Letters to the Editor
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Gee, Dave
You said you'd never read any of it.
So how the hell do you know what it's worth might be or what contributions it makes to our society.
Take another new age philosophy book that is perhaps less controversial: Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance. Perhaps you've actually read that one? Are there any worthy concepts inthat book? Does it matter whether the story is literally true or not? Would it matter to teh quality of the book and its concpets if it was learned sometime after his death that Pirsig was a philandering jerk of some sort?
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The Disappointing Facts
For those who desire further proof that Castaneda was a charlatan, go to Richard Jennings' website Sustained Action at (www.sustainedaction.org), mentioned in the article. Jennings carefully documents the real histories of Castaneda and his followers, to the extent that only a fool would continue to ascribe to these people the powers they claimed to possess.
Everyone needs hope, something to believe in. For anyone who ever felt uplifted by Carlos Castaneda's books, the facts can be deeply disappointing. Let's remember that Castaneda based his work on other people's spiritual knowledge. If seekers can make their expectations more realistic than Castaneda encouraged, it is possible to improve life and experience its profound beauty.
In this sense, by inflating people's ideas of the magic of life and the mystery of spirit--as well as by propagating the nihilistic idea that this material existence is all we have, unless we are among the lucky few with access to his lineage--Castaneda was not just a liar, but a robber. He stole from many people the gains that come from walking real spiritual paths.
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The ring of truth
Fiction or not, the first two or three of Castenada's books had a ring of authenticity to them. I found many of Don Juan's statements to be very creative, unorthodox articulations of valid spiritual insights. Sometimes it seemed that even Castenada did not appreciate their meaning. But around the fourth book, something changed.
I wonder if perhaps CC did meet a man he calls Don Juan and did go through an apprenticeship, perhaps from which he was expelled. There is just so much truly remarkable material in the early books. But it appears CC misinterpreted and became fixated on certain elements of Juan's cosmology.
This kind of thing happens a lot with various gurus and psychics. Eventually they degenerate into charlatinism, but at the beginning they might exhibit amazing abilities. I think CC's early books are still worth reading, especially if you don't make a gospel of them.
Charles Eisenstein
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Fools Rush In
I have written (on Strayshot.com) that Castaneda was an exceptional writer of fiction, and that the fact people are arguing about whether he "pulled a con" is a testimony to his skill. I mean, he was writing about people flying around like witches, and visiting other worlds, and there are so many gullible people reading it that when they discover it wasn't really a log of ordinary reality, they begin to put up "exposes," about what they have realized.
What they haven't realized is that they were fools not just once, not just twice, but three times. First they took it all literally, then they exposed their naivete, and finally, they never really saw the third choice. If they had, they wouldn't feel cheated. They would feel gifted. But I digress. In the piece (I linked to) the author mentions the field of visionary art, and that of phenomenology, and specifically Dr. Harold Garfinkel, with whom Carlos studied at UCLA. (See Interview with Warren Sack, which includes some of Garfinkel's ideas.)
Castaneda was influenced by Talcott Parsons' concept of glosses, or systems defined not by objective reality, or by possible realities, but by a process of expectation, or habituation.
This was part of a renaissance in consciousness that hit in the 1960s, as existential thought began to move into the mainstream. All of a sudden there was a freedom from essentialism, which was fundamentalism. This thinking starts with who you are supposed to be, and you have to become that. If you look at it closely it rather resembles the idea that you are the property of your parents and and then, of the state. This accounts for the disconnect between the stated belief in individual liberty by conservatives, and their movement toward strict and even oppressive social control, driven by the fundamentalists.
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Baby Boomers.....
(I'm shaking my head to myself)....what a screwed up, sorry pack of folks.
Btw. Hippie-ism did not die in 1971, I witnessed it throughtout the 70's as a small child. Pottery communes, stoned parents, bikers, divorce, self-indulgence. It wasn't pretty, though it was much nicer than the turn to New Ageism which was dark and evil and scary (I witnessed a parade of my parent's friends trot off to Rajneeshpuram in Eastern Oregon). Call it my Vietnam. I was scarred for life. On the positive side, however it confirmed my rationalist instincts and made me a better person. But I still want to strangle my father when he starts tallking about the White Buffalo...Instead I just shake my head. What a bunch of empty headed nitwits.
(Hey I think I have finally acheived the exact tone of a typical Boomer rant letter!! Yeah!! {pumping my fist in the air})
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Pottery was invented a long time before hippies
Bikers are not hippies. You don't become a hippie just by getting stoned. And if you want to talk about self-indulgence, then let's talk about rich yuppie stockbrokers with plasma screen Tvs in their bathrooms.
What did you anti-hippies invent in the eighties?
Oh yes those incredible shower stalls with multiple water jets at all heights coming from all directions. You could get steam from them. There were even little cubbyholes where you could grow tumbling tropical vines in them.
Oh but that's not self-indulgence -- that was an important innovation brought to us by the aspirational class!
Yes, I had a stockbroker boyfriend who had one, but he was such an evil shithead, not even his luxury bathroom could keep me interested.
I think he moved on to a stripper or something.
Were strippers hippies? Can you blame that one on the hippies too?