Hello,

I happened to be a private student of Castaneda's from 1995-1998 - i.e. the 2 1/2 years just prior to his death. I'm no longer connected with any of his people, and am now the webmaster of the Sustained Action site linked below, where a group of former private students of Castaneda compiled factual information related to him.

If you have questions about Castaneda, often I can answer them, but I will also be up front in stating that for the most part I now hold a skeptical point of view on most matters related to 'nagualism' and 'Toltec teachings'.

Sustained Action Web Site on Castaneda:
http://www.sustainedaction.org/

Recommend starting with the Chronologies section. Notes from Castaneda's private class lectures are in the Notes section, and critical essays are in the Explorations section. There are also links to books written by a few of his other private students, and a link to one book written by his lover, Amy Wallace, who was also one of his inner-circle students.

And if you wish to see an alternative portrayal (more from a believer point of view), the organization which now carries on Castaneda's teachings, Cleargreen Inc., is here:
http://www.cleargreen.com/

I read through your website and I am curious as to whether Castaneda at any point had you ingest any type of psychedelic substance? I am also wondering if you take psychedelic substances or if you have tried to apply any of Castaneda's teachings to any sort of psychedelic experience?

Having read all of the Castaneda books, and most of the Lynn Andrews books as well, I must say I rather enjoyed all of them.

Are they holy scripture? No. But then, I don't usually enjoy holy scripture nearly as much.

I didn't know the controversy about Castaneda when I first read A Separate Reality. I was perhaps 13, and was just getting into psychedelics seriously. I would go up to Tales Of Power before going back and reading Teachings. For me this 1st book was the worst of the bunch. It seemed tame after having read the next 3 already. If you only read one of his books, I would skip the first one and pick one in the 2-4 range.

Then, over the next years, I read the rest of his books in order... and as they came out. Around this time, I started hearing about how he was a fraud.

This was the 80's, and most of the go-to "new age" books of the time were also grey area blends of fiction and truth. As they still are by and large. I never really cared if any of the stuff was "true," to be honest. It was more about if it resonated with me, or I could get anything useful from it. And, certainly, Castaneda books were more interesting and more useful to me than, say The Celestine Prophecies...

In fact, my feeling on all of these kind of "fictional tales built to deliver a message" type books, is usually "is the message useful or not?" This goes for all religious works, and even stuff that is actually non-fiction.

I always felt, you could throw out the Celestine Prophecies and just check out the 10 Insights. Similarly, you can take or leave Castaneda's books as fiction, and just decide if the concepts work for you or not.

To that end, in case anyone is interested, a guy named Rick Mace has gone through Castaneda's books and collected everything said by Don Juan while tossing out all the rest. Kind of like a New Testament that only contains the words of JC (all 16 pages of them). This is interesting as you can see the messages more clearly this way. It is not an enthralling read, and will never take the place of getting immersed in the books, but it is a valuable study aid of sorts. It reads like a lengthy seminar with Don Juan Matus.

Link: http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/

Look. It makes no difference if Carlos was a "good" guy, or cheated on women or whatever. Shit, I still listen to Jim Morrison and The Doors, and by all recollections, ol' Jim was neither the most truthful or righteous person around.

It makes no sense to judge artwork by the artist. If that was the case, are we to say that Dali's paintings are shit because he was (apparently) a freak? I can't enjoy Van Gogh because the guy was bat-shit crazy? Where would it stop? Let's toss out Shakespeare because he didn't actually write all the plays ascribed to him?

Nonsense.

You judge artwork on its own merit.

Whether fictional or not, Don Juan Matus and Don Genaro are characters that spoke to me. Most of what they said to Carlos still strikes me as valuable. Contrary to popular belief, Carlos doesn't paint himself as a great sorcerer or high level apprentice... In the books Carlos comes off as a neurotic, pathetic loser. One who is tolerated by Don Juan (laughed at and belittled constantly) simply because Don Juan seems to grok that this fool from the US will be telling his tale to millions of people.

Carlos is actually very self-deprecating in his books. In a lot of ways, his books are like the Conversations With G*d books by Neal Donald Walsch. Certainly not in terms of action or setting, but in the sense that a clueless narrator is set up as a foil against a wise and all-knowing character for purposes of having said wise character explain shit simply to the idiot... thus making the books accessible for novices and clueless people.

At any rate, one doesn't read Castaneda books for Castaneda... he is no guru like Sri Chinmoy or something. You read Castaneda to get introduced to Don Juan.

The last thing I want to say, is that all of the comments about these books not being anthropology are kind of funny to me. I for one am glad they are not anthropology books. Try as I might, I have never read an academic anthropology book that moved me all that much. I love indigenous cultures, so I tried hard to get into anthropology... unfortunately it always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed so culturally biased and condescending. I mean, in the end, both the textbooks and the anthropological accounts tend to come off like books about studying chimps in the wild. Usually they were only a few steps better than the stuff by ethno-linguists, who tended to be totally focused on the stories and languages while not even seeing the people.

In the end, I found that if you want to learn about a people, you have to get off your ass and go live with them for a while. This is what I did, and I found that if you are sincere and respectful, you will learn. The academics I would meet on my travels tended to be comically out of touch. They might be tolerated by the indigenous people, or not... but they were mostly laughed at. I don't consider my years of travel and hanging out with native people to be anthropology. I consider it sharing... and when I was lucky... making friends.

I can understand why people feel the need to warn newcomers about the misrepresentations and factual errors in the Castaneda books. But I don't think the Argumentum Ad Hominem have any validity in judging the work. He could have been a murderer and still wrote good things. Look at St. Paul. Guy wrote the majority of the New Testament and was an admitted mass murderer... a Christian hunting assassin no less. (note: Paul's books are my least favorite, not because of who he was as much as that he didn't seem to get it.)

Shit, I still love most of the records that Phil Spector recorded. Should we throw out Let It Be because Phil turned out to be a psycho? Is all that Ike & Tina Turner stuff worthless because Ike was a wife-beater and Phil recorded it?

All I can say is that Carlos' transmission of Don Juan's advice to look at his hands in a lucid dream REALLY worked for me. In fact much of what he wrote on the subject of dreaming was spot on. The Art Of Dreaming is awesome for the first half, and then gets dark and progressively less valuable as it goes on... but you have to remember, that when those books were written, there was not a wealth of information on lucid dreaming in the popular consciousness. Most people still called it a hoax and parapsychology. Heheheheh.

Nowadays, most dreaming books are better than what you got from Carlos, but you need to look at these things through the lens of the time they were written and released.

Anyway, I guess I will go and check out JeremyDonovan's links now.

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I read through your website and I am curious as to whether Castaneda at any point had you ingest any type of psychedelic substance? I am also wondering if you take psychedelic substances or if you have tried to apply any of Castaneda's teachings to any sort of psychedelic experience?
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As early as 1972, in his 3rd book, Journey to Ixtlan, Castaneda stated that psychedelic substances are not necessary, except for students who are ... 'slow'. The members of my class were not given psychedelics by Castaneda. However, in her book, Amy Wallace mentions one time when members of the inner circle were given psychedelics. Personally, I have over a period of decades occasionally taken various psychedelics, never to excess. Among others, I have taken LSD, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, and salvia divinorum. There were a few times among those unusual experiences when I did try to apply certain of Castaneda's teachings, and while some of the results were ... interesting, there was not ever anything I could be certain of, regarding the potential efficacy of such practices, in terms of reaching any sort of permanent condition of 'heightened awareness'.

Infinite thanks to Hyperspace fool for taking the time to so eloquently explain his very well thought out position on this discussion. Wow.

Also thank you for answering my question Mr. JeremyDonovan. I appreciate it.

I can honestly say that I have had excellent results with some of Castaneda's techniques, such as seeing, dreaming and gazing. I have noticed that these techniques are found in other spiritual disciplines but it was fun learning them from Castaneda, I thought his story telling format was delightfully informative as well as very entertaining.

Yes, the work of Castaneda spoke to my soul as well. I'll be sure to give him a proper thank you during the Family Reunion.

Hello,

his work are masterpiece's,no doubt about it.it's a awesome gift for mankind to solve many mysterious.

on the the first sight it have a very good entertain level and on the second,it gives the seeker tools in the hand to bypass this reality.

its for those who wants out of the soul recycle cycle system..
and if you already tried alot of magical paths,than this belong along with tibetan,japanese esoterik and the kabbalah to the highest magic form what can exsist on earth.

if you feel a unusual deep connectivity to it,than it might be for you.
but it's not easy,it might take years..


what i experienced in first hand was the wind,or what's hidding in it.
i listened special to this one and took the clue.
i remember i slept in a summerhouse during the winter.it was deep in the night and it was very quiet outside.
than at once,from nowhere a strong wind appeared and blewed strong against the little house.
following the moves of wind with my ears,it gave me somehow the picture of a chinese dragon,the long thin ones.
as it appeared so it disappeared,i knew from there on,wow the old schaman(don matus)was fuckin right.

i understood it was for real a living being!

month ago,i went to romania in the mountains,and there in the mountains was a much bigger wind entity..
to make it short,evertime i started to smoke a cigarette the huge wind rushed down from the sky and blewed my shelter nearly away.
that wind was pretty aggresiv and unfriendly towards me..
the same what the old man was telling.the wind is blowing you in the eyes,or blows off your campfire or it blast you from am path...

wow there is much more to tell.and i'm still learning.
good luck for those who seeks truth,

while the rest will it declaring as fiction or even fake..such poor idiots,hehe.

cheers

^ it was overly about hostility, war, attack/defense, enemies, killing, power games, ...
Of course you're free to call it


I loved the books initially until I began to see trough the woo-veil and discovered battle, and more battle. It led me to become a 'poor idiot' in your terms.

I like Carlos Castaneda! He is clearly a gifted writer. Very good a being descriptive. I enjoyed reading his books as fiction. I appreciate his imagination! I like that he invented these characters and had these wonderful conversations. I think everyone could benefit from doing this themselves. Invent a character like Don Juan and receive the advice from this imaginative place in your mind. It's like talking to the source!