Carlos Castaneda

From New World Encyclopedia


Carlos Castaneda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was the author of a series of books that purport to describe his training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism. The bulk of his work, particularly that of his early career, was inspired directly from the teachings of and his experiences with don Juan Matus, the Yaqui shaman with whom Castaneda had a ten-year apprenticeship beginning in the early 1960's. During this time, don Juan, with the aid of various medicinal plants, took Castaneda on a metaphysical journey through an unknown spiritual realm referred to by the author as "nonordinary reality."

Why Castaneda's descriptions of psychedelic experiences stood so exceedingly apart from others' in an age where such experiences were not uncommon, is in part due to the fact that they were conducted within a organized system instituted under the discipline of an experienced shaman. In addition, Castaneda possessed the ability to hold a rationalist perspective throughout these fantastic encounters, and could thereby capture the attention of psychedellic enthusiasts and intellectuals alike.

Overview

In his books, Castaneda narrates in first person the events leading up to and following his meeting Juan Matus. He claims 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 the part of perception which is in the realm of the unknown yet still reachable by man—implying that, for his party of seers, don Juan, and later Castaneda , acted as links to that unknown. The term nagual has also been used by anthropologists to mean a shaman or sorcerer who is capable of shapeshifting into an animal form, and/or, metaphorically, to "shift" into another form through Toltec magic rituals, shamanism and experiences with psychoactive drugs.

Much debate has arisen concerning the claims of Castaneda in his works, the subject matter of which, though highly unbelievable from an earthbound perspective, is written in such a lucid, pragmatic style that readers are often led to believe that the magical experiences described are entirely factual. Supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices which enable an increased awareness; critics claim the books are shams, or pieces of fiction, and not empirically verifiable works of anthropology as so claimed.

Professor Michael Harner of The New School for Social Research, a friend of Castaneda's and an authority on shamanism, explained the key ingredient for Castaneda's widespread appeal: "Most anthropologists only give the result. Instead of synthesizing the interviews, Castaneda takes us through the process."

Biography

Castaneda's history remained for many years convoluted, as the author, while always putting an emphasis on conveying the honest emotion of his past rather than the need to provide accurate external details, such as names, dates, places, etc.

To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics, is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all.

However, thanks to the research done by Time magazine for their cover article on the author in March of 1973, much of Castaneda's previously gray history was elucidated. According to the immigration records they discovered, Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda was born in Cajamarca, Peru, December 25, 1925. He was the only child of César Arana Burungaray, a goldsmith, and Susan Castaneda Navoa. The family moved to Lima in 1948 where Castaneda entered the Colegio Nacional de Nuestra Señora de Guadelupe. After graduation he studied painting and sculpture at the National School of Fine Arts.

At the age of 25, Castaneda entered the United States through San Francisco in 1951. Between 1955 and 1959, he enrolled as a pre-psychology major at Los Angeles City College where he took courses in creative writing and journalism. After graduating from there, Castaneda entered the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) (B.A. 1962; Ph.D. 1970) to study anthropology in 1959, and either that same year, or two years prior, became a United States citizen. He married an American woman, Margaret Runyan, in 1960 who was 14 years his senior. Their marriage lasted only a few months, although it was not until 1973 that they separated officially. According to Castaneda he'd had a vasectomy operation previously and the couple's adopted son, named C.J., had been fathered by a friend.

At UCLA, one of his teachers, Professor Clement Meighan, had interested him in shamanism. Castaneda decided the best field through which he could legitimately educate himself on the subject was ethnobotany, the classification of psychotropic plants used by sorcerers. His work with such plants led him on several trips south to collect and study specimens, and it was supposedly on one of these excursions in the summer of 1960 that Castaneda befriended don Juan Matus, whom he had met at a bus station in the Mexican border town of Nogales, Arizona. After Castaneda's several visits from Los Angeles to the border regions of Mexico, don Juan revealed that he was in fact a diablero, a sorcerer. The following year, Castaneda became his active apprentice and was introduced to many of don Juan's shaman colleagues, including don Genaro Flores, a Mazatec Indian, who would serve as another tutor.

How, precisely, his journey stems from here is subject to much speculation, but purportedly these years consisted of intense study and practice under the guidance of Juan Matus. Castaneda later admitted that what began as an objective study evolved more into an autobiography, as under don Juan's direction the author himself became the subject.

In his apprentice years Castaneda used peyote (called 'Mescalito'), datura (Jimson weed), and Psilocybe mexicana mushrooms to enlarge his vision of reality. This period of learning lasted from 1961 until the Autumn of 1965, when Castaneda decided, out of fear of a psychic breakdown, to discontinue his course with don Juan. These initial experiences with shamanism and psychoactive agents were the basis for Castaneda's first book, "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," (1968) published by the University of California Press.

Castaneda's analysis of the beliefs of Juan Matus was accepted as his Master's thesis, although no field notes were submitted at the time, Castaneda claiming that he had lost them. Meanwhile, as fuel to the budding new age movement of the 1960s, "The Teachings of Don Juan" gained reputation as an underground classic before going on to become an international bestseller.

In 1968, Castaneda returned to Mexico and began his second period of learning under Matus, which lasted until 1971. This period produced the follow-up, "A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan" (1971). English poet and author, Ted Hughes, wrote in his review of the title:

Castaneda becomes the guinea-pig hero of a modern quest as the weird glamour of the hypnotic, manipulating, profound, foxy old Indian carries him, with his notebooks and tape recorder, into regions where the words "rational" and "scientific" are violently redefined.

Castaneda's third book, also inspired by this second phase of his learning, was "Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan" (1972) and was accepted as his doctoral dissertation by the UCLA Anthropology Department in 1973. Surprisingly, in "Journey," Castaneda disavowed all use of drugs for the purposes detailed in his earlier works:

My perception of the world through the effects of those psychotropics had been so bizarre and impressive that I was forced to assume that such states were the only avenue to communicating and learning what don Juan was attempting to teach me. That assumption was erroneous.

Nevertheless, Castaneda has since defended his past use of drugs, stating they were part of his initial phase of apprenticeship, and that don Juan had taught him later to achieve the same results without drugs.

It was around this time, in the early 1970's, that the popularity of his books began to create problems for the author, as he was hounded by "very strange people," forcing him to live as a virtual recluse. Castaneda would sink increasingly into reclusion over the years, though he still maintained a decent output of writings on the subject of the "nonordinary reality."

He would go on to write twelve books total through the 1970's, 80's and 90's, as well as several academic articles detailing his experiences with the Yaqui Indians. Today, these works have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages.

In 1993, he married Florinda Donner, a woman he had met in the 70's and who had authored "Being-in-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerer's World" in 1991. Also in 1993, he began holding tensegrity workshops which educated participants in special shamanistic movements that had been taught to him for the purposes of improving physical health, vigor, and freedom of perception.

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

Castaneda died of liver cancer on April 27, 1998, at his home in Westwood. His cremated remains were taken to Mexico. Castaneda's last book was "The Active Side of Infinity" (1999), about entering life in the Next World.

The Controversy

Castaneda's writings have been criticized by academics, and are seen as highly suspect in terms of strict anthropological fieldwork. As well, many have tried unsuccesfully to corroborate Castaneda's stories with his own personal history and that of his fellow apprentices. But considering that Castaneda described, as part of his efforts to follow the precepts learned from don Juan Matus, a strict effort to erase his own personal history, the fact that much of his reported happenings remain unclear is not surprising.

One theory suggests Castaneda wrote his seemingly factual books in the traditional allegorical style of the storyteller (ethnopoetics) common to many native Indian cultures.

Time magazine's 1973 article states:

"Look at it this way," says one. "Either Carlos is telling the documentary truth about himself and Don Juan, in which case he is a great anthropologist. Or else it is an imaginative truth, and he is a great novelist. Heads or tails, Carlos wins."

Perhaps the most highly contested aspect of Castaneda's work is the fact that no one except for the author himself has ever met or even seen the storied figure, don Juan. Some think don Juan was a either figment of Castaneda's hyper-conscious imagination, a spiritual entity, or maybe a composite of various shamans who the author met. If don Juan is real, though, it is likely that "Juan Matus"—a name as generic in Mexico as "John Smith" is in America—is a pseudonym used to protect his teacher's privacy, as the need to be inaccessible and elusive is a central theme in the books.

Despite Castaneda's convoluted past and the controversy surrounding his books, one cannot discount the author's initial motivations for producing the very first book which began his rise to fame: "The Teachings of Don Juan." First off, the book was submitted, not to a major publisher, but to the university press, a very unlikely prospect for creating a bestselling author. Secondly, getting an anthropology degree from U.C.L.A. is not so difficult that a student would go through such arduous measures just to avoid research. Therefore, it is not reasonable to presume that Castaneda's incentives, at least initially, were for the sake of fame, money, or a college degree.

A Second Controversy

In a controversy separate from his work, it has been reported that a number of women from Castaneda's inner circle vanished shortly after the author's death and are presumed dead themselves as result of a planned suicide. Only one of these women has been found; the remains of Patricia Partin, sometimes referred to by Castaneda as Blue Scout, Nury Alexander, and/or Claude, surfaced in 2004 near to where her abandoned car had been discovered a few weeks after Castaneda's death in the spring of 1998. Her remains were in a condition requiring DNA identification which was made in 2006. The other women remain missing and are presumed, as well, to be deceased.[1]

Works

The nine popular 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 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 to find and store power. First and foremost, the student is encouraged to take action and assume responsibility for his or her life.

  • 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)
  • Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico (compilation) (1998)

The 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 her or his fate, and committing to follow a path with heart.

  • Tales of Power (1975)
  • The Second Ring of Power (1977)
  • The Eagle's Gift (1981)
  • The Active Side of Infinity (compilation) (1999)

The Mastery of Intent

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.

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

Ideas

The crux of don Juan's philosophy, and Castaneda's as well, might be summed up in the old shaman's own words:

For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart.
There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there
I travel—looking, looking, breathlessly.

Don Juan's teachings are reminiscent of various mystical traditions and supernatural beliefs, and include many practices that purport to focus one's energy and awareness into a "second attention," leading to higher consciousness and views of non-ordinary reality outside the bounds of everyday reality. In The Art of Dreaming, Castaneda wrote that don Juan contended that our ordinary world...

...which we believe to be unique and absolute, is only one in a cluster of consecutive worlds, arranged like
the layers of an onion. He asserted that even though we have been energetically conditioned to perceive
solely our world, we still have the capability of entering into those other realms, which are as real,
unique, absolute, and engulfing as our own world is.'

According to Castaneda, the most significant quality in a person's life is that of one's dormant awareness. The primary goal of a spiritual warrior (also warrior-traveler) is to elevate awareness. To increase awareness in this way requires all of the discipline that constitutes a "warrior's" way of life. Don Juan often used a warrior metaphor, and he told Castaneda on August 20 1961, "A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide—awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps" (The Teachings of Don Juan, 43).

Sufficient personal power leads to the mastery of Intent and awareness. Such mastery is chiefly the controlled movement of what is known as the assemblage point, a center of a bundle or cocoon of energy emanations, called the Eagle's emanations, emerging from the body. When we are young, our luminous cocoon is not yet rigid and the assemblage point flows fluidly. Humans' cocoons are intersected by filaments of awareness, producing perception, but as people grow and live in ordinary existence, they concretize only a small bundle of emanations, which becomes their perceived reality. Excessive attention on only a small area this way limits awareness, which hardens into a narrow world view that excludes reality outside of normal awareness—non-ordinary reality. Ultimately, Castaneda argues, everything we perceive, feel and how we act is determined by the position of the assemblage point. Conscious movement of the assemblage point permits perception of the world in different ways (non-ordinary reality). The goal of the warrior is to achieve totality of the self by illuminating all of the Eagle’s emanations within the cocoon at once and aligning them with the greater whole of existence and experience. Small movements lead to small changes in perception and large movements to radical changes.

Ultimately, most adults can only move or shift their assemblage point by way of drug use, love, hunger, fever, exhahustion, through inner silence, or as is preferred, through "intent of awareness." The most straightforward or common form of movement of the assemblage point can be achieved through dreaming. Descriptions of dreaming in Castaneda's books and the varied techniques he employs to achieve mastery of awareness often resemble lucid dreaming.

In Journey to Ixtlan, don Juan's friend, don Genaro, warns that “intent is not intention. ”Our energy body, as a metaphysical entity, is composed of Intent. Through techniques such as stalking the self (recapitulation of one's life experience, erasing personal history and developing the warriors mood), dreaming, and handling Intent (changing awareness), the warrior aims at regaining the luminosity that has been lost through the ordinary awareness of everyday life, and ultimately to control Intent.

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) - the protector of man; seeing beings as liquid colors; mushrooms- learning to handle, to fly, and to perceive one's animal form; datura- female spirit, hard to handle, gives strength, lengthy procedure. This book was unique in the series in that the last part included a detailed scholarly "Structural Analysis" of Don Juan's 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 warrior's way, or stopping 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 (1st attention, known, right side awareness, [possibly the left-brain][citation needed]) and nagual (2nd attention, unknown, left side awareness, [right-brain [citation needed]), 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

Notes

  1. The Dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda page 4 from Salon magazine April 12, 2007

Works by Castaneda

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • de Mille, Richard (ed.). The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies. Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1990. ISBN 0534121500
  • Donner-Grau, Florinda. Being-In-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World. 1992. ISBN 0-06-250192-5
  • Goodman, Martin. I Was Carlos Castaneda: The Afterlife Dialogues . Three Rivers Press, 2001. ISBN 0-609-80763-3
  • Kane, Graham : Toltec Dreamer: A Collection of Memorable Events from the life of a Man-of-Action UK: Little Big Press, 2002. ISBN 0-9543630-0-0
  • Noel, Daniel C. The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities. New York: Continuum Publishing Group, 1999. ISBN 978-0826410818

External links

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