Letters to the Editor
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Arrrghhhh....For the love of....
Okay I shouldn't even bother posting this but....for all of you Casteneda defenders, New Agers, and other believers of somekind, please do this....take your two fingers, place one on each eye lid (top and bottom), pull the eye lids apart, look around you. You probbaly see a computer and maybe a chair and table. Now, this is the world, that is it, that is all there is. There are no alternate universes (at least not ones you can visit by simply taking peyote....), there are no spirit guides, no ghosts, no leprachauns, nor boogey men, no witches or warlocks, no Zeus, no Appollo; no gnomes, trolls, goblins, or spooks; no time travelling Indians, no shiva, no jesus, no magic none at all, Hogwarts is not a real place, there is no such thing as a soul, there is no afterlife, there are no spiritual secrets of the universe and no guiding intelligence, there are no gremlins, or sprites, probably no lochness monster, and as much as it pains me to say it there is probably no Yeti, there certainly aren't any magical spirits running around in the desert. Sure when you take peyote or a lot of mushrooms your brains will come up with a lot of interesting things for itself, but those aren't real; neither are angels and devils, and naughty little wood nymphs. So do yourself a favor, take a deep breath, and open your eyes...the physical world is magical enough, learn something about it, enjoy it and quit making weird shit up and treating it as if it were real.
Ps. Nospam, I think tons of naysayers have read his books, they were fun, entertaining, certainly not mindblowing (unless maybe you had lived in a closet your whole life). Amy Wallace certainly read them and knew the man personally so....so what, so what are you talking about? I don't know. Just open your eyes man, see the world with clear vision.
Okay enough ranting....
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The magic of Castaneda
Not one of the former followers, inner circle or otherwise, of Carlos Castaneda, has to my knowledge ever mentioned witnessing any demonstration of any non-ordinary power or magic. I am very interested in this aspect of the cult. We, the general public and readers of his works, may have loved or hated them, believed they were fact or fiction, but I don't really see how any reader was harmed by the books. On the other hand, in the aftermath of his death, there do appear to be numerous accounts of disciples who experienced many of the common abuses associated with cults - sexual and personal manipulation, humiliation, alienation from family and friends, arbitrary wielding of authority, etc.
And it appears that Castaneda was always accepted without question by these people whose lives he was effecting in such deep ways. Don Juan and Don Genero constantly manifested extra-ordinary power. Any reader can't help but note this. Carlos Castaneda claimed to have performed feats himself and claimed that he was the last in this lineage, the new Nagual. But it appears that either because he was famous, or because of the writings, or because of his charisma he was able to rule his small world with absolute authority, without ever evincing any sign of any of the magic. He got a free pass from all of the followers.
I was in a cult in the 1970s and 1980s. The leader created an inner circle by performing a series of "magical" acts over the course of the first years of our "training". We suffered through the same kind of manipulations and secrecy and divisive techniques described by Amy Wallace and Gaby and others on Sustained Action. There is no way any of this would have happened without the hook - the apparent impossible feats that we all took part in and witnessed and believed.
I am fascinated by the notion that Castaneda was able to maintain his position for so long, (particularly when the whole point and subtext of his leadership and his writings was personal experience of non-ordinary reality), and that no one ever seemed to want or need to witness this for themself. It was based entirely on faith and appears to be the Emperor's New Clothes all the way. In the movie "Tempest", by John Cassavettes, the protaganist shouts to the heavens "Show me the magic", causing storms to brew and lightning bolts to fly. Didn't anyone ever need to actually SEE the magic? Or was it, by the 80s and 90s, enough to simply be in the presence of a celebrity, in this case an author of fiction as it turns out, to create suspension of disbelief powerful enough for people to give up their lives and follow...
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For reality's sake, ivanveen!
Pity us then, ivanveen. And if we lived in the 14th century, not too long ago, there would be no motorized engines, no electricity, no lasers, no airplanes (that would have really seemed bonkers), no surgery (at least none you'd really survive from), no computers, no cds, dvds, no space shuttle, no landing on the moon, no mars rovers (whoa, talk about visiting other worlds!), no solar system, no galaxies, no black holes, no satellites, no science fiction (now that would have been heresy!), no chemotherapy, no contact lenses let alone lasix, no quantum physics, no chemistry, no telephone, no internet (some truly ghostly things you can't see with your eyeballs), no equal rights, no civil rights, no evolution, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and god knows what they would thought of TV and cinema! Light projected on a wall? Yikes! And, oh, the world was flat and you would be damned is not thought crazy if you thought it was round.
Get a grip! It took dreamers to go out and imagine and discover and develop those things. People who dared to fantasize and believe there was more to reality than meets the "eyeball". Things and ideas fantasized that are now, hmmmm...REALITY!! I wonder where the human race would all be if everyone thought like you back then? Probably died out long ago. Face it, it's dreamers, the people who see beyond their eyeballs, who keep the human race alive.
Although I appreciate your sentiments about the beautiful world we live in. I go out and look at it everyday. To me that IS soul. And to a lot of us exploring what else there might be is necessary to life. Maybe you want to live in your tight little box. I wish you the best tight little box you can live in. Go for it! Be happy! But I don't want a box to squeeze my self and life into one. Nope. Not going to happen. And your insisting that rest of us have to or be idiots won't make it happen. Oh, and I don't believe in any of those things you mentioned by the way, except for probably soul. And that there's more to "reality" than meets the eye. And that people can call that "more" what ever they want. Elves, Jesus, or Yeti. As long as it breathes fire into their imagination. Which is what Castanada's writings did. Live and let live!