2 A Separate Reality
3 Journey to Ixtlan
4 Tales of Power
5 The Second Ring of Power
6 The Eagle Gift
7 The Fire from Within
8 The Power of Silence
9 The Active Side of Infinity
Showing posts with label castaneda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label castaneda. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Castaneda :: Point of No Return
Point of No Return = state of awareness where are no links to the past or any kind of attachment to the material world. A decision has been made and there is no way to go back. Whatever the objective is, it gets done.
Personaly, I went through a period like this in my life. I basically hit the wall and found myself
trapped for a second. But mysteriously and almost impossible to explain, I realized that I did not want to go back "home". I saw ghosts and they did not have a meaning for me. I kept walking forward and felt a very strong "pull" in my chest. Maybe it was the assemblage point but I felt free. My whole changed and I haven't looked back since then.
I went to my new home and fell asleep for a long time.
After my experience, I remembered Castaneda's books and realized that he was right on this. I continue looking for answers and for ways to save my energy in order to get ready to travel into the unknown. I know Death is always on my left shoulder waiting to show its existence but I am ready to fight back. It won't be easy.
-2501
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Castaneda Lessons
The Spirit does not accept volunteers.
A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.
On the Path of Knowledge there are four natural enemies: fear, clarity, power and old age.
When the Knock of the Spirit sounds we follow or perish.
A path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy— it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.
A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.
A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.
A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.
A warrior doesn’t know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one’s acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.
A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.
A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.
A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.
A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
A warrior is never concerned about his fear.
A warrior seeks to act rather than talk.
A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.
A warrior takes responsibility for his acts; for the most trivial of his acts. He waits patiently, knowing that he is waiting, and knowing what he is waiting for. That is the warrior's way.
A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.
A warrior-hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior-hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a warrior-hunter has over his fellow men. A warrior-hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It’s only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself. It’s pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his fright.
An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask: 'Does this path have a heart?'
Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’
Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?
Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.
For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.
If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our humanity.
Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy.
Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude,before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called "stopping the world", the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it "total freedom"
Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.
No person is important enough to make me angry.
Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.
Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry.
Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything.
He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.
Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.
The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.
The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.
The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.
The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.
The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior’s last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.
The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
The warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.
The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.
There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment
There’s no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim.
To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that.
To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.
To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.
Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don’t demolish them.
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.
When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites— to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance— there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does.
No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.
An immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and bewilderment and fears. A warrior, on the other hand, cannot…because he knows for a fact that the totality of himself has but a little time on this earth.
The things that people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world.
A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.
On the Path of Knowledge there are four natural enemies: fear, clarity, power and old age.
When the Knock of the Spirit sounds we follow or perish.
A path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy— it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.
A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.
A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.
A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.
A warrior doesn’t know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one’s acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.
A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.
A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.
A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.
A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
A warrior is never concerned about his fear.
A warrior seeks to act rather than talk.
A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.
A warrior takes responsibility for his acts; for the most trivial of his acts. He waits patiently, knowing that he is waiting, and knowing what he is waiting for. That is the warrior's way.
A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.
A warrior-hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior-hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a warrior-hunter has over his fellow men. A warrior-hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It’s only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself. It’s pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his fright.
An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask: 'Does this path have a heart?'
Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’
Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?
Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.
For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.
If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our humanity.
Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy.
Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude,before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called "stopping the world", the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it "total freedom"
Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.
No person is important enough to make me angry.
Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.
Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry.
Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything.
He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.
Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.
The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.
The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.
The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.
The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.
The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior’s last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.
The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
The warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.
The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.
There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment
There’s no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim.
To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that.
To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.
To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.
Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don’t demolish them.
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.
When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites— to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance— there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does.
No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.
An immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and bewilderment and fears. A warrior, on the other hand, cannot…because he knows for a fact that the totality of himself has but a little time on this earth.
The things that people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
My thoughts about Carlos Castaneda's last battle on earth
I am a fan of Carlos Castaneda's book series, I can't deny it. A lot of my friends have
come to me asking me about his death and his departure to the unknown. Why did he not
vanish like Juan Matus?
For me, you can read his books as fiction or real stories but that does not matter to me. His stories,
as in religion, they don't really proof you if they are real or not...you need to have faith. But in
Castaneda's case, I think he showed to see the reality in the world that we live in and how to keep
your discipline in whatever you do 24 hrs a day and 365 days. Tha't what matters to me and at
this point in my life, I don't think about heavens or hell because there is no real proof about it.
I already accepted death as my advisor. Death is always walking next to us and someday he will
look at my straight to my eyes telling me that is time to go and I won't fight back.
Life is short and I play very hard everyday. Hopefully, I can negotiate some kind of deal with
Death in my last battle on earth.
come to me asking me about his death and his departure to the unknown. Why did he not
vanish like Juan Matus?
For me, you can read his books as fiction or real stories but that does not matter to me. His stories,
as in religion, they don't really proof you if they are real or not...you need to have faith. But in
Castaneda's case, I think he showed to see the reality in the world that we live in and how to keep
your discipline in whatever you do 24 hrs a day and 365 days. Tha't what matters to me and at
this point in my life, I don't think about heavens or hell because there is no real proof about it.
I already accepted death as my advisor. Death is always walking next to us and someday he will
look at my straight to my eyes telling me that is time to go and I won't fight back.
Life is short and I play very hard everyday. Hopefully, I can negotiate some kind of deal with
Death in my last battle on earth.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
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
---------------
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
[hide]
* 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
[edit]
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."
[edit]
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
[edit]
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)
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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".
[edit]
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
[edit]
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
[edit]
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.
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
---------------
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
[hide]
* 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
[edit]
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.
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