I don't know better place than here to start this discussion: Carlos Castaneda.

When teenager I was so influenced by his books that I spend years reading them, the books even provoked lucid dreaming, and I could do the excercise from the book 3: to find the hand in dream... if anyone remembers. That made me think that it is all true...


Eventually, at the age of 20, I set myself off to Mexico, (from Yugoslavia), in search of... of course.... Don Juan. I ended up parting( X , coke, shrooms) in NYC, going to film school. Until I had a terribly bad trip on shrooms, that induced my devotion to Zen, I spend next 23 years with uninterrupted Zen practice, psychoanalysis... I got so involved in these two that I all forgot of Carlos Castaneda and party...

Yet I got drawn back to Ibogaine and Ayahuasca, for my partners problems with Borderline personality disorder (BPD). I connected my intense Zen practice to a strong bad trip on mushrooms, that predated it, I think there is no serious inner work without some of the magical plants initiation...

The books got to my hands again, at the age of 46. I still had total respect for the man... Yet I red 1st book and if felt all wrong: the peyotl trip felt fake, datula I haven't taken but it is not native Mexican and it doesn't sound like report of other that have taken, and even worst, smoking mushrooms, or some strange mix he was making was feeling all wrong and even manipulative... I came to conclusion that it was all fake...

The authority of CC was also induced by the authority I placed in Zen masters. Paradoxialy they acted in a way like Don Juan, some have even quoted him in the Dharma talks. Yet practicing for 23 years meditation, under various teachers I got out of age, and reading Stuart Lach criticism of Zen teachers, I realized that they are making a show of themselves as enlightened... I just couldn't deposit the respect in a Roshi...

Then I read on wikipedia the madness of CC and his sect, the nonsense of the "movements" and workshops, and the suicide of women in his "inner circle".

What hit me is how much, us common folk, yet educated, traveled, with ok financial situation, not coming from heavy religious background are prone to crazy sects and crazy Zen masters and how lucky I have been to miss all of this, and how close I was to get sucked in... brrr....

I feel like sharing with this forum, obviously this will be impossible to share in any Buddhist forum, yet Zen has to come out of age on a grater scale (it has in some cases, but I don't want to go there now).

Also here, at this forum, are people who are learning from plants, do you share my take on how misleading was CCastanedas plants reports and learning...


Jox

I think he made up a lot of crap, was manipulative, selfish and treated others around him poorly.

Not saying there is not any value in his books but I dont think he was what people make him out to be.

..two previous Nexus 'debates' on Castenada..
https://www.dmt-nexus.me....aspx?g=posts&t=5207
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=33280

and another:
question for those who read Carlos Castaneda books

and another:
Carlos Castaneda/Toltec Way: Who has walked this path?

Hi all,

this is not only about the CC, but about Zen Roshis, or Buddist teachers, who behave the same as Don Huan, in one for or another, depending if they are Asian born, or Western.

In any for they make a "cult" like situation, Pema Chodron, Charlotte Joko Beck, Tony Parker, Jack Kornfield, Daido Lory, I am purposly mentioning ONLY Western teachers, the most famous ones, (missing few, this is from the top of the head). All of these are true meditators who ended up behaving as "enlightened" masters.

The Asian teachers are FAKE, they didn't meditate, meditation was totally lost, and worst they became drunks and sexual abusers: Mauzemi Roshi, Chogyam Trumpa, yoga teachers : Maharishi, Patabi Joys, Geonka, Deepak Chopra... and in the best case they just found a gold mine in trashing the West, and reinterpreting the old texts, and reinventing the old techniques that nobody was practicing in the East...


They were making a show of themselves, and we were buying it. Yet in the case of CC this was just the books.

Yet I wouldn't be surprised if the plants became legal on the big markets. We would see many "shamans" popping up as mushrooms, from the "real" places: Amazon, Congo rain forest, Oaxaca Mazatec mountins... Yet us who practice the plants would be see as non authentic, and with no "transmission of true ancient knowledge".

this is the topic of my text, rather then CC per se.

Jox

I think for the most part all the eastern practices that have sacraments absent are decident practices, with the exception of darkrooming. Without psychedelics it is not what it likely once was. Does not mean it is not useful or w/e..but there is lots of evidence of an earlier psychedelic cult in many of these places that predates everything we see now.

I dont really give it much thought. I dont think 20 years of meditation really means anything at all, unless it does. I mean, you know what you know..if you know your path is authentic than it is. That is all that matters. I have met enough flakey new age yogi's and buddhists etc who just seemed to be caught up in some garbage other white people told them in a book they bought or class they take at the local YMCA.

The age of Gurus is over.