Talk:Gerald Massey

message: A POINT ABOUT MISQUOTATION
Gerald Massey came to my attention via a poignant quotation attributed to him. By searching his published lectures, I've learned this popularly attributed quotation is a misquotation. The following discussion presents the original quotation, the misquotation, a thought about the motive for perpetuating misquotation, a solution to appease all parties, and finally a request for help. 
I. ORIGINAL QUOTATION
6.     We have heard the language like this of Mr.—— before (put in better English), when anything very upsetting has been presented to the world.  Such damnation is dirt cheap!  Also, the time has passed for denunciation to be mistaken for disproof.  That is the kind of authority I had already counted on, and discounted, when I say, "They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth."
Original source: http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/epr_09_a_retort.htm
II. MISQUOTATION
There are various forms of misquotation. The most prominent example is found on the website of the conspiracy theory movie called Zeitgeist. 
"They must find it difficult...Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority."
Misquotation source: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
III. MISQUOTATION: MOTIVE
I think part of the reason this misattributed quotation persists is that it's more poignant than the original. The misquotation is more easy for people to appropriate in support of other causes. The other possibility is that what I am calling a misquotation is not misquotation at all. I.e. There is just another source where Massey has in fact said "They must find it difficult...Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority." If any credible source is found for this wording, my comments here are void. That said, I have found no reliable source for the aforementioned phrasing. I propose a solution.
IV. SOLUTION
Perhaps instead of attributing the paraphrase to Massey, we might turn the paraphrase into a saying, name the saying after Massey, thus attributing the spirit of the paraphrase to Massey, without explicitly implying the wording is Massey's. For example,
"They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority for truth, rather than truth as the authority." -Massey's Maxim
Thus, we create a maxim that isn't attributed to Gerald Massey, but which credits him for the spirit of the saying. This is similar to what was done with Sturgeon's Law. That is, an inelegant yet poignant quotation is paraphrased into an elegant and poignant maxim or rule. The paraphrase's spirit, but not its wording, is credited to the original author, because the saying is named after them. 
V. REQUEST
I don't have the time or knowledge to properly correct this error on Gerald Massey's wikipedia page. I request that another editor implement the following corrections. (1) Add a note about the popular misquotation of Gerald Massey. (2) Contrast the misquotation with the correct quotation. (3) Link to sources of the correct quotation e.g. http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/epr_09_a_retort.htm. Thank you! SandwormDD (talk) 19:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  COMMON MISQUOTATION OF GERALD MASSEY 

message: This amplifies the discussion above and explains why I replaced the word "Egyptologist" with "Spiritualist". There is no evidence that Massey had any notable skills in reading Egyptian, whether in hieroglyphs or in the demotic form. Yes, he had many ideas about Egypt and spoke and wrote about this at length, but that does not make him an Egyptologist. His writings and lectures were all within the field of Spiritualism, not Egyptology.
This is not an insult to Massey. It is simply stating things as they were. Interlingua 14:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Massey was a Spiritualist, not an Egyptologist

message: The second half of this section isn't even about Massey, and shouldn't be here. The subject is covered elsewhere. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parallels between Horus and Jesus 

message: Why does Horakhty redirect to this page? From I what I can tell from googling it, Horakhty is associated with Horus. Is there any reason it shouldn't redirect to Horus?76.246.60.111 (talk) 07:02, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horakhty 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The paragraph referencing Herbert Cutner states without quotes that Gerald Massey "proves quite clearly to any unbiased reader..." That implies that Wikipedia is endorsing Herbert Cutner's opinion of Gerald Massey's work. In reality, that phrase is taken from Cutner's own work, on Page 33. It is Cutner's opinion of Massey's work. As such, it is at best peripheral to this article. It looks to me like some anti-Christian zealot wanted to justify this attack on Christian orthodoxy by including that paragraph. Pooua (talk) 00:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herbert Cutner POV