspace, etc. I’ve read Neale Walsch’s books for years, I own most of them. I was shocked by his lies and lack of integrity. He lost one reader here for good. His books did have some useful info, sure. But there was a lot about his books that fell far short of being useful. I think he scammed people, and I’m not religious at all. I just think we deserve better.
Lauren Bloom further comments on Walsch’s apology and its ethical implications on her blog. http://www.thebusinessethicsblog.com/do-you-accept-neale-donald-walschs-apology
I changed the word “unreasonable” to “reasonable” in the first and second sentences of the last paragraph in the article, my mistake.
Neale has admitted his mistake, he is after all only human. We should move on and look at the positive impact he has on so many people’s lives.