The Eagle's Gift. ©1982 by Carlos Castaneda.
Part 1: Chapter 01 - The Fixation of the Second Attention.
It was midafternoon when I got to where la Gorda and the little sisters lived. La Gorda was alone, sitting outside by the door, gazing into the distant mountains. She was shocked to see me. She explained that she had been completely absorbed in a memory, and for a moment she had been on the verge of remembering something very vague that had to do with me.
Later that night, after dinner, la Gorda, the three little sisters, the three Genaros, and I sat on the floor of la Gorda's room. The women sat together.
For some reason, although I had been with each one of them an equal length of time, I had isolated la Gorda as the recipient of all my concern. It was as if the others did not exist for me. I speculated that perhaps it was because la Gorda reminded me of don Juan while the others did not. There was something very easy about her. Yet that easiness was not so much in her actions as it was in my feelings for her.
They wanted to know what I had been doing. I told them that I had just been in the city of Tula, Hidalgo, where I had visited some archaeological ruins. I had been most impressed with a row of four colossal, columnlike figures of stone, called the Atlanteans," which stand on the flat top of a pyramid.
Each one of the almost cylindrical figures, measuring fifteen feet in height and three feet across, is made of four separate pieces of basalt carved to represent what archaeologists think are Toltec warriors carrying their war paraphernalia. Twenty feet behind each of the front figures on the top of the pyramid, there is another row of four rectangular columns of the same height and width as the first, also made of four separate pieces of stone.
The awe-inspiring setting of the Atlanteans was enhanced by what a friend, who had guided me through the site, had told me about them. He said that a custodian of the ruins had revealed to him that he had heard the Atlanteans walking at night; making the ground underneath them shake.
I asked the Genaros for comments on what my friend had said. They acted shy and giggled. I turned to la Gorda who was sitting beside me, and asked her directly for her opinions.
"I've never seen those figures," she said. "I've never been in Tula. Just the idea of going to that town scares me."
"Why does it scare you, Gorda?" I asked.
"Something happened to me in the ruins of Monte Alban in Oaxaca," she said. "I used to go to roam around those ruins even after the Nagual Juan Matus told me not to set foot in them. I don't know why but I loved that place. Every time I was in Oaxaca I would go there. Because women alone are always harassed, I would usually go with Pablito, who is very daring. But once I went there with Nestor. He saw a glitter on the ground. We dug a little and found a strange rock that fit in the palm of my hand. A hole had been neatly drilled into the rock. I wanted to put my finger through it, but Nestor stopped me. The rock was smooth and made my hand very hot. We didn't know what to do with it. Nestor put it inside his hat and we carried it as if it were a live animal."
All of them started to laugh. There seemed to be a concealed joke in what la Gorda was telling me.
"Where did you take it?" I asked her.
"We brought it here to this house," she replied, and that statement elicited uncontainable laughter from the others. They coughed and choked laughing,
"The joke is on la Gorda," Nestor said. "You've got to understand that she's muleheaded like no one else. The Nagual had already told her not to fool around with rocks, or bones, or any other thing she might find buried in the ground. But she used to sneak behind his back and get all kinds of crap.
"That day in Oaxaca she insisted on carrying that god-awful thing. We got on the bus with it and brought it all the way to this town, and then right into this room."
"The Nagual and Genaro had gone on a trip," la Gorda said. "I got daring and put my finger through the hole and realized that the rock had been cut to be held in the hand. Right away I could feel the feeling of whoever had held that rock. It was a power rock. My mood changed. I became frightened. Something awesome began to lurk in the dark; something that had no shape or color. I couldn't be alone. I would wake up screaming and after a couple of days I couldn't sleep any more. Everybody took turns keeping me company, day and night."
"When the Nagual and Genaro came back," Nestor said, "the Nagual sent me with Genaro to put the rock back in the exact place where it had been buried. Genaro worked for three days to pinpoint the spot. And he did it."
"What happened to you, Gorda, after that?" I asked her.
"The Nagual buried me," she said. "For nine days I was naked inside a dirt coffin."
There was another explosion of laughter among them.
"The Nagual told her that she couldn't get out of it," Nestor explained. "Poor Gorda had to piss and shit inside her coffin. The Nagual pushed her inside a box that he made with branches and mud. There was a little door on the side for her food and water. The rest of it was sealed."
"Why did he bury her?" I asked.
"That's the only way to protect anyone," Nestor said. "She had to be placed under the ground so the earth would heal her. There is no better healer than the earth. Besides, the Nagual had to fend off the feeling of that rock which was focused on la Gorda. The dirt is a screen. It doesn't allow anything to go through either way. The Nagual knew that she couldn't get worse by being buried for nine days. She could only get better. Which she did."
"How did it feel to be buried like that, Gorda?" I asked.
"I nearly went crazy," she said. "But that was just my indulging. If the Nagual hadn't put me in there, I would have died. The power of that rock was too great for me. Its owner had been a very large man. I could tell that his hand was twice the size of mine. He held on to that rock for dear life, and in the end someone killed him. His fear terrified me. I could feel something coming at me to eat my flesh. That was what the man felt. He was a man of power, but someone even more powerful got him.
"The Nagual said that once you have an object of that kind it brings disaster because its power enters into challenges with other objects of its kind; and the owner becomes either a pursuer or a victim. The Nagual said that it is the nature of such objects to be at war because the part of our attention which focuses on them to give them power is a very dangerous, belligerent part."
"La Gorda is very greedy," Pablito said. "She figured that if she could find something which already had a great deal of power in it, she'd be a winner because nowadays no one is interested in challenging power."
La Gorda assented with a movement of her head.
"I didn't know that one could pick up other things besides the power that the objects have," she said. "When I first put my finger through the hole and held the rock, my hand got hot and my arm began to vibrate. I felt truly strong and big. I'm sneaky so no one knew that I was holding the rock in my hand. After a few days of holding it the real horror began. I could feel that somebody had gone after the owner of the rock. I could feel his fright. He was doubtlessly a very powerful sorcerer and whoever was after him wanted not only to kill him but to eat his flesh. That really scared me. I should've dropped the rock then, but the feeling I was having was so new that I kept the rock clutched in my hand like a damn fool. When I finally dropped it, it was too late. Something in me was hooked. I had visions of men coming at me; men dressed in strange clothes. I felt they were biting me; tearing the flesh of my legs with sharp little knives and with their teeth. I went berserk!"
"How did don Juan explain those visions?" I asked her.
"He said that she no longer had defenses," Nestor said. "And because of that she could pick up that man's fixation; his second attention which had been poured into that rock. When he was being killed he held on to the rock in order to gather all his concentration. The Nagual said that the man's power went out of his body into his rock. He knew what he was doing. He didn't want his enemies to benefit by devouring his flesh. The Nagual also said that the ones who killed him knew this. That's why they were eating him alive; to get whatever power was left. They must have buried the rock to avoid trouble. And la Gorda and I, like two idiots, found it and dug it up."
La Gorda shook her head affirmatively three or four times. She had a very serious expression.
"The Nagual told me that the second attention is the most fierce thing there is," she said. "If it is focused on objects, there is nothing more horrendous."
"What's horrible is that we cling," Nestor said. "The man who owned the rock was clinging to his life and to his power; that's why he was horrified at feeling his flesh eaten away. The Nagual said that if the man would've let go of his possessiveness and abandoned himself to his death, whatever it may have been, there wouldn't have been any fear in him."
The conversation faded. I asked the others if they had anything to say. The little sisters glared at me. Benigno giggled and hid his face with his hat.
"Pablito and I have been in the pyramids of Tula," he finally said. "We've been in all the pyramids there are in Mexico. We like them."
"Why did you go to all the pyramids?" I asked him.
"I really don't know why we went to them," he said. "Perhaps it was because the Nagual Juan Mat us told us not to."
"How about you, Pablito?" I asked.
"I went there to learn," he replied huffily, and laughed. "I used to live in the city of Tula. I know those pyramids like the back of my hand. The Nagual told me that he also used to live there. He knew everything about the pyramids. He was a Toltec himself."
I realized then that it had been more than curiosity that made me go to the archaeological site in Tula. The main reason I had accepted my friend's invitation was because at the time of my first visit to la Gorda, and the others, they had told me something which don Juan had never even mentioned to me; that he considered himself a cultural descendant of the Toltecs. Tula had been the ancient epicenter of the Toltec empire.
"What do you think about the Atlanteans walking around at night?" I asked Pablito.
"Sure, they walk at night," he said. "Those things have been there for ages. No one knows who built the pyramids. The Nagual Juan Matus himself told me that the Spaniards were not the first to discover them. The Nagual said there were others before them. God knows how many."
"What do you think those four figures of stone represent?" I asked.
"They are not men, but women," he said. "That pyramid is the center of order and stability. Those figures are its four corners. They are the four winds, the four directions. They are the foundation, the basis of the pyramid. They have to be women, mannish women, if you want to call them that. As you yourself know, we men are not that hot. We are a good binding, a glue to hold things together, but that's all. The Nagual Juan Matus said that the mystery of the pyramid is its structure. The four corners have been elevated to the top. The pyramid itself is the man supported by his female warriors; a male who has elevated his supporters to the highest place. See what I mean?"
I must have had a look of perplexity on my face. Pablito laughed. It was a polite laughter.
"No. I don't see what you mean, Pablito," I said. "But that's because don Juan never told me anything about it. The topic is completely new to me. Please tell me everything you know."
"The Atlanteans are the nagual. They are dreamers. They represent the order of the second attention brought forward. That's why they're so fearsome and mysterious. They are creatures of war but not of destruction.
"The other row of columns, the rectangular ones, represent the order of the first attention; the tonal. They are stalkers. That's why they are covered with inscriptions. They are very peaceful and wise; the opposite of the front row."
Pablito stopped talking and looked at me almost defiantly, then he broke into a smile.
I thought he was going to go on to explain what he had said, but he remained silent as if waiting for my comments.
I told him how mystified I was and urged him to continue talking. He seemed undecided, stared at me for a moment, and took a deep breath. He had hardly begun to speak when the voices of the rest of them were raised in a clamor of protest.
"The Nagual already explained that to all of us," la Gorda said impatiently. "What's the point of making him repeat it?"
I tried to make them understand that I really had no conception of what Pablito was talking about. I prevailed on him go on with his explanation. There was another wave of voices speaking at the same time. Judging by the way the little sisters glared at me, they were getting very angry; especially Lydia.
"We don't like to talk about those women," la Gorda said to me in a conciliatory tone. "Just the thought of the women of the pyramid makes us very nervous."
"What's the matter with you people?" I asked. "Why are you acting like this?"
"We don't know," la Gorda replied. "It's just a feeling that all of us have; a very disturbing feeling. We were fine until a moment ago when you started to ask questions about those women."
La Gorda's statements were like an alarm signal. All of them stood up and advanced menacingly toward me, talking in loud voices.
It took me a long time to calm them and make them sit down. The little sisters were very upset and their mood seemed to influence la Gorda's. The three men showed more restraint. I faced Nestor and asked him bluntly to explain to me why the women were so agitated. Obviously I was unwittingly doing something to aggravate them.
"I really don't know what it is," Nestor said. "I'm sure none of us here knows what is the matter with us, except that we all feel very sad and nervous."
"Is it because we're talking about the pyramids?" I asked him.
"It must be," Nestor replied somberly. "I myself didn't know that those figures were women."
"Of course you did, you idiot," Lydia snapped.
Nestor seemed to be intimidated by her outburst. He recoiled and smiled sheepishly at me.
"Maybe I did," he conceded. "We're going through a very strange period in our lives. None of us knows anything for sure any more. Since you came into our lives, we are unknown to ourselves."
A very oppressive mood set in. I insisted that the only way to dispel it was to talk about those mysterious columns on the pyramids.
The women protested heatedly. The men remained silent. I had the feeling that the men were affiliated in principle with the women, but secretly wanted to discuss the topic just as I did.
"Did don Juan tell you anything else about the pyramids, Pablito?" I asked.
My intention was to steer the conversation away from the specific topic of the Atlanteans, and yet stay near it.
"He said one specific pyramid there in Tula was a guide," Pablito replied eagerly.
From the tone of his voice I deduced that he really wanted to talk. And the attentiveness of the other apprentices convinced me that covertly all of them wanted to exchange opinions.
"The Nagual said that it was a guide to the second attention," Pablito went on, "but that it was ransacked and everything destroyed. He told me that some of the pyramids were gigantic not-doings. They were not lodgings but places for warriors to do their dreaming and exercise their second attention. Whatever they did was recorded in drawings and figures that were put on the walls.
"Then another kind of warrior must've come along; a kind who didn't approve of what the sorcerers of the pyramid had done with their second attention, and destroyed the pyramid and all that was in it.
"The Nagual believed that the new warriors must've been warriors of the third attention, just as he himself was. Warriors who were appalled by the evilness of the fixation of the second attention. The sorcerers of the pyramids were too busy with their fixation to realize what was going on. When they did, it was too late."
Pablito had an audience. Everyone in the room, myself included, was fascinated with what he was saying. I understood the ideas he was presenting because don Juan had explained them to me.
Don Juan had said that our total being consists of two perceivable segments. The first is the familiar physical body which all of us can perceive. The second is the luminous body which is a cocoon that only seers can perceive; a cocoon that gives us the appearance of giant luminous eggs.
He had also said that one of the most important goals of sorcery is to reach the luminous cocoon; a goal which is fulfilled through the sophisticated use of dreaming, and through a rigorous systematic exertion he called not-doing. He defined not-doing as an unfamiliar act which engages our total being by forcing us to become conscious of its luminous segment.
In order to explain these concepts, don Juan made a threepart, uneven division of our consciousness.
He called the smallest the first attention, and said that it is the consciousness that every normal person has developed in order to deal with the daily world. It encompasses the awareness of the physical body.
Another larger portion he called the second attention, and described it as the awareness we need in order to perceive our luminous cocoon and to act as luminous beings. He said that the second attention remains in the background for the duration of our lives unless it is brought forth through deliberate training or by an accidental trauma. He said the second attention encompasses the awareness of the luminous body.
He called the last portion, which was the largest, the third attention-an immeasurable consciousness which engages undefinable aspects of the awareness of the physical and the luminous bodies.
I asked him if he himself had experienced the third attention. He said that he was on the periphery of it, and that if he ever entered it completely, I would know it instantly because all of him would become what he really was; an outburst of energy.
He added that the battlefield of warriors was the second attention, which was something like a training ground for reaching the third attention. The second attention was a state rather difficult to arrive at, but very fruitful once it was attained.
"The pyramids are harmful," Pablito went on. "Especially to unprotected sorcerers like ourselves. They are worse yet to formless warriors like la Gorda. The Nagual said that there is nothing more dangerous than the evil fixation of the second attention.
"When warriors learn to focus on the weak side of the second attention nothing can stand in their way. They become hunters of men; ghouls. Even if they are no longer alive, they can reach for their prey through time as if they were present here and now.
"And because prey is what we become if we walk into one of those pyramids, the Nagual called them traps of the second attention."
"What exactly did he say would happen?" la Gorda asked.
"The Nagual said that we could stand perhaps one visit to the pyramids," Pablito explained. "On the second visit we would feel a strange sadness. It would be like a cold breeze that would make us listless and fatigued; a fatigue that soon turns into bad luck. In no time at all we'll be jinxed. Everything will happen to us. In fact, the Nagual said that our own streaks of bad luck were due to our willfulness in visiting those ruins against his recommendations.
"Eligio, for instance, never disobeyed the Nagual. You wouldn't catch him dead in there. Neither did this Nagual here, and they were always lucky while the rest of us were jinxed, especially la Gorda and myself. Weren't we even bitten by the same dog? And didn't the same beams of the kitchen roof get rotten twice and fall on us?"
"The Nagual never explained this to me," la Gorda said.
"Of course he did," Pablito insisted,
"If I had known how bad it was, I wouldn't have set foot in those damned places," la Gorda protested.
"The Nagual told every one of us the same things," Nestor said. "The problem is that every one of us was not listening attentively, or rather every one of us listened to him in his own way, and heard what he wanted to hear.
"The Nagual said that the fixation of the second attention has two faces.
"The first and easier face is the evil one. It happens when dreamers use their dreaming to focus their second attention on the items of the world, like money and power over people.[~ the world of the 1st attention]
"The other face is the more difficult to reach and it happens when dreamers focus their second attention on items that are not in or from this world, such as the journey into the unknown. [~ the world of the third attention]
"Warriors need endless impeccability in order to reach this face."
I said to them that I was sure that don Juan had selectively revealed certain things to some of us, and other things to others. I could not, for instance, recall don Juan ever discussing the evil face of the second attention with me.
I told them then what don Juan said to me in reference to the fixation of attention in general.
He stressed to me that all archaeological ruins in Mexico, especially the pyramids, were harmful to modern man. He depicted the pyramids as foreign expressions of thought and action. He said that every item, every design in them, was a calculated effort to record aspects of attention which were thoroughly alien to us. For don Juan, it was not only ruins of past cultures that held a dangerous element in them. Anything which was the object of an obsessive concern had a harmful potential.
We had discussed this in detail once. It was a reaction he had to some comments I had made about my being at a loss as to where to store my field notes safely. I regarded them in a most possessive manner and was obsessed with their security.
"What should I do?" I asked him.
"Genaro once gave you the solution," he replied. "You thought, as you always do, that he was joking. He never jokes. He told you that you should write with the tip of your finger instead of a pencil. You didn't take him up on that because you can't imagine that this is the not-doing of taking notes."
I argued that what he was proposing had to be a joke. My self image was that of a social scientist who needed to 'record everything' that was said and done in order to 'draw verifiable conclusions'. For don Juan, the one thing had nothing to do with the other: To be a serious student had nothing to do with taking notes.
I personally could not see a solution. Don Genaro's suggestion seemed to me humorous; not a real possibility.
Don Juan argued his point further. He said that taking notes was a way of engaging the first attention in the task of remembering; that I took notes in order to remember what was said and done. Don Genaro's recommendation was not a joke because writing with the tip of my finger on a piece of paper, as the not-doing of taking notes, would force my second attention to focus on remembering; and I would not accumulate sheets of paper. Don Juan thought that the end result would be more accurate and more powerful than taking notes. It had never been done as far as he knew, but the principle was sound.
He pressed me to do it for a while. I became disturbed. Taking notes acted not only as a mnemonic device, but soothed me as well. It was my most serviceable crutch. To accumulate sheets of paper gave me a sense of purpose and balance.
"When you worry about what to do with your sheets," don Juan explained, "you are focusing a very dangerous part of yourself on them. All of us have that dangerous side, that fixation. The stronger we become, the more deadly that side is.
"The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material things on which to focus their power, but to focus their power on the spirit; on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivial shields. In your case, your notes are your shield. They won't let you live in peace."
I seriously felt that I had no way on earth to disassociate myself from my notes. Don Juan then conceived of a task for me in lieu of a not-doing proper. He said that for someone who was as possessive as I was, the most appropriate way of freeing myself from my notebooks would be to disclose them; to throw them in the open; to write a book. I thought, at the time, that that was a bigger joke than taking notes with the tip of my finger.
"Your compulsion to possess and hold on to things is not unique," he said. "Everyone who wants to follow the warrior's path, the sorcerer's way, has to rid himself of this fixation.
"My benefactor told me that there was a time when warriors did have material objects on which they placed their obsession; and that gave rise to the question of whose object would be more powerful, or the most powerful of them all. Remnants of those objects still remain in the world; the leftovers of that race for power.
"No one can tell what kind of fixation those objects must have received. Men infinitely more powerful than you poured all the facets of their attention on them. You have merely begun to pour your puny worry on your notes. You haven't gotten yet to other levels of attention.
"Think how horrible it would be if you would find yourself at the end of your trail as a warrior, still carrying your bundles of notes on your back. By that time the notes will be alive, especially if you learn to write with your fingertip and still have to pile up sheets. Under those conditions it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone found your bundles walking around."
"It is easy for me to understand why the Nagual Juan Matus didn't want us to have possessions," Nestor said after I had finished talking. "We are all dreamers. He didn't want us to focus our dreaming body on the weak face of the second attention.
"I didn't understand his maneuvers at the time. I resented the fact that he made me get rid of everything I had. I thought he was being unfair. My belief was that he was trying to keep Pablito and Benigno from envying me because they had nothing themselves. I was well-off in comparison. At the time, I had no idea that he was protecting my dreaming body."
Don Juan had described dreaming to me in various ways. The most obscure of them all now appears to me as being the one that defines it best. He said that dreaming is intrinsically the not-doing of sleep. And as such, dreaming affords practitioners the use of that portion of their lives spent in slumber.
It is as if the dreamers no longer sleep; yet no illness results from it. The dreamers do not lack sleep, and the effect of dreaming seems to be an increase of waking time owing to the use of an alleged extra body; the dreaming body.
Don Juan had explained to me that the dreaming body is sometimes called the "double" or the "other" because it is a perfect replica of the dreamer's body. It is inherently the energy of a luminous being, a whitish, phantomlike emanation which is projected by the fixation of the second attention into a three-dimensional image of the body.
Don Juan explained that the dreaming body is not a ghost, and is as real as anything we deal with in the world. He said that the second attention is unavoidably drawn to focus on our total being as a field of energy, and transforms that energy into anything suitable. The easiest thing is, of course, the image of the physical body with which we are already thoroughly familiar from our daily lives, and our use of our first attention.
And that which channels the energy of our total being to produce anything that might be within the boundaries of possibility is known as 'will'. Don Juan could not say what those boundaries were; except that at the level of luminous beings, the range is so broad that it is futile to try to establish limits.
Thus, the energy of a luminous being can be transformed through will into anything.
"The Nagual said that the dreaming body gets involved and attaches itself to anything," Benigno said. "It doesn't have sense. He told me that men are weaker than women because a man's dreaming body is more possessive."
The little sisters agreed in unison with a movement of their heads. La Gorda looked at me and smiled.
"The Nagual told me that you're the king of possessiveness," she said to me. "Genaro said that you even say goodbye to your turds before you flush them down."
The little sisters rolled down on their sides laughing. The Genaros made obvious efforts to contain themselves. Nestor, who was sitting by my side, patted my knee.
The Nagual and Genaro used to tell great stories about you," he said. "They entertained us for years with tales about a weird guy they knew. We know now that it was you."
I felt a wave of embarrassment. It was as if don Juan and don Genaro had betrayed me; laughing at me in front of the apprentices. Self-pity took over. I began to complain. I said out loud that they had been predisposed to be against me; to think that I was a fool.
"That's not true," Benigno said. "We are delighted that you are with us."
"Are we?" Lydia snapped.
All of them became involved in a heated argument. The men and the women were divided. La Gorda did not join either group. She stayed sitting by my side, while the others had stood up and were shouting.
"We're going through a difficult time," la Gorda said to me in a low voice. "We've done a lot of dreaming and yet it isn't enough for what we need."
"What do you need, Gorda?" I asked.
"We don't know," she said. "We were hoping that you would tell us that."
The little sisters and the Genaros sat down again in order to listen to what la Gorda was saying to me.
"We need a leader," she went on. "You are the Nagual, but you're not a leader."
"It takes time to make a perfect Nagual," Pablito said. "The Nagual Juan Matus told me that he himself was crappy in his youth, until something shook him out of his complacency."
"I don't believe it," Lydia shouted. "He never told me that."
"He said that he was very crummy," la Gorda added in a low voice.
"The Nagual told me that in his youth he was a jinx, just like me," Pablito said. "He was also told by his benefactor not to set foot in those pyramids and because of that he practically lived there until he was driven away by a horde of phantoms."
Apparently no one else knew the story. They perked up.
"I had completely forgotten about that," Pablito explained. "I've only just remembered it now. It was just like what happened to la Gorda. One day after the Nagual had finally become a formless warrior, the evil fixations of those warriors who had done their dreaming and other not-doings in the pyramids came after him.
"They found him while he was working in the field. He told me that he saw a hand coming out of the loose dirt in a fresh furrow to grab the leg of his pants. He thought that it was a fellow worker who had been accidentally buried. He tried to dig him out. Then he realized that he was digging into a dirt coffin: A man was buried there. The Nagual said that the man was very thin and dark and had no hair.
"The Nagual tried frantically to patch up the dirt coffin. He didn't want his fellow workers to see it and he didn't want to injure the man by digging him out against his will. He was working so hard that he didn't even notice that the other workers had gathered around him. By then the Nagual said that the dirt coffin had collapsed and the dark man was sprawled on the ground; naked.
"The Nagual tried to help him up and asked the men to give him a hand. They laughed at him. They thought he was drunk having the d.t.'s because there was no man, or dirt coffin, or anything like that in the field.
"The Nagual said that he was shaken but he didn't dare tell his benefactor about it. It didn't matter because at night a whole flock of phantoms came after him. He went to open the front door after someone knocked and a horde of naked men with glaring yellow eyes burst in.
"They threw him to the floor and piled on top of him. They would have crushed every bone in his body had it not been for the swift actions of his benefactor. He saw the phantoms and pulled the Nagual to safety to a hole in the ground which he always kept conveniently at the back of his house. He buried the Nagual there while the ghosts squatted around waiting for their chance.
The Nagual told me that he had become so frightened that he would voluntarily go back into his dirt coffin every night to sleep long after the phantoms had vanished."
Pablito stopped talking. Everyone seemed to be getting ready to leave. They fretted and changed position as if to show that they were tired of sitting.
I then told them that I had had a very disturbing reaction upon hearing my friend's statements about the Atlanteans walking at night in the pyramids of Tula. I had not recognized the depth at which I had accepted what don Juan and don Genaro had taught me until that day.
I realized that I had completely suspended judgment even though it was clear in my mind that the possibility those colossal figures of stone could walk did not enter into the realm of serious speculation. My reaction was a total surprise to me.
I explained to them at great length that the idea of the Atlanteans walking at night was a clear example of the fixation of the second attention. I had arrived at that conclusion using the following set of premises:
First, that we are not merely whatever our common sense requires us to believe we are. We are in actuality luminous beings capable of becoming aware of our luminosity.
Second, that as luminous beings aware of our luminosity we are capable of unraveling different facets of our awareness, or our attention, as don Juan called it.
Third, that the unraveling could be brought about by a deliberate effort as we were trying to do ourselves, or accidentally, through a bodily trauma.
Fourth, that there had been a time when sorcerers deliberately placed different facets of their attention on material objects.
Fifth, that the Atlanteans, judging by their awe-inspiring setting, must have been objects of fixation for sorcerers of another time.
I said that the custodian who had given my friend the information had undoubtedly unraveled another facet of his attention; he might have unwittingly become, if only for a moment, a receptor for the projections of ancient sorcerers' second attention. It was not so farfetched to me then that the man may have visualized the fixation of those sorcerers.
If those sorcerers were members of don Juan's and don Genaro's tradition, they must have been impeccable practitioners in which case there would have been no limit to what they could accomplish with the fixation of their second attention. If they intended that the Atlanteans should walk at night, then the Atlanteans would walk at night.
As I talked, the three little sisters became very angry and agitated with me. When I finished, Lydia accused me of doing nothing else but talking. Then they got up and left without even saying goodbye. The men followed them, but stopped at the door and shook hands with me. La Gorda and I remained in the room.
"There is something very wrong with those women," I said.
"No. They're just tired of talking," la Gorda said. "They expect some action from you."
"How come the Genaros are not tired of talking?" I asked.
"They are more stupid than the women," she replied dryly.
"How about you, Gorda?" I asked. "Are you also tired of talking?"
"I don't know what I am," she said solemnly. "When I am with you, I'm not tired; but when I am with the little sisters, I'm dead tired just like them."
During the following uneventful days that I stayed with them, it was obvious that the little sisters were thoroughly hostile to me. The Genaros tolerated me in an offhand way. Only la Gorda seemed to be aligned with me. I began to wonder why. I asked her about it before I left for Los Angeles.
"I don't know how it is possible, but I'm used to you," she said. "It's as if you and I are together, while the little sisters the Genaros are in a different world."
Friday, September 10, 2010
Navigating Into the Unknown: An Interview with Carlos Castaneda
for the magazine Uno Mismo, Chile and Argentina, February, 1997
http://www.castaneda.com/
by Daniel Trujillo Rivas * Question: Mr. Castaneda, for years you've remained in absolute anonymity. What drove you to change this condition and talk publicly about the teachings that you and your three companions received from the nagual Juan Matus?
Answer: What compels us to disseminate don Juan Matus's ideas is a need to clarify what he taught us. For us, this is a task that can no longer be postponed. His other three students and I have reached the unanimous conclusion that the world to which Don Juan Matus introduced us is within the perceptual possibilities of all human beings. We've discussed among us what would be the appropriate road to take. To remain anonymous the way don Juan proposed to us? This option was not acceptable. The other road available was to disseminate don Juan's ideas: an infinitely more dangerous and exhausting choice, but the only one that, we believe, has the dignity don Juan imbued all his teachings with.
Q: Considering what you have said about the unpredictability of a warrior's actions, which we have corroborated for three decades, can we expect this public phase you're going through to last for a while? Until when?
A: There is no way for us to establish a temporal criteria. We live according to the premises proposed by don Juan and we never deviate from them. Don Juan Matus gave us the formidable example of a man who lived according to what he said. And I say it is a formidable example because it is the most difficult thing to emulate; to be monolithic and at the same time have the flexibility to face anything. This was the way don Juan lived his life.
Within these premises, the only thing one can be is an impeccable mediator. One is not the player in this cosmic match of chess, one is simply a pawn on the chessboard. What decides everything is a conscious impersonal energy that sorcerers call intent or the Spirit.
Q: As far as I've been able to corroborate, orthodox anthropology, as well as the alleged defenders of the pre-Colombian cultural heritage of America, undermine the credibility of your work. The belief that your work is merely the product of your literary talent, which, by the way, is exceptional, continues to exist today. There are also other sectors that accuse you of having a double standard because, supposedly, your lifestyle and your activities contradict what the majority expect from a shaman. How can you clear up these suspicions?
A: The cognitive system of the Western man forces us to rely on preconceived ideas. We base our judgments on something that is always "a priori," for example the idea of what is "orthodox." What is orthodox anthropology? The one taught at university lecture halls? What is a shaman's behavior? To wear feathers on one's head and dance to the spirits?
For thirty years, people have accused Carlos Castaneda of creating a literary character simply because what I report to them does not concur with the anthropological "a priori," the ideas established in the lecture halls or in the anthropological field work. However, what don Juan presented to me can only apply to a situation that calls for total action and, under such circumstances, very little or almost nothing of the preconceived occurs.
I have never been able to draw conclusions about shamanism because in order to do this one needs to be an active member in the shamans' world. For a social scientist, let's say for example a sociologist, it is very easy to arrive at sociological conclusions over any subject related to the Occidental world, because the sociologist is an active member of the Occidental world. But how can an anthropologist, who spends at the most two years studying other cultures, arrive at reliable conclusions about them? One needs a lifetime to be able to acquire membership in a cultural world. I've been working for more than thirty years in the cognitive world of the shamans of ancient Mexico and, sincerely, I don't believe I have acquired the membership that would allow me to draw conclusions or to even propose them.
I have discussed this with people from different disciplines and they always seem to understand and agree with the premises I'm presenting. But then they turn around and they forget everything they agreed upon and continue to sustain "orthodox" academic principles, without caring about the possibility of an absurd error in their conclusions. Our cognitive system seems to be impenetrable.
Q: What's the aim of you not allowing yourself to be photographed, having your voice recorded or making your biographical data known? Could this affect what you've achieved in your spiritual work, and if so how? Don't you think it would be useful for some sincere seekers of truth to know who you really are, as a way of corroborating that it is really possible to follow the path you proclaim?
A: With reference to photographs and personal data, the other three disciples of don Juan and myself follow his instructions. For a shaman like don Juan, the main idea behind refraining from giving personal data is very simple. It is imperative to leave aside what he called "personal history". To get away from the "me" is something extremely annoying and difficult. What shamans like don Juan seek is a state of fluidity where the personal "me" does not count. He believed that an absence of photographs and biographical data affects whomever enters into this field of action in a positive, though subliminal way. We are endlessly accustomed to using photographs, recordings and biographical data, all of which spring from the idea of personal importance. Don Juan said it was better not to know anything about a shaman; in this way, instead of encountering a person, one encounters an idea that can be sustained; the opposite of what happens in the everyday world where we are faced only with people who have numerous psychological problems but no ideas, all of these people filled to the brim with "me, me, me."
Q: How should your followers interpret the publicity and the commercial infrastructure a side of your literary work surrounding the knowledge you and your companions disseminate? What's your real relationship with Cleargreen Incorporated and the other companies (Laugan Productions, Toltec Artists)? I'm talking about a commercial link.
A: At this point in my work I needed someone able to represent me regarding the dissemination of don Juan Matus's ideas. Cleargreen is a corporation that has great affinity with our work, as are Laugan Productions and Toltec Artists. The idea of disseminating don Juan's teachings in the modern world implies the use of commercial and artistic media that are not within my individual reach. As corporations having an affinity with don Juan's ideas, Cleargreen Incorporated, Laugan Productions and Toltec Artists are capable of providing the means to disseminate what I want to disseminate.
There is always a tendency for impersonal corporations to dominate and transform everything that is presented to them and to adapt it to their own ideology. If it weren't for Cleargreen's, Laugan Productions' and Toltec Artists' sincere interest, everything don Juan said would have been transformed into something else by now.
Q: There are a great number of people who, in one way or another, "cling" to you in order to acquire public notoriety. What's your opinion on the actions of Victor Sanchez, who has interpreted and reorganized your teachings in order to elaborate a personal theory? And of Ken Eagle Feather's assertions that he has been chosen by don Juan to be his disciple, and that don Juan came back just for him?
A: Indeed there are a number of people who call themselves my students or don Juan's students, people I've never met and whom, I can guarantee, don Juan never met. Don Juan Matus was exclusively interested in the perpetuation of his lineage of shamans. He had four disciples who remain to this day. He had others who left with him. Don Juan was not interested in teaching his knowledge; he taught it to his disciples in order to continue his lineage. Due to the fact that they cannot continue don Juan's lineage, his four disciples have been forced to disseminate his ideas.
The concept of a teacher who teaches his knowledge is part of our cognitive system but it isn't part of the cognitive system of the shamans of ancient Mexico. To teach was absurd for them. To transmit his knowledge to those who were going to perpetuate their lineage was a different matter.
The fact that there are a number of individuals who insist in using my name or don Juan's name is simply an easy maneuver to benefit themselves without much effort.
Q: Let's consider the meaning of the word "spirituality" to be a state of consciousness in which human beings are fully capable of controlling the potentials of the species, something achieved by transcending the simple animal condition through a hard psychic, moral and intellectual training. Do you agree with this assertion? How is don Juan's world integrated into this context?
A: For don Juan Matus, a pragmatic and extremely sober shaman, "spirituality" was an empty ideality, an assertion without basis that we believe to be very beautiful because it is encrusted with literary concepts and poetic expressions, but which never goes beyond that.
Shamans like don Juan are essentially practical. For them there only exists a predatory universe in which intelligence or awareness is the product of life and death challenges. He considered himself a navigator of infinity and said that in order to navigate into the unknown like a shaman does, one needs unlimited pragmatism, boundless sobriety and guts of steel.
In view of all this, don Juan believed that "spirituality" is simply a description of something impossible to achieve within the patterns of the world of everyday life, and it is not a real way of acting.
Q: You have pointed out that your literary activity, as well as Taisha Abelar's and Florinda Donner-Grau's, is the result of don Juan's instructions. What is the objective of this?
A: The objective of writing those books was given by don Juan. He asserted that even if one is not a writer one still can write, but writing is transformed from a literary action into a shamanistic action. What decides the subject and the development of a book is not the mind of the writer but rather a force that the shamans consider the basis of the universe, and which they call intent. It is intent which decides a shaman's production, whether it be literary or of any other kind.
According to don Juan, a practitioner of shamanism has the duty and the obligation of saturating himself with all the information available. The work of shamans is to inform themselves thoroughly about everything that could possibly be related to their topic of interest. The shamanistic act consists of abandoning all interest in directing the course the information takes. Don Juan used to say, "The one who arranges the ideas that spring from such a well of information is not the shaman, it is intent. The shaman is simply an impeccable conduit." For don Juan writing was a shamanistic challenge, not a literary task.
Q: If you allow me to assert the following, your literary work presents concepts that are closely related with Oriental philosophical teachings, but it contradicts what is commonly known about the Mexican indigenous culture. What are the similarities and the differences between one and the other?
A: I don't have the slightest idea. I'm not learned in either one of them. My work is a phenomenological report of the cognitive world to which don Juan Matus introduced me. From the point of view of phenomenology as a philosophical method, it is impossible to make assertions that are related to the phenomenon under scrutiny. Don Juan Matus' world is so vast, so mysterious and contradictory, that it isn't suitable for an exercise in linear exposition; the most one can do is describe it, and that alone is a supreme effort.
Q: Assuming that don Juan's teachings have become part of occult literature, what's your opinion about other teachings in this category, for example Masonic philosophy, Rosicrucianism, Hermeticism and disciplines such as the Cabala, the Tarot and Astrology when we compare them to nagualism? Have you ever had any contact with or maintain any contact with any of these or with their devotees?
A: Once again, I don't have the slightest idea of what the premises are, or the points of view and subjects of such disciplines. Don Juan presented us with the problem of navigating into the unknown, and this takes all of our available effort.
Q: Do some of the concepts of your work, such as the assemblage point, the energetic filaments that make up the universe, the world of the inorganic beings, intent, stalking and dreaming, have an equivalent in Western knowledge? For example, there are some people who consider that man seen as a luminous egg is an expression of the aura
A: As far as I know, nothing of what don Juan taught us seems to have a counterpart in Western knowledge.
Once, when don Juan was still here, I spent a whole year in search of gurus, teachers and wise men to give me an inkling of what they were doing. I wanted to know if there was something in the world of that time similar to what don Juan said and did.
My resources were very limited and they only took me to meet the established masters who had millions of followers and, unfortunately, I couldn't find any similarity.
Q: Concentrating specifically on your literary work, your readers find different Carlos Castanedas. We first find a somewhat incompetent Western scholar, permanently baffled at the power of old Indians like don Juan and don Genaro (mainly in The Teachings Of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, A Journey To Ixtlan, Tales Of Power, and The Second Ring Of Power.) Later we find an apprentice versed in shamanism (in The Eagle's Gift, The Fire from Within, The Power of Silence and, particularly, The Art Of Dreaming.) If you agree with this assessment, when and how did you cease to be one to become the other?
A: I don't consider myself a shaman, or a teacher, or an advanced student of shamanism; nor do I consider myself an anthropologist or a social scientist of the Western world. My presentations have all been descriptions of a phenomenon which is impossible to discern under the conditions of the linear knowledge of the Western world. I could never explain what don Juan was teaching me in terms of cause and effect. There was no way to foretell what he was going to say or what was going to happen. Under such circumstances, the passage from one state to another is subjective and not something elaborated, or premeditated, or a product of wisdom.
Q: One can find episodes in your literary work that are truly incredible for the Western mind. How could someone who's not an initiate verify that all those "separate realities" are real, as you claim?
A: It can be verified very easily by lending one's whole body instead of only one's intellect. One cannot enter don Juan's world intellectually, like a dilettante seeking fast and fleeting knowledge. Nor, in don Juan's world, can anything be verified absolutely. The only thing we can do is arrive at a state of increased awareness that allows us to perceive the world around us in a more inclusive manner. In other words, the goal of don Juan's shamanism is to break the parameters of historical and daily perception and to perceive the unknown. That's why he called himself a navigator of infinity. He asserted that infinity lies beyond the parameters of daily perception. To break these parameters was the aim of his life. Because he was an extraordinary shaman, he instilled that same desire in all four of us. He forced us to transcend the intellect and to embody the concept of breaking the boundaries of historical perception.
Q: You assert that the basic characteristic of human beings is to be "perceivers of energy." You refer to the movement of the assemblage point as something imperative to perceiving energy directly. How can this be useful to a man of the 21st century? According to the concept previously defined, how can the attainment of this goal help one's spiritual improvement?
A: Shamans like don Juan assert that all human beings have the capacity to see energy directly as it flows in the universe. They believe that the assemblage point, as they call it, is a point that exists in man's total sphere of energy. In other words, when a shaman perceives a man as energy that flows in the universe, he sees a luminous ball. In that luminous ball, the shaman can see a point of greater brilliance located at the height of the shoulder blades, approximately an arm's length behind them. Shamans maintain that perception is assembled at this point; that the energy that flows in the universe is transformed here into sensory data, and that the sensory data is later interpreted, giving as a result the world of everyday life. Shamans assert that we are taught to interpret, and therefore we are taught to perceive.
The pragmatic value of perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe for a man of the 21st century or a man of the 1st century is the same. It allows him to enlarge the limits of his perception and to use this enhancement within his realm. Don Juan said that to see directly the wonder of the order and the chaos of the universe would be extraordinary.
Q: You have recently presented a physical discipline called Tensegrity. Can you explain what is it exactly? What is its goal? What spiritual benefit can a person who practices it individually get?
A: According to what don Juan Matus taught us, the shamans who lived in ancient Mexico discovered a series of movements that when executed by the body brought about such physical and mental prowess that they decided to call those movements magical passes.
Don Juan told us that, through their magical passes, those shamans attained an increased level of consciousness which allowed them to perform indescribable feats of perception.
Through generations, the magical passes were only taught to practitioners of shamanism. The movements were surrounded with tremendous secrecy and complex rituals. That is the way don Juan learned them and that is the way he taught them to his four disciples.
Our effort has been to extend the teachings of such magical passes to anyone who wants to learn them. We have called them Tensegrity, and we have transformed them from specific movements pertinent only to each of don Juan's four disciples, to general movements suitable to anyone.
Practicing Tensegrity, individually or in groups, promotes health, vitality, youth and a general sense of well-being. Don Juan said that practicing the magical passes helps accumulate the energy necessary to increase awareness and to expand the parameters of perception.
Q: Besides your three cohorts, the people who attend your seminars have met other people, like the Chacmools, the Energy Trackers, the Elements, the Blue Scout . . . Who are they? Are they part of a new generation of seers guided by you? If this is the case, how could one become part of this group of apprentices?
A: Every one of these persons are defined beings who don Juan Matus, as director of his lineage, asked us to wait for. He predicted the arrival of each one of them as an integral part of a vision. Since don Juan's lineage could not continue, due to the energetic configuration of his four students, their mission was transformed from perpetuating the lineage into closing it, if possible, with a golden clasp.
We are in no position to change such instructions. We can neither look for nor accept apprentices or active members of don Juan's vision. The only thing we can do is acquiesce to the designs of intent.
The fact that the magical passes, guarded with such jealousy for so many generations, are now being taught, is proof that one can, indeed, in an indirect way, become part of this new vision through the practice of Tensegrity and by following the premises of the warriors' way.
Q: In Readers of Infinity, you've utilized the term "navigating" to define what sorcerers do. Are you going to hoist the sail to begin the definitive journey soon? Will the lineage of Toltec warriors, the keepers of this knowledge, end with you?
A: Yes, that is correct, don Juan's lineage ends with us.
Q: Here's a question that I've often asked myself: Does the warriors' path include, like other disciplines do, spiritual work for couples?
A: The warriors' path includes everything and everyone. There can be a whole family of impeccable warriors. The difficulty lies in the terrible fact that individual relationships are based in emotional investments, and the moment the practitioner really practices what she or he learns, the relationship crumbles. In the everyday world, emotional investments are not normally examined, and we live an entire lifetime waiting to be reciprocated. Don Juan said I was a diehard investor and that my way of living and feeling could be described simply: "I only give what others give me."
Q: What aspirations of possible advancement should someone have who wishes to work spiritually according to the knowledge disseminated in your books? What would you recommend for those who wish to practice don Juan's teachings by themselves?
A: There's no way to put a limit on what one may accomplish individually if the intent is an impeccable intent. Don Juan's teachings are not spiritual. I repeat this because the question has come to the surface over and over. The idea of spirituality doesn't fit with the iron discipline of a warrior. The most important thing for a shaman like don Juan is the idea of pragmatism. When I met him, I believed I was a practical man, a social scientist filled with objectivity and pragmatism. He destroyed my pretensions and made me see that, as a true Western man, I was neither pragmatic nor spiritual. I came to understand that I only repeated the word "spirituality" to contrast it with the mercenary aspect of the world of everyday life. I wanted to get away from the mercantilism of everyday life and the eagerness to do this is what I called spirituality. I realized don Juan was right when he demanded that I come to a conclusion; to define what I considered spirituality. I didn't know what I was talking about.
What I'm saying might sound presumptuous, but there's no other way to say it. What a shaman like don Juan wants is to increase awareness, that is, to be able to perceive with all the human possibilities of perception; this implies a colossal task and an unbending purpose, which can not be replaced by the spirituality of the Western world.
Q: Is there anything you would like to explain to the South American people, especially to the Chileans? Would you like to make any other statement besides your answers to our questions?
A: I don't have anything to add. All human beings are at the same level. At the beginning of my apprenticeship with don Juan Matus, he tried to make me see how common man's situation is. I, as a South American, was very involved, intellectually, with the idea of social reform. One day I asked don Juan what I thought was a deadly question: How can you remain unmoved by the horrendous situation of your fellow men, the Yaqui Indians of Sonora?
I knew that a certain percentage of the Yaqui population suffered from tuberculosis and that, due to their economic situation, they couldn't be cured.
"Yes," don Juan said, "It's a very sad thing but, you see, your situation is also very sad, and if you believe that you are in better condition than the Yaqui Indians you are mistaken. In general the human condition is in a horrifying state of chaos. No one is better off than another. We are all beings that are going to die and, unless we acknowledge this, there is no remedy for us."
This is another point of the shaman's pragmatism: to become aware that we are beings that are going to die. They say that when we do this, everything acquires a transcendental order and measure.
for the magazine Uno Mismo, Chile and Argentina, February, 1997
http://www.castaneda.com/
by Daniel Trujillo Rivas * Question: Mr. Castaneda, for years you've remained in absolute anonymity. What drove you to change this condition and talk publicly about the teachings that you and your three companions received from the nagual Juan Matus?
Answer: What compels us to disseminate don Juan Matus's ideas is a need to clarify what he taught us. For us, this is a task that can no longer be postponed. His other three students and I have reached the unanimous conclusion that the world to which Don Juan Matus introduced us is within the perceptual possibilities of all human beings. We've discussed among us what would be the appropriate road to take. To remain anonymous the way don Juan proposed to us? This option was not acceptable. The other road available was to disseminate don Juan's ideas: an infinitely more dangerous and exhausting choice, but the only one that, we believe, has the dignity don Juan imbued all his teachings with.
Q: Considering what you have said about the unpredictability of a warrior's actions, which we have corroborated for three decades, can we expect this public phase you're going through to last for a while? Until when?
A: There is no way for us to establish a temporal criteria. We live according to the premises proposed by don Juan and we never deviate from them. Don Juan Matus gave us the formidable example of a man who lived according to what he said. And I say it is a formidable example because it is the most difficult thing to emulate; to be monolithic and at the same time have the flexibility to face anything. This was the way don Juan lived his life.
Within these premises, the only thing one can be is an impeccable mediator. One is not the player in this cosmic match of chess, one is simply a pawn on the chessboard. What decides everything is a conscious impersonal energy that sorcerers call intent or the Spirit.
Q: As far as I've been able to corroborate, orthodox anthropology, as well as the alleged defenders of the pre-Colombian cultural heritage of America, undermine the credibility of your work. The belief that your work is merely the product of your literary talent, which, by the way, is exceptional, continues to exist today. There are also other sectors that accuse you of having a double standard because, supposedly, your lifestyle and your activities contradict what the majority expect from a shaman. How can you clear up these suspicions?
A: The cognitive system of the Western man forces us to rely on preconceived ideas. We base our judgments on something that is always "a priori," for example the idea of what is "orthodox." What is orthodox anthropology? The one taught at university lecture halls? What is a shaman's behavior? To wear feathers on one's head and dance to the spirits?
For thirty years, people have accused Carlos Castaneda of creating a literary character simply because what I report to them does not concur with the anthropological "a priori," the ideas established in the lecture halls or in the anthropological field work. However, what don Juan presented to me can only apply to a situation that calls for total action and, under such circumstances, very little or almost nothing of the preconceived occurs.
I have never been able to draw conclusions about shamanism because in order to do this one needs to be an active member in the shamans' world. For a social scientist, let's say for example a sociologist, it is very easy to arrive at sociological conclusions over any subject related to the Occidental world, because the sociologist is an active member of the Occidental world. But how can an anthropologist, who spends at the most two years studying other cultures, arrive at reliable conclusions about them? One needs a lifetime to be able to acquire membership in a cultural world. I've been working for more than thirty years in the cognitive world of the shamans of ancient Mexico and, sincerely, I don't believe I have acquired the membership that would allow me to draw conclusions or to even propose them.
I have discussed this with people from different disciplines and they always seem to understand and agree with the premises I'm presenting. But then they turn around and they forget everything they agreed upon and continue to sustain "orthodox" academic principles, without caring about the possibility of an absurd error in their conclusions. Our cognitive system seems to be impenetrable.
Q: What's the aim of you not allowing yourself to be photographed, having your voice recorded or making your biographical data known? Could this affect what you've achieved in your spiritual work, and if so how? Don't you think it would be useful for some sincere seekers of truth to know who you really are, as a way of corroborating that it is really possible to follow the path you proclaim?
A: With reference to photographs and personal data, the other three disciples of don Juan and myself follow his instructions. For a shaman like don Juan, the main idea behind refraining from giving personal data is very simple. It is imperative to leave aside what he called "personal history". To get away from the "me" is something extremely annoying and difficult. What shamans like don Juan seek is a state of fluidity where the personal "me" does not count. He believed that an absence of photographs and biographical data affects whomever enters into this field of action in a positive, though subliminal way. We are endlessly accustomed to using photographs, recordings and biographical data, all of which spring from the idea of personal importance. Don Juan said it was better not to know anything about a shaman; in this way, instead of encountering a person, one encounters an idea that can be sustained; the opposite of what happens in the everyday world where we are faced only with people who have numerous psychological problems but no ideas, all of these people filled to the brim with "me, me, me."
Q: How should your followers interpret the publicity and the commercial infrastructure a side of your literary work surrounding the knowledge you and your companions disseminate? What's your real relationship with Cleargreen Incorporated and the other companies (Laugan Productions, Toltec Artists)? I'm talking about a commercial link.
A: At this point in my work I needed someone able to represent me regarding the dissemination of don Juan Matus's ideas. Cleargreen is a corporation that has great affinity with our work, as are Laugan Productions and Toltec Artists. The idea of disseminating don Juan's teachings in the modern world implies the use of commercial and artistic media that are not within my individual reach. As corporations having an affinity with don Juan's ideas, Cleargreen Incorporated, Laugan Productions and Toltec Artists are capable of providing the means to disseminate what I want to disseminate.
There is always a tendency for impersonal corporations to dominate and transform everything that is presented to them and to adapt it to their own ideology. If it weren't for Cleargreen's, Laugan Productions' and Toltec Artists' sincere interest, everything don Juan said would have been transformed into something else by now.
Q: There are a great number of people who, in one way or another, "cling" to you in order to acquire public notoriety. What's your opinion on the actions of Victor Sanchez, who has interpreted and reorganized your teachings in order to elaborate a personal theory? And of Ken Eagle Feather's assertions that he has been chosen by don Juan to be his disciple, and that don Juan came back just for him?
A: Indeed there are a number of people who call themselves my students or don Juan's students, people I've never met and whom, I can guarantee, don Juan never met. Don Juan Matus was exclusively interested in the perpetuation of his lineage of shamans. He had four disciples who remain to this day. He had others who left with him. Don Juan was not interested in teaching his knowledge; he taught it to his disciples in order to continue his lineage. Due to the fact that they cannot continue don Juan's lineage, his four disciples have been forced to disseminate his ideas.
The concept of a teacher who teaches his knowledge is part of our cognitive system but it isn't part of the cognitive system of the shamans of ancient Mexico. To teach was absurd for them. To transmit his knowledge to those who were going to perpetuate their lineage was a different matter.
The fact that there are a number of individuals who insist in using my name or don Juan's name is simply an easy maneuver to benefit themselves without much effort.
Q: Let's consider the meaning of the word "spirituality" to be a state of consciousness in which human beings are fully capable of controlling the potentials of the species, something achieved by transcending the simple animal condition through a hard psychic, moral and intellectual training. Do you agree with this assertion? How is don Juan's world integrated into this context?
A: For don Juan Matus, a pragmatic and extremely sober shaman, "spirituality" was an empty ideality, an assertion without basis that we believe to be very beautiful because it is encrusted with literary concepts and poetic expressions, but which never goes beyond that.
Shamans like don Juan are essentially practical. For them there only exists a predatory universe in which intelligence or awareness is the product of life and death challenges. He considered himself a navigator of infinity and said that in order to navigate into the unknown like a shaman does, one needs unlimited pragmatism, boundless sobriety and guts of steel.
In view of all this, don Juan believed that "spirituality" is simply a description of something impossible to achieve within the patterns of the world of everyday life, and it is not a real way of acting.
Q: You have pointed out that your literary activity, as well as Taisha Abelar's and Florinda Donner-Grau's, is the result of don Juan's instructions. What is the objective of this?
A: The objective of writing those books was given by don Juan. He asserted that even if one is not a writer one still can write, but writing is transformed from a literary action into a shamanistic action. What decides the subject and the development of a book is not the mind of the writer but rather a force that the shamans consider the basis of the universe, and which they call intent. It is intent which decides a shaman's production, whether it be literary or of any other kind.
According to don Juan, a practitioner of shamanism has the duty and the obligation of saturating himself with all the information available. The work of shamans is to inform themselves thoroughly about everything that could possibly be related to their topic of interest. The shamanistic act consists of abandoning all interest in directing the course the information takes. Don Juan used to say, "The one who arranges the ideas that spring from such a well of information is not the shaman, it is intent. The shaman is simply an impeccable conduit." For don Juan writing was a shamanistic challenge, not a literary task.
Q: If you allow me to assert the following, your literary work presents concepts that are closely related with Oriental philosophical teachings, but it contradicts what is commonly known about the Mexican indigenous culture. What are the similarities and the differences between one and the other?
A: I don't have the slightest idea. I'm not learned in either one of them. My work is a phenomenological report of the cognitive world to which don Juan Matus introduced me. From the point of view of phenomenology as a philosophical method, it is impossible to make assertions that are related to the phenomenon under scrutiny. Don Juan Matus' world is so vast, so mysterious and contradictory, that it isn't suitable for an exercise in linear exposition; the most one can do is describe it, and that alone is a supreme effort.
Q: Assuming that don Juan's teachings have become part of occult literature, what's your opinion about other teachings in this category, for example Masonic philosophy, Rosicrucianism, Hermeticism and disciplines such as the Cabala, the Tarot and Astrology when we compare them to nagualism? Have you ever had any contact with or maintain any contact with any of these or with their devotees?
A: Once again, I don't have the slightest idea of what the premises are, or the points of view and subjects of such disciplines. Don Juan presented us with the problem of navigating into the unknown, and this takes all of our available effort.
Q: Do some of the concepts of your work, such as the assemblage point, the energetic filaments that make up the universe, the world of the inorganic beings, intent, stalking and dreaming, have an equivalent in Western knowledge? For example, there are some people who consider that man seen as a luminous egg is an expression of the aura
A: As far as I know, nothing of what don Juan taught us seems to have a counterpart in Western knowledge.
Once, when don Juan was still here, I spent a whole year in search of gurus, teachers and wise men to give me an inkling of what they were doing. I wanted to know if there was something in the world of that time similar to what don Juan said and did.
My resources were very limited and they only took me to meet the established masters who had millions of followers and, unfortunately, I couldn't find any similarity.
Q: Concentrating specifically on your literary work, your readers find different Carlos Castanedas. We first find a somewhat incompetent Western scholar, permanently baffled at the power of old Indians like don Juan and don Genaro (mainly in The Teachings Of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, A Journey To Ixtlan, Tales Of Power, and The Second Ring Of Power.) Later we find an apprentice versed in shamanism (in The Eagle's Gift, The Fire from Within, The Power of Silence and, particularly, The Art Of Dreaming.) If you agree with this assessment, when and how did you cease to be one to become the other?
A: I don't consider myself a shaman, or a teacher, or an advanced student of shamanism; nor do I consider myself an anthropologist or a social scientist of the Western world. My presentations have all been descriptions of a phenomenon which is impossible to discern under the conditions of the linear knowledge of the Western world. I could never explain what don Juan was teaching me in terms of cause and effect. There was no way to foretell what he was going to say or what was going to happen. Under such circumstances, the passage from one state to another is subjective and not something elaborated, or premeditated, or a product of wisdom.
Q: One can find episodes in your literary work that are truly incredible for the Western mind. How could someone who's not an initiate verify that all those "separate realities" are real, as you claim?
A: It can be verified very easily by lending one's whole body instead of only one's intellect. One cannot enter don Juan's world intellectually, like a dilettante seeking fast and fleeting knowledge. Nor, in don Juan's world, can anything be verified absolutely. The only thing we can do is arrive at a state of increased awareness that allows us to perceive the world around us in a more inclusive manner. In other words, the goal of don Juan's shamanism is to break the parameters of historical and daily perception and to perceive the unknown. That's why he called himself a navigator of infinity. He asserted that infinity lies beyond the parameters of daily perception. To break these parameters was the aim of his life. Because he was an extraordinary shaman, he instilled that same desire in all four of us. He forced us to transcend the intellect and to embody the concept of breaking the boundaries of historical perception.
Q: You assert that the basic characteristic of human beings is to be "perceivers of energy." You refer to the movement of the assemblage point as something imperative to perceiving energy directly. How can this be useful to a man of the 21st century? According to the concept previously defined, how can the attainment of this goal help one's spiritual improvement?
A: Shamans like don Juan assert that all human beings have the capacity to see energy directly as it flows in the universe. They believe that the assemblage point, as they call it, is a point that exists in man's total sphere of energy. In other words, when a shaman perceives a man as energy that flows in the universe, he sees a luminous ball. In that luminous ball, the shaman can see a point of greater brilliance located at the height of the shoulder blades, approximately an arm's length behind them. Shamans maintain that perception is assembled at this point; that the energy that flows in the universe is transformed here into sensory data, and that the sensory data is later interpreted, giving as a result the world of everyday life. Shamans assert that we are taught to interpret, and therefore we are taught to perceive.
The pragmatic value of perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe for a man of the 21st century or a man of the 1st century is the same. It allows him to enlarge the limits of his perception and to use this enhancement within his realm. Don Juan said that to see directly the wonder of the order and the chaos of the universe would be extraordinary.
Q: You have recently presented a physical discipline called Tensegrity. Can you explain what is it exactly? What is its goal? What spiritual benefit can a person who practices it individually get?
A: According to what don Juan Matus taught us, the shamans who lived in ancient Mexico discovered a series of movements that when executed by the body brought about such physical and mental prowess that they decided to call those movements magical passes.
Don Juan told us that, through their magical passes, those shamans attained an increased level of consciousness which allowed them to perform indescribable feats of perception.
Through generations, the magical passes were only taught to practitioners of shamanism. The movements were surrounded with tremendous secrecy and complex rituals. That is the way don Juan learned them and that is the way he taught them to his four disciples.
Our effort has been to extend the teachings of such magical passes to anyone who wants to learn them. We have called them Tensegrity, and we have transformed them from specific movements pertinent only to each of don Juan's four disciples, to general movements suitable to anyone.
Practicing Tensegrity, individually or in groups, promotes health, vitality, youth and a general sense of well-being. Don Juan said that practicing the magical passes helps accumulate the energy necessary to increase awareness and to expand the parameters of perception.
Q: Besides your three cohorts, the people who attend your seminars have met other people, like the Chacmools, the Energy Trackers, the Elements, the Blue Scout . . . Who are they? Are they part of a new generation of seers guided by you? If this is the case, how could one become part of this group of apprentices?
A: Every one of these persons are defined beings who don Juan Matus, as director of his lineage, asked us to wait for. He predicted the arrival of each one of them as an integral part of a vision. Since don Juan's lineage could not continue, due to the energetic configuration of his four students, their mission was transformed from perpetuating the lineage into closing it, if possible, with a golden clasp.
We are in no position to change such instructions. We can neither look for nor accept apprentices or active members of don Juan's vision. The only thing we can do is acquiesce to the designs of intent.
The fact that the magical passes, guarded with such jealousy for so many generations, are now being taught, is proof that one can, indeed, in an indirect way, become part of this new vision through the practice of Tensegrity and by following the premises of the warriors' way.
Q: In Readers of Infinity, you've utilized the term "navigating" to define what sorcerers do. Are you going to hoist the sail to begin the definitive journey soon? Will the lineage of Toltec warriors, the keepers of this knowledge, end with you?
A: Yes, that is correct, don Juan's lineage ends with us.
Q: Here's a question that I've often asked myself: Does the warriors' path include, like other disciplines do, spiritual work for couples?
A: The warriors' path includes everything and everyone. There can be a whole family of impeccable warriors. The difficulty lies in the terrible fact that individual relationships are based in emotional investments, and the moment the practitioner really practices what she or he learns, the relationship crumbles. In the everyday world, emotional investments are not normally examined, and we live an entire lifetime waiting to be reciprocated. Don Juan said I was a diehard investor and that my way of living and feeling could be described simply: "I only give what others give me."
Q: What aspirations of possible advancement should someone have who wishes to work spiritually according to the knowledge disseminated in your books? What would you recommend for those who wish to practice don Juan's teachings by themselves?
A: There's no way to put a limit on what one may accomplish individually if the intent is an impeccable intent. Don Juan's teachings are not spiritual. I repeat this because the question has come to the surface over and over. The idea of spirituality doesn't fit with the iron discipline of a warrior. The most important thing for a shaman like don Juan is the idea of pragmatism. When I met him, I believed I was a practical man, a social scientist filled with objectivity and pragmatism. He destroyed my pretensions and made me see that, as a true Western man, I was neither pragmatic nor spiritual. I came to understand that I only repeated the word "spirituality" to contrast it with the mercenary aspect of the world of everyday life. I wanted to get away from the mercantilism of everyday life and the eagerness to do this is what I called spirituality. I realized don Juan was right when he demanded that I come to a conclusion; to define what I considered spirituality. I didn't know what I was talking about.
What I'm saying might sound presumptuous, but there's no other way to say it. What a shaman like don Juan wants is to increase awareness, that is, to be able to perceive with all the human possibilities of perception; this implies a colossal task and an unbending purpose, which can not be replaced by the spirituality of the Western world.
Q: Is there anything you would like to explain to the South American people, especially to the Chileans? Would you like to make any other statement besides your answers to our questions?
A: I don't have anything to add. All human beings are at the same level. At the beginning of my apprenticeship with don Juan Matus, he tried to make me see how common man's situation is. I, as a South American, was very involved, intellectually, with the idea of social reform. One day I asked don Juan what I thought was a deadly question: How can you remain unmoved by the horrendous situation of your fellow men, the Yaqui Indians of Sonora?
I knew that a certain percentage of the Yaqui population suffered from tuberculosis and that, due to their economic situation, they couldn't be cured.
"Yes," don Juan said, "It's a very sad thing but, you see, your situation is also very sad, and if you believe that you are in better condition than the Yaqui Indians you are mistaken. In general the human condition is in a horrifying state of chaos. No one is better off than another. We are all beings that are going to die and, unless we acknowledge this, there is no remedy for us."
This is another point of the shaman's pragmatism: to become aware that we are beings that are going to die. They say that when we do this, everything acquires a transcendental order and measure.
In the 70s, a shooting star crossed the sky that we could see from every place on earth. It was called Carlos Castaneda. As he dug into the heart of yaqui sorcery, this your american anthropologist open the planet's heads for a whole generation. And the New Age started this way.
Anthropologist, writer and truth seaker,As Idries Shah the Sufi said. See Idries Shah Carlos Castaneda enters UCLA in 1960 at the age of 29. Puzzling fact: no trace of this name in the UCLA records. Was he studying in another university? Did he use another name, like all the characters in his books? Or was he a mythomaniac? A shade of mystery surrounded his early years, his place of birth, his origins, that leads to think so. The paradox is, when he started his "public life" he lost a lot of his international influence.
Venemous tongues took advantage and whistled that he invented all. Mythomaniac or not, he introduced nagualismSee Nagual's definition below through a coherent, always accessible vision. Along his Stories of power, he develops an demanding action philosophy, that fits perfectly a powerful and brand new theory of knowledge. That seems to be the most perfect description of that kind, explaining a lot of our perception's peculiarities and bugs, and on account of that should deserve the right to be taught at university. UCLA, for instance.
What is nagualism by the way? It is a theory of knowledge assorted with action and behaviour rules. Action + knowledge means a complete philosophical system, that is coherent and operative. What is operativity ? This other castanedian concept deserves a spotlight. As a thing or a concept, being operative is to work properly. A lighter's operativity is to give a light. When the lighter has no more operativity, we throw it away. Recycling. Why don't we do the same with systems?See René Descartes
According to Castaneda, operativity comes from nagual. This other castanedian word designs both the sorcerer who rules the clan, and the left side of our body (connected with the right hemisphereLisez René Descartes of our brain). In other words, Nagual is our ability to be a sorcerer. Mind this word, don't get confused with it. In nagualism, sorcery doesn't evoke any devil's sabbat, with black goats and flying brooms. It only refers to our lost powers,See Lost Powers these early powers we forgot long ago, that once enabled us to become gods.See Be God
The lack of these powers still creates a big hole in our self integrity, bleeding us white. This vague memory incites the weakest of us to take drugs and/or to commit suicide, trying to fly through a building window. Once upon a time we flew as birds, but the power is gone and they just can't take it. Flying by planeSee Bloody Machine isn't quite the same. Nagual is looking for total freedom, through life-remindingSee We forget nothing and an impeccable behaviour. Impeccability is not holyness, it is far from that.See below
The warrior's worst ennemies come from inside, as he is the main obstacle on his way. On the road to find out, the warrior will meet four ennemies, so the RuleNobody decided what the Rule has to be. The Rule seems to exist by itself. fixed it. The first ennemy is called the fear. The second one is brightness. The third one is power. And the last will sooner or later defeat the most impeccable warior: it is age. First, win fearSee Nelson Mandela and gain courage to go on. Then, win brightness and learn humility. When power come, win it too. And when age come, gently accept it.See Baltimore and More
How an US student manage to become a worldwide hero? It is quite a story. In Mexico, where he was looking for informations about peyotl, young Carlos met a Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan Matus. Much impressed by his somersaults, Carlos became his pupil. His first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge deals mainly with drugs as peyotl and datura. It brought a diploma of anthropology at UCLA in 1970. Quickly quitting university, the student became a nagual apprentice.
Don Juan, his master and chief-nagual, ruled a sighted sorcerers clan where Carlos Castaneda will live incredible adventures beyond our perception's usual limits.See The Alpha Wave Initiated to some non ordinary achievements, he will tell them in many worldwide bestsellers books : Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, Journey to Ixtlan, the Eagle's Gift, The Power of Silence, The Active Side of Infinity, A Separate Reality, and a few others…
A witness of holy quest and mind opening, Castaneda founded the new age movement indeed. We can hardly reduce him to a fashion or a period of time, as today's many truth seekersAs Sufi teacher Idries Shah used to say. Read Idries Shah still use his practices and strokes of inspiration to explore infinity. As we already said, The teachings of Don Juan is the fist book of Carlos Castaneda. It is also the only one that mentioned the use of drugs to be part and parcel of mexican sorcery practices. No surprise!
This fact is well-known, as the recent ayahuascaSee Ayahuasca Dream tourism clearly show it. However, Juan Matus will explain later on that repeated use of psychotropic drugs was only fit for Castaneda: "I had to use drugs because you were too stupid to understand otherwise. I need all that crap to open your head. But you are my only drug-user pupil. DrugsLisez Ayahuasca Dream are only helpfull for morons like you."
Could we say all the ayahuasca users are morons? Yes we can!
Anthropologic essays or adventure novels, Castaneda's books are not equally interesting. One day, Castaneda went out of the way with a heart. The great author and writer became suddenly a mythomaniac egocentric erotomaniac fool. Instead of helping his readers' progress, he tried harder to take their money and run. In that purpose, he invented right away kind of mexican yoga he called "magical passes", a quick way to earn easy money. And the moron became a crook.
That is why his last books could well be called "lost impeccability". As to be impeccable for a warior or a sorcerer,In Europe, this word means danger. Elsewhere, they respect the sorcerer on account of his powers, his inner victories and his total commitment. He is the souls and bodies healer. consists to do any job the best he can, without considering any obstacle. By practicing this impeccability in every acts of usual life, the truth seeker receives impersonal help from Living Spirit.See The Living One It looks a bit like grace for Christians, except the fact there is no god involved. By the way, it is completely different! Comparison is not reason: let's get out of religious context, which is unproper.
Let's say that the warrior's help resemble what psychoanalyst Carl Jung called synchronicity: something that happens like a miracle, the right thing in the right place, just what you needed and when. For Jung, synchronicity comes from unconscious. For Juan Matus, it comes from warrior's personal power. For the sighted or for any researcher, impeccability is the condition of all interpretations, as well as visions or ruins, artifacts or antique texts. A good understanding means both prudent and open mind.
For the truth seeker, impeccability means not to interfere: in the sight of past events, not to project his 21st century peculiarities. He must be unbiased, as far as possible, and build his hypothesis with all the resources of his creative imagination as Henri Bergson said, all the resources of his sight as Carlos Castaneda said. Moreover he has to validate and corroborate them with the most impartial mind. That means a lot of qualities, some of them contradictory.See René Descartes
Above all, please remind impeccability has nothing to do with morality. Castaneda's masters spent a lot of time to show that. One fine day, Carlo was walking around with Juan Matus in the beautiful mexican bush they called chaparral. Then the nagual apprentice pick up a snail on the path and put it in a safer place. Matus protested: a warior never imposes his help to anyone, not even to a snail. Who are we to fix other people's destiny? By moving this snail, Castaneda might have stolen to this bug a meaningful victory.
The pupil felt sorry: "Never mind, I will put it back" said Castaneda. "Please don't, said Juan Matus. You made a mistake already, don't add another one." To err is human, sed perseverare diabolicum.
Properly speaking, There are neither god nor morality in sorcery, but a blind, universal, everlasting Power called Energy, and an impersonal but reactive principle called Intention. With its own intention, a warrior attracks impersonal Inetention, which pours flows of Energy on him. Intention attracks energy like a metal conductorSee A Thunder Gate attracks lightning.See Eternal Thunder When he receives cosmic energy,Lisez Megalith Show the warrior is connected with the Whole Cosmos. Then he starts with pieces of luck and synchronicity.
Each of us has to learn how to attrack luck. Holiness doesn't help. Impeccability is the answer.
Anthropologist, writer and truth seaker,As Idries Shah the Sufi said. See Idries Shah Carlos Castaneda enters UCLA in 1960 at the age of 29. Puzzling fact: no trace of this name in the UCLA records. Was he studying in another university? Did he use another name, like all the characters in his books? Or was he a mythomaniac? A shade of mystery surrounded his early years, his place of birth, his origins, that leads to think so. The paradox is, when he started his "public life" he lost a lot of his international influence.
Venemous tongues took advantage and whistled that he invented all. Mythomaniac or not, he introduced nagualismSee Nagual's definition below through a coherent, always accessible vision. Along his Stories of power, he develops an demanding action philosophy, that fits perfectly a powerful and brand new theory of knowledge. That seems to be the most perfect description of that kind, explaining a lot of our perception's peculiarities and bugs, and on account of that should deserve the right to be taught at university. UCLA, for instance.
What is nagualism by the way? It is a theory of knowledge assorted with action and behaviour rules. Action + knowledge means a complete philosophical system, that is coherent and operative. What is operativity ? This other castanedian concept deserves a spotlight. As a thing or a concept, being operative is to work properly. A lighter's operativity is to give a light. When the lighter has no more operativity, we throw it away. Recycling. Why don't we do the same with systems?See René Descartes
According to Castaneda, operativity comes from nagual. This other castanedian word designs both the sorcerer who rules the clan, and the left side of our body (connected with the right hemisphereLisez René Descartes of our brain). In other words, Nagual is our ability to be a sorcerer. Mind this word, don't get confused with it. In nagualism, sorcery doesn't evoke any devil's sabbat, with black goats and flying brooms. It only refers to our lost powers,See Lost Powers these early powers we forgot long ago, that once enabled us to become gods.See Be God
The lack of these powers still creates a big hole in our self integrity, bleeding us white. This vague memory incites the weakest of us to take drugs and/or to commit suicide, trying to fly through a building window. Once upon a time we flew as birds, but the power is gone and they just can't take it. Flying by planeSee Bloody Machine isn't quite the same. Nagual is looking for total freedom, through life-remindingSee We forget nothing and an impeccable behaviour. Impeccability is not holyness, it is far from that.See below
The warrior's worst ennemies come from inside, as he is the main obstacle on his way. On the road to find out, the warrior will meet four ennemies, so the RuleNobody decided what the Rule has to be. The Rule seems to exist by itself. fixed it. The first ennemy is called the fear. The second one is brightness. The third one is power. And the last will sooner or later defeat the most impeccable warior: it is age. First, win fearSee Nelson Mandela and gain courage to go on. Then, win brightness and learn humility. When power come, win it too. And when age come, gently accept it.See Baltimore and More
How an US student manage to become a worldwide hero? It is quite a story. In Mexico, where he was looking for informations about peyotl, young Carlos met a Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan Matus. Much impressed by his somersaults, Carlos became his pupil. His first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge deals mainly with drugs as peyotl and datura. It brought a diploma of anthropology at UCLA in 1970. Quickly quitting university, the student became a nagual apprentice.
Don Juan, his master and chief-nagual, ruled a sighted sorcerers clan where Carlos Castaneda will live incredible adventures beyond our perception's usual limits.See The Alpha Wave Initiated to some non ordinary achievements, he will tell them in many worldwide bestsellers books : Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, Journey to Ixtlan, the Eagle's Gift, The Power of Silence, The Active Side of Infinity, A Separate Reality, and a few others…
A witness of holy quest and mind opening, Castaneda founded the new age movement indeed. We can hardly reduce him to a fashion or a period of time, as today's many truth seekersAs Sufi teacher Idries Shah used to say. Read Idries Shah still use his practices and strokes of inspiration to explore infinity. As we already said, The teachings of Don Juan is the fist book of Carlos Castaneda. It is also the only one that mentioned the use of drugs to be part and parcel of mexican sorcery practices. No surprise!
This fact is well-known, as the recent ayahuascaSee Ayahuasca Dream tourism clearly show it. However, Juan Matus will explain later on that repeated use of psychotropic drugs was only fit for Castaneda: "I had to use drugs because you were too stupid to understand otherwise. I need all that crap to open your head. But you are my only drug-user pupil. DrugsLisez Ayahuasca Dream are only helpfull for morons like you."
Could we say all the ayahuasca users are morons? Yes we can!
Anthropologic essays or adventure novels, Castaneda's books are not equally interesting. One day, Castaneda went out of the way with a heart. The great author and writer became suddenly a mythomaniac egocentric erotomaniac fool. Instead of helping his readers' progress, he tried harder to take their money and run. In that purpose, he invented right away kind of mexican yoga he called "magical passes", a quick way to earn easy money. And the moron became a crook.
That is why his last books could well be called "lost impeccability". As to be impeccable for a warior or a sorcerer,In Europe, this word means danger. Elsewhere, they respect the sorcerer on account of his powers, his inner victories and his total commitment. He is the souls and bodies healer. consists to do any job the best he can, without considering any obstacle. By practicing this impeccability in every acts of usual life, the truth seeker receives impersonal help from Living Spirit.See The Living One It looks a bit like grace for Christians, except the fact there is no god involved. By the way, it is completely different! Comparison is not reason: let's get out of religious context, which is unproper.
Let's say that the warrior's help resemble what psychoanalyst Carl Jung called synchronicity: something that happens like a miracle, the right thing in the right place, just what you needed and when. For Jung, synchronicity comes from unconscious. For Juan Matus, it comes from warrior's personal power. For the sighted or for any researcher, impeccability is the condition of all interpretations, as well as visions or ruins, artifacts or antique texts. A good understanding means both prudent and open mind.
For the truth seeker, impeccability means not to interfere: in the sight of past events, not to project his 21st century peculiarities. He must be unbiased, as far as possible, and build his hypothesis with all the resources of his creative imagination as Henri Bergson said, all the resources of his sight as Carlos Castaneda said. Moreover he has to validate and corroborate them with the most impartial mind. That means a lot of qualities, some of them contradictory.See René Descartes
Above all, please remind impeccability has nothing to do with morality. Castaneda's masters spent a lot of time to show that. One fine day, Carlo was walking around with Juan Matus in the beautiful mexican bush they called chaparral. Then the nagual apprentice pick up a snail on the path and put it in a safer place. Matus protested: a warior never imposes his help to anyone, not even to a snail. Who are we to fix other people's destiny? By moving this snail, Castaneda might have stolen to this bug a meaningful victory.
The pupil felt sorry: "Never mind, I will put it back" said Castaneda. "Please don't, said Juan Matus. You made a mistake already, don't add another one." To err is human, sed perseverare diabolicum.
Properly speaking, There are neither god nor morality in sorcery, but a blind, universal, everlasting Power called Energy, and an impersonal but reactive principle called Intention. With its own intention, a warrior attracks impersonal Inetention, which pours flows of Energy on him. Intention attracks energy like a metal conductorSee A Thunder Gate attracks lightning.See Eternal Thunder When he receives cosmic energy,Lisez Megalith Show the warrior is connected with the Whole Cosmos. Then he starts with pieces of luck and synchronicity.
Each of us has to learn how to attrack luck. Holiness doesn't help. Impeccability is the answer.
Review
"Amy Wallace expertly maps the territory where mysticism merges into insanity, or perhaps the unmarked land between screwball comedy and terrifying tragedy. I can’t recall a stranger, sadder narrative than this."
—Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life
“Truth hurts … and so does Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Amy Wallace’s harrowing account of her years as Carlos Castaneda’s lover and disciple is a cautionary tale for our times, the story of a woman whose search for meaning took her to the brink, and damned near cost her everything. In this painfully honest memoir, she takes us deep inside the Castaneda cult and shows us the mind games, ego trips, and petty cruelties that wore the guise of wisdom. ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!’ the Wizard once tried to tell Dorothy. Amy Wallace has ripped the curtain down, and laid the wizard bare for all to see.”
—George R.R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones
“Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a haunting and brutally honest memoir that reads like a tender love story and, at the same time, a taut psychological thriller. Amy Wallace writes with wisdom, grace, courage, and candor about one of the most charismatic figures of all our times, and she allows us to witness both the splendor and the danger of entrusting one’s fate to a powerful man or woman.”
—Jonathan Kirsch, author of The Harlot by the Side of the Road and The Woman Who Laughed at God
"I simply could not put this book down. Amy Wallace’s relationship with Carlos Castaneda was transformative, exciting, abusive, and painful. This is a cautionary tale, containing essential insights for all of us. Thank you, Amy, for having the courage to tell your story so that others may learn from it, and from the redemptive powers of your own healing."
—Susan Piver, author of The Hard Questions
Product Description
Little did Amy Wallace know that her first meeting with Carlos Castaneda would begin a 20-year friendship, eventually leading to a life-changing love affair. The elusive Castaneda told Amy that her late father had appeared to him in a dream, extracting from Castaneda a promise to take care of her. Wallace came to accept this, falling deeply in love with Castaneda. Eventually, she also fell under the spell of this brilliant, domineering man, becoming a member of his devoted following. Sorcerer's Apprentice examines Wallace's life within the group and her dependence on its leader, with his dangerous combination of charisma and cruelty. The story tracks two people approaching an affair with opposite agendas: Castaneda wanted to make Wallace a "sorcerer"; she wanted to make him a lover. Along with numerous photographs, this is an intimate, riveting, and controversial story that serves as a cautionary tale, providing a rare inside glimpse into Castaneda's inner circle and life.
From the Inside Flap
"Amy Wallace takes you behind the scenes into the bizarre personal and sexual life of one of the most influential yet elusive figures of the 60s and beyond—Carlos Castaneda. This book is her journey with the man and his inner circle from her unique vantage point as one of his lovers and wives. Her idealism and disillusionment mirror that of an era which left many, like Amy, searching for hope and unwilling to descend into cynicism and bitterness. Amy’s struggle to rebuild a new foundation, though a story of seduction and betrayal on many levels, is also about the author’s reaching for transformation and personal meaning. This book will greatly interest anyone who was ever affected by ‘the teachings of don Juan.’ "
—Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad, co-authors of The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power
"Carlos Castaneda told astonishing truths, with an empowering Gnostic brilliance. He also told astonishing lies, spinning out like wild silk from a crazy spider’s ass. Sorcerer’s Apprentice tells the horrifying, heartbreaking tale of the lives entangled in his web. And it hurts like a son of a bitch. With far greater personal honesty than Castaneda ever managed, Amy Wallace drags us—first happily, then screamingly—deep into the Cult of Carlos: boldly capturing both the staggering beauty and the utter steaming nonsense of his world. It’s an ass-kicking, soul-grinding book, beautifully written and breathtakingly acute. I suggest that you read it, and test your faith."
—John Skipp, novelist, filmmaker
"Amy Wallace has gone through the looking glass of Castaneda’s magic and come back out the other side with her wits, and wit, intact. What’s more, she has remembered it all with a novelist’s eye and ear, so the result is a harrowing and vivid look at life inside a charismatic circle—the petty tyrannies, the abusive cruelties, the sometimes unintended silliness. If this remarkable book is evidence, what enabled her to survive Castaneda and his cult is a lucid, generous, often funny intelligence that spares no one, least of all herself."
—Joe Kanon, author of Los Alamos
"Amy Wallace expertly maps the territory where mysticism merges into insanity, or perhaps the unmarked land between screwball comedy and terrifying tragedy. I can’t recall a stranger, sadder narrative than this."
—Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life
"Amy Wallace’s compelling memoir reveals what some of us suspected all along: Don Juan’s teachings are a yucky way of knowledge."
—Jon Winokur, author of The Portable Curmudgeon
"Carlos Castaneda was one of the shapers of human consciousness during the period between the Beatles and the end of the twentieth century. After his death he remains a major spiritual and intellectual force. Yet he cast a schizophrenic shadow over our civilization. On the one hand, he taught us that we are here for a brief time in a beautiful, wondrous manifestation, and we must throw off the shackles of materialism, academic reductionism, and commercial distraction to realize our destiny, to experience the vast, untapped potential of our body-minds; on the other hand, he made the task so daunting and ultimately (if one reads him literally) terrifying and hopeless that he paralyzed many of his devotees and readers into inaction, submission, addictions, and denial. Amy Wallace has finally come along to liberate us from the spell. She says, ‘I will show you Carlos as he was. Follow the authentic spirit guide in him, but reject the manipulations of a tragically flawed and jealous guru. You are free to meet the Eagle on your own terms.’ "
—Richard Grossinger, author of Planet Medicine
"I read Sorcerer’s Apprentice with absolute fascination. Like millions of others, I had always wondered what was behind the Castaneda myth. My own life once gave me the choice of going down the guru path, a choice I rejected because, to me, it’s morally wrong for one person to claim closer knowledge of deity than any other. It’s always a lie, and the fearsome consequences of that lie in the life of the unfortunate creature who takes the guru path, as well as his followers, is exposed here with breathtaking candor. Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an extremely powerful book and fair warning both to those who would presume to claim special favor in the spirit, as well as those drawn by their own needs to such people. Amy Wallace warns us with her honesty and her careful attention to crucial emotional details, that guru-worship is a disease. For those who have wondered whether or not Castaneda’s various guides were real in some objective sense, reading this book will clear up the mysteries that need solving. But it is also a compassionate book, deeply so, because compassion inevitably flows from honesty of this high an order. It is a triumph of Amy Wallace’s heart to have written this, and I thank her for the wisdom and enrichment of spirit that reading it has given me."
—Whitley Strieber, author of Communion
About the Author
Amy Wallace has published twelve books, including The Psychic Healing Book with Bill Henkin, and with her family co-authored the #1 New York Times bestselling Book of Lists series, which sold millions of copies worldwide. Her solo works include the highly acclaimed erotic novel, Desire, and the bestselling biography The Prodigy: The Life of William James Sidis. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Charles J. Stivale
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Wayne State University
Detroit MI 48202
C_Stivale@wayne.edu
[Please do not cite without permission]
Narratives and Metanarratives: Carlos Castaneda's "Textual-Becomings"
[Updated April 12, 2000]
In his final book of interviews and occasional pieces, -Pourparlers- (translated as -Negotiations-), Gilles Deleuze says: "[Mediators (-intercesseurs-)] can be people -- for a philosopher, artists or scientists; for a scientist, philosophers or artists--but things too, even plants or animals, as in Castaneda. Whether they're real or imaginary, animate or inanimate, you have to form your mediators" (N 125, P 171). For Deleuze, however a "mediator" is constructed or adopted, it provides an impetus for creative activity and production, and calling this a relation in "a series," Deleuze adds, "If you're not in some series, even a completely imaginary one, you're lost" (N 125, P 171). Although his emphasis here is on the importance of the "series" he formed with Félix Guattari, it is his reference to Carlos Castaneda that has seized my attention in this regard. For in the ten volumes published since 1968 of the "conversations" and "teachings" of don Juan Matus, Castaneda constructs a complex nexus of "textual becomings" that have yet to be fully explored, but that clearly serve as "mediators" for a wide range of readers.
I have provided a handout with the title and dates of these volumes and other bibliographical references pertinent for this talk. I must first provide a caveat about this presentation. As many of you know, the steps between preparing a conference abstract and producing the conference paper can have some unforeseen developments. I had intended to provide an overview of the narrative arc in Castaneda's successive texts as well as a typology of the metanarratives that these texts inspired. For reasons of economy, I have relegated this overview to the annotated references on the bibliography and the typology to the subsequent list of titles on the handout. This means that the "metanarrative" sections (in which I had hoped to consider the satellite texts inspired by the main 10-volume series of narratives) will remain fairly allusive since certain narrative strategies that structure the main series now retain my attention.
I wish to consider two textual strategies that adhere to the successive narrative layers of what I imagine as the "narrative onion" of this series of volumes, specifically the conjoined problems of narrative frame and reliability and their relation to the implicit contract between reader and writer. To some extent, the reliability question is the correlate in narrative terms of the questions of ethnographical validity posed by Castaneda's critics. I consider the question of narrative frames in these volumes under the rubric of "Fear of Fiction" because one recurring facet in these texts is Castaneda's strategies -- whether in introductory remarks or in the accounts themselves -- for establishing the -factual- basis that he clearly needs to communicate to the reader at each step of his project.
At the most obvious, but also most disputed level, the early volumes of the don Juan series purportedly constitute anthropological field notes, the initial volume endorsed publicly by important anthropologists, and a version of the third volume (-Journey to Ixtlan-) serving as Castaneda's doctoral dissertation in anthropology at UCLA. As one progresses in the first five volumes ostensibly derived from the accumulated field notes, one encounters the transformations that the author/narrator undergoes, despite himself, in the process of recording notes and evaluatingexperiences. On the one hand, this process consists of Castaneda's various attempts at "making sense" of this experience through the narratives that he relates and thereby constructs. On the other hand, and consequently, this "sense-making" and "narrative-constructing" undermine his anthropological, i.e. rational, scientific training, and result in the ruptures with which volumes 1 and 2 end and that volumes 3, 4, and 5 attempt to resolve and overcome.
Castaneda's ethnographic enterprise has undergone significant critique from a persistent minority in the anthropological community. Richard De Mille and Jay Courtney Fikes have both placed in question the existence of the chief informant, don Juan Matus, and accused Castaneda of fabricating data to create fiction and thereby misrepresent Native American peoples and their cultural practices. However, over the past decade and half, in volumes 6 to 9, Castaneda has laid the groundwork for the systematic and detailed review of aspects of the "teachings" purported to have descended from a long lineage of sorcerers and transmitted directly to Castaneda and his fellow apprentices. Supporting testimony from two of them (Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner), from Castaneda's former wife (Margaret Runyon Castaneda), and from self-proclaimed disciples of don Juan (Ken Eagle Feather and Victor Sanchez) offers documentation that would seem to challenge strongly the claims of Castaneda's critics.
The first volume is crucial and highly successful for establishing the factual basis in launching the entire series. Following the opening endorsement by UCLA professor Walter Goldschmidt, Castaneda commences by describing his first meeting with a "white-haired old Indian" during a trip to "the Southwest to collect information on the medicinal plants used by the Indians of the area" (1968: 13). Despite his initial failure to engage don Juan in his project, Castaneda persisted in visiting him, and a year later, don Juan agreed to direct him as an apprentice. Prior to the start of the apprenticeship in June, 1961, Castaneda had taken notes "in a covert manner" and then later "reconstructed the entire conversation" from memory. Once the apprenticeship began, don Juan allowed him "under strong protest," says Castaneda, to record openly in notes "anything that was said" (1968: 18). Castaneda states that this method --note-taking while serving as apprentice -- had actually "prevented the training from being successful, because it retarded the advent of the full commitment I needed to become a sorcerer" (1968: 19). However, Castaneda also found this preventative detachment to be beneficial to his research, and after he "voluntarily discontinued the apprenticeship" in September, 1965, he assembled the data in order to define and analyze the belief system that don Juan had imparted, organized according to the "states of nonordinary reality" that Castaneda experienced (part 1, "The Teachings) and to a "structural analysis" (in part 2) based on data reported in the first section.
I emphasize this initial frame because of Castaneda's insistence on two related aspects: the reliability of his methods and observations, and the detailed process of recording these field observations through note-taking. However, he also states: "My field notes disclose the subjective version of what I perceived while undergoing the experience. That version is presented here just as I narrated it to don Juan, who demanded a complete and faithful recollection of every detail and a full recounting of each experience" (1968: 25). Castaneda admits to having added "incidental details" in order to "recapture the total setting of each state of nonordinary reality" as well as "to describe the emotional impact I had experienced as completely as possible" (1968: 25). What is curious here, besides Castaneda's hedging on the strict factuality of his data,, is the direct role that don Juan played from the start of the research in demanding the "faithful recollection" and "full recounting" of each experience. I return to this curious detail later.
The initial narrative is dominated by Castaneda's account of his experiences induced by various psychotropic plants under don Juan's direction (peyote, jimson weed, and mushrooms). However, it is Castaneda's final, terrifying "encounter" in September 1965 occurring -without- psychotropics that led him to break off the apprenticeship. The reader observes in each subsequent volume of the first two cycles that the narrative framing emphasis on methodological reliability comes increasingly into conflict with Castaneda's growing awareness through his experiences of the tenuous validity of rational, scientific modes of explanation and verification. It is only in volume 6, -The Eagle's Gift-, that Castaneda finally begins to master the lived experience of heightened awareness in what is called variously the "left side," the "second ring of power," and the "second attention." At that point, the narrative takes a decidedly different turn in terms of the experiences recounted and of the narrative strategies deployed.
Before considering this distinctive turn, however, let me summarize briefly the transformations that the framing devices undergo in the first two cycles. The books that I am calling the "first cycle" (volumes 1 through 4) are based presumably on a series of misapprehensions and attempted corrections by Castaneda of his limited, yet evolving comprehension of the experiences he undergoes under the direction of don Juan and his sorcerer-comrade, don Genaro, during the decade-long apprenticeship.
-- In volume 2, Castaneda describes his initial engagement with don Juan in 1960-61 "not so much as a student of anthropology interested in medicinal plants but as a person with an inexplicable curiosity" (1971: 3), due to the piercing look don Juan gave him at their initial encounter. However, this status seems to contradict not only his self-description at the start of volume 1 (1968: 14), but also the tenacious note-taking procedures that he observed for a decade. As for the narrative frame, he insists that by condensing and editing his field notes so that the notes would flow, he "wanted by means of a reportage to communicate to the reader the drama and directness of the field situation" (1971: 8). Given that the system of belief that he was recording was incomprehensible to him, he maintains that "the pretense to anything other than reporting about it would be misleading and impertinent" (1971: 15).
-- In volume 3, with his realization of the completely erroneous assumption regarding psychotropic plants on which volumes 1 and 2 were based, Castaneda reinstates previously discarded field notes recorded between 1960 and 1962 (chapters 1-17) and adds three final chapters from 1971 in which don Juan and don Genaro lead Castaneda to "stop the world." While the narrative frame of reliability through reportage remains the same, Castaneda begins chapter 1 by contradicting yet again the account of his initial motivation for seeking don Juan in 1960: besides the intense curiosity about don Juan's piercing "gaze," Castaneda reveals his anthropological motivation fully in having prepared intensely for six months with readings on peyote cults before returning to find don Juan. Castaneda also records the scene in which don Juan asks Castaneda if he has his hand in his pocket to play with his "whanger." In fact, Castaneda was "taking notes on a minute pad inside the enormous pockets of my windbreaker. When I told him what I was doing he laughed heartily. I said that I did not want to disturb him by writing in front of him. 'If you want to write, write,' he said. 'You don't disturb me'" (1972: 5).
-- In volume 4, Castaneda provides no introduction, but in the opening pages, the dialogue suggests that Castaneda's complete review of his notes and revision of his understanding of don Juan's teaching took place in the six month interval of May-Autumn 1971. Castaneda henceforth abandons the careful dating of entries. The title refers to Castaneda's dilemma at this stage of his apprenticeship, too late to retreat but too soon to act: "For you," says Don Juan, "there is only witnessing acts of power and listening to tales, tales of power" (1974: 56). With the help of don Genero, don Juan pushes Castaneda further toward understanding the rational incompatibility between the "tonal" (island of daily existence) and the "nagual" (all that is "beyond the island," "where power hovers", 1974: 126-127). Castaneda's note-taking here constitutes the stable ground to which both don Juan and don Genaro return Castaneda in order collect himself, as they set up the final encounter with power at the end of Castaneda's formal apprenticeship with don Juan.
-- The preface to volume 5 provides important markers for the start of this "second cycle": the "seventeen elastic bounces between the tonal and the nagual" at the end of volume 4 push Castaneda not toward fear and confusion (as was the case earlier), but rather to return to seek greater understanding from his companions at that encounter, the apprentices Pablito and Nestor. The bridge between the first and second cycle is thus set up by this "encounter with power" at the end of volume 4 that constitutes the end of his formal apprenticeship, with don Juan and don Genaro henceforth absent from the volumes after their passage to the "other side" except through the characters' recollections. The two volumes (5 and 6) of the "second cycle" relate a narrative of successive breakthroughs, literally and figuratively, into the alternate, parallel state of "attention" to which Castaneda heretofore had only fleeting, irregular, and bewildered glimpses.
While there is little overt framing material in volume 5, the writing pad takes on even greater significance as the particular focal device for Castaneda's and the sorcerers' attention. The writing pad and references to Castaneda's note-taking serve both as the last remnant of a guarantee of narrative reliability and as an anchor for Castaneda to the everyday, rational, orderly awareness onto which he tenaciously holds. Nonetheless, the band of fellow warriors (four men and four women) expect Castaneda to direct them toward their new path of growth, replacing don Juan as their "nagual," or leader. After considerable strife, they and Castaneda realize that he is unfit for this role since his development as sorcerer remains incomplete.
In volume 6, Castaneda returns to Mexico after a strategic respite at him in Los Angeles,, and reunited with the group, he attempts to integrate his learning with the help of one member, a sorceress called La Gorda to whom he has a particular spiritual affinity. The Prologue of volume 6, -The Eagle's Gift-, provides a succinct review of the preceding volumes, with Castaneda declaring:
Under the influence of these two powerful men [don Juan and don Genaro] my work has been transformed into an autobiography, . . . a peculiar autobiography because . . . I am reporting [...] on the events that unfold in my life as a direct result of having adopted an alien set of interrelated ideas and procedures. In other words, the belief system I wanted to study swallowed me, and in order for me to proceed with my scrutiny I have to make an extraordinary daily payment, my life as a man in the world. (1981: 8)
In narrative terms, Castaneda realized the problem "of having to explain what it is that I am doing," insisting that "this is not a work of fiction" (1981: 8). "All I can do under the circumstances," he says, "is present what happened to me -as it happened-" (his emphasis with italics, 1981: 9). And he concludes, "I cannot give any other assurance of my good faith, except to reassert that I do not live a dual life, and that I have committed myself to following the principles of don Juan's system in my everyday existence" (1981:9).
And yet, this profession of faith lies in the Prologue to a work that, in fact, reveals the dual life that he led for more than a decade. This realization begins, first, in a conversation with all the warrior companions in which Castaneda recalls don Juan having placed his note-taking practice into question. Whereas Castaneda insists that his "self-image was that of a social scientist who needed to record everything" (1981: 26), don Juan and don Genaro insisted that actual note-taking engaged the "first attention" in remembering. Instead, they advised Castaneda toward "writing with the tip of my finger on pieces of paper, as the -not-doing- of taking notes, [which] would force my second attention to focus on remembering" (1981: 27). When he had attempted to do so, Castaneda recalls that he "became disturbed" to have lost his "most serviceable crutch," the accumulation of actual sheets of paper that gave him "a sense of purpose and balance" (1981: 27).
This discussion emerges as an all-important clue of things to come. During the following months, reported in volume 6, Castaneda and one sorceress, La Gorda, pursue experiments in "seeing" and then "dreaming," first individually, then repeated acts of "dreaming together." These allow them both to reach the next phase, of recollecting all the past events of their apprenticeship that had heretofore remained inaccessible to them. Along with Castaneda and La Gorda, the reader discovers that the entire narrative that preceded in volumes 1 to 4 was only a small portion of the tale. That is, throughout the 12 years of Castaneda's association with don Juan, his teacher had subtly, swiftly, and repeatedly shifted the apprentice's awareness physically into the alternate plane called the "second attention." Although forgotten by Castaneda in his normal waking state, and hence in the recorded notes, his experiences throughout the apprenticeship in the "second attention" constituted the real and indelible "lessons" of don Juan. In fact, it was to these experiences that don Juan referred in questioning the note-taking practice and in forcing Castaneda to exercise remembrance by reciting all that he recorded throughout the apprenticeship. Thus, the awareness of the "second attention" transforms the mind into a kind of magic writing pad onto which all lived experiences are inscribed for eventual perfect recall. Over a two-year period reported summarily in -The Eagle's Gift-, Castaneda and La Gorda gradually and painfully realize that their task henceforth, in order to achieve mastery of their latent powers, is for each of the apprentices to "remember" these experiences and thereby to integrate "two distinct forms of perception into a unified whole" (1981: 170), that is, into the active awareness of the waking state.
Thus, the final section in volume 6, entitled "The Eagle's Gift" as is the volume itself, prepares the systematic task undertaken in volumes 7, 8, and 9 of the "third cycle," the detailed "remembering" of the complete "teachings" of don Juan experienced by the apprentices in the "second attention." From the narrative perspective, Castaneda has skillfully developed a device for abandoning note-taking altogether: what he "reports" in each volume is precisely his "writing with the tip of the finger on pieces of paper," that is, systematic recollection of the teachings. Castaneda explains this in the Foreword to volume 7, -The Fire from Within-:
It has taken me nearly ten years to recollect what exactly took place in [don Juan's] teaching for the left side . . . [in which] they were not teaching me sorcery, but how to master three aspects of an ancient knowledge they possessed: awareness, -stalking-, and -intent-. And they were not sorcerers; they were seers. (1984: 10)
The difficulty of recalling the "teachings" experienced under heightened awareness is the achievement of the "second cycle" (volumes 5 & 6), while the new "cycle" provides the "three facets of the [seers'] knowledge: the mastery of awareness [in volume 7], the mastery of -stalking- and the mastery of -intent- [in volume 8]," and don Juan's "lessons in dreaming" (in volume 9). Henceforth, as Castaneda explains, "due to the fact that the experiences I narrate here took place in heightened awareness, they cannot have the texture of daily life. They are lacking in worldly context, although I have tried my best to supply it without fictionalizing" (1984: 12). Thus, as the reader progresses in this series, she discovers that the old guarantees of reliability necessarily no longer apply.
Castaneda continues to insist on this reliability, though -- the books are "a true account" of don Juan's teachings (1987: vii), he repeats in volume 8, and in introducing volume 9, Castaneda situates his enterprise fully within the field of anthropology.
As for -Magical Passes- as well as the video tapes, seminars, and Web site now available under the new teachings entitled "Tensegrity," Castaneda maintains his guarantee that "everything that I say about the magical passes is a direct result of [don Juan's] instruction" (1997: 2). Previously a closely guarded secret at don Juan's insistence, these "magical passes," or series of bodily movements that bestow on practitioners "tremendous results in terms of mental and physical prowess" (1997: 2), are henceforth available to anyone, in "a more generic form . . . suitable for everyone" (1997: 7-8). Castaneda's decision to end the secrecy surrounding the "magical passes" is based on yet another implicit claim to reliability, "naturally, the corollary of my conviction [argued by don Juan] that I am indeed the end of don Juan's lineage.It became inconceivable to me that I should carry secrets that were not even mine" (1997: 8).
At this point, consideration of the testimony and criticism available in the "metanarrative" texts would be useful, but I must conclude by returning to Deleuze's term "intercesseurs" (mediators). The evident question that hangs over this ten-volume series is whether or not these texts are indeed fiction. Castaneda's "fear of fiction" forces him to find different devices for framing the texts and for providing guarantees of reliability. Internal contradictions emerge, nonetheless, the most glaring being how Castaneda, as careful note-taker and chronologist throughout his anthropological research, could have possibly accounted for the gaps in his notes and experiences that apparently occurred regularly during the considerable time spent in the forgotten "second attention." However one wishes to explain or justify these contradictions, one fact is clear: these diverse texts continue to serve as "mediators" that establish productive "series," at once textual and experiential, for readers, writers and seekers of all sorts. One very recent reference is Michael Brennan's account, reprinted from -The Sun- in -The Utne Reader-. Dying from AIDS, Brennan recounts attending a "Tensegrity" seminar, meeting Castaneda, and most importantly, realizing through these encounters the possibility of "experienc[ing] ordinary life as full of beauty and wonder" (1998: 75). Like Castaneda the anthropologist, Brennan the journalist is "swallowed" by these "teachings," forcing him to conclude: "Does [don Juan, the mythic Yaqui seer] sit before me now, a trickster-teacher weaving deceptive tales of wisdom, folly, truth? I do not know, and cannot say" (1998: 75). What is certain is that Brennan like so many readers, and now "practitioners" of the "magical passes," connect to these (meta)narratives of Castaneda's "textual-becomings" and thereby draw new resources and even inspiration from the "tales of power."
Selected Bibliography
I. Texts and Tapes by Castaneda (all published in New York: Simon and Schuster, unless otherwise noted)
First Cycle:
1. (1968; 1974) -The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge-. Berkeley: U of California P; New York: Pocket Books. Rpt. with new commentary by the author, New York: Washington Square P, 1998. Castaneda's initial period of apprenticeship with don Juan Matus, focusing on effects of psychotropic plants.
2. (1971) -A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan-. Castaneda's second period of apprenticeship (April 1968 until October 17, 1970). Castaneda reaches an "impasse" in his learning because, according to don Juan, "of [his] insistence on understanding" (1971: 262).
3. (1972) -Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan-. Revising his fundamental assumptions regarding the role played by pscyhotropic plants in don Juan's teaching, Castaneda reinstates previously discarded notes (1960-62, chs.1-17). In the three final chapters, occurring over two days in May 1971, Don Juan again enlists the help of a fellow sorcerer, don Genaro, to facilitate Castaneda's task of "stopping the world."
4. (1974) -Tales of Power-. Completing the "first cycle," volume 4 extends the temporal frame of Castaneda's apprenticeship into 1973. This volume depicts the completion of Castaneda's direct interactions with don Juan and don Genaro who "pass over" to the "other side"; Castaneda faces a final challenge to his rational belief system and succeeds in reconciling the "first [daily] attention" with a potentially life-threatening experience in the "second attention."
Second Cycle:
5. (1977) -The Second Ring of Power-. Castaneda returns to Mexico to seek explanations of the final encounter in volume 4 from two other apprentices, Pablito and Nestor. First, however, he must face combat with the women apprentices, and succeeding in these encounters, Castaneda is recognized as the new leader of the band of sorcerers (four men, four women). Still, Castaneda is "incomplete" in his formation as a sorcerer and is unable to offer the guidance needed. He retreats to Los Angeles.
6. (1981) -The Eagle's Gift-. Continuing the interactions with the band of sorcerers, Castaneda joins with one woman, La Gorda, in experimenting with the "second attention" through "seeing," "dreaming," and "dreaming together." Their experience over two years helps them both realize the forgotten "teaching" of don Juan that occurred in the "second attention" throughout the earlier apprenticeship. Chapters 9-15 provide the first installment of their "remembering", with details on don Juan's own band of fellow sorcerers.
Third Cycle:
7. (1984) -The Fire from Within-. In the third cycle, Castaneda provides the results of his "remembering," detailed recall of all the "teachings" of don Juan in the "left side" or "second attention." In this volume, Castaneda considers one of the three facets of don Juan's and his fellow seers' "knowledge," the "mastery of awareness."
8. (1987) -The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan-. Continuing "remembering" the "left side," Castaneda here presents first set "of three abstract cores" that relate to the "mastery of intent."
9. (1993) -The Art of Dreaming-. New York: HarperCollins. Continuing with "remembering," Castaneda breaks precedent in now revealing the second group of apprentices gathered by don Juan once he realized that Castaneda's "energy configuration" was incompatible with his leading the original group of eight apprentices. This second group had only three members: Florinda Donner-Grau ("a dreamer"), Taisha Abelar ("a stalker"), and Carol Tiggs ("a nagual woman", 1993: ix-x). Castaneda here presents "most of the pieces of don Juan's lessons in the art of dreaming," as prepatory for explaining in a future work "the results of don Juan's guidance and influence on us" (1993: xi).
Fourth Cycle:
(1995) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 1: -Twelve Basic Movements to Gather Energy and Promote Well-Being-. Laugan Productions.
(1995) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 2: Redistributing Dispersed Energy-. Laugan Productions.
(1996) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 3: Energetically Crossing from One Phylum to Another.- Laugan Productions. This set of tapes provides lessons in the series of movements to develop one's "redeployment of inherent energy," i.e. "transporting, from one place to another, energy which already exists within us . . . [in order to bring forth a balance between mental alterness and physical prowess" (1997: 4).
(1996) -The Warriors' Way: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics- 1.1 & 2 (January, February); -Carlos Castaneda's Readers of Infinity: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics- 1.3 & 4 (March, April): The Castaneda group's apparently short-lived periodical "to take the position delineated by don Juan Matus . . . and to emphasize the sorcerers' idea of practicality as opposed to the purely abstract reflection of a philosophical method" (1.1: 2). In issue 4, Castaneda states that despite his desire to "give this journal a character as distant as possible from temporariness," Castaneda intends to publish "this journal in book form," presumably in -Magical Passes-, but perhaps in another publication.
10. (1998) -Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico-. New York: HarperCollins. Cleargreen Inc.: http://www.castaneda.com/index.html : Website for teachings on Tensegrity, interviews, seminars, and products (see below).
II. Texts by Sorcerers and Disciples
Abelar, Taisha (1992) -The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman's Journey. Foreword by Carlos Castaneda. New York: Penguin.
Castaneda, Margaret Runyon (1997) -A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda-. Victoria, B.C.: Millenia Press.
Donner, Florinda (1991) -Being-in-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World-. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.
Eagle Feather, Ken (1995) -A Toltec Path-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
Eagle Feather, Ken (1992, 1996) -Traveling with Power: The Exploration and Development of Perception-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
Sanchez, Victor (1995) -The Teachings of Don Carlos" Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Castaneda-. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co. Publishing.
Tomas (1995) -The Promise of Power: Reflections on the Toltec Warriors' Dialogue from the Collected Works of Carlos Castaneda-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
III. Texts by Critics (selected)
de Mille, Richard (1976; 1978) -Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory-. Santa Barbara: Capra Press. de Mille, Richard (1990) -The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies-. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Fikes, Jay Courtney (1993) -Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism, and the Psychedelic Sixties-. Victoria, B.C.: Millenia Press.
IV. Diverse
Brennan, Michael (1998) "The World of Waking Dreams." -The Utne Reader- (January-February): 70-75; excerpt rpt. from -The Sun- (September 1997).
Plotkin, Edward (1998) -The Four Yogas of Enlightenment-. An electronic book linking don Juan's teachings to esoteric Buddhism: http://www.FourYogas.com
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Wayne State University
Detroit MI 48202
C_Stivale@wayne.edu
[Please do not cite without permission]
Narratives and Metanarratives: Carlos Castaneda's "Textual-Becomings"
[Updated April 12, 2000]
In his final book of interviews and occasional pieces, -Pourparlers- (translated as -Negotiations-), Gilles Deleuze says: "[Mediators (-intercesseurs-)] can be people -- for a philosopher, artists or scientists; for a scientist, philosophers or artists--but things too, even plants or animals, as in Castaneda. Whether they're real or imaginary, animate or inanimate, you have to form your mediators" (N 125, P 171). For Deleuze, however a "mediator" is constructed or adopted, it provides an impetus for creative activity and production, and calling this a relation in "a series," Deleuze adds, "If you're not in some series, even a completely imaginary one, you're lost" (N 125, P 171). Although his emphasis here is on the importance of the "series" he formed with Félix Guattari, it is his reference to Carlos Castaneda that has seized my attention in this regard. For in the ten volumes published since 1968 of the "conversations" and "teachings" of don Juan Matus, Castaneda constructs a complex nexus of "textual becomings" that have yet to be fully explored, but that clearly serve as "mediators" for a wide range of readers.
I have provided a handout with the title and dates of these volumes and other bibliographical references pertinent for this talk. I must first provide a caveat about this presentation. As many of you know, the steps between preparing a conference abstract and producing the conference paper can have some unforeseen developments. I had intended to provide an overview of the narrative arc in Castaneda's successive texts as well as a typology of the metanarratives that these texts inspired. For reasons of economy, I have relegated this overview to the annotated references on the bibliography and the typology to the subsequent list of titles on the handout. This means that the "metanarrative" sections (in which I had hoped to consider the satellite texts inspired by the main 10-volume series of narratives) will remain fairly allusive since certain narrative strategies that structure the main series now retain my attention.
I wish to consider two textual strategies that adhere to the successive narrative layers of what I imagine as the "narrative onion" of this series of volumes, specifically the conjoined problems of narrative frame and reliability and their relation to the implicit contract between reader and writer. To some extent, the reliability question is the correlate in narrative terms of the questions of ethnographical validity posed by Castaneda's critics. I consider the question of narrative frames in these volumes under the rubric of "Fear of Fiction" because one recurring facet in these texts is Castaneda's strategies -- whether in introductory remarks or in the accounts themselves -- for establishing the -factual- basis that he clearly needs to communicate to the reader at each step of his project.
At the most obvious, but also most disputed level, the early volumes of the don Juan series purportedly constitute anthropological field notes, the initial volume endorsed publicly by important anthropologists, and a version of the third volume (-Journey to Ixtlan-) serving as Castaneda's doctoral dissertation in anthropology at UCLA. As one progresses in the first five volumes ostensibly derived from the accumulated field notes, one encounters the transformations that the author/narrator undergoes, despite himself, in the process of recording notes and evaluatingexperiences. On the one hand, this process consists of Castaneda's various attempts at "making sense" of this experience through the narratives that he relates and thereby constructs. On the other hand, and consequently, this "sense-making" and "narrative-constructing" undermine his anthropological, i.e. rational, scientific training, and result in the ruptures with which volumes 1 and 2 end and that volumes 3, 4, and 5 attempt to resolve and overcome.
Castaneda's ethnographic enterprise has undergone significant critique from a persistent minority in the anthropological community. Richard De Mille and Jay Courtney Fikes have both placed in question the existence of the chief informant, don Juan Matus, and accused Castaneda of fabricating data to create fiction and thereby misrepresent Native American peoples and their cultural practices. However, over the past decade and half, in volumes 6 to 9, Castaneda has laid the groundwork for the systematic and detailed review of aspects of the "teachings" purported to have descended from a long lineage of sorcerers and transmitted directly to Castaneda and his fellow apprentices. Supporting testimony from two of them (Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner), from Castaneda's former wife (Margaret Runyon Castaneda), and from self-proclaimed disciples of don Juan (Ken Eagle Feather and Victor Sanchez) offers documentation that would seem to challenge strongly the claims of Castaneda's critics.
The first volume is crucial and highly successful for establishing the factual basis in launching the entire series. Following the opening endorsement by UCLA professor Walter Goldschmidt, Castaneda commences by describing his first meeting with a "white-haired old Indian" during a trip to "the Southwest to collect information on the medicinal plants used by the Indians of the area" (1968: 13). Despite his initial failure to engage don Juan in his project, Castaneda persisted in visiting him, and a year later, don Juan agreed to direct him as an apprentice. Prior to the start of the apprenticeship in June, 1961, Castaneda had taken notes "in a covert manner" and then later "reconstructed the entire conversation" from memory. Once the apprenticeship began, don Juan allowed him "under strong protest," says Castaneda, to record openly in notes "anything that was said" (1968: 18). Castaneda states that this method --note-taking while serving as apprentice -- had actually "prevented the training from being successful, because it retarded the advent of the full commitment I needed to become a sorcerer" (1968: 19). However, Castaneda also found this preventative detachment to be beneficial to his research, and after he "voluntarily discontinued the apprenticeship" in September, 1965, he assembled the data in order to define and analyze the belief system that don Juan had imparted, organized according to the "states of nonordinary reality" that Castaneda experienced (part 1, "The Teachings) and to a "structural analysis" (in part 2) based on data reported in the first section.
I emphasize this initial frame because of Castaneda's insistence on two related aspects: the reliability of his methods and observations, and the detailed process of recording these field observations through note-taking. However, he also states: "My field notes disclose the subjective version of what I perceived while undergoing the experience. That version is presented here just as I narrated it to don Juan, who demanded a complete and faithful recollection of every detail and a full recounting of each experience" (1968: 25). Castaneda admits to having added "incidental details" in order to "recapture the total setting of each state of nonordinary reality" as well as "to describe the emotional impact I had experienced as completely as possible" (1968: 25). What is curious here, besides Castaneda's hedging on the strict factuality of his data,, is the direct role that don Juan played from the start of the research in demanding the "faithful recollection" and "full recounting" of each experience. I return to this curious detail later.
The initial narrative is dominated by Castaneda's account of his experiences induced by various psychotropic plants under don Juan's direction (peyote, jimson weed, and mushrooms). However, it is Castaneda's final, terrifying "encounter" in September 1965 occurring -without- psychotropics that led him to break off the apprenticeship. The reader observes in each subsequent volume of the first two cycles that the narrative framing emphasis on methodological reliability comes increasingly into conflict with Castaneda's growing awareness through his experiences of the tenuous validity of rational, scientific modes of explanation and verification. It is only in volume 6, -The Eagle's Gift-, that Castaneda finally begins to master the lived experience of heightened awareness in what is called variously the "left side," the "second ring of power," and the "second attention." At that point, the narrative takes a decidedly different turn in terms of the experiences recounted and of the narrative strategies deployed.
Before considering this distinctive turn, however, let me summarize briefly the transformations that the framing devices undergo in the first two cycles. The books that I am calling the "first cycle" (volumes 1 through 4) are based presumably on a series of misapprehensions and attempted corrections by Castaneda of his limited, yet evolving comprehension of the experiences he undergoes under the direction of don Juan and his sorcerer-comrade, don Genaro, during the decade-long apprenticeship.
-- In volume 2, Castaneda describes his initial engagement with don Juan in 1960-61 "not so much as a student of anthropology interested in medicinal plants but as a person with an inexplicable curiosity" (1971: 3), due to the piercing look don Juan gave him at their initial encounter. However, this status seems to contradict not only his self-description at the start of volume 1 (1968: 14), but also the tenacious note-taking procedures that he observed for a decade. As for the narrative frame, he insists that by condensing and editing his field notes so that the notes would flow, he "wanted by means of a reportage to communicate to the reader the drama and directness of the field situation" (1971: 8). Given that the system of belief that he was recording was incomprehensible to him, he maintains that "the pretense to anything other than reporting about it would be misleading and impertinent" (1971: 15).
-- In volume 3, with his realization of the completely erroneous assumption regarding psychotropic plants on which volumes 1 and 2 were based, Castaneda reinstates previously discarded field notes recorded between 1960 and 1962 (chapters 1-17) and adds three final chapters from 1971 in which don Juan and don Genaro lead Castaneda to "stop the world." While the narrative frame of reliability through reportage remains the same, Castaneda begins chapter 1 by contradicting yet again the account of his initial motivation for seeking don Juan in 1960: besides the intense curiosity about don Juan's piercing "gaze," Castaneda reveals his anthropological motivation fully in having prepared intensely for six months with readings on peyote cults before returning to find don Juan. Castaneda also records the scene in which don Juan asks Castaneda if he has his hand in his pocket to play with his "whanger." In fact, Castaneda was "taking notes on a minute pad inside the enormous pockets of my windbreaker. When I told him what I was doing he laughed heartily. I said that I did not want to disturb him by writing in front of him. 'If you want to write, write,' he said. 'You don't disturb me'" (1972: 5).
-- In volume 4, Castaneda provides no introduction, but in the opening pages, the dialogue suggests that Castaneda's complete review of his notes and revision of his understanding of don Juan's teaching took place in the six month interval of May-Autumn 1971. Castaneda henceforth abandons the careful dating of entries. The title refers to Castaneda's dilemma at this stage of his apprenticeship, too late to retreat but too soon to act: "For you," says Don Juan, "there is only witnessing acts of power and listening to tales, tales of power" (1974: 56). With the help of don Genero, don Juan pushes Castaneda further toward understanding the rational incompatibility between the "tonal" (island of daily existence) and the "nagual" (all that is "beyond the island," "where power hovers", 1974: 126-127). Castaneda's note-taking here constitutes the stable ground to which both don Juan and don Genaro return Castaneda in order collect himself, as they set up the final encounter with power at the end of Castaneda's formal apprenticeship with don Juan.
-- The preface to volume 5 provides important markers for the start of this "second cycle": the "seventeen elastic bounces between the tonal and the nagual" at the end of volume 4 push Castaneda not toward fear and confusion (as was the case earlier), but rather to return to seek greater understanding from his companions at that encounter, the apprentices Pablito and Nestor. The bridge between the first and second cycle is thus set up by this "encounter with power" at the end of volume 4 that constitutes the end of his formal apprenticeship, with don Juan and don Genaro henceforth absent from the volumes after their passage to the "other side" except through the characters' recollections. The two volumes (5 and 6) of the "second cycle" relate a narrative of successive breakthroughs, literally and figuratively, into the alternate, parallel state of "attention" to which Castaneda heretofore had only fleeting, irregular, and bewildered glimpses.
While there is little overt framing material in volume 5, the writing pad takes on even greater significance as the particular focal device for Castaneda's and the sorcerers' attention. The writing pad and references to Castaneda's note-taking serve both as the last remnant of a guarantee of narrative reliability and as an anchor for Castaneda to the everyday, rational, orderly awareness onto which he tenaciously holds. Nonetheless, the band of fellow warriors (four men and four women) expect Castaneda to direct them toward their new path of growth, replacing don Juan as their "nagual," or leader. After considerable strife, they and Castaneda realize that he is unfit for this role since his development as sorcerer remains incomplete.
In volume 6, Castaneda returns to Mexico after a strategic respite at him in Los Angeles,, and reunited with the group, he attempts to integrate his learning with the help of one member, a sorceress called La Gorda to whom he has a particular spiritual affinity. The Prologue of volume 6, -The Eagle's Gift-, provides a succinct review of the preceding volumes, with Castaneda declaring:
Under the influence of these two powerful men [don Juan and don Genaro] my work has been transformed into an autobiography, . . . a peculiar autobiography because . . . I am reporting [...] on the events that unfold in my life as a direct result of having adopted an alien set of interrelated ideas and procedures. In other words, the belief system I wanted to study swallowed me, and in order for me to proceed with my scrutiny I have to make an extraordinary daily payment, my life as a man in the world. (1981: 8)
In narrative terms, Castaneda realized the problem "of having to explain what it is that I am doing," insisting that "this is not a work of fiction" (1981: 8). "All I can do under the circumstances," he says, "is present what happened to me -as it happened-" (his emphasis with italics, 1981: 9). And he concludes, "I cannot give any other assurance of my good faith, except to reassert that I do not live a dual life, and that I have committed myself to following the principles of don Juan's system in my everyday existence" (1981:9).
And yet, this profession of faith lies in the Prologue to a work that, in fact, reveals the dual life that he led for more than a decade. This realization begins, first, in a conversation with all the warrior companions in which Castaneda recalls don Juan having placed his note-taking practice into question. Whereas Castaneda insists that his "self-image was that of a social scientist who needed to record everything" (1981: 26), don Juan and don Genaro insisted that actual note-taking engaged the "first attention" in remembering. Instead, they advised Castaneda toward "writing with the tip of my finger on pieces of paper, as the -not-doing- of taking notes, [which] would force my second attention to focus on remembering" (1981: 27). When he had attempted to do so, Castaneda recalls that he "became disturbed" to have lost his "most serviceable crutch," the accumulation of actual sheets of paper that gave him "a sense of purpose and balance" (1981: 27).
This discussion emerges as an all-important clue of things to come. During the following months, reported in volume 6, Castaneda and one sorceress, La Gorda, pursue experiments in "seeing" and then "dreaming," first individually, then repeated acts of "dreaming together." These allow them both to reach the next phase, of recollecting all the past events of their apprenticeship that had heretofore remained inaccessible to them. Along with Castaneda and La Gorda, the reader discovers that the entire narrative that preceded in volumes 1 to 4 was only a small portion of the tale. That is, throughout the 12 years of Castaneda's association with don Juan, his teacher had subtly, swiftly, and repeatedly shifted the apprentice's awareness physically into the alternate plane called the "second attention." Although forgotten by Castaneda in his normal waking state, and hence in the recorded notes, his experiences throughout the apprenticeship in the "second attention" constituted the real and indelible "lessons" of don Juan. In fact, it was to these experiences that don Juan referred in questioning the note-taking practice and in forcing Castaneda to exercise remembrance by reciting all that he recorded throughout the apprenticeship. Thus, the awareness of the "second attention" transforms the mind into a kind of magic writing pad onto which all lived experiences are inscribed for eventual perfect recall. Over a two-year period reported summarily in -The Eagle's Gift-, Castaneda and La Gorda gradually and painfully realize that their task henceforth, in order to achieve mastery of their latent powers, is for each of the apprentices to "remember" these experiences and thereby to integrate "two distinct forms of perception into a unified whole" (1981: 170), that is, into the active awareness of the waking state.
Thus, the final section in volume 6, entitled "The Eagle's Gift" as is the volume itself, prepares the systematic task undertaken in volumes 7, 8, and 9 of the "third cycle," the detailed "remembering" of the complete "teachings" of don Juan experienced by the apprentices in the "second attention." From the narrative perspective, Castaneda has skillfully developed a device for abandoning note-taking altogether: what he "reports" in each volume is precisely his "writing with the tip of the finger on pieces of paper," that is, systematic recollection of the teachings. Castaneda explains this in the Foreword to volume 7, -The Fire from Within-:
It has taken me nearly ten years to recollect what exactly took place in [don Juan's] teaching for the left side . . . [in which] they were not teaching me sorcery, but how to master three aspects of an ancient knowledge they possessed: awareness, -stalking-, and -intent-. And they were not sorcerers; they were seers. (1984: 10)
The difficulty of recalling the "teachings" experienced under heightened awareness is the achievement of the "second cycle" (volumes 5 & 6), while the new "cycle" provides the "three facets of the [seers'] knowledge: the mastery of awareness [in volume 7], the mastery of -stalking- and the mastery of -intent- [in volume 8]," and don Juan's "lessons in dreaming" (in volume 9). Henceforth, as Castaneda explains, "due to the fact that the experiences I narrate here took place in heightened awareness, they cannot have the texture of daily life. They are lacking in worldly context, although I have tried my best to supply it without fictionalizing" (1984: 12). Thus, as the reader progresses in this series, she discovers that the old guarantees of reliability necessarily no longer apply.
Castaneda continues to insist on this reliability, though -- the books are "a true account" of don Juan's teachings (1987: vii), he repeats in volume 8, and in introducing volume 9, Castaneda situates his enterprise fully within the field of anthropology.
As for -Magical Passes- as well as the video tapes, seminars, and Web site now available under the new teachings entitled "Tensegrity," Castaneda maintains his guarantee that "everything that I say about the magical passes is a direct result of [don Juan's] instruction" (1997: 2). Previously a closely guarded secret at don Juan's insistence, these "magical passes," or series of bodily movements that bestow on practitioners "tremendous results in terms of mental and physical prowess" (1997: 2), are henceforth available to anyone, in "a more generic form . . . suitable for everyone" (1997: 7-8). Castaneda's decision to end the secrecy surrounding the "magical passes" is based on yet another implicit claim to reliability, "naturally, the corollary of my conviction [argued by don Juan] that I am indeed the end of don Juan's lineage.It became inconceivable to me that I should carry secrets that were not even mine" (1997: 8).
At this point, consideration of the testimony and criticism available in the "metanarrative" texts would be useful, but I must conclude by returning to Deleuze's term "intercesseurs" (mediators). The evident question that hangs over this ten-volume series is whether or not these texts are indeed fiction. Castaneda's "fear of fiction" forces him to find different devices for framing the texts and for providing guarantees of reliability. Internal contradictions emerge, nonetheless, the most glaring being how Castaneda, as careful note-taker and chronologist throughout his anthropological research, could have possibly accounted for the gaps in his notes and experiences that apparently occurred regularly during the considerable time spent in the forgotten "second attention." However one wishes to explain or justify these contradictions, one fact is clear: these diverse texts continue to serve as "mediators" that establish productive "series," at once textual and experiential, for readers, writers and seekers of all sorts. One very recent reference is Michael Brennan's account, reprinted from -The Sun- in -The Utne Reader-. Dying from AIDS, Brennan recounts attending a "Tensegrity" seminar, meeting Castaneda, and most importantly, realizing through these encounters the possibility of "experienc[ing] ordinary life as full of beauty and wonder" (1998: 75). Like Castaneda the anthropologist, Brennan the journalist is "swallowed" by these "teachings," forcing him to conclude: "Does [don Juan, the mythic Yaqui seer] sit before me now, a trickster-teacher weaving deceptive tales of wisdom, folly, truth? I do not know, and cannot say" (1998: 75). What is certain is that Brennan like so many readers, and now "practitioners" of the "magical passes," connect to these (meta)narratives of Castaneda's "textual-becomings" and thereby draw new resources and even inspiration from the "tales of power."
Selected Bibliography
I. Texts and Tapes by Castaneda (all published in New York: Simon and Schuster, unless otherwise noted)
First Cycle:
1. (1968; 1974) -The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge-. Berkeley: U of California P; New York: Pocket Books. Rpt. with new commentary by the author, New York: Washington Square P, 1998. Castaneda's initial period of apprenticeship with don Juan Matus, focusing on effects of psychotropic plants.
2. (1971) -A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan-. Castaneda's second period of apprenticeship (April 1968 until October 17, 1970). Castaneda reaches an "impasse" in his learning because, according to don Juan, "of [his] insistence on understanding" (1971: 262).
3. (1972) -Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan-. Revising his fundamental assumptions regarding the role played by pscyhotropic plants in don Juan's teaching, Castaneda reinstates previously discarded notes (1960-62, chs.1-17). In the three final chapters, occurring over two days in May 1971, Don Juan again enlists the help of a fellow sorcerer, don Genaro, to facilitate Castaneda's task of "stopping the world."
4. (1974) -Tales of Power-. Completing the "first cycle," volume 4 extends the temporal frame of Castaneda's apprenticeship into 1973. This volume depicts the completion of Castaneda's direct interactions with don Juan and don Genaro who "pass over" to the "other side"; Castaneda faces a final challenge to his rational belief system and succeeds in reconciling the "first [daily] attention" with a potentially life-threatening experience in the "second attention."
Second Cycle:
5. (1977) -The Second Ring of Power-. Castaneda returns to Mexico to seek explanations of the final encounter in volume 4 from two other apprentices, Pablito and Nestor. First, however, he must face combat with the women apprentices, and succeeding in these encounters, Castaneda is recognized as the new leader of the band of sorcerers (four men, four women). Still, Castaneda is "incomplete" in his formation as a sorcerer and is unable to offer the guidance needed. He retreats to Los Angeles.
6. (1981) -The Eagle's Gift-. Continuing the interactions with the band of sorcerers, Castaneda joins with one woman, La Gorda, in experimenting with the "second attention" through "seeing," "dreaming," and "dreaming together." Their experience over two years helps them both realize the forgotten "teaching" of don Juan that occurred in the "second attention" throughout the earlier apprenticeship. Chapters 9-15 provide the first installment of their "remembering", with details on don Juan's own band of fellow sorcerers.
Third Cycle:
7. (1984) -The Fire from Within-. In the third cycle, Castaneda provides the results of his "remembering," detailed recall of all the "teachings" of don Juan in the "left side" or "second attention." In this volume, Castaneda considers one of the three facets of don Juan's and his fellow seers' "knowledge," the "mastery of awareness."
8. (1987) -The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan-. Continuing "remembering" the "left side," Castaneda here presents first set "of three abstract cores" that relate to the "mastery of intent."
9. (1993) -The Art of Dreaming-. New York: HarperCollins. Continuing with "remembering," Castaneda breaks precedent in now revealing the second group of apprentices gathered by don Juan once he realized that Castaneda's "energy configuration" was incompatible with his leading the original group of eight apprentices. This second group had only three members: Florinda Donner-Grau ("a dreamer"), Taisha Abelar ("a stalker"), and Carol Tiggs ("a nagual woman", 1993: ix-x). Castaneda here presents "most of the pieces of don Juan's lessons in the art of dreaming," as prepatory for explaining in a future work "the results of don Juan's guidance and influence on us" (1993: xi).
Fourth Cycle:
(1995) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 1: -Twelve Basic Movements to Gather Energy and Promote Well-Being-. Laugan Productions.
(1995) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 2: Redistributing Dispersed Energy-. Laugan Productions.
(1996) -Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity-. Video cassette 3: Energetically Crossing from One Phylum to Another.- Laugan Productions. This set of tapes provides lessons in the series of movements to develop one's "redeployment of inherent energy," i.e. "transporting, from one place to another, energy which already exists within us . . . [in order to bring forth a balance between mental alterness and physical prowess" (1997: 4).
(1996) -The Warriors' Way: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics- 1.1 & 2 (January, February); -Carlos Castaneda's Readers of Infinity: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics- 1.3 & 4 (March, April): The Castaneda group's apparently short-lived periodical "to take the position delineated by don Juan Matus . . . and to emphasize the sorcerers' idea of practicality as opposed to the purely abstract reflection of a philosophical method" (1.1: 2). In issue 4, Castaneda states that despite his desire to "give this journal a character as distant as possible from temporariness," Castaneda intends to publish "this journal in book form," presumably in -Magical Passes-, but perhaps in another publication.
10. (1998) -Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico-. New York: HarperCollins. Cleargreen Inc.: http://www.castaneda.com/index.html : Website for teachings on Tensegrity, interviews, seminars, and products (see below).
II. Texts by Sorcerers and Disciples
Abelar, Taisha (1992) -The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman's Journey. Foreword by Carlos Castaneda. New York: Penguin.
Castaneda, Margaret Runyon (1997) -A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda-. Victoria, B.C.: Millenia Press.
Donner, Florinda (1991) -Being-in-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World-. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.
Eagle Feather, Ken (1995) -A Toltec Path-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
Eagle Feather, Ken (1992, 1996) -Traveling with Power: The Exploration and Development of Perception-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
Sanchez, Victor (1995) -The Teachings of Don Carlos" Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Castaneda-. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co. Publishing.
Tomas (1995) -The Promise of Power: Reflections on the Toltec Warriors' Dialogue from the Collected Works of Carlos Castaneda-. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
III. Texts by Critics (selected)
de Mille, Richard (1976; 1978) -Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory-. Santa Barbara: Capra Press. de Mille, Richard (1990) -The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies-. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Fikes, Jay Courtney (1993) -Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism, and the Psychedelic Sixties-. Victoria, B.C.: Millenia Press.
IV. Diverse
Brennan, Michael (1998) "The World of Waking Dreams." -The Utne Reader- (January-February): 70-75; excerpt rpt. from -The Sun- (September 1997).
Plotkin, Edward (1998) -The Four Yogas of Enlightenment-. An electronic book linking don Juan's teachings to esoteric Buddhism: http://www.FourYogas.com
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