Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda

Monday, 29. May 2006, 16:38:53
This man changed my life and tought me that every second is important and besides all....life is short and we don't have time to experience everything before we leave this Earth and travel to the vastness.
-2501

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Carlos Castaneda
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Carlos Castaneda, previously Castañeda, (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was an author of a controversial series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism (ancient sorcery of the Toltec people).

Castaneda claimed to have met a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus in 1960. Castaneda's experiences with Don Juan allegedly inspired the works for which he is known. He claimed to have inherited from Don Juan the position of nagual, or leader of a party of seers. He also used the term "nagual" to signify that which is unknowable, neither known nor knowable; implying that, for his party of seers, Don Juan was a connection in some way to that unknowable. The term has been used by anthropologists to mean a shaman or sorcerer who is capable of shapeshifting, or changing to an animal form, and also to mean the form to which such a person might shift.

Castaneda's works contain descriptions of paranormal or magical experiences, several psychological techniques, Toltec magic rituals, shamanism and experiences with psychoactive drugs (e.g. peyote). Carlos Castaneda's works have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages.
Contents
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* 1 Biography
* 2 Brief description of books
* 3 Interpretation and criticism (the Castaneda controversy)
* 4 Significant characters in Castaneda's works
* 5 Related authors
* 6 Notable works
o 6.1 Books by other authors
* 7 See also
* 8 External links

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Biography

Castaneda claimed he was born in São Paulo, Brazil on Christmas Day in 1931. Immigration records show, however, that he was born six years earlier in Cajamarca, Peru. He anglicized his name by changing the "ñ" (in Castañeda) into "n". He moved to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. He was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (B.A. 1962; Ph.D. 1970).

Castaneda wrote twelve books and several academic articles detailing his experiences with the Yaqui Indians indigenous to parts of Central Mexico. His first three books, The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui way of knowledge, A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan were written while Castaneda was an anthropology student at UCLA. Castaneda wrote these books as if they were his research log describing his apprenticeship with a traditional shaman identified as Don Juan Matus. Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees for the work described in these books.

His work has been criticized by academics, and is seen as highly suspect in terms of strict anthropological fieldwork. Many have tried to corroborate Castaneda’s stories with his own personal history and that of his fellow apprentices. Contradictory evidence suggests Castaneda wrote in the traditional allegorical style of the storyteller (ethnopoetics) common to many native Indian cultures.

Perhaps the most highly contested aspects of his work are the descriptions of the use of psychotropic plants as a means to induce altered states of awareness. In Castaneda's first two books, he describes the Yaqui way of knowledge requiring the use of powerful indigenous plants, such as peyote and datura. In his third book, Journey to Ixtlan, he reverses his emphasis on 'power plants'. He states that Don Juan used them on Castaneda to demonstrate that experiences outside those known in day-to-day life are real and tangible.

Castaneda later disavowed all use of drugs for these purposes, stating they could inalterably damage the luminous ball (energy body) or physical body.

Castaneda was a popular enough phenomenon for Time magazine to do a cover article on Castaneda on March 5, 1973 (Vol. 101 No. 10) that was five or six pages long.

His fourth book, Tales of Power, ended with Castaneda leaping off a cliff marking his graduation from disciple to man of knowledge (actually a leap from the tonal into the unknown). Some writers thought this must necessarily mark the end of his series. They were very surprised to see he continued to produce more books. Despite an increasingly critical reception Castaneda continued to be very popular with the reading public. Twelve books by Castaneda have been published, and three videos released.

In 1997 Castaneda launched a lawsuit against his ex-wife, Margaret Runyan Castaneda, over her book, A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda; but this was dropped when Castaneda died.

Castaneda purportedly died on April 27, 1998 from liver cancer in Los Angeles. Little is known about his death. There was no public service, Castaneda was apparently cremated and the ashes were sent to Mexico.

The mystery surrounding the facts of Casteneda's life and death can be seen through the lens of the Toltec teachings as an impeccable effort on his part to erase his personal history.

The nine popular works (as opposed to the academic or scholarly works) of Carlos Castaneda are organized into three sets of three, where each set corresponds to a Toltec mastery: the mastery of awareness, the mastery of transformation, and the mastery of intent. For each mastery there is also a compendium that describes essential teachings from the overall body of work. The three compendiums were published posthumously.

Thus, each mastery is described in four works: three works presented in story form and one work compiled as a cross-set reference:

The Mastery of Awareness

* The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968)
* A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971)
* Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972)
* Compendium - Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico (1998)

The Mastery of Transformation

* Tales of Power (1975)
* The Second Ring of Power (1977)
* The Eagle's Gift (1981)
* Compendium - The Active Side of Infinity (1999)

The Mastery of Intent

* The Fire from Within (1984)
* The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan (1987)
* The Art of Dreaming (1993)
* Compendium - The Wheel Of Time : The Shamans Of Mexico (2000)

The following list generally defines each mastery:

1. Mastery of Awareness – The Mastery of Awareness entails the re-emphasis of awareness from the world of the tonal (every day objects) to the world of the nagual (spirit). During this stage of development the warrior-traveler endeavors to minimize self importance and gather energy. First and foremost, the student is encouraged to take action and assume responsibility for his or her life.
2. Mastery of Transformation – During The Mastery of Transformation the warrior-traveler endeavors to cleanse and retrieve energy and to hone his only link to spirit, the intuition. The warrior-traveler becomes impeccable by empirically testing this connection and eventually banishing all doubts, accepting his or her fate, and committing to follow a path with heart.
3. Mastery of Intent – Once the warrior-traveler has accumulated enough surplus energy, enough personal power, the dormant second attention is activated. Dreaming becomes possible. The warrior-traveler maintains impeccability, walks the path with heart, and waits for an opening to freedom.


Castaneda's books can be read as a philosophical/pragmatical text that express a world view by which a person can live one's life. There is a movement world-wide of practitioners of this philosophy, applying Castaneda's published ideas either independently or through consultation with Castaneda's associates.

According to Castaneda, the most significant facts in a person's life are his possession of a dormant awareness and the possibility that one may keep this awareness after death. The primary goal of a Toltec "Warrior" is the continuation of his awareness after bodily death: to "dart past the Eagle and be free", in the words of the tradition, where the Eagle is the force which consumes the awareness of all living beings.

To cheat death in this way requires all of the discipline and procedures that constitute the Warrior's way of life. These practices are devised to maximise the Warrior's personal power, or experience. The condition maintaining personal power is known as "impeccability".

Sufficient personal power leads to the mastery of intent, chiefly the controlled movement of what is known as the "assemblage point". This is an artifact of the tradition's description of another world underlying what we perceive as ordinary reality. In this description men are glowing cocoons of awareness inhabiting a universe consisting of the Eagle's "emanations", described euphemistically as all-pervading filaments of light.

Humans' cocoons are intersected throughout by these filaments, producing perception, but they filter our perceptions by concentrating on only a small bundle. The assemblage point is the focusing lens which selects from the emanations. In its accustomed position, the assemblage point produces what humans perceive as everyday, 'normal' reality. Movement of the assemblage point permits perception of the world in different ways; small movements lead to small changes in perception and large movements to radical changes. For example, dreaming is presented as the result of a movement of the assemblage point; "power plants" such as Peyote, used in the early stages of Castaneda's apprenticeship, produce powerfully altered states of mind through such movement.

The simplest form of movement of the assemblage point is through dreaming. Many practitioners world-wide were able to 'stalk' or hold their assemblage points fixed at a position other than the customery via lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming techniques which are likened to gates are comprehensively discussed in the "Art of Dreaming."
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Brief description of books

1. The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge - description of plant allies and way towards knowledge: mescalito (peyote cactus) - the protector of man, seeing beings as liquid colors; mushrooms- learning to handle, fly, and perceive as animal form; datura (weed)- female spirit, hard to handle, gives strength, lengthy procedure. This book was unique of the series in that the last part included a detailed scholarly "Structural Analysis" of the teachings.
2. A Separate Reality - Discusses the ideas of will, controlled folly, and seeing (as opposed to looking) as tools a warrior uses to be a man/person of knowledge.
3. Journey to Ixtlan - lessons about the warriors way, or stalking the world, routines, personal history, self-importance, death as an advisor, not-doing, dreaming
4. Tales of Power - description of points of perception in body or luminous cocoon, tonal or toñal (1st attention, known, right side awareness, [possibly the left-brain]) and nagual (2nd attention, unknown, left side awareness, right-brain), dreaming double
5. The Second Ring of Power - describes events after Don Juan's departure, experiences with the women warriors of the original nagual's party, 2nd attention (second ring of power), losing "human 'form'", human mold, dreaming, gazing
6. The Eagle's Gift - description of the force that creates, destroys, and rules the universe (or at least the 48 bands of earth), also source of emanations themselves, description of the eagle's command to man, the rule of the nagual, various levels of petty tyrants, and way towards freedom, self-stalking and dreaming, power spots. Note that Don Juan described the energy-structure/entity called eagle a thing that is not what we call an eagle, but rather a thing so vast as to be incomprehensible.
7. The Fire From Within - step by step (actually chapter by chapter) elucidation of the mastery of awareness or the new seers' knowledge: everything is energy (the Eagle's emanations or luminous emanations), the luminous cocoon and assemblage point (glow of awareness), the known (1st attention or tonal), unknown (2nd attention or nagual), unknowable (outside luminous cocoon), petty tyrants as a way to move assemblage point and foster warrior's way, twin worlds of organic and inorganic ( more correctly matter-beings and non-matter-bound beings -- carbon-based/not carbon based wasn't what was meant), shifting the assemblage point and other bands of awareness, bundles of emanations that are the basis for the different species source of awareness and forms/molds, the human mold, the rolling force or tumbler (that hits luminous cocoon), the death defier, self-stalking, intent, and dreaming.
8. The Power of Silence - stories about essentially the mastery of intent, set into what were called sorcery cores.
9. The Art of Dreaming - steps to mastering control and consciousness of dreams.
10. Magical Passes - descriptions with photos of sorcery-based physical movements intended to increase well-being, a system which became known as Tensegrity
11. The Active Side of Infinity - recapitulation, making a log of significant life events (as seen by the spirit)
12. The Wheel of Time - recollection of the mood in which each previous book was written; significant quotes from each previous book

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Interpretation and criticism (the Castaneda controversy)

Many critics doubt the existence of Don Juan, citing inconsistencies in Don Juan's personality across the books and in the sequence of events in the books. Many Castaneda supporters claim in turn that the very fact of handling awareness and perception accounts for this; and that the actual existence of Don Juan is irrelevant, since the important matter is the theme that Don Juan presents.

What is easily understood is the fact that the writing style changes greatly from the first to the last of the "Don Juan" books. The Teachings of Don Juan is an anthropologist's journal containing a lot of seemingly irrelevant, non-fiction information. The quasi-journalistic or academic tone of the earliest books disappears definitively in Castaneda's fifth book, The Second Ring of Power. This book marks a significant change in the character of the series. In addition to introducing a large cast of new characters, the later Castaneda books present Don Juan's shamanism in far greater complexity than in the earlier books. The Eagle's Gift (sixth book) is a novel-like work with specific characters on a journey towards what they call "Total Freedom", and where the words of Don Juan seem more like those of a scientist. This could be the result of changes in the mind of Carlos Castaneda.

As Castaneda was very elusive, and because his works were taken up by young people at a time when New Age, Eastern religions, mystical and shamanic traditions were in fashion, many professionals cast doubt on the authenticity of contents of his works. (Including leading anthropologists specializing in Yaqui culture.) When he followed up The Teachings of Don Juan with a series of equally popular books, including A Separate Reality (1971), Journey to Ixtlan (1972), and Tales of Power (1975), even more questions were raised as to how much of his work was true anthropology and how much was his own creation.


Another way to read the books is as a sort of game, almost like a detective novel. Depending upon one's approach, they could be either accepted at face-value in their entirety, or discarded. Some of the material could be considered true, some fictional; and some of the events described probably appeared to be real at the time, but could be interpreted as hallucinations. The vividness and plausibility of Castaneda's early works argue for their essential truth. Accounts of Castaneda'a early life[1] and the memoir "A magical journey with Carlos Castaneda" [2], by his former wife Margaret Runyan Castaneda, exhibit many conflicts with what Castaneda said about himself, and point the other way.

( see also New Age, Shamanism, Plastic shaman)
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Significant characters in Castaneda's works

This is a list of characters, claimed to be real persons, mentioned in Castaneda's works. Castaneda makes it clear that these are not the persons' real names (ostensibly to protect their identity). In denoting their function within each generation of practitioners, terms are used which can only be understood by reading Castaneda's writings:

Generation of practitioners peer to Castaneda (Compact group for "three-pronged Nagual")

* Florinda Donner-Grau -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners
* Taisha Abelar -- "Westerly" "self-stalker" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners
* Carol Tiggs -- "nagual woman" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners

Generation of practitioners peer to Castaneda (Original group for "four-pronged Nagual")

* Pablito -- the "man of action" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Nestor -- the "scholarly man" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Benigno -- the "master of intent" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Eligio -- a "courier" who ultimately joined previous generation due to Carlos' lack of ability to follow his explorations of awareness, apparently a manifestation of Carlos not being a four-pronged nagual
* La Gorda -- "Northerly" "dreamer" who was originally thought to be the "Southerly" "dreamer", this was apparently a manifestation of Carlos not being a four-pronged nagual
* Rosa -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Lidia -- "Easterly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Josephina -- "Westerly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Doña Soledad -- "Northerly" "self-stalker" in Carlos' generation of practitioners

Generation of practitioners preceding Castaneda

* Don Juan Matus -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Castaneda
* Genaro Flores -- the "man of action" and "master of awareness" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners, benefactor to Castaneda
* Vicente Medrano -- "scholarly man" and herbalist in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Silvio Manuel -- "master of intent" and purported to be permanently in a state of "heightened awareness" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Juan Tuma -- "scout" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Florinda Grau -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Nelida Abelar -- "Northerly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Marta -- "Southerly" "dreamer"? in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Zoila Abelar -- "Westerly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Zuleica Grau -- "Westerly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Delia Abelar -- "Easterly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Celia Grau -- "Easterly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners

Generation of practitioners preceding Juan Matus

* Julián Osorio -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Juan Matus
* "La Catalina" -- woman sorceress who still remained in the world at the time of Carlos' training, part of Julián's generation of practitioners

Generation of practitioners preceding Julián Osorio

* Elias Ulloa -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Julián Osorio, and to Juan Matus as well.

Significant event in the lineage

* The nagual Sebastian's encounter in the 1700s with an ancient seer, the "death defier", also referred to as the "tenant". That encounter dramatically altered their lineage and was what separates the "new" seers from the "old" seers. Castaneda stated that the death defier met with every nagual since Sebastian, including with Carlos. The death defier also met and possessed Carol Tiggs. Capable of taking male or female form, existing or not existing corporeally in this world.

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Related authors

Two other authors, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau, have also written books in which they claim to be from Don Juan Matus' party of Toltec warriors. Both Abelar and Donner-Grau were endorsed by Castaneda as being legitimate students of Don Juan Matus, whereas he has dismissed many other pretenders. Another author of note is Victor Sanchez; Sanchez claims to have had similar teachings, and met Castaneda, but emphasizes in his books that Castaneda does not endorse his work. Martin Goodman claimed to have met a "reconsituted" Carlos after the death of Carlos in his book "I Was Carlos Castaneda".
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Notable works

* The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968) ISBN 0-520217578
* A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971) ISBN 0-671732498
* Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972) ISBN 0-671732463
* Sorcery: A Description of the World (1973)
* Tales of Power (1975) ISBN 0-671732528
* The Second Ring of Power (1977) ISBN 0-671732471
* The Eagle's Gift (1981) ISBN 0-67173251X
* The Fire from Within (1984) ISBN 0-671732501
* The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan (1987) ISBN 0-67173248X
* The Art of Dreaming (1993) ISBN 0-06092554X
* Readers of Infinity: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics (1996) Number 1/2/3/4
* Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico (1998) ISBN 0-060928824
* The Active Side of Infinity (1999) ISBN 0-06092960X
* The Wheel Of Time : The Shamans Of Mexico (2000) ISBN 0140196048

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Books by other authors

* Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American Rain Forest by Florinda Donner[-Grau] (1992) ISBN 0062502425 This book was originally published before Witch's Dream which was published in 1985.
* Being-In-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World by Florinda Donner-Grau (1992) ISBN 0062501925
* The Sorcerer's Crossing by Taisha Abelar first published in 1992 in hard back (1993) ISBN 0140193669
* The Teachings of Don Carlos by Victor Sanchez ISBN 1-879181-23-1
* The Witch's Dream by Florinda Donner-Grau first published in 1985 ISBN 0671551981 current re-print(1997) ISBN 0140195319
* The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies by Richard de Mille (1973)
* Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties by Jay Courtney Fikes (1993)
* The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities (New York: Continuum, 1997) by Daniel C. Noel
* Robert J. Wallis, Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 041530203X
* The Sorcerer's Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace (2003)
* The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception - The Living Tapestry of Lujan Matus by Lujan Matus (2005) ISBN 1412049849
* The Four Yogas Of Enlightenment: Guide To Don Juan's Nagualism & Esoteric Buddhism by Edward Plotkin (2002) ISBN 0972087907
* Encounters with the Nagual: Conversations with Carlos Castaneda by Armando Torres (2002) Spanish (2004) English ISBN 9685671044
* Clear Light of Bliss by geshe Kelsang Gyatso ( geshe roughly translates as doctorate of spiritual-studies ) (1992) ISBN 0948006218. . describes the same irreducible energy-structure that Carlos Castaneda describes ( several close-to-each-other concentric-balls of energy-spokes, with a very few spokes going inward ), but from the inside-out ( a central-channel, with energy-spokes curving out, and after reaching a distance, splitting each into a "thousand" spokes -- eastern euphemism for many ). Carlos gives some of the description of the irreducible human energy-structure in The Fire from Within, and the point about some spokes/fibres going inward ( and possibly the bit about it being multiple concentric spheres, rather-than merely a single-sphere ) is in Second Ring of Power when "la Gorda" gives that information to him.
* "Awakened Imagination" by Neville Goddard heavily influenced the work of Castaneda.
* Alice Kehoe, Shamans and Religion: An Anthropoligical Exploration in Critical Thinking. 2000. London: Waveland Press. ISBN 1577661621

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See also

* Assemblage point

In Journey to Ixtlan, Don Genaro warns us “Intent is not intention”. Intent is Psychic Energy and it's nature is luminous and magical. Our energy body, as is the whole metaphysical reality, is made of Intent. Through techniques such as stalking the self (recapitulation, erasing personal history and developing the warrior’s mood), dreaming (setting up dreaming, dreaming and ascension) and handling intent (changing awareness, stopping the world, collapsing the world), the Warrior of the Spirit aims at regaining his/her luminosity and ultimately control Intent. The Universe, according to Toltec Seers, resembles an infinite amount of conglomerations of luminous, self-aware and magical filaments, called the Eagle’s emanations. These emanations form a cocoon around each living being, with a point of intense brilliance, called the Assemblage Point, which aligns the filaments outside the cocoon with those inside.

Just as Man is considered the Microcosm of the Macrocosm (Universe), so too the assemblage point is a microcosm of the Macrocosm called Man. In one of his books (quote needed), Don Juan describes to Castaneda how our state can be compared to being a huge man in the room (luminous cocoon) and at the same time a tiny person at the window (assemblage point), observing the subject in the room. It is hard to comprehend this view without having had personal experiences with the movements and shifts of the assemblage point, through dreaming. Ultimately, Castaneda argues, everything we perceive, feel and how we act is determined by the position of the assemblage point.

According to Theun Mares, the assemblage point can be viewed as a kind of radio dialing device that determines our reality. The assemblage point can be viewed as a focal point, where luminous fibers meet and produce reality. It could be that the Shamans observed the procreation of mushrooms in their Theory of Consciousness. From Biology, we know that when two mycelia fibers meet, a mushroom comes into existence. Thus also, when two of the Eagle’s Emanations meet, a new perception emerges. Thus everything that we consider real is but a product of alignment of the Eagle’s Emanations.

When we are babies, our luminous cocoon is not yet rigid and the assemblage point flows fluidly throughout the luminous cocoon. As we grow up and our social conditioning sets in, we fix the assemblage point at a certain position and move or shift it only in dreams, after a trauma, due to drug ab/use, love, through inner silence, or as is preferred, through Intent. Gradually, the avarage being looses its luminosity and become empty shells, without purpose, integrity or power, as it becomes more and more grounded in every-day reality. It is the goal of Toltec Sorcerers to achieve fluidity of awareness, through the harmonious movement of the assemblage point.

The Goal of the Warrior is to achieve the totality of the self, that is, to light up all the Eagle’s Emanations within the Cocoon at once and aligning them with the greater whole and thus liberate the luminosity, through the controlled manipulation of the position of the assemblage point. The art of displacing the assemblage point is termed "dreaming" and the art of positioning the assemblage point on the displaced position is called "stalking", to be understood as "becoming stalk-like and oblong, stretching into infinity. Everything, absolutely everything, is the product of a being's position of the assemblage point.