The works of H. P. Lovecraft come to mind as similarly adopted, not to mention the mixture of imagination and erudite scholarship behind such popular motifs as Atlantis, Lemuria, Merlin, and Hermes Trismegistus. I agree with David that there's an often murky relationship between fiction, reality, history, and myth. Accordingly, I suspect that many people would "believe" in a Dan Brown potboiler even if he put a disclaimer on every page.
And on the topic of Brown, Holy Blood etc., I personally enjoy Eco's take the most!
All the best,
Ben
On Wed, 9 Nov 2011 11:09:53 +1100, David Mattichak <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>There are also many neo-pagan people that believe in Tolkien- such as the Trolls in Melbourne who went by the name Clan Olag Hai for quite some time. Often the lines between fiction and reality are very blurry or driven for a desire to escape from an unpleasant reality.
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>Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 10:55:43 +1100
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] 'History'
>To: [log in to unmask]
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>Yes, but Murray wasn�t writing it as fiction. She was an
>Egyptologist doing �Witch Trial History� (for some reason). So while she was
>purportedly doing academic writing (although she did tamper with trial records
>to make the witches activities look less weird than they actually did which is
>a big no-no) she wasn�t deliberately writing fiction.
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>So� although her work _turned out to be_ fiction� in the
>end, it wasn�t intended to be.
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>~C.
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>From: Society for The
>Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>Behalf Of David Mattichak
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>Sent: Wednesday, 9 November 2011 10:51 AM
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>To: [log in to unmask]
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>Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Mark Benyon 'historian'
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>It occurs to me that much of the
>pagan/Wiccan world still believes a similar style of believable fiction re
>Margaret Murray's interpretation of history that has since been shown to be off
>track. Even though this is so there are still many witches that hold to that
>particular fiction as believable. People are gullible, nothing will ever change
>that. The genius of great fiction writers isn't in their accuracy or their
>perfect use of English Grammar, but their ability to tell a story that holds
>the reader to the end. Criticizing them for their talent and their ability to
>market their work is almost a misinterpretation of what they are all about.
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