Castaneda: Real or Fake

[kmD]

here is his amazon listing, has the books ive read and then some.

Click Here for link

The books Ive read are not "manual-esque" like AD. Instead they are a personal account and therefor Don Juan's methods seem only revelant to Carlos. OBE is intensely personal for me, and I wouldnt think what works for him would work for me.

What I got from the books was that its our own ego that keeps us from seeing the other side of things, because then you have to give up the idea that you know whats going on, and throw your fears and cares out the window when comes to the astral. This was huge for me, esc. as a beginner. That being said, and also being aware of your level of practice Spectral, I would say that reading these books might not benefit you as greatly as a beginner, but that you would find them interesting and maybe minorly beneficial.

Mr Burns, I understand you viewpoint now, and it sucks royally that someone would prey on your trust like that. But I hope you were able to pull a positive from a negative situation, and from the sounds of it, you did.

[Mr. Burns]

I wasn't a part of the Castaneda circle, so no one really preyed on my trust except myself. I almost went to several of the seminars held by the Cleargreen company sponsored by Castaneda. They taught what were called Magical Passes (or Tensegrity), and various other excercises like recapitulation, stalking, dreaming, and using the second attention. Magical passes are similar to Qi Gong movements. The recapitulation is a life review to free yourself of your past socializations. Dreaming is traveling in the second attention through manipulation of the assemblage point (or a point of consciousness through which universal energy is filtered to create our preceptual reality whether physical or otherwise). The second attention is the astral perspective. Stalking is bringing the maleable nature of the astral into the physical. All these things are in the books although one has to sort and rearrange to put it all together, like a murder mystery over several books. That, I think is what was so intriguing for me. It all starts out with Carlos switching between the physical and the astral until the lines are so blurred he breaks down. Don Juan steps in and offers adive on how to survive this blitz, but he does so from the astral using a kind of shaktipat, leaving Carlos to try and sort it out from the physical over many years. In the end he gains a complex series of understandings about the nature of reality. It would be interesting to find out from others who maybe went to these seminars what they were like. I think they are still offering them. If you're interested check out their website: cleargreen.com. All these things can assist energetic development. It's in the details where there is no support. A lot of these practices are couched in a narrative which requires you to do questionable things. Divorce yourself from your family, renounce intimacy (and not just sex), pursue possibly illegal situations, and the real red flag is that you need the Nagual (or a special personage with a rare energetic constitution) to attain freedom from a fatalistic death. These are brought up numerous times throughout the books in no uncertain terms and later repeated in interviews with Carlos and his cohorts. Then towards the end of Carlos's life he does a little bit of backpeddling. He starts to soften and change the rules a bit, explaining he was still uncovering more secrets Don Juan had "buried" in his attention. Problem is, he didn't follow his own rules according to Wallace. Apparently the way the Nagual frees others of being food for death is through his genitals for females and through the genitals of the female Nagual counterpart for males (played by Carol Tiggs, aka Kathleen Pohlman). That's only the tip of the iceberg, but I won't spoil it for those who want to read her book. Sorry if I sound a bit crude but I spent a good 5 years thinking I'd found something really unique and special. It was intellectual, emotionally comforting, self evident, compatible with the nature of nonphysical reality, and had panache. Wallace's book is very detailed with lots of supporting evidence to back up her claims. Her book was 5 years late. I walked away a bit flabbergasted. I guess I would like to think someone about to involve themselves with this would first want to think about what all the info available has to say. Anyways, I turned from the whole thing and found more valuable things in Taoist practice, Yoga, Buddhism, Western Mystery Tradition, Shamanism, and of course Robert Bruce's books. And I'm skeptical still of even these sources. I never accept teachings from someone who requires me to submit to their authority or distinct mythology. If anything gets too complex for me I know I've gotten off track and slow down. Simplicity is best. The Taoists say that you can practice hard your whole life, but if you practice the wrong things it's all for nothing. Tread carefully.

P.S. - At the end of Wallace's book she asks for any information regarding the whereabouts of some of Carlos's cohorts who disappered shortly after his death. Private investigators and mounting evidence suggest they commited suicide. Cleargreen states they're traveling. Everyone else who had a close relationship with the Nagual and has not disappeared is either severely messed up or in intensive counseling. That's not a red flag, it's a fireworks show. sustainedaction.org should provide more information.

I believe Carlos wrote or co-wrote 10 books. Magical Passes is a workbook. The others are narratives in which the practices are cushioned in the teachings Don Juan gives to Carlos.

Thanks for letting me ramble and rant. lol

[kmD]

hey man, thats what forums are for!

anyway, its good you were able to take that lesson from what you experienced. I think its the same with any line of beliefs, that you can find self-indulgence in any kind of path that claims to lead to self discovery, or in some cases, self preservation. I think the Marx quote, "Religion is the opiate of the masses" comes to mind. It's one of those lessons learned in life that is usually either taught to you at a young age, or is hard to bear in later life. And then you have those who never learn, and follow others beliefs blindly and never have the chance to establish their own beliefs. Its those people that I have great pity for. As for those who prey on that need for self knowledge, they are by and large scum who hopefully will get karma retribution for appealing to someones common denomenator for their own selfish purposes.

[Mr. Burns]

Well said. Those people could say, my karma ran over my dogma.

[Mr. Burns]

My mistake, Carlos wrote 12 books. Two were published posthumously.

[aycorn]

Getting in on this a little late, but:

I think, to be honest, that whether Castaneda related true events or fictional events is irrelevant. It's possible he told fictional stories in order to get the spiritual lessons he was trying to convey across.

I feel the same way, for example, about the "Conversations With God" books. It really doesn't matter whether the messages came from God, some other spiritual entity, or are just Neale Donald Walsch's personal ideas, and he made up the "God" bit just to get heard. What matters is how I feel about the ideas he's articulating (BTW - I like them and agree with them pretty well).