Talk:Ramtha

From Pee Review

Humour:	5	There is some good stuff but it is often undercut by awkward prose. See endnotes.
Concept:	8	This is classic material for parody and satire. The approach is sound: parody through exaggeration and demonstration of the absurdity of the subject.
Prose and formatting:	4	The quality is uneven, with some rather bad areas. The opening paragraph is one of the worst. See endnotes.
Images:	5	Average images. The cartoon ones are not especially good.
Miscellaneous:	6	I like the idea. The article takes a sound approach.
Final Score:	28
Reviewer:	----OEJ 17:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Endnotes

On style: My intent is not to rip the authors a new orifice, but let's look at some problems.

"Ramtha is the 100% factual being from the year 33,000 BC who is the essential being of all time. Long ago, while choking a dinosaur to death with his bare hands, God came to Ramtha and told him every single secret of His creations. It was at that time God and Ramtha merged to form one. An inner battle soon took place which Ramtha easily defeated God by saying the magical phrase 'Praise be to the great spirit' which incidentally made God very upset, causing him to quit existence."

If Ramtha is from 33,000 BC how can he be the "essential" being of all time? Shouldn't he have existed for all eternity, and if so, how could he be from any specific time? And what does "essential being" mean, anyway?

So the reader is confused by the first sentence, and then he is handed the image of God visiting Ramtha while choking a dinosaur: did He carry the dinosaur along, thrashing and bellowing, and continue to choke it while telling Ramtha His secrets? It's a confusing image.

And then in the next sentence we learn that God and Ramtha merged into one being...why did God bother to tell Ramtha a bunch of stuff if they were going to merge anyway? Why in the world would the phrase "praise be to the great spirit" upset God? And if God and Ramtha were a merged, single being, how exactly does God go about de-merging and vaporizing Himself?

Then in the next section we find an apparently unconnected alternate history of Ramtha that's not consistent with the first. It's all very confusing, and at this point the reader is quite likely to click the "Random Page" link in hopes of finding something that's more coherent.

Here's one approach the primary author might take: List the attributes of Ramtha. The list might look like:

• Wiser than any other human being
• Atlantean warlord
• Likes garlic pickles
• God's favorite pagan
• Knows God's secrets 'cos God told him what they are
• Also knows where your lost Starbucks bonus card is
• Is unable to predict lottery winning numbers for J.Z. Knight, however
• Born 33,000 BC
• Became an enlightened immortal spirit in 32,029 BC
• Etcetera

Expand the list as necessary, but make sure that all the items on the list are consistent -- don't have "God's favorite pagan" in one place and "Kicked God's ass" in another place because they are not consistent. And then adjust the article so that all of it fits with the items on the list. The aim here is to make the story self-consistent so the reader is not lost in the mists of confusion.

---

Another approach suggests itself. One can parody the Ramtha story as being a confused web of lies, coverups, and false starts -- intentionally make it inconsistent. In other words, imagine that J.Z. Knight keeps changing the Ramtha story as she goes along. (This may actually be the case...I don't know the background material in this case, but it's certainly happened with other shysters.)

So with this approach you would make the Ramtha story self-contradictory on purpose. But the crucial thing here is that you have to let the reader know exactly why the story is confusing. Basically, you blame it on J.Z. Knight!

"In 1995 the infallible channeler of Ramtha, J.Z. Knight, revealed that he fought a great war against the German neanderthals in 32,068 BC. This war lasted 300 years, during which time Ramtha sustained his life-force by drinking pure springwater, ox urine, and Red Bull."

"In a 2002 update on the Ramtha chronicle J.Z. Knight said that for the first 120 years of his life Ramtha meditated peacefully in a golden palace in Atlantis, venturing outside only to ravish an occasional unicorn. When asked about the great war against the neanderthals in her previous book, Knight said 'Great is the power of Ramtha...um, he could be in two places at once. That's it, yeah! He was multi-tasking. You see, Ramtha invented multi-tasking. Great is the wisdom of Ramtha!'"

This is kind of difficult but rewarding -- you get to inject J.Z. Knight into the article as a character and make her appear to be a blundering dunderhead. But you have to keep finding clever ways to show how stupid she is, and do it without letting the jokes get stale or repetitive -- which is why it is more difficult than constructing a consistent but satirical version of Ramtha.

I hope you continue to work on this. It's an excellent idea but the current article needs big-time revision. Of course this is only the foul opinion of a foul, foul man. ----OEJ 17:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)