Letters to the Editor
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On his own words
This is an excerpt from Carlos Castaneda's 1998 commentary in the thirtieth anniversary edition of The Teachings of Don Juan.
The irreducible description of what I did in the field would be to say that the Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus, introduced me into the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico. By cognition, it is meant the processes responsible for the awareness of everyday life, processes which include memory, experience, perception, and the expert use of any given syntax. The idea of cognition was, at that time, my most powerful stumbling block. It was inconceivable for me, as an educated Western man, that cognition, as it is defined in the philosophical discourse of our day, could be anything besides a homogeneous, all-engulfing affair for the totality of mankind. Western man is willing to consider cultural differences that would account for quaint ways of describing phenomena, but cultural differences could not possibly account for processes of memory, experience, perception, and the expert use of language to be anything other than the processes known to us. In other words, for Western man, there is only cognition as a group of general processes.
For the sorcerers of don Juan's lineage, however, there is the cognition of modern man, and there is the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico. Don Juan considered these two to be entire worlds of everyday life which were intrinsically different from one another. At a given moment, unbeknownst to me, my task mysteriously shifted from the mere gathering of anthropological data to the internalization of the new cognitive processes of the shamans' world.
A genuine internalization of such rationales entails a transformation, a different response to the world of everyday life. Shamans found out that the initial thrust of this transformation always occurs as an intellectual allegiance to something that appears to be merely a concept, but which has unsuspectedly powerful undercurrents. This was best described by don Juan when he said, "The world of everyday life cannot ever be taken as something personal that has power over us, something that could make us, or destroy us, because man's battlefield is not in his strife with the world around him. His battlefield is over the horizon, in an area which is unthinkable for an average man, the area where man ceases to be a man."
He explained those statements, saying that it was energetically imperative for human beings to realize that the only thing that matters is their encounter with infinity. Don Juan could not reduce the term infinity to a more manageable description. He said that it was energetically irreducible. It was something that could not be personified or even alluded to, except in such vague terms as infinity, 'lo infinito.'
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Deadening Prose
Ick! The above post reads like Cleargreen propaganda. . .dull and doctrinaire. Definitely a conversation stopper; and I can say from hearing Castaneda speak that "His Own Words" were a lot more interesting and exciting, whatever misery they led to!
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Can you write better?
I think its better to fight the argument, not the person. What exactly is it you don't like about the possibility of another cognition - because it threatens modern supremacy?
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"modern supremacy" and the singer or the song?
Is it better to "fight the argument not the person"? Think about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, or Werner Erhardt and EST. Or Gurdieff's hardass tactics and his interesting philosophy: somewhat close to Castaneda's, as I gather from the literature.
Robert Marshall has addressed to some degree the dangers of the person not living up to the philosophy -- if Castaneda "walked his walk", that would be one thing, but he was the usual thing: another "Do as I preach, not as I say" kind of guy, it would seem. Which takes a whole lot of punch out of his words; the manner of his death alone takes the rug out from under the whole system. I've read some of Carlos' books, and according to these texts, a sorcerer, or a nagual, was not supposed to check out from liver cancer and diabetes, eating pastries as Amy Wallace posted. Unless he was a failure, and there's some proof that somebody else "ascended". Since his guru, don Juan, is a fictional character, he doesn't count!
And what the heck is "modern supremacy"? Is that what those leaden devotee paragraphs are meant to denounce? "Sumpremacy" of what? And who, or what, is "modern"? Whoever wrote that needs to take a semantics class or a writing class.
Maybe its a Buddhist tract that supresses "monkey mind" through sheer boredom.
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Modern supremacy
Modern supremacy is the fiction that we are better off ruled by reason - and everyone had better bloody well conform democratically... or else!
I don't need Amy W or R DeMille; they are the offspring off famous men, trying to emulate the fame of their dads through acheiving fame by trying to debunk Castaneda, an easy target.
Beware of what but 'seems' the truth. The liver cancer was to keep you satisfied, a metaphor. He knew the art of being in two places at once and used that facility to the hilt, especially near thye end. I knew thye man near the end and he was healthier than any man I've ever met in his seventies.
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Have you tried it ?
Just to speak a few words for Castaneda - plenty of what he reports in terms of OBE experiences and sorcery is founded in realities you can experience yourself if you stop worrying about fraud or fact. Let it go. Hey - you're only phantoms anyway so lighten up! xx Ian
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One more thing
Just to add another perspective - if Castaneda was the power-crazed sex-crazed manipulator the article implies, why didn't he make better use of his talents than go offline in 1973 and stay cooped up in a so-called compound at the height of his fame? This guy could have toured the world in the 70's and had masses worshipping at his feet, as many other so-called gurus have done. The fact he chose not to should give us pause to think.
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Also
Where are the properties, cars and all else that goes with financial success? The most he ever was seen with was a combivan, a small apartment, and a few neat suits. Florinda Donner reports on how much she had seen him refuse. American Express wanted him for advertising. Its said he lived as a Taxi driver, waiter, gardener, and there is none to prove otherwise. I believe he gave away the financial rewards from his book sales in order to help keep his motives pure. As he said once; "What if the debunkers are wrong about me; it leaves them in a very bad position."
What a vanishing act! He all but doesn't even exist in even the debunker's minds now! They have shuffled him out to rest finally. What was the expense incurred in getting rid of himself from even their care to remember him? A good reputation in the normal world. A tiny price to pay for freedom indeed.
He flew and he flew farther and more abstractly than a modern mind can conceive. The modern mind doesn't know the abstact as anything more than an intellectual position, a dislocation of thoughts. In truth it is beautiful and vast beyond description, but it can be witnessed.