Carlos Casteneda, Simon & Shuster and the Golden Flake Clown's books

     I wrote to Simon & Schuster today, June 4, 2023:

Last night I read an extensive article, The Dark Legacy of Carlos Castaneda,  

 

https://www.salon.com/2007/04/12/castaneda/ 

 

and learned Simon & Schuster was Castaneda’s publisher. I had enjoyed reading his early books, which obviously contained deep truths, notwithstanding later revelations about him.  

 

In the early 1980s, Simon & Schuster acquired my first three books, HOME BUYERS: LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER? SELLING YOUR HOME $WEET HOME, and KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? A CLIENT'S GUIDE TO HIRING, FIRING, USING AND SUING LAWYERS. Simon & Schuster acquired Prentice-Hall and assigned my books there. Despite my being extensively interviewed by national, regional and local media, there were no books in bookstores and the books did not sell well.  

 

I then had a dramatic experience, which shifted me toward a spiritual journey unlike anything I had heard or read. I submitted my first spiritual book, THE HIGH LEGAL ROAD: A NEW APPROACH TO LEGAL PROBLEMS, to my Prentice-Hall editor, Paul, whose last name now escapes me. After reading the manuscript, Paul told me that he argued with parts of it and was deeply moved by other parts of it, but it was too legal to be a spiritual book and too spiritual to be a legal book, and Prentice-Hall did not know how to promote it.  

 

After that, I self-published quite a few books that blended metaphysical and ordinary experiences.  

 

The most recent is THE GOLDEN FLAKE CLOWN’S TALE, which is a patchwork quilt composite of my father, his family, and his company, Golden Flake Snack Foods, which was headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama and  competed head-on with Frito-Lay in the U.S. southeastern states. Not for the faint of heart, the tale is written from the perspective of my father’s oldest presumed son, the black sheep, mystic, and keeper of the family skeletons.  

 

I was informed that, because of Castaneda and his witches, no publisher today will consider such a book by an elderly author, and a publisher today will report the elderly author to his state’s elder protection agency. So, I recently published THE GOLDEN FLAKE CLOWN’S TALE at archive.org and in the Torrent system, where it can be read for free.  

 

In a dream last night, I told some people I had known in New York City that I will submit the Clown’s Tale to Simon & Shuster, so here is a link: https://archive.org/details/goldenflakeclownstale

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

    I then found Michael Korda on Facebook. Korda was Simon & Shuster's Editor-in-Chief and Castaneda's editor. I sent Korda this private message.

Once upon a time, 1986, I wrote a hot letter to Simon & Schuster's CEO about my books Simon & Shuster it had sent over to Prentice-Hall. I was getting a lot of media interviews, but there were no books in book stores. I stupidly included a manuscript I was working on, as an example of my newest writng project, on a topic I knew little and had no life experience to address in a book. You wrote to me that you had considered my submission and were sorry, but it was not right for Simon & Schuster. The next year, I had a life changing experience that started me down a spiritual trail unlike anything I heard or read about before or since. I read an article last night about Carlos Castaneda and his witches, and your and Simon & Schuster's relationship with Castaneda. I had liked Castaneda's early books, but did not read the later ones. I then dreamed last night of submitting my most recent book to S & S, which I knew was about 100 percent folly, as they don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. I had been by people in the book publishing trade, thanks to Castaneda and his witches, publishers today, who receive manuscripts from elders who write about having contact with angels and spirits, report the elders to their state's elder protection agency. So, I published the book at archive.org and in the Torrent system, where is it is being read for free. I don't need money, and the only reason I considered a publisher in the first place was that might make the book available to more people. In case you might be interested, here's a link to the post at one of my blogs about the book and the submission this morning. The blog post contains a archive.org link to The Golden Flake Clown's Tale. https://tinykingdomblacksheep.blogspot.com/2023/06/carlos-castaneda-simon-schuster-and.html

    I wonder how Castaneda and his witches, and Simon & Shuster and Michael Korda, might have viewed what I posted yesterday at the Poetic Outlaws Facebook page, in response to a post there, "Don't Ask Angels How They Fly"?

Headed toward 81, I've had many experiences with angels, they had no wings, but they flew, instantly, there to here, here to elsewhere, the speed of light had nothing to do with them. They taught me many things, starting with they were very real, they worked for what I was raised to call God, and they were going to try to use me, and, first, they wanted me to know myself better, and many mirrors did I get to stand in front of, looking at me. They taught me what matters is how I live this life, for that's why I'm here, and they stayed with me, steering me sometimes, correcting me sometimes, rebuking me sometimes, carrying me sometimes, sometimes dragging me out of hells I had fallen into, and encouraging me to be who I am, authentic, true, caring, and giving it my best shot every time. The angels did not school me on dying, other than dying is what many people do their entire lives, because they did not live who they truly are.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com