WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 Welcome to today's deep dive. I'm so glad you're 00:00:02.600 --> 00:00:07.019 joining us because today we are unpacking a comprehensive 00:00:07.019 --> 00:00:09.900 Wikipedia article on the author Paula Coelho. 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:12.960 And our mission for this deep dive is to figure 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:16.059 out how a man who, you know, survived mental 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:18.920 institutions, political torture, and even wrote 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.100 the spectacularly failed manual on vampires. 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:24.620 Oh, yeah, the vampire man. Right. How does someone 00:00:24.620 --> 00:00:27.019 with that background end up writing some of the 00:00:27.019 --> 00:00:31.859 most tranquil globally beloved, best -selling 00:00:31.859 --> 00:00:35.000 spiritual literature in human history. It's quite 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.340 the pivot. It really is. Okay, let's unpack this, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:39.640 because the contrast at the center of the source 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:42.079 material is genuinely staggering. Like, if you 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:44.079 walk into a bookstore right now, you know a Paul 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:45.939 Coelho book the second you see it. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:46.020 --> 00:00:48.119 The covers usually feature, I don't know, a peaceful 00:00:48.119 --> 00:00:51.079 desert, a setting sun, maybe a solitary figure 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:53.259 walking down a quiet path. You pick up a book 00:00:53.259 --> 00:00:55.100 like The Alchemist, and you expect this gentle 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:56.740 guide through the universe. But when you look 00:00:56.740 --> 00:00:59.689 at the documentation of his actual I mean, it 00:00:59.689 --> 00:01:01.710 reads like a high stakes political thriller. 00:01:02.149 --> 00:01:04.650 Yeah, the dissonance there is, it's profound. 00:01:04.849 --> 00:01:07.329 I mean, between the serene author we think we 00:01:07.329 --> 00:01:10.049 know and the chaotic reality of his background. 00:01:10.329 --> 00:01:12.530 You know, a writer's life is rarely as tranquil 00:01:12.530 --> 00:01:15.870 as their finished prose. But Coelho's early years 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:18.430 really pushed that boundary to the absolute limit. 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:21.209 We're looking at a timeline defined by just immense 00:01:21.209 --> 00:01:24.700 personal and external turmoil. Right. And before 00:01:24.700 --> 00:01:27.299 we can even begin to talk about his global literary 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:29.840 phenomenons, we kind of have to look at the extreme 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.280 environments that initially caged him, because 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:34.780 those cages, they're clearly what radicalized 00:01:34.780 --> 00:01:37.599 his creative spirit. For sure. So the source 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:39.719 material starts us in Rio de Janeiro. He was 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.659 born there in 1947, and his early education took 00:01:42.659 --> 00:01:46.620 place at a really strict Jesuit school. But the 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:48.480 defining shock of his youth happened when he 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:51.040 was just 17 years old. His own parents committed 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.909 him to a mental institution. This wasn't a brief 00:01:53.909 --> 00:01:56.569 precautionary observation period either. The 00:01:56.569 --> 00:01:59.590 records show he was subjected to harsh institutionalization, 00:01:59.870 --> 00:02:01.609 primarily because his parents viewed his intense 00:02:01.609 --> 00:02:04.349 desire to be a writer and, well, his rebellious 00:02:04.349 --> 00:02:08.449 nature as a literal psychological disorder. And 00:02:08.449 --> 00:02:11.610 in the context of the 1960s, psychiatric institutions 00:02:11.610 --> 00:02:15.009 were often used as this blunt instrument to correct 00:02:15.009 --> 00:02:18.189 behavior that just didn't fit strict societal 00:02:18.189 --> 00:02:20.569 norms. I really want to make sure you, the listener, 00:02:20.770 --> 00:02:23.719 hear the gravity of that. 17 years old, locked 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:25.979 up by your own family just for wanting to write. 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:29.009 But he didn't just accept it. The sources show 00:02:29.009 --> 00:02:31.090 he actually escaped from this mental institution 00:02:31.090 --> 00:02:34.150 three separate times. Three times? Yeah, three 00:02:34.150 --> 00:02:35.930 times before he was finally released at the age 00:02:35.930 --> 00:02:39.210 of 20. And that detail alone, I mean, it reframes 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:41.449 his entire life. We normally think of the, you 00:02:41.449 --> 00:02:45.150 know, the rebellious teen phase as breaking curfew 00:02:45.150 --> 00:02:47.830 or wearing clothes your parents hate. For Coelho, 00:02:48.189 --> 00:02:50.349 his coming of age involved actual incarceration, 00:02:51.069 --> 00:02:53.789 forced institutionalization, and plotting multiple 00:02:53.789 --> 00:02:56.360 jailbreaks. Exactly. And the attempts to suppress 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.360 him, they continued Eta after his release. Under 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:01.319 immense pressure from his parents to abandon 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:04.280 this dream of writing, he caves, well, temporarily, 00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:06.960 and he enrolled in law school. Right. A completely 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:09.659 predictable attempt to force him into a conventional 00:03:09.659 --> 00:03:11.819 safe life, which, I mean, lasted exactly one 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:14.000 year before he dropped out. Yeah. He abandoned 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.479 law school entirely to embrace the 1960s counterculture. 00:03:17.770 --> 00:03:20.250 He lived as a hippie, embarking on these massive 00:03:20.250 --> 00:03:23.009 journeys across South America, North Africa, 00:03:23.129 --> 00:03:25.969 Mexico, and Europe. Traveling everywhere. Everywhere. 00:03:26.310 --> 00:03:28.430 And he openly experimented with drugs during 00:03:28.430 --> 00:03:31.069 this period. But the most harrowing restriction 00:03:31.069 --> 00:03:33.889 of his freedom was actually yet to come. Because 00:03:33.889 --> 00:03:36.530 when he returned to Brazil, the political landscape 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:40.289 had radically changed. By 1974, the country was 00:03:40.289 --> 00:03:42.550 under a brutal military dictatorship. Right. 00:03:42.830 --> 00:03:46.370 And Criolo was arrested for, quote unquote, subversive 00:03:46.370 --> 00:03:49.270 activities. and while he was in custody, he was 00:03:49.270 --> 00:03:51.210 tortured. Okay, let's pause here because I think 00:03:51.210 --> 00:03:53.409 we really need to contextualize this for anyone 00:03:53.409 --> 00:03:55.710 who isn't, you know, a scholar of South American 00:03:55.710 --> 00:03:58.830 history. What was the actual political climate 00:03:58.830 --> 00:04:02.129 of Brazil in 1974? Like, why would an aspiring 00:04:02.129 --> 00:04:04.330 writer and a hippie be viewed as such a massive 00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:06.650 threat to the government that he actually warranted 00:04:06.650 --> 00:04:09.840 torture? So during the Brazilian military dictatorship, 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:12.560 the regime was just obsessed with maintaining 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:15.099 absolute ideological control. You didn't have 00:04:15.099 --> 00:04:17.500 to be an armed revolutionary to be deemed a threat. 00:04:17.620 --> 00:04:19.980 You just had to be different. Right. Being a 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:22.660 highly visible hippie, someone openly promoting 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:26.220 counterculture, drug use, and this sort of borderless 00:04:26.220 --> 00:04:29.300 unstructured freedom that made you deeply subversive 00:04:29.300 --> 00:04:31.920 to an authoritarian regime. The government viewed 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:35.220 artists, musicians, and intellectuals as ideological 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:38.269 enemies who could corrupt the youth. So, just 00:04:38.269 --> 00:04:41.370 his lifestyle alone was a direct challenge to 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:44.379 the state's authority. That context changes everything. 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:47.600 It elevates his survival from a footnote to a 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.240 miracle, honestly. But I do want to push back 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:52.259 on something, or at least challenge how we normally 00:04:52.259 --> 00:04:54.560 talk about this kind of history. There's this 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.699 very traditional, almost romanticized narrative 00:04:57.699 --> 00:05:00.439 that great art requires deep trauma. Oh, the 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:02.100 tortured artist trope. Exactly, that you have 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:04.139 to suffer to be a great writer. Yeah. Looking 00:05:04.139 --> 00:05:06.800 at this timeline, the asylum at 17, the torture 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:10.139 by a military junta in his 20s, did these extreme 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:12.259 attempts to suppress him actually guarantee he 00:05:12.259 --> 00:05:14.019 would spend his life writing about spiritual 00:05:14.019 --> 00:05:16.540 liberation? Or is it just like sheer luck that 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:18.560 it didn't permanently crush him? Well, what's 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:20.579 fascinating here is how we can map his later 00:05:20.579 --> 00:05:23.560 philosophical themes directly onto these early 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:27.100 traumas without falling into the trap of romanticizing 00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:30.149 the trauma itself. I mean, you don't survive 00:05:30.149 --> 00:05:32.470 three escapes from a mental ward and political 00:05:32.470 --> 00:05:35.129 torture by a dictatorship without developing 00:05:35.129 --> 00:05:38.149 a profound, almost desperate obsession with the 00:05:38.149 --> 00:05:41.069 concept of freedom. Right. His physical imprisonment 00:05:41.069 --> 00:05:43.529 acted as the catalyst for his subsequent global 00:05:43.529 --> 00:05:46.209 hippie travels. The restriction is what fueled 00:05:46.209 --> 00:05:49.529 the wanderlust. It wasn't that the trauma magically 00:05:49.529 --> 00:05:52.990 formed him into a genius. Rather, his psychological 00:05:52.990 --> 00:05:56.689 survival mechanism was to seek out absolute borderless 00:05:56.689 --> 00:05:59.480 freedom. And that mechanism became the ultimate 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:02.050 engine for his future career. So the search for 00:06:02.050 --> 00:06:03.889 freedom wasn't just a philosophical exercise 00:06:03.889 --> 00:06:06.430 for a novel. It was a biological necessity to 00:06:06.430 --> 00:06:08.750 survive his 20s. But of course, traveling the 00:06:08.750 --> 00:06:10.470 world as a hippie and wanting to be free doesn't 00:06:10.470 --> 00:06:12.889 actually pay the bills. That desperation for 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.069 freedom had to be monetized eventually, which 00:06:15.069 --> 00:06:17.490 forced him into some incredibly strange kind 00:06:17.490 --> 00:06:20.569 of disjointed career paths. His artistic voice 00:06:20.569 --> 00:06:23.329 was initially completely out of tune. Yeah, he 00:06:23.329 --> 00:06:26.470 built a remarkably eclectic, pre -fame resume 00:06:26.470 --> 00:06:30.009 trying to find that voice. After his global travels, 00:06:30.389 --> 00:06:32.769 he tried his hand at almost everything. He worked 00:06:32.769 --> 00:06:35.009 as an actor. He's a journalist. He directed theater. 00:06:35.129 --> 00:06:37.910 A bit of everything. Yeah. But his most significant 00:06:37.910 --> 00:06:41.029 early success actually came as a lyricist. This 00:06:41.029 --> 00:06:43.069 detail from the source material blew my mind. 00:06:43.410 --> 00:06:45.189 He was writing lyrics for some of the biggest 00:06:45.189 --> 00:06:48.329 Brazilian music stars of the era, like Elis Regina, 00:06:48.550 --> 00:06:51.350 Rita Lee, and the legendary rock musician Raul 00:06:51.350 --> 00:06:54.410 Seixas. He was literally a hit -making songwriter. 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:56.610 He achieved major commercial success in the music 00:06:56.610 --> 00:06:59.500 industry. but his actual foundational goal to 00:06:59.500 --> 00:07:02.240 be an author of literature proved much more difficult. 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.800 His first foray into publishing happened in 1982 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:08.720 with a book called Hell Archives, and it was 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:10.939 a complete commercial and critical failure. Okay, 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:13.060 here's where it gets really interesting. Because 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:16.240 four years later, in 1986, he contributed to 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:19.339 a book titled The Practical Manual of Vampirism. 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:22.480 Oh yes, a book he later considered to be of such 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:24.939 shockingly poor quality that he actively tried 00:07:24.939 --> 00:07:26.839 to have it pulled from store shelves and destroyed. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.500 Which is just, it's the ultimate embarrassing 00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:33.300 high school garage band demo tape. But for a 00:07:33.300 --> 00:07:36.160 globally respected spiritual philosopher, imagine 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:38.620 writing The Alchemist and knowing there is a 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:40.740 vampire manual with your name on it floating 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:42.600 around out there in the world. It's quite the 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.220 image. But I have to ask, does an artist actually 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:47.339 have to fail this bizarrely to figure out what 00:07:47.339 --> 00:07:49.779 they want to say? We love the myth of the overnight 00:07:49.779 --> 00:07:51.879 genius who just sits down at a typewriter and 00:07:51.879 --> 00:07:54.360 bleeds a masterpiece. But maybe you have to write 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:57.029 the terrible vampire manual to get the bad words 00:07:57.029 --> 00:07:59.350 out of your system. This raises an important 00:07:59.350 --> 00:08:01.470 question about the trial and error nature of 00:08:01.470 --> 00:08:04.069 creativity. We have this instinct, much like 00:08:04.069 --> 00:08:07.529 Coyle did, to want to erase our past missteps, 00:08:07.689 --> 00:08:10.290 right? To bury the embarrassing work. Sure. But 00:08:10.290 --> 00:08:12.889 if we analyze the mechanics of his career, those 00:08:12.889 --> 00:08:15.449 failures were vital. Think about his time writing 00:08:15.449 --> 00:08:19.009 pop and rock lyrics. Writing song lyrics forces 00:08:19.009 --> 00:08:22.269 you to distill massive, complicated human emotions 00:08:22.269 --> 00:08:25.509 into a catchy three -minute hook. You had to 00:08:25.509 --> 00:08:28.709 communicate instantly with a broad populist audience. 00:08:28.850 --> 00:08:30.610 Okay, I see where you're going with this. Right. 00:08:31.050 --> 00:08:34.289 Coelho took that exact same pop music architecture, 00:08:34.970 --> 00:08:37.730 those short, punchy, universally relatable sentences, 00:08:37.970 --> 00:08:40.110 and eventually applied it to spiritual philosophy. 00:08:40.370 --> 00:08:42.549 Oh, wow. So writing hit songs actually taught 00:08:42.549 --> 00:08:45.029 him the cadence of his future novels. Precisely. 00:08:45.409 --> 00:08:47.850 And writing Hell Archives and The Vampire Manual, 00:08:48.289 --> 00:08:51.049 as disjointed as they were, they taught him the 00:08:51.049 --> 00:08:52.990 physical mechanics of writing a manuscript and 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:55.500 getting a book published. You cannot separate 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:58.080 the failed author from the successful one. Those 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.100 embarrassments were the necessary developmental 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:02.639 stages for refining his ability to communicate 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:05.240 complex ideas to the masses. He had to figure 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:07.299 out what his voice wasn't before he could figure 00:09:07.299 --> 00:09:10.519 out what it was. Exactly. But the shift from 00:09:10.519 --> 00:09:13.120 writing failed vampire manuals to writing profound 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:15.559 spiritual literature didn't happen just because 00:09:15.559 --> 00:09:18.299 he practiced his typing. It required a grueling 00:09:18.299 --> 00:09:21.159 physical journey to reset his entire psychological 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:24.539 framework. It did. In 1986, the exact same year 00:09:24.539 --> 00:09:27.259 the vampire manual was published, Coelho walked 00:09:27.259 --> 00:09:29.389 the Camino de Santiago. Now, for those who might 00:09:29.389 --> 00:09:31.389 only know the name, what does walking the Camino 00:09:31.389 --> 00:09:33.730 actually entail? Like, why is it such a big deal? 00:09:33.929 --> 00:09:36.370 Well, the Camino isn't just a casual hike. It's 00:09:36.370 --> 00:09:39.330 a grueling, centuries -old medieval pilgrimage 00:09:39.330 --> 00:09:42.210 route, standing hundreds of miles across northwestern 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:45.730 Spain. Walking it forces absolute physical exhaustion. 00:09:46.230 --> 00:09:47.929 You strip away the noise and the distractions 00:09:47.929 --> 00:09:50.169 of your daily life because you are completely 00:09:50.169 --> 00:09:53.049 consumed by the physical reality of the next 00:09:53.049 --> 00:09:56.000 step. the next mile, the next blister. Just survival 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.399 mode. Right. The physical toll forces a radical 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:02.279 internal silence. For Coelho, this pilgrimage 00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:05.279 was a profound spiritual turning point. It stripped 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.299 away the superficial pursuits like the vampire 00:10:07.299 --> 00:10:10.940 book and reconnected him with his original genuine 00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:13.679 desire to write about the human soul. It provided 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:15.940 the exact material he needed for his breakthrough. 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:19.240 Caused the very next year, in 1987, he published 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:21.440 The Pilgrimage, which is an autobiographical 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:23.620 account of that ruling journey across Spain. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:26.159 And then the year after that, in 1988, came the 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:27.840 book that would completely alter the landscape 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:31.820 of global publishing, The Alchemist. Yes. Though 00:10:31.820 --> 00:10:33.659 it's crucial to note that the success of The 00:10:33.659 --> 00:10:35.779 Alchemist was absolutely not immediate. In fact, 00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:38.779 it was initially another failure. A massive failure. 00:10:39.259 --> 00:10:41.759 He published it through a small Brazilian publishing 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:44.500 house and the source notes, they printed exactly 00:10:44.500 --> 00:10:48.379 900 copies. It was 900. And when those 900 copies 00:10:48.379 --> 00:10:51.000 sold out, the publisher decided not to reprint 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.320 it. They dropped the book entirely. Let's think 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:56.399 about the mechanics of that for a second. Publishing 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.799 900 copies of a book worldwide is like driping 00:10:59.799 --> 00:11:02.220 a single drop of food coloring into the ocean 00:11:02.220 --> 00:11:04.820 and expecting the water to change color. There 00:11:04.820 --> 00:11:07.399 just isn't enough density to create any word 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:09.740 of mouth. Not at all. Imagine writing one of 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:11.899 the most beloved stories in human history and 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:14.039 your publisher essentially says, hey, 900 is 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:17.379 enough. We're good. So how does a book that is 00:11:17.379 --> 00:11:20.320 definitively officially dropped claw its way 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:22.299 back from the grave to become one of the best 00:11:22.299 --> 00:11:24.240 selling novels of all time? If we connect this 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:26.769 to the bigger picture. It's a master class in 00:11:26.769 --> 00:11:30.549 timing, synthesis, and sheer resilience. First, 00:11:30.929 --> 00:11:33.250 Cuello simply refused to accept the rejection. 00:11:34.029 --> 00:11:36.450 He took his manuscript and hunted down a bigger 00:11:36.450 --> 00:11:39.149 publishing house. With this new publisher, he 00:11:39.149 --> 00:11:42.269 released his next novel, Brita, in 1990. And 00:11:42.269 --> 00:11:45.970 that's the pivot point. Yes. The success of Brita 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:49.279 generated immense press, which brought readers 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:51.419 actively searching back through his previous 00:11:51.419 --> 00:11:54.700 work. It created a massive retrospective snowball 00:11:54.700 --> 00:11:58.000 effect for the alchemist. The demand surged so 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.039 high that by 1994, Harper Collins picked it up 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.179 and published it internationally. But the snowball 00:12:03.179 --> 00:12:05.899 effect only works if the book itself has a universal 00:12:05.899 --> 00:12:08.500 engine, right? You mentioned synthesis earlier. 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:11.860 What exactly was he synthesizing in the altimists 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:14.759 that made it appeal to literally hundreds of 00:12:14.759 --> 00:12:17.299 millions of people? Well, Coelho has openly stated, 00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:20.320 including in a notable 2009 interview, that the 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:22.539 Sufi tradition was a major influence on his writing, 00:12:22.940 --> 00:12:24.940 particularly for the alchemist and a later book 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:26.940 called the Zahir. Wait, before we move on, for 00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:29.159 those of us who aren't theology majors, what 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:31.740 exactly is the Sufi tradition and how does a 00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:34.139 Brazilian Catholic end up weaving it into a novel? 00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:37.419 Good question. The Sufi tradition is the mystical 00:12:37.419 --> 00:12:40.480 inward -facing branch of Islam. It emphasizes 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:43.340 a direct personal experience of the divine, often 00:12:43.340 --> 00:12:46.039 through intuition, spiritual journeys, and stripping 00:12:46.039 --> 00:12:48.759 away the ego, rather than focusing purely on 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:50.799 strict legalistic religious codes. Okay, that 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:53.019 makes sense. During his years traveling the world 00:12:53.019 --> 00:12:56.240 as a hippie, Coelho absorbed these diverse global 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.220 spiritual traditions. What he did with the alchemist 00:12:59.220 --> 00:13:02.659 was take this deep Islamic mysticism, blend it 00:13:02.659 --> 00:13:05.179 with Western narrative structures, and package 00:13:05.179 --> 00:13:07.419 it into a highly accessible adventure story. 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:10.799 It wasn't just a good plot. It was an approachable 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:13.179 translation of complex world philosophies. And 00:13:13.179 --> 00:13:14.879 the numbers that resulted from that synthesis 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:17.950 are almost terrifying. The Alchemist became an 00:13:17.950 --> 00:13:19.990 international juggernaut. We are talking about 00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:22.029 a writer whose total body of work has been published 00:13:22.029 --> 00:13:25.789 in over 170 countries, translated into 83 different 00:13:25.789 --> 00:13:29.029 languages. He has sold 320 million copies of 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.330 his books. It is a level of scale that is practically 00:13:31.330 --> 00:13:33.389 impossible for the human brain to visualize. 00:13:34.509 --> 00:13:37.350 But when you achieve that staggering, ubiquitous 00:13:37.350 --> 00:13:40.190 level of global success, especially when your 00:13:40.190 --> 00:13:42.750 work pushes a deeply personal, genre -blending 00:13:42.750 --> 00:13:45.529 spiritual philosophy, you inevitably attract 00:13:45.529 --> 00:13:47.269 the attention of people who guard traditional 00:13:47.269 --> 00:13:49.909 boundaries. Right. And this brings us to the 00:13:49.909 --> 00:13:52.440 fiercely complicated part of his legacy. the 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:54.759 blurred lines between his life, his fiction, 00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:57.960 and his critics. Now, before we get into the 00:13:57.960 --> 00:13:59.840 religious backlash, I want to be entirely clear 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.379 for you listening. We aren't taking a side on 00:14:02.379 --> 00:14:04.860 the theological or literary validity of his work. 00:14:05.019 --> 00:14:06.919 We are simply reporting on the arguments and 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:08.940 the reception presented in our source material. 00:14:09.700 --> 00:14:12.720 And the source shows a major, major rift. Let's 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:15.659 look at the religious side first. Coelho is a 00:14:15.659 --> 00:14:18.220 self -described Catholic, but his work routinely 00:14:18.220 --> 00:14:21.529 faces severe organized criticism from Orthodox 00:14:21.529 --> 00:14:23.870 religious circles. Yeah, from a strict theological 00:14:23.870 --> 00:14:25.870 perspective, many critics argue his writings 00:14:25.870 --> 00:14:27.950 are fundamentally incompatible with the Catholic 00:14:27.950 --> 00:14:30.529 faith. The criticism centers on his heavy inclusion 00:14:30.529 --> 00:14:33.309 of New Age concepts, as well as pantheist ideas. 00:14:33.710 --> 00:14:36.289 Pantheism being the belief that the divine is 00:14:36.289 --> 00:14:38.330 present in all things in nature, right? Not just 00:14:38.330 --> 00:14:41.090 a singular deity in heaven, but God existing 00:14:41.090 --> 00:14:43.730 in the trees, the wind, the desert. Exactly. 00:14:44.269 --> 00:14:47.200 Which bypasses traditional church dogma. Furthermore, 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:49.700 religious critics take issue with his relativist 00:14:49.700 --> 00:14:52.039 themes the idea that spiritual truth is subjective, 00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:54.299 that your personal journey to find meaning is 00:14:54.299 --> 00:14:57.320 valid regardless of orthodox rules. They argue 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.610 this dilutes structured faith. Which makes total 00:15:00.610 --> 00:15:02.809 sense when you remember he was influenced by 00:15:02.809 --> 00:15:05.870 Islamic Sufism, his years living as a counterculture 00:15:05.870 --> 00:15:09.210 hippie, and his massive global travels. He's 00:15:09.210 --> 00:15:11.090 pulling ingredients from everywhere to make his 00:15:11.090 --> 00:15:13.389 own recipe. But it's not just religious critics 00:15:13.389 --> 00:15:15.529 guarding their borders. The literary establishment 00:15:15.529 --> 00:15:18.330 has often been incredibly harsh on him, too. 00:15:18.750 --> 00:15:20.590 Critics have frequently labeled his later works 00:15:20.590 --> 00:15:23.279 as superficial. Literary critics often argue 00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:25.460 that the philosophical observations in his novels 00:15:25.460 --> 00:15:28.000 lack academic rigor, or that his prose relies 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.139 on clichés rather than the complex, nuanced structures 00:15:31.139 --> 00:15:34.220 expected of high literature. So what does this 00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:36.000 all mean? I have to throw a flag on the play 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:37.919 here and push back against the literary critics. 00:15:38.340 --> 00:15:40.759 If a body of work resonates on a deeply emotional 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:44.159 level with 320 million people across 83 different 00:15:44.159 --> 00:15:46.580 languages, at what point is calling it superficial 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:49.720 just a form of literary snobbery? Does the fact 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:52.159 that a book is mass accessible inherently mean 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:54.500 it lacks depth? If it helps millions of people 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:56.779 process their own lives, isn't that the ultimate 00:15:56.779 --> 00:15:58.899 goal of literature? It is the eternal debate 00:15:58.899 --> 00:16:02.480 in art. To navigate this fairly, we have to look 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:05.419 at the frameworks both sides are using. The literary 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:07.919 critics are evaluating his work against traditional 00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:11.500 complex narrative architecture. From that specific 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:13.600 academic framework, they find the simple pop 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:16.620 music -like cadence of his writing lacking. But 00:16:16.620 --> 00:16:18.679 the millions of readers buying his books aren't 00:16:18.679 --> 00:16:21.000 looking for academic rigor. They are looking 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.000 for a mirror to their own spiritual searching. 00:16:23.679 --> 00:16:25.820 The tension between mass spiritual appeal and 00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:27.679 orthodox structures, whether those structures 00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:30.200 are religious institutions or literary academies, 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:32.460 is the defining hallmark of Coolio's career. 00:16:32.730 --> 00:16:35.269 And it's a career where the art and the artist 00:16:35.269 --> 00:16:38.509 are completely hopelessly entangled. You literally 00:16:38.509 --> 00:16:41.070 cannot separate his books from his life. The 00:16:41.070 --> 00:16:42.970 source material notes that several of his novels, 00:16:43.070 --> 00:16:45.429 including The Pilgrimage, Hickey, The Valkyries, 00:16:45.470 --> 00:16:48.889 and Aleph, are explicitly autobiographical. You 00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:51.789 are reading his actual life story disguised as 00:16:51.789 --> 00:16:54.210 fiction. There was even a biographical film released 00:16:54.210 --> 00:16:57.190 in 2014 called Paulo Coel's Best Story. Yeah, 00:16:57.190 --> 00:16:59.950 you have a man who is a tortured political subversive, 00:17:00.149 --> 00:17:02.980 a psychedelic hippie, a hit songwriter. a Catholic, 00:17:03.299 --> 00:17:05.539 and eventually, despite the literary criticism, 00:17:06.059 --> 00:17:08.000 a member of the prestigious Brazilian Academy 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:11.440 of Letters. A genre -defying life naturally produces 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.559 genre -defying polarizing literature. He doesn't 00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:17.279 fit neatly into the box of orthodox theologian 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:19.660 or literary fiction author, so the guardians 00:17:19.660 --> 00:17:22.180 of those boxes reject him. But the general public 00:17:22.180 --> 00:17:25.039 embraces him precisely because his messy seeking 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:27.400 nature reflects their own lived experience. It 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:30.779 is an unbelievable sweeping arc. To go from a 00:17:30.779 --> 00:17:33.299 teenager plotting escapes from a mental institution, 00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:35.839 to a young man surviving political torture in 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:38.500 a military dictatorship, to eventually writing 00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:40.640 the words that sit on hundreds of millions of 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.200 bedside tables around the world. For you listening 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.180 right now, if you are feeling stuck in your own 00:17:45.180 --> 00:17:48.019 path, Coelho's life is the ultimate proof that 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:50.019 finding your life's work is rarely a straight 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:53.660 line. It involves brutal dead ends, dropped publishing 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:56.980 deals, terrible vampire manuals, and just the 00:17:56.980 --> 00:17:59.140 sheer stubborn resilience to keep walking your 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:02.089 own Camino, mile after mile. It's the persistence 00:18:02.089 --> 00:18:04.690 to keep searching, even when institutions, medical, 00:18:04.730 --> 00:18:07.230 political, or literary, are actively telling 00:18:07.230 --> 00:18:09.630 you to stop. And as we bring this conversation 00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:12.450 to a close, there is one final, incredibly poignant 00:18:12.450 --> 00:18:14.309 detail from the source material that we want 00:18:14.309 --> 00:18:16.829 to leave you with, something to ponder long after 00:18:16.829 --> 00:18:19.890 we wrap up this deep dive today. In 2016, Paula 00:18:19.890 --> 00:18:22.309 Coelho was contacted by the basketball legend, 00:18:22.589 --> 00:18:25.410 Kobe Bryant. Bryant wanted to discuss co -writing 00:18:25.410 --> 00:18:27.519 a children's book together. And this wasn't just 00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:30.359 a passing conversation. They spent months conceptualizing 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:32.880 the project, and they had actually started actively 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:35.380 writing the manuscript together shortly before 00:18:35.380 --> 00:18:38.720 January 2020, which is tragically when Kobe Bryant 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:41.819 was killed in a helicopter crash following Bryant's 00:18:41.819 --> 00:18:45.299 death. Paulo Coelho had a choice. He had a partially 00:18:45.299 --> 00:18:47.480 finished manuscript co -authored by one of the 00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:50.240 most famous, beloved athletes in human history. 00:18:51.019 --> 00:18:53.740 Commercially speaking, it was a guaranteed absolute 00:18:53.740 --> 00:18:56.160 blockbuster. It would have sold millions of copies 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.400 on day one. But Coelho chose to completely cancel 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:02.359 the project. He deleted the draft and discontinued 00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:05.099 it entirely. He stated simply that the book had 00:19:05.099 --> 00:19:07.539 lost its reason. It's a profound statement on 00:19:07.539 --> 00:19:10.099 the actual purpose of creation. He recognized 00:19:10.099 --> 00:19:12.000 that the value wasn't in the finished product. 00:19:12.140 --> 00:19:14.079 It was in the process of building it with that 00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:16.740 specific person. It really is. And it's the thought 00:19:16.740 --> 00:19:19.359 we want to challenge you with today. What does 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:22.519 it say about the true fundamental value of art 00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:25.319 when a globally famous author chooses to let 00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:28.099 a guaranteed bestseller die simply because he 00:19:28.099 --> 00:19:30.599 can no longer share the process with his collaborator? 00:19:31.259 --> 00:19:33.819 What unfinished projects in our own lives, whether 00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:36.420 they are creative, professional, or personal, 00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:38.940 are defined entirely by the people we share them 00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:41.799 with rather than the final product itself? It 00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:44.380 reminds us that sometimes the journey with another 00:19:44.380 --> 00:19:47.180 person is the entire point of the work. So the 00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:49.440 next time you are in that bookstore and you see 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:52.279 that peaceful tranquil cover of a Palacueo novel, 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:54.859 don't just see the calm sunset. Remember the 00:19:54.859 --> 00:19:56.880 escapes, the failures, the torture, and the lost 00:19:56.880 --> 00:19:59.619 collaborations. Remember the beautiful chaotic 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:02.019 friction it takes to finally find your peace.