In the early 70s I was a university student interested in eastern philosophy and psychedelics. I had two experiences that were powerful but baffling to me. Two or three years later I encountered the Don Juan books and was startled to find my experiences described as losing the human form and hearing the voice of seeing. I was hooked on reading all the works. Not being a joiner I never became involved with the movement. After reading Castaneda I did have other experiences similar to those from the Books but the pre exposure experiences seem the most uncanny. The later books were mostly about Stalking which involves intentional creation of a false crisis to move the students assemblage point for magical experiences. At 73 I remain puzzled but unable to completely dismiss Castaneda.
Yes, I'm 74 & was quite taken with Castenada's stories. I didn't read all his books nor did I know about tensegrity until now. Clearly some of what he wrote was taken from cultural traditions somewhere. He did study anthropology after all. His writings were the only seemingly "real thing" discussing spirituality at that time. I've often reflected on the pull these stories had on me in my 20's. What he wrote about "dreaming" had a particular resonance with me. Yes, it was a time of experiments with consciousness, alternate realities & profound distrust of the old fashioned "straight" world that was drafting us into a war that was being lied about. At this point I guess I'm not surprised to find out that what he wrote is considered fraudulent, especially in the context of academia. I'm sorry to hear there had been a sort of cult around him. People give their power away too easily.
It's just because he plagiarized true teachings of ancient eastern civilizations, like the alchemical Taoist and Tibetan sources! He made a dangerous pastiche which lured many into his spiritual abyss. Please, look for the truly legitimate fountains of knowledge by reliable masters instead.
My teacher in Tecate, the medicine man of the Yaquis, knew Carlos and helped him write the books. He told Carlos “if you make any money from these books bring some back to the tribe”. He never did. My teacher always referred to him as Pinche Carlos. Carlos took the spiritual practices of the Yaquis and twisted it for his own power. It is sad to see so many still follow Carlos
How would anybody know. Pre internet all we had was the books. No one was out yelling on the corners that he was a fake. As a matter of fact i am just learning this now. What are you gonna do. Shit never changes.
Precisely. Amazing to have that verification of who helped him write. His lager works were co written by the 3 women and were plagiarized from many many books which others have verified them as plagiarized materials.
@@jeffjohnson7470yes they were! But primacy and repetition wins right? Why were they inn every public library? - and the fact that they are verbal diarrhea is a clue.
Are you familiar with Merilyn Tunneshende? She wrote two books 📚 Medicine Dream-A Woman' Encounter with the Healing Realms of Don Juan and Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy. In the second book on pg 219 she describes Don Juan's death 💀. On pg 124 she describes diagnosing CC liver cancer. On pg 221 she talks about CC death 💀 in April 1998. No one mentioned her name in the comments so I 🤔 thought I would.😉
Carlos had a very strong draw toward feminine energy - hence his experience with Datura. Not surprised to hear that he ended up surrounded by a harem of witches.
I have always been enamored with Castanedas writings. The concepts seemed incongruous but they always had an element of truth. No self importance, no feelings of In superiority , or feelings of failure. Cutting off the internal dialogue is very important to developing the magic of Don Juan. This is all rather disconcerting and I would love to do further research on this whole subject.
I am an old Hippie, coming along as Hippiedom was just coalescing. A product of the psychedelic experience was the ever broadening of what Reality encompassed. A friend had written a book, THE PSYCHEDELIC GUIDE TO THE PREPARATION OF THE EUCHARIST, which very clearly describes how to create many psychedelics. Soon we were roaming the South Texas desert searching for peyote from which we chemically extracted mescaline. In the desert area were local peyote pickers, licensed to provide the plant to Native Americans. Later, as I became aware of the Don Juan series I realized that the story was likely a work of imagination. It bore too much of the experiences that the “psychedelic experience” had already proven to be imaginary. The REAL MAGIC that took place was how real Love is and how close to the psychological surface it truly lays.
"..... IN A FEW OF ITS MANY GUISES" (an inspiration to me as a kid in pursuit of an educational direction, later well realized). Still a devoted Hippie and can't imagine a higher path. Regards to Mr. Brown, should he still be around.
I was in a position to interact with Carlos Castaneda on two occasions at UCLA in the early seventies because I knew two young women, roommates, who had both dated him. He readily admitted his primary motivation in writing the books and getting his PhD. stemmed from deep feelings of personal insecurity based on his ethnicity and background. He said (something along the lines of) ‘I’m a short, brown Hispanic man from Peru who very much wanted to get dates with tall blonde girls, and obtaining my PhD was my goal so I could ‘score.’ The two girls I knew who introduced me to him basically supported that premise. Their friendship with him bore this out. He wrote his books in the library at UCLA and gleaned the hodgepodge of philosophical BS they contained from other philosophical and spiritual books he read. He mixed in colorful stories from his own trips in and around Latin America and the American southwest. And he exploited the interests of the era in altered states of consciousness. He created a fictional narrative that he exploited meet girls who otherwise would have never even noticed him. It was all a ‘schtick.’ Even he admitted it.
Fascinating! This is consistent with what I've read from those who knew him personally. His most passionate defenders never knew him, which is telling.
It makes sense. Just another low self esteem narcissist who needs to lie to get sex. There are far too many. I have noticed all women where beautiful and Caucasian type.
*Funny that for the one of them witches you couldn't find any photo is Kylie Lundahl. Because here, on youtube, there's long interview with her and two more, explaining the lineage of Castaneda's mystic path and so on. Also, wherever you see a pictures of a woman in black jump suit, showing the 'Tensegrity' movements - that's Kylie. Blond, shorthaired, looking exactly like Nuri, Florinda and who know who else more of their magic convent.
I was drawn to the castaneda books in 71 after returning from viet nam. LSD, pot, left me with life altering experiences and also a good deal of confusion. Casataneda capitalized on that moment in time where conciousness expansion was only a toke or pill away. I recall that about the third book i began to see this was a scam, no doubt making castaneda wealthy, famous, and sexually satisfied. He was a gifted story teller but also an ass, preying on other peoples earnest desire to reach some deeper understanding of life. Turns out we're our own best teacher when we learn to listen to the spirit within. No mediator required though honest others are helpful.
I have read his book the art of dreaming and immediately knew it was fiction but I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and loved the book, but I don't get how people would think it's all real
Nice piece. It is probably difficult now at this later date to understand why these books were so important within the context of the time in which they were written. It was necessary THEN for me to hear what he had to say,(both Castenada and Don Juan ) and to incorporate, or square that into/with my understanding of the world. To have a more vital and comprehensible connection with the mystical and unseen forces I felt/sensed were otherwise all around us, but just beyond my knowing. I made some of my own investigations (as did my friends) into the metaphysical and altered states of consciousness spoken about. because I was a curious/seeking young man of that era. This videos information is interesting, but really does nothing to diminish the first books as they concerned or influenced myself or others I knew then (1970's). Certainly one of those, "you had to have been there" points in time in order to fully appreciate the cultural context. Likewise with Hesse's 'Siddartha' or McKenna's books, or even in some ways Richard Brautigan's poetry and verse. All still relevant, but also very era specific too. Thanks
It's been interesting to reread the Castenada's first books recently and come across this critique. I feel (I don't know) his first book had some information that did come from Native Americans. Carlo's first experience with Mescalito is very different from the laid back high I observed in friends back in the 1970s when many thought doing drugs was cool. Now we have a resurgence of interest in Shamanism with the Ayahuasca drug who's point is to meet entities in another dimension. Rereading the first book it seems to me he is warning people of the dangers of hallucinogens and shamans by his awful experiences. Having seen people damaged by drugs back in the 1970s, especially jimsom weed and morning glories, it's amazes me why so many of my generation tried the drugs described in his books. Having met shaman, as designated by their tribe, they scare the hell out of me. Castaneda did plagiarize from a lot of sources that I find entertaining and some quotes valuable to me. After his third book I became convinced even in my teenage years he went into writing fantasy that I still found entertaining. I'm just hoping the first book isn't made into a movie, I'd hate to see young people pursue shamanism through drugs that can do permanent damage to their brains and nervous system. Please don't attempt to find knowledge from the drugs Carlos describes. As for the cult that Carlos surrounded himself with should be described as a horrible failure. Sorry for the women who thought they had found a path to spiritual powers, but ended up succumbing to one man's fantasy.
Around 1976 I visited Carlos Castaneda's house in the farming country north of Los Angeles, near Carpinteria. I went and knocked on his front door and the door was answered by an Hispanic woman whom I took to be his housekeeper. She said that he wasn't home and wouldn't be back for some days so I gave up and continued my motorcycle trip. I wonder if the woman I talked to was one of his "witches"?
Heh-heh. On leave from the Army I visited his office on the UC Irvine campus to make sure this guy was for real. He wasn't there but the plaque on his door convinced me he was.
The eternal question: Can one separate the art from the artist? Carlos Castaneda was a captivating and gifted writer. Unfortunately, later on he became an abusive cult leader and egomaniac. On which basis do we judge him - by his art, or his personal life? I read his books as a teenager and young adult. I was hooked by his first three books which caught my imagination - so much so, that I once had a powerful acid trip that was inspired subconsciously by his writings. By the fourth book, however, I realized Castaneda was a huckster. Fraud or not, he was a fine storyteller. There was even a little wisdom in his books, sprinkled among the bullshit. Fertilizer does help the flowers grow, after all. It's a shame he didn't heed his own writings and grow wise as he aged. He did the opposite; he became a monster. At least he left three wonderful books for the world to read. Thanks for this wonderful video, and your two subsequent ones on this topic. I am currently reading "Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Amy Wallace. I highly recommend it.
I totally agree with your assessment. . .it took me a lot longer to realize the absence of literary merit in his later books because the series had such momentum with those great books like A Separate Reality and Teachings of Don Juan. . .very important that people who enjoy his books also get an opportunity to read books like Amy Wallace’s account
you want to believe his lies and you are making excuses. his unfalsifiable lies and deceit are murderously dangerous and only the weak willed and the mentally subnormal can be persuaded he has anything to offer.
I've come to believe that we're just insensitive, generally. You can't separate it vibe-wise. If we were more attuned, balanced, self-consistent we'd probably be able to detect it. Craftsmanship aside.
The historical moment you describe is not over at all. Meditation is more popular than ever but "gurus" or cult leaders are no longer very noticeable. The MSM however has lost interest decades ago. I read and loved his books in the '60's and I am still at it in terms of enquiring into consciousness. I have never become disillusioned even though some teachers were less than they claimed, because our consciousness itself is endlessly fascinating. From where does it arise?
Journey to Ixtlan was a text book in a college course I had back in the mid 80s. We also studied Gurdjieff (through the book "The Fourth Way" by his student P. D. Ouspenksy), and also Idries Shah. After college I continued to read all three authors. All three have their critics, and I don't argue with the criticisms, but I am eternally grateful that I was introduced to those gentlemen. I feel that they have enormously expanded my horizons. They set me free in a way. Interest in The 4th Way led me to find the 9 personality types theory, which also expanded the way I see the world. I don't take any of it as "the word of God" so to speak. But it all keeps me from becoming fixated on minutiae. As Rumi supposedly said, "Do not look at my outward form, but take what is in my hand." That's how I feel about all these supposed gurus. If they offer something I can use then I'll take it. But at the end of the day it's still up to me to make life work. If you have any reading to recommend I'd be grateful.
8 месяцев назад+3
Alex Shulgin is still a household name in some circles ("smart" drugs).
@@mrq6270If one says about himself to be a teacher or guru you should run...a real teacher/benefiter never calls himself a superior being, instead shares his wisdom & gets called a teacher or wise man by those who learn from him
I read Travels to Ixylan years ago and loved the way it challenged my concepts of reality. I never took it as a literal account of events but rather an imaginary and mythical dive into spirituality. I enjoyed it from that perspective. Erasing personal history goes back to early Christianity when one is born again. Nothing new here. Historically cults arise during times of conflict, change and or cataclysmic events. There is a good book that addresses this phenomena called “The First Messiah.”
It doesn’t matter that Carlos made it all up. His work stands as an amazing work of fiction regardless. It’s too bad Carlos went nuts and formed a cult around himself. 🤷🏻♂️
I met Castaneda around 1994 up north México City, during a three day seminar about Transegrity, attended by hundreds of people, many of them younger than me, with lots of loyal women recieving and headed the "lessons" to visitors like me and "pupils" who payed a fee, the last day Castaneda himself held a talking and talked to a small group of press reporters --me among them. So, that is why I liked your video, Sean, since I somehow understand what you talk about in general, but those women dissapearing was something I didn't know, the theme here is treated very seriously here by you, congratulations 😮
Cleargreen had to drop the term "Tensegrity" to "magical passes" because Buckminster Fuller's estate threatened a lawsuit.... Tensegrity is the foundation of geodesic domes as related by Buckminster Fuller. It combines the words tension and integrity. The very thing that makes structures impervious to outside influence. The book is "Critical Path". It is a cracking good read and then some... The point of Castaneda's teachings is internal silence It's all about challenging perception❤❤
I ve been practising tensegrity before and it really worked. I never been into groups or leaders so i did it on my own. I started doing it again few days ago and it brings me energy and peace and the rest of drama I don’t care about.. not trying to jump from the cliff either ..but i always wondered what happened to Kylie L.
One important aspect of this story is that the ritualistic use of peyote, datura and other halucinogenic plants that was a part of Castaneda's 'cult' could lead to mental derangement and insanity. Especially when used over an extended period of time, these drugs can be very damaging to one's mental health. These poor women may well have been completely out of their minds by the time Castaneda died.
...I was given the Carlos Castaneda book I mentioned in reaction to another post mid-eighties for a birthday... That means that all this happened AFTER I'd read the book. Because I was a small child in the seventies and wasn't even alive during the sixties, I sort of assumed this was like ancient history. Wow! Thanks for that contextualization!
If you hear of any updates please keep us posted. The whole saga fascinates me. Esp after reading all of his books multiple times and almost going off the edge myself
Alan Watts named it perfectly: Once you got the message, put down the phone. CC got the message but wanted more and as always attracted some lost individuals who couldn't accept that this life is "just that much".
@@charlesforrest7678 Baaaaahaaaaahaaaa... poor Syd. One of many . The album with Arnold lane on it was recorded same time and studio as the beatles ....can't remember which album...but you can hear some subtle pinching of ideas for sure....lol
I read Castaneada's books as a teenager in the mid 80's. They blew my mind and changed the direction of my life. I became an acupuncturist and functional medicine practitioner. I explored his tensegrity system in the late-90's, and came to the conclusion that it was a rip off of simplistic Chinese Qi Gong and Taoist energy cultivation practices. I also realized back in the mid 90's that Castaneada fabricated the entire story.
Carlos was a fiction writer who used the growing popularity of psychedelic drugs to create fantastic stories of alternative realities. The lesson I learned from his writing is that THE BRAIN is the creator of all experiences high or low. When you introduce certain substances it alters brain activity and produces unusual changes in perception. Once I realized that I stopped trying to alter my consciousness and accepted ordinary awareness.
My advice is don't actually ascribe to Castanedas practices. If you use mushroom, peyote, etc., just let your own ways be found. Many of the indigenous people used the Virgin Mary with mushroom use. The Yaqui's where a hard Indian tribe that used large doses of the hallucinagenic plants and where proably more indoctrinated than other people. Dosage is really the difference between good and evil sometimes when it comes to medicine.
I'm of the generation that first read Castaneda, and read his first in 1969 when I was 18. Sean is correct when he says we were fascinated with altered states of consciousness, but I and everyone I knew understood that Castaneda was fiction, but that he had some acquired some knowledge of shamanistic practices including the peyote rituals, and found it a very interesting understanding of the universe. I still do. It's a lot more fun than christianity, et al.
One question that you don't seem to have addressed is: Who got the money from CC's estate? He was a best-selling author and I'm sure royalties are still flowing (or trickling by now) into the coffers of someone. Did these women have access to a couple of million dollars and just go set themselves up in a compound somewhere else? As to the frustration with the police investigations, in the absence of any indications of foul play, the police are (quite rightly) inclined to presume that someone who doesn't want to be found is really not their business.
There was a will created three days before he died that put all his assets into a trust (the Eagle's trust). Everything to do with the estate was put together by an attorney named Deborah Drooz who was also made executor of the will.
I first read The Teaching Of Don Juan as a teenager. I was a deeply seeking person at that time. My older brother had a copy on his bookshelf. This was before Castaneda was exposed as a fraud (or at least long before I became aware of his exposure). I got about 1/4 of the way through the book and said to myself "This sounds like bullshit," and stopped reading. I guess my "detector" has always been in good working order.
Me too! I kept recognising things from all sorts of different philosophical/mystic systems and decided he'd simply rolled them together into a new narrative hung around the fictional figure of Don Juan. It seemed like a brilliantly judged money-spinner. I'd told all my friends in the mid 70s that I reckoned it was pure fiction, some agreed, others not, but last year I was amazed when my daughter actually spoke about the first book as though it was non fiction! I don't recall Castaneda's 'message' as being particularly positive or useful...
I got 2/3 of the way through the first book when i realized it was bullshit. Why? Because i live near Tucson and realized he had never been here. He gets high on psychedelics and walks naked through the desert at night. Honey, you do that around here and you'll need a pair of pliers and a few weeks to pull all the nasty thorns out of your hide! On another note, some of it was true, but not in a good way. He describes after death forgoing heaven, and finding the opening between heaven and earth, and entering a dry land where the wind never ceases..... um, he's describing the entrance to Hell. Think about it....
Read it as fiction and take what resonates. Why stop reading? I read many of his books and greatly enjoyed them, they have inspired me although it is a fictional story. There is still a lot of wisdom in them in my opinion. To each his own I guess
Interesting, there's no mention of his son, and that the women close to him controlled all of his finances, except the one found dead of course. Did the finances magically disappear with them as well? Perhaps that's another video...SRi
There was a will created three days before he died that put all his assets into a trust (the Eagle's trust). Everything to do with the estate was put together by an LA entertainment industry attorney named Deborah Drooz who was also made executor of the will.
Being able to interpret perception correctly results in finding out how we are habituated to look at the world the way that meets societal needs, not our own.
LIFEIowa 1 minute ago Kylie Lundahl is De Ann Jo Ahlvers from Iowa- she has 2 adult sons, who are looking for her. IF anyone knows where she is her Sons would like to Connect with her. Thank you.
"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark-that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” HST
Thank you. Fantastic journalism. I always thought CC had genuine spiritual knowledge, but that he was also reinventing himself in pursuit of his personal objectives. Sounds like a combination of talent, drive, genuine knowledge & personal objectives. Sounds fairly rational, intelligent and human. He doesn’t offend me. Disillusioned former true believers do not alter my mixed assessment. Take what you can use and leave the rest. -Dan
I started reading Castenada's books in the '80s, beginning with a summer class in college entitled Philosophy and Fantasy. My professor, who claimed to have known Castaneda somewhat, essentially presented the reality of the story as an open question for us to ponder and debate. What I can say after reading all or most of the books is that lucid dreaming, which I had spontaneously experienced a couple of times before, can be enhanced or focused through some of Castaneda's techniques; I actually reproduced the experiences of looking at my hand and flying in dreams, among others. I would agree though that the women probably committed suicide and this is very unfortunate. "Don Juan's" death was depicted as an intentional and spiritual act, described without any physical details, more of a "becoming one with the Eagle" or something along those lines. Perhaps this is what the "witches" were aiming for. I think it's fine to experiment with altered states of consciousness that do not involve psychoactive drugs, which Don Juan/Castaneda more or less renounced in a later book. But I do fear that following such experiments into the realms of death is a symptom of cultism and a rather huge mistake, perhaps the largest mistake most people could ever make.
Nicely done. I was hooked by Carlos Castaneda’s adventures back in ‘73 and continued to read him right up to the bitter end, more out of lurid fascination at the whole saga than credulous adherence to his fantastic claims, which, if taken as psychotropic Vaseline dreams, might have loosely passed as phenomenological reports. They never were convincing enough that I would follow him over a cliff. Delving into his sources, digging out the truth of the matter occupied me for years. I think the philosophic seeds strewn throughout his far flung yarns owe more to Gurdjieff, Karlfried Von Durkheim, Alan Watts and others than to a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus. According to his ex-wife “Matus” was Castaneda’s favorite brand of port. Cheers! Tensegrity’s “magical passes” are clearly no more than rehashed Qi Gong-in fact his book “The Fire From Within” bears a dedication to his martial arts instructor. And having read, God help me, the “witches’” books as well, I believe those manuscripts were quite likely written by Castaneda himself in his tireless campaign to shore up the credibility of his mythos. The writing style reads exactly like his. Recently I went back and had a look at his writings from “Tales of Power” on (I have a whole file box stowed away in the garage) and found his schtick completely unreadable-just plain bad writing. Oh well, live and learn.
Idries Shah was pushing the same tish too, at the same time, in the UK and internationally. Club of Rome type level and a "fixer" Cultural Engineering "keeps the lights" on tho, or so they would have us believe. How many parasites can a host (civil society) sustain seems to be a perennial fascination for these types.
Castaneda's books had a profound influence upon me as a teenager. Your report cements the disillusionment I eventually experienced over it all - good work!
When I read Castenada's books in the late 70's I was fascinated by the style of his writing like a child stunned by the wild ride he was on. I found them most entertaining. Later in the 90's I then caught wind of his Tensegrity movement and the drift towards a cult. When I first heard of his death an later about his "Witches" gone missing my imagination once again went wild for a while. Sean with your video you helped me to put this into a context. Thanks for that!
Those who have been running Cleargreen ever since Castaneda's death appear to be the ones benefitting most from the trust. Where are current book royalties going? - perhaps to the same trust. . . I've read that the series may belong to a single person now but haven't seen any definitive proof yet. It appears that Castaneda might have been manipulated by his beneficiaries into making decisions about the trust while ill, although perhaps dealing with practicalities very late in life was part of the manipulative sway Castaneda held over those who lived with him. Apparently the trust and will weren't finalized and signed off on until three days before his death.
Really great that you have researched this. . .as important as Castaneda is to the culture as a writer, he did wield power in very selfish and dangerous ways with his celebrity cult. Amy Wallace’s book Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castandeda is a good look into that world
I bought her book after reading your review here the other day. Wowza! It's a page-turner for sure. It's so much fun in the beginning because of her recounting stories with all the other famous people her family knew who were connected to the literary world in that time period. I'm still in the middle of it now on Ch. 21 - _Energy Vampires_ . This chapter is hitting on many of the things I happen to be learning about elsewhere from other sources these days so it's really intriguing to me.
I read Castaneda‘s books in college and found them compelling stories. I just saw them as part of that counter culture drug influenced indigenous kind of appropriation that was relatively common at the time. I remember the controversy when they were debunked but I wasn’t terribly surprised. It’s unfortunate that Castaneda felt compelled to fabricate his research because North American indigenous spirituality strikes me as a fascinating field of study.
Carlos Casteneda clicked all the righrt boxes for that era of the 70s. He had lived the life that restless middle class adolescents could only dream of. Everyone who was into self transformation, Eastern religions, Native American shamanism, antediluvian lost history, etc. thought he was the ultimate seeker of truth and a bonafide mystic who went out into the desert wilderness to encounter his spiritual Guide. It didn't even occur to any of us that he had made it all up.
In or about 1998 I wrote to Deepak Chopra and asked if he ever read the 'Power Of Silence' He wrote back and said that it was one of his favorite books.
"Erasing personal history' is a basic method of all manipulators, even jealous husbands and wifes. It's easy to control someone with no familly and friend-ties. That is why cult-leaders using this method. No one need a 'saviour'. We are our own saviour and guru. Do not give away your power to anyone, by thinking, that they are better than you. As they say: "we are one", so why would anyone would search for a guru, or an authority figure to undermine his/her divinity? I enjoyed your story.
I read many of Castaneda’s books - “Journey to Ixtlan” being my favorite - but when in his later books the Toltec’s were flying around in warlike fashion and Castaneda’s protégés were climbing the walls in his studio I decided this was all too bizarre and frightening for me to continue because I had no intention of following those paths. Castaneda’s descriptions were so believable that I give credibility to their being authentic: I had a friend - the head of a sculpture foundry in N. Mexico who claimed drug-riddled trips into isolated locales in Mexico which sounded very much like those Castaneda described.
I think it's evident from reading his books that they are an amalgamation of indigenous folk lore, psychedelic trips, and some new age philosophy. He was a good storyteller, a good writer, and knew how to put it all together. Of course, even though it is all fiction there is some truth in there - as there is in many stories, especially existential or spiritual ones. No doubt he had some charisma too and the power and attention went to his head which he capitalised on by charming a handful of gullible woman.
There is some profound knowledge in that fiction, yet the crux of it is very depressing. I took copious notes on the books. LOL. Tried to piece together something practical. One problem is spending 5 years in a small crate to recapitulate. Another is erasing personal history. There are other branches of Toltecs, and they have their problems as well. However, I would say glean what one can from it all and move on. In recognition of Don Juan's advice, self-importance makes one vulnerable to many bad things, including, I would say, scams.
Not one mention of the late Maria Sabina who was with all respect Don Juan. Maria’s daughter has the knowledge Carlos lightly touches upon but very hard to contact
I read Casteneda 45 years ago. I remember the end of one book where he with Don Juan and Don Juan Genaro solemly lead a group Nagual/Yaquai's up to the top of a high steep mesa and the rested at the edge of a cliff. The group seemed bemuddled with depressed issues and some of the group had actually made the climb to hurl themselves from it. It was actually the warriors last stand, but maybe it was really suicide as their complex problems of witchcraft (sorcery) had made them ill. Through death they would move on. Rise to a star.
All these years later... I still pondered taking a leap from that mountain. Impressionable Fools like me (at the time) mixed metaphor & reality. I didn't have discernment back then, and took his stories quite literally. In fact, back in the 70's, I consumed them as if they were true, and followed a path of exploring the nature of consciousness rather than do/ make something sustainable for my life in the real world. Really bad choice on my part.
After four years in the Navy, which included 25 months in Vietnam as a combat medic I attended the university of the Americas in Mexico. That was in 1969. At some point Castaneda became very popular on campus. I read a couple of his books and found them to be fantastical, naïve and more along the lines of psychological fiction. However, there were many fellow students who thought all of Castañeda‘s writings were based on reality.
Panamint Dunes are remote but not necessarily dangerous. They are a beautiful and constantly shifting landform beyond the end of a rocky road in the Panamint Valley, California. All of this is within Death Valley National Park, so caution is required if hiking alone, especially during the unforgiving summer months.
Thank you for filling in so many blanks; I was in my early 20s when his book came out, it was on so many bookshelves of my contemporaries, I just never fell into the supposed offerings. It was nonetheless a cultural icon of those times, and has importance as a milestone in my own life. A good and appreciated story you have produced here.
I never made it through "The Teachings of Don Juan," concluding it was fictional before ever learning it had already been debunked, to no great surprise on my part. I didn't think there was anything very interesting about him, so I stopped paying him any attention. I have to admit there's an interesting mystery here. Until this came up on my RUclips feed, I hadn't thought about Castaneda since the early eighties. Being something of a one time psychonaut, I can tell you that he is the last person you would want to rely on for information about psychoactive substances. In particular, daturas are a really bad idea that in no way will ever help you actually fly.
Carlos Castenada wasn't the first. Cyril Henry Hoskin AKA Tuesday Lobsang Rampa pulled a similar stunt with "The Third Eye" in 1956. Although I'm not aware of him going beyond the books and founding a cult.
My understanding is that Carlos shacked up with an heiress who died relatively recently at the age of 90-plus. She is alleged to have said that among other things he liked to drink a Spanish wine called Matus. It's also interesting that his probably most incisive critic, Richard DeMille, wrote that even though he didn't believe Carlos went to the Sanoran Desert to meet "Don Juan" or that he necessarily experienced any of the effects he described, nevertheless not everything he said was contrived. His theory was that CC's "journey" was not to any Mexican desert but simply across the campus to UC Irvine's library where he dug up weird information from the cultural anthropology section.
Nobody has mentioned that there was contact at UCLA between Castañeda and an individual of Yaquí parentage who likely was the source for much of the indigenous informtion. I can't mention names. But I knew that individual, one of whose parents was Yaquí and the other of another indigenous people of the SW, and I joked to him once that, "You're don Juan!" he just laughed. Sadly the communal attempts of the 60s largely failed, the exceptions being when there was a strong cultish leader, e.g., Steven Gaskin, or of course Carlos Castañeda.
I am a big fan of Castaneda, I read all his books up to Eagles Gift, I was always skeptic of his "adventures" with Don Juan, but there was a lot to learn from his life lessons, I am pretty sure they were borrowed from oriental religion, but they are still valid. After Eagles Gift it became too much slush. I always thought it was fiction/new-age, but it was still lots of things to reflect on one's own life. I value his work and don't judge him for who he may be.
I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Port Townsend, WA, a long time ago, and the owner of it told me that one of Castenada's witches had spent the summer there, at his rambling Victorian manor.
Thank you for this... its been 10+ years of wondering about Carlos Castaneda. Psychedelic experiences almost seemed to be alluding to things they mentioned, so I wondered if more was true... but I always had an investigative reservation on accepting things as fact... just taking experiences as I found them There are definitely mechanisms and dynamics of reality that are hard to explain... like the non-linearity of time... but these recent conclusions based on the cult-like events really paint it all differently than I expected. I know after research that Freemasonry and Mystery Schools run the world, and evil and cults are everywhere... some much more quiet than this... but these ideas/concepts really affected many to rely on themselves for salvation! Trusting in oneself is foolish when it comes to this large realm of spirit/consciousness after death... Could this have all been an agenda for the world disseminated through Carlos given to him from other groups of New Age/Cult like Mystery Schools?
His wife (Margaret) has suggested that Matus was a composite character, like Plato made a fictionalized Socrates a character in his work, in order to personify certain themes or ideas. She also hypothesized that Matus' name was inspired by Castaneda's fondness for Mateus wine. Under these circumstances I can't see him, the writer, as a fraud and liar; just that he was too "clever" and people misunderstood his writing style. I read him as a teenager, and I didn't get a lot of what he wrote, but I did understand that it was fiction, even if I didn't understand that it was meant to be symbolic. I found an article by Daniel Miller that I tend to agree with. I think he started writing the books to describe something he aspired to, thinking that if he wrote long enough, the answers would come to him. And when they didn't, he fell into a cynical con game he practiced because he was tired of trying; and because he liked adulation, which might have kept him in a condition too material to get free of the world. Ironically. I would have liked to fly, but there was no way I was ever going to pee on my fingers to make it happen. Castaneda was not a very good writer. As a result, I haven't thought about him in about 50 years.
Superb video mate. Much obliged🤗🤗 His books are far above his own life...interesting to see how he, himself perceived them. Indeed...even if he was a master scammer....the ultimate Irony of Ironies. That said, various themes and concepts in Castanedas books can be found in various other esoteric traditions. Buddhism and various other practices from India. Indeed.....meditation and silence are KEY aspects of all altered states of awhereness.
Theres a book called (I believe) Don Coyote. Was a book that fully DISPROVES the whole Do Juan series. Timelines dont add up. Basically fully proves that it all was a fabricated LIE. Iwas very much a big fan and it crushed me to find out it was all a big lie. Possibly these ",witches" dont exist as well. Some of the knowledge ... perpetated had a lot of real knowledge and I experienced some world changing events as my personal life experience. I cant explain it. I had a moth speak to me. I witnessed the "crack'" between the worlds. Saw what I believed was an "Ally" etc. So the books I believed did contain some real knowledge. Thanks for this video. Very well done. 🤠
Thanks for this video. First time seeing your work. I will check out others. I am revisiting Carlos Castaneda this week, after having read 4 of his books in the 1970s. I never really knew his story or the story of his cult after his fame in the 1970s. I revisited this because of several events in my own life related to one thing that "Don Juan Matus" said to Carlos and it happening in my own life. There have been other articles on this, including one in Salon in 2007 by Robert Marshall who also wrote a novel based on this, "A Separate Reality", which I have not read.
Why the appeal?, I think it's pretty simple, he offered hope of something more then the dead materialism of our "culture", and in the beginning before he was seen through he had the veneer of scientific accreditation to back it, make it "believable".
I think he made it up. A rational person wouldnt believe the extremely subtle detail. The entire story is about a person whos thinking was a step beyond what a normal person thinks...who somehow saw beyond the frailties typical of people. While extremely creative...the story itself gives the impression of walking on a borderline of an alternate reality. It didnt take much for me to think it was made up but your analysis verifies that for me.
First time I read Carlos I found it odd that he was able to talk to his guru, take extremely detailed notes, and then remember exacly what he was feeling and thinking while they were together. Too much detail into some things that are very forgetable. A second thing I think it's odd, little to no descriptions of the terrain, the house, objects, clothes, etc, things that are easy to remember and harder to make up from a anthropological point of view.
I met Amy Wallace in Berkeley in about 1975. She came to my house with some friends and I remember her in my kitchen. She was a well-known psychic at that time.
I read the first three of Castenada's books when they came out. They are very well written and very compelling. His degrees from UCLA gave him great credence at the time and many people were fascinated by psychedelic drugs The later books became more and more unbelievable, although they continued to sell extremely well even after his basic story was debunked. It is possible that he did have some experiences with native teachers in Mexico, enough to convince UCLA to give him degrees.
And this book was suggested to me about 10 years ago, I never heard of it before. It was well written, but since I was in my early 30s, I thought it was kind of dumb. I don’t really understand the appeal of someone having visions from Hallucinogenics, as some great revealed wisdom. In any case, whether he met some old guy named Don Juan, or not really doesn’t make a difference to me just some hippie stuff that I was too old for.
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In the early 70s I was a university student interested in eastern philosophy and psychedelics. I had two experiences that were powerful but baffling to me. Two or three years later I encountered the Don Juan books and was startled to find my experiences described as losing the human form and hearing the voice of seeing. I was hooked on reading all the works. Not being a joiner I never became involved with the movement. After reading Castaneda I did have other experiences similar to those from the Books but the pre exposure experiences seem the most uncanny. The later books were mostly about Stalking which involves intentional creation of a false crisis to move the students assemblage point for magical experiences. At 73 I remain puzzled but unable to completely dismiss Castaneda.
Even after the podcast?
His books are so dystopic and depressing. A biography of a psychopath is how l would describe them, a dog eat dog p.o.v.
@@veronica_._._._just because he used it for selfish purposes, doesn't mean there isn't some truth inside it.
Well, everything is partly true and partly fiction. We mix dream and reality. Humans dreamed before they came into the state they call "waking".
Yes, I'm 74 & was quite taken with Castenada's stories. I didn't read all his books nor did I know about tensegrity until now. Clearly some of what he wrote was taken from cultural traditions somewhere. He did study anthropology after all. His writings were the only seemingly "real thing" discussing spirituality at that time. I've often reflected on the pull these stories had on me in my 20's. What he wrote about "dreaming" had a particular resonance with me. Yes, it was a time of experiments with consciousness, alternate realities & profound distrust of the old fashioned "straight" world that was drafting us into a war that was being lied about. At this point I guess I'm not surprised to find out that what he wrote is considered fraudulent, especially in the context of academia. I'm sorry to hear there had been a sort of cult around him. People give their power away too easily.
It's just because he plagiarized true teachings of ancient eastern civilizations, like the alchemical Taoist and Tibetan sources! He made a dangerous pastiche which lured many into his spiritual abyss. Please, look for the truly legitimate fountains of knowledge by reliable masters instead.
Ive read all of Castaneda's books and found them very interesting and thought provoking. And believable. My favourite is Tales Of Power.
Hippie books, but enjoyable reading.
My sister owned a hippie bookstore in the early 70’s and that’s where I read Castaneda. It was a mind trip for me at 14 years old. Wild times indeed.
I was 14 when I first read him, too. At first I wanted to go to Mexico in search of Mr. Matus.
sad you wasted yout time on thsoe readinds .. he was a scumbag
Yes
My teacher in Tecate, the medicine man of the Yaquis, knew Carlos and helped him write the books. He told Carlos “if you make any money from these books bring some back to the tribe”.
He never did. My teacher always referred to him as Pinche Carlos.
Carlos took the spiritual practices of the Yaquis and twisted it for his own power. It is sad to see so many still follow Carlos
How would anybody know. Pre internet all we had was the books. No one was out yelling on the corners that he was a fake. As a matter of fact i am just learning this now. What are you gonna do. Shit never changes.
Precisely. Amazing to have that verification of who helped him write. His lager works were co written by the 3 women and were plagiarized from many many books which others have verified them as plagiarized materials.
@@jeffjohnson7470yes they were! But primacy and repetition wins right? Why were they inn every public library? - and the fact that they are verbal diarrhea is a clue.
@@jeffjohnson7470 The Castanada Papers were published in the 80's. Complete expose. No excuse.
In New Mexico, where I'm from, a "tecate" is a heroin addict. It is a common term here.
Are you familiar with Merilyn Tunneshende? She wrote two books 📚 Medicine Dream-A Woman' Encounter with the Healing Realms of Don Juan and Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy. In the second book on pg 219 she describes Don Juan's death 💀. On pg 124 she describes diagnosing CC liver cancer. On pg 221 she talks about CC death 💀 in April 1998. No one mentioned her name in the comments so I 🤔 thought I would.😉
ruclips.net/video/MEEXwH55Qr8/видео.html
I've heard of her
Never read them - I'm sort of over Casteneda, but there's a lot of valid material there.
Carlos had a very strong draw toward feminine energy - hence his experience with Datura. Not surprised to hear that he ended up surrounded by a harem of witches.
I have always been enamored with Castanedas writings. The concepts seemed incongruous but they always had an element of truth. No self importance, no feelings of In superiority , or feelings of failure. Cutting off the internal dialogue is very important to developing the magic of Don Juan. This is all rather disconcerting and I would love to do further research on this whole subject.
He is Don Juan, you are the ignorant acolyte who must be tormented towards "truth"
Confessions or a boast?
I am an old Hippie, coming along as Hippiedom was just coalescing. A product of the psychedelic experience was the ever broadening of what Reality encompassed. A friend had written a book, THE PSYCHEDELIC GUIDE TO THE PREPARATION OF THE EUCHARIST, which very clearly describes how to create many psychedelics. Soon we were roaming the South Texas desert searching for peyote from which we chemically extracted mescaline. In the desert area were
local peyote pickers, licensed to provide the plant to Native Americans. Later, as I became aware of the Don Juan series I realized that the story was likely a work of imagination. It bore too much of the experiences that the “psychedelic experience” had already proven to be imaginary. The REAL MAGIC that took place was how real Love is and how close to the psychological surface it truly lays.
I enjoyed your last sentence.
Lies. Hens lay
@@SW-jt3slCastenada was a golden goose for his publishers tho.
"..... IN A FEW OF ITS MANY GUISES" (an inspiration to me as a kid in pursuit of an educational direction, later well realized). Still a devoted Hippie and can't imagine a higher path. Regards to Mr. Brown, should he still be around.
I thought it was pretty obvious that psychadelics were a catalyst for the stories in his books
Since they taught erasing personal history this seems to be the strongest clue.
I was in a position to interact with Carlos Castaneda on two occasions at UCLA in the early seventies because I knew two young women, roommates, who had both dated him. He readily admitted his primary motivation in writing the books and getting his PhD. stemmed from deep feelings of personal insecurity based on his ethnicity and background. He said (something along the lines of) ‘I’m a short, brown Hispanic man from Peru who very much wanted to get dates with tall blonde girls, and obtaining my PhD was my goal so I could ‘score.’ The two girls I knew who introduced me to him basically supported that premise. Their friendship with him bore this out. He wrote his books in the library at UCLA and gleaned the hodgepodge of philosophical BS they contained from other philosophical and spiritual books he read. He mixed in colorful stories from his own trips in and around Latin America and the American southwest. And he exploited the interests of the era in altered states of consciousness. He created a fictional narrative that he exploited meet girls who otherwise would have never even noticed him. It was all a ‘schtick.’ Even he admitted it.
Fascinating! This is consistent with what I've read from those who knew him personally. His most passionate defenders never knew him, which is telling.
It makes sense. Just another low self esteem narcissist who needs to lie to get sex. There are far too many.
I have noticed all women where beautiful and Caucasian type.
Now, this, I believe wholeheartedly.
Wow.... I'm not surprised... He was another con artist, (among many), followed by insecure women, aka losers.
Damn the pill is hard to swallow...
*Funny that for the one of them witches you couldn't find any photo is Kylie Lundahl. Because here, on youtube, there's long interview with her and two more, explaining the lineage of Castaneda's mystic path and so on. Also, wherever you see a pictures of a woman in black jump suit, showing the 'Tensegrity' movements - that's Kylie. Blond, shorthaired, looking exactly like Nuri, Florinda and who know who else more of their magic convent.
I was drawn to the castaneda books in 71 after returning from viet nam. LSD, pot, left me with life altering experiences and also a good deal of confusion. Casataneda capitalized on that moment in time where conciousness expansion was only a toke or pill away. I recall that about the third book i began to see this was a scam, no doubt making castaneda wealthy, famous, and sexually satisfied.
He was a gifted story teller but also an ass, preying on other peoples earnest desire to reach some deeper understanding of life. Turns out we're our own best teacher when we learn to listen to the spirit within. No mediator required though honest others are helpful.
I have read his book the art of dreaming and immediately knew it was fiction but I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and loved the book, but I don't get how people would think it's all real
Right. Humans are so prone to self deception. Knew many kids who drugged out and were impaired everafter.
“We’re our own best teacher when we learn to listen to the spirit within.” Perfectly said!
Nice piece. It is probably difficult now at this later date to understand why these books were so important within the context of the time in which they were written. It was necessary THEN for me to hear what he had to say,(both Castenada and Don Juan ) and to incorporate, or square that into/with my understanding of the world. To have a more vital and comprehensible connection with the mystical and unseen forces I felt/sensed were otherwise all around us, but just beyond my knowing. I made some of my own investigations (as did my friends) into the metaphysical and altered states of consciousness spoken about. because I was a curious/seeking young man of that era. This videos information is interesting, but really does nothing to diminish the first books as they concerned or influenced myself or others I knew then (1970's). Certainly one of those, "you had to have been there" points in time in order to fully appreciate the cultural context. Likewise with Hesse's 'Siddartha' or McKenna's books, or even in some ways Richard Brautigan's poetry and verse. All still relevant, but also very era specific too. Thanks
It's been interesting to reread the Castenada's first books recently and come across this critique. I feel (I don't know) his first book had some information that did come from Native Americans. Carlo's first experience with Mescalito is very different from the laid back high I observed in friends back in the 1970s when many thought doing drugs was cool. Now we have a resurgence of interest in Shamanism with the Ayahuasca drug who's point is to meet entities in another dimension. Rereading the first book it seems to me he is warning people of the dangers of hallucinogens and shamans by his awful experiences. Having seen people damaged by drugs back in the 1970s, especially jimsom weed and morning glories, it's amazes me why so many of my generation tried the drugs described in his books. Having met shaman, as designated by their tribe, they scare the hell out of me. Castaneda did plagiarize from a lot of sources that I find entertaining and some quotes valuable to me. After his third book I became convinced even in my teenage years he went into writing fantasy that I still found entertaining. I'm just hoping the first book isn't made into a movie, I'd hate to see young people pursue shamanism through drugs that can do permanent damage to their brains and nervous system. Please don't attempt to find knowledge from the drugs Carlos describes. As for the cult that Carlos surrounded himself with should be described as a horrible failure. Sorry for the women who thought they had found a path to spiritual powers, but ended up succumbing to one man's fantasy.
Around 1976 I visited Carlos Castaneda's house in the farming country north of Los Angeles, near Carpinteria. I went and knocked on his front door and the door was answered by an Hispanic woman whom I took to be his housekeeper. She said that he wasn't home and wouldn't be back for some days so I gave up and continued my motorcycle trip. I wonder if the woman I talked to was one of his "witches"?
Heh-heh. On leave from the Army I visited his office on the UC Irvine campus to make sure this guy was for real. He wasn't there but the plaque on his door convinced me he was.
I love everything about the warriors and Castanedians!
The eternal question: Can one separate the art from the artist?
Carlos Castaneda was a captivating and gifted writer. Unfortunately, later on he became an abusive cult leader and egomaniac.
On which basis do we judge him - by his art, or his personal life?
I read his books as a teenager and young adult. I was hooked by his first three books which caught my imagination - so much so, that I once had a powerful acid trip that was inspired subconsciously by his writings.
By the fourth book, however, I realized Castaneda was a huckster.
Fraud or not, he was a fine storyteller. There was even a little wisdom in his books, sprinkled among the bullshit. Fertilizer does help the flowers grow, after all. It's a shame he didn't heed his own writings and grow wise as he aged. He did the opposite; he became a monster. At least he left three wonderful books for the world to read.
Thanks for this wonderful video, and your two subsequent ones on this topic.
I am currently reading "Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Amy Wallace. I highly recommend it.
I totally agree with your assessment. . .it took me a lot longer to realize the absence of literary merit in his later books because the series had such momentum with those great books like A Separate Reality and Teachings of Don Juan. . .very important that people who enjoy his books also get an opportunity to read books like Amy Wallace’s account
you want to believe his lies and you are making excuses. his unfalsifiable lies and deceit are murderously dangerous and only the weak willed and the mentally subnormal can be persuaded he has anything to offer.
I've come to believe that we're just insensitive, generally. You can't separate it vibe-wise. If we were more attuned, balanced, self-consistent we'd probably be able to detect it. Craftsmanship aside.
The historical moment you describe is not over at all. Meditation is more popular than ever but "gurus" or cult leaders are no longer very noticeable. The MSM however has lost interest decades ago.
I read and loved his books in the '60's and I am still at it in terms of enquiring into consciousness. I have never become disillusioned even though some teachers were less than they claimed, because our consciousness itself is endlessly fascinating. From where does it arise?
Journey to Ixtlan was a text book in a college course I had back in the mid 80s. We also studied Gurdjieff (through the book "The Fourth Way" by his student P. D. Ouspenksy), and also Idries Shah. After college I continued to read all three authors. All three have their critics, and I don't argue with the criticisms, but I am eternally grateful that I was introduced to those gentlemen. I feel that they have enormously expanded my horizons. They set me free in a way.
Interest in The 4th Way led me to find the 9 personality types theory, which also expanded the way I see the world. I don't take any of it as "the word of God" so to speak. But it all keeps me from becoming fixated on minutiae.
As Rumi supposedly said, "Do not look at my outward form, but take what is in my hand." That's how I feel about all these supposed gurus. If they offer something I can use then I'll take it. But at the end of the day it's still up to me to make life work.
If you have any reading to recommend I'd be grateful.
Alex Shulgin is still a household name in some circles ("smart" drugs).
@@mrq6270If one says about himself to be a teacher or guru you should run...a real teacher/benefiter never calls himself a superior being, instead shares his wisdom & gets called a teacher or wise man by those who learn from him
I read Travels to Ixylan years ago and loved the way it challenged my concepts of reality. I never took it as a literal account of events but rather an imaginary and mythical dive into spirituality. I enjoyed it from that perspective.
Erasing personal history goes back to early Christianity when one is born again. Nothing new here. Historically cults arise during times of conflict, change and or cataclysmic events. There is a good book that addresses this phenomena called “The First Messiah.”
It doesn’t matter that Carlos made it all up. His work stands as an amazing work of fiction regardless.
It’s too bad Carlos went nuts and formed a cult around himself. 🤷🏻♂️
should have been locked up and punished by law before he could cause all this damage.
i think he liked the control and the lays
I met Castaneda around 1994 up north México City, during a three day seminar about Transegrity, attended by hundreds of people, many of them younger than me, with lots of loyal women recieving and headed the "lessons" to visitors like me and "pupils" who payed a fee, the last day Castaneda himself held a talking and talked to a small group of press reporters --me among them. So, that is why I liked your video, Sean, since I somehow understand what you talk about in general, but those women dissapearing was something I didn't know, the theme here is treated very seriously here by you, congratulations 😮
Yes yes..very seriously..
Cleargreen had to drop the term "Tensegrity" to "magical passes" because Buckminster Fuller's estate threatened a lawsuit....
Tensegrity is the foundation of geodesic domes as related by Buckminster Fuller. It combines the words tension and integrity. The very thing that makes structures impervious to outside influence.
The book is "Critical Path". It is a cracking good read and then some...
The point of Castaneda's teachings is internal silence
It's all about challenging perception❤❤
As a pre tee. I met Mr Castaneda, I spent time with some of the witches, I totally distrusted and hated him, he felt the same in spades.. .....
You sensed a sociopathic conman
I ve been practising tensegrity before and it really worked. I never been into groups or leaders so i did it on my own. I started doing it again few days ago and it brings me energy and peace and the rest of drama I don’t care about.. not trying to jump from the cliff either ..but i always wondered what happened to Kylie L.
One important aspect of this story is that the ritualistic use of peyote, datura and other halucinogenic plants that was a part of Castaneda's 'cult' could lead to mental derangement and insanity. Especially when used over an extended period of time, these drugs can be very damaging to one's mental health. These poor women may well have been completely out of their minds by the time Castaneda died.
You don't mess with datura. A really really bad idea. I've known people that have taken it, not recommended if you want to keep your sanity.
...I was given the Carlos Castaneda book I mentioned in reaction to another post mid-eighties for a birthday... That means that all this happened AFTER I'd read the book. Because I was a small child in the seventies and wasn't even alive during the sixties, I sort of assumed this was like ancient history. Wow! Thanks for that contextualization!
If you hear of any updates please keep us posted. The whole saga fascinates me. Esp after reading all of his books multiple times and almost going off the edge myself
Read Armando torres books, the secret of the plumed serpent. His two books will give you more pieces of the puzzle
Alan Watts named it perfectly: Once you got the message, put down the phone. CC got the message but wanted more and as always attracted some lost individuals who couldn't accept that this life is "just that much".
Syd barret of pink Floyd didn't hang-up in time😢
Phony gurus and gnostics are always around. Watts and Castaneda are two pits in a pod.
@@charlesforrest7678wow what happened to him? I'll have to look it up
Thank you for mentioning Alan Watts regarding this. It shows your credibility as an experiencer
@@charlesforrest7678
Baaaaahaaaaahaaaa... poor Syd. One of many .
The album with Arnold lane on it was recorded same time and studio as the beatles ....can't remember which album...but you can hear some subtle pinching of ideas for sure....lol
I read Castaneada's books as a teenager in the mid 80's. They blew my mind and changed the direction of my life. I became an acupuncturist and functional medicine practitioner. I explored his tensegrity system in the late-90's, and came to the conclusion that it was a rip off of simplistic Chinese Qi Gong and Taoist energy cultivation practices.
I also realized back in the mid 90's that Castaneada fabricated the entire story.
A very intense evil energy entered my being after reading the first chapter of I believe his first book. I follow the Holy Spirit.
and his books on lucid dreaming originated from Edgar Caycee, too! He was a fraud diguised in LatinAmerican juju
Carlos was a fiction writer who used the growing popularity of psychedelic drugs to create fantastic stories of alternative realities.
The lesson I learned from his writing is that THE BRAIN is the creator of all experiences high or low. When you introduce certain substances it alters brain activity and produces unusual changes in perception. Once I realized that I stopped trying to alter my consciousness and accepted ordinary awareness.
you were controlled, infantile pov
My advice is don't actually ascribe to Castanedas practices. If you use mushroom, peyote, etc., just let your own ways be found. Many of the indigenous people used the Virgin Mary with mushroom use. The Yaqui's where a hard Indian tribe that used large doses of the hallucinagenic plants and where proably more indoctrinated than other people. Dosage is really the difference between good and evil sometimes when it comes to medicine.
I'm of the generation that first read Castaneda, and read his first in 1969 when I was 18. Sean is correct when he says we were fascinated with altered states of consciousness, but I and everyone I knew understood that Castaneda was fiction, but that he had some acquired some knowledge of shamanistic practices including the peyote rituals, and found it a very interesting understanding of the universe. I still do. It's a lot more fun than christianity, et al.
Thank you.
Have you read the the road to Eleusis or the Immortality key? You might appreciate them.
One question that you don't seem to have addressed is: Who got the money from CC's estate? He was a best-selling author and I'm sure royalties are still flowing (or trickling by now) into the coffers of someone. Did these women have access to a couple of million dollars and just go set themselves up in a compound somewhere else?
As to the frustration with the police investigations, in the absence of any indications of foul play, the police are (quite rightly) inclined to presume that someone who doesn't want to be found is really not their business.
Why were public Libraries buying and constantly restocking his tosh?
There was a will created three days before he died that put all his assets into a trust (the Eagle's trust). Everything to do with the estate was put together by an attorney named Deborah Drooz who was also made executor of the will.
@@veronica_._._._ when I went to College back in 1986 they had piles of his books foir sale
I first read The Teaching Of Don Juan as a teenager. I was a deeply seeking person at that time. My older brother had a copy on his bookshelf. This was before Castaneda was exposed as a fraud (or at least long before I became aware of his exposure). I got about 1/4 of the way through the book and said to myself "This sounds like bullshit," and stopped reading. I guess my "detector" has always been in good working order.
Me too! I kept recognising things from all sorts of different philosophical/mystic systems and decided he'd simply rolled them together into a new narrative hung around the fictional figure of Don Juan. It seemed like a brilliantly judged money-spinner.
I'd told all my friends in the mid 70s that I reckoned it was pure fiction, some agreed, others not, but last year I was amazed when my daughter actually spoke about the first book as though it was non fiction!
I don't recall Castaneda's 'message' as being particularly positive or useful...
I got 2/3 of the way through the first book when i realized it was bullshit. Why? Because i live near Tucson and realized he had never been here. He gets high on psychedelics and walks naked through the desert at night.
Honey, you do that around here and you'll need a pair of pliers and a few weeks to pull all the nasty thorns out of your hide!
On another note, some of it was true, but not in a good way. He describes after death forgoing heaven, and finding the opening between heaven and earth, and entering a dry land where the wind never ceases..... um, he's describing the entrance to Hell.
Think about it....
Indeed.
Same here.
Read it as fiction and take what resonates. Why stop reading? I read many of his books and greatly enjoyed them, they have inspired me although it is a fictional story. There is still a lot of wisdom in them in my opinion. To each his own I guess
Interesting, there's no mention of his son, and that the women close to him controlled all of his finances, except the one found dead of course. Did the finances magically disappear with them as well? Perhaps that's another video...SRi
There was a will created three days before he died that put all his assets into a trust (the Eagle's trust). Everything to do with the estate was put together by an LA entertainment industry attorney named Deborah Drooz who was also made executor of the will.
Being able to interpret perception correctly results in finding out how we are habituated to look at the world the way that meets societal needs, not our own.
LIFEIowa
1 minute ago
Kylie Lundahl is De Ann Jo Ahlvers from Iowa- she has 2 adult sons, who are looking for her. IF anyone knows where she is her Sons would like to Connect with her. Thank you.
Im.just stumbling across your channel. I have fond memories of reading the Carlos Castenada books.
"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark-that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” HST
Both great writers
Imo
Thank you. Fantastic journalism. I always thought CC had genuine spiritual knowledge, but that he was also reinventing himself in pursuit of his personal objectives.
Sounds like a combination of talent, drive, genuine knowledge & personal objectives.
Sounds fairly rational, intelligent and human.
He doesn’t offend me. Disillusioned former true believers do not alter my mixed assessment.
Take what you can use and leave the rest.
-Dan
You forgot grift.
The majority of his critics never stepped in his horse shit in the 1st place.
Obviously syncretic and lacking coherence.
I started reading Castenada's books in the '80s, beginning with a summer class in college entitled Philosophy and Fantasy. My professor, who claimed to have known Castaneda somewhat, essentially presented the reality of the story as an open question for us to ponder and debate. What I can say after reading all or most of the books is that lucid dreaming, which I had spontaneously experienced a couple of times before, can be enhanced or focused through some of Castaneda's techniques; I actually reproduced the experiences of looking at my hand and flying in dreams, among others. I would agree though that the women probably committed suicide and this is very unfortunate. "Don Juan's" death was depicted as an intentional and spiritual act, described without any physical details, more of a "becoming one with the Eagle" or something along those lines. Perhaps this is what the "witches" were aiming for. I think it's fine to experiment with altered states of consciousness that do not involve psychoactive drugs, which Don Juan/Castaneda more or less renounced in a later book. But I do fear that following such experiments into the realms of death is a symptom of cultism and a rather huge mistake, perhaps the largest mistake most people could ever make.
Nicely done. I was hooked by Carlos Castaneda’s adventures back in ‘73 and continued to read him right up to the bitter end, more out of lurid fascination at the whole saga than credulous adherence to his fantastic claims, which, if taken as psychotropic Vaseline dreams, might have loosely passed as phenomenological reports. They never were convincing enough that I would follow him over a cliff. Delving into his sources, digging out the truth of the matter occupied me for years. I think the philosophic seeds strewn throughout his far flung yarns owe more to Gurdjieff, Karlfried Von Durkheim, Alan Watts and others than to a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus. According to his ex-wife “Matus” was Castaneda’s favorite brand of port. Cheers! Tensegrity’s “magical passes” are clearly no more than rehashed Qi Gong-in fact his book “The Fire From Within” bears a dedication to his martial arts instructor. And having read, God help me, the “witches’” books as well, I believe those manuscripts were quite likely written by Castaneda himself in his tireless campaign to shore up the credibility of his mythos. The writing style reads exactly like his. Recently I went back and had a look at his writings from “Tales of Power” on (I have a whole file box stowed away in the garage) and found his schtick completely unreadable-just plain bad writing. Oh well, live and learn.
Idries Shah was pushing the same tish too, at the same time, in the UK and internationally. Club of Rome type level and a "fixer"
Cultural Engineering "keeps the lights" on tho, or so they would have us believe.
How many parasites can a host (civil society) sustain seems to be a perennial fascination for these types.
Castaneda's books had a profound influence upon me as a teenager. Your report cements the disillusionment I eventually experienced over it all - good work!
Well done, very impartial article
When I read Castenada's books in the late 70's I was fascinated by the style of his writing like a child stunned by the wild ride he was on. I found them most entertaining. Later in the 90's I then caught wind of his Tensegrity movement and the drift towards a cult. When I first heard of his death an later about his "Witches" gone missing my imagination once again went wild for a while. Sean with your video you helped me to put this into a context. Thanks for that!
If you want to find out the truth, follow the money. Who is in charge or benifiting from the eagles gift trust.
Those who have been running Cleargreen ever since Castaneda's death appear to be the ones benefitting most from the trust. Where are current book royalties going? - perhaps to the same trust. . . I've read that the series may belong to a single person now but haven't seen any definitive proof yet.
It appears that Castaneda might have been manipulated by his beneficiaries into making decisions about the trust while ill, although perhaps dealing with practicalities very late in life was part of the manipulative sway Castaneda held over those who lived with him. Apparently the trust and will weren't finalized and signed off on until three days before his death.
Really great that you have researched this. . .as important as Castaneda is to the culture as a writer, he did wield power in very selfish and dangerous ways with his celebrity cult. Amy Wallace’s book Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castandeda is a good look into that world
I bought her book after reading your review here the other day. Wowza! It's a page-turner for sure. It's so much fun in the beginning because of her recounting stories with all the other famous people her family knew who were connected to the literary world in that time period. I'm still in the middle of it now on Ch. 21 - _Energy Vampires_ . This chapter is hitting on many of the things I happen to be learning about elsewhere from other sources these days so it's really intriguing to me.
I read Castaneda‘s books in college and found them compelling stories. I just saw them as part of that counter culture drug influenced indigenous kind of appropriation that was relatively common at the time. I remember the controversy when they were debunked but I wasn’t terribly surprised. It’s unfortunate that Castaneda felt compelled to fabricate his research because North American indigenous spirituality strikes me as a fascinating field of study.
Carlos Casteneda clicked all the righrt boxes for that era of the 70s. He had lived the life that restless middle class adolescents could only dream of. Everyone who was into self transformation, Eastern religions, Native American shamanism, antediluvian lost history, etc. thought he was the ultimate seeker of truth and a bonafide mystic who went out into the desert wilderness to encounter his spiritual Guide. It didn't even occur to any of us that he had made it all up.
suckas! We have all done some embarrassing stuff when young...
thanks for the awesome video! i still think about them...
In or about 1998 I wrote to Deepak Chopra and asked if he ever read the 'Power Of Silence' He wrote back and said that it was one of his favorite books.
Tara brack also....
So funny
Fascinating! I read several of Castenada's books in the early 70's, and enjoyed his stories. Thanks for your film!
"Erasing personal history' is a basic method of all manipulators, even jealous husbands and wifes. It's easy to control someone with no familly and friend-ties. That is why cult-leaders using this method. No one need a 'saviour'. We are our own saviour and guru. Do not give away your power to anyone, by thinking, that they are better than you. As they say: "we are one", so why would anyone would search for a guru, or an authority figure to undermine his/her divinity? I enjoyed your story.
How many organizations founded on some important truths eventually become 'infiltrated' by opportunists without scruples..
I read many of Castaneda’s books - “Journey to Ixtlan” being my favorite - but when in his later books the Toltec’s were flying around in warlike fashion and Castaneda’s protégés were climbing the walls in his studio I decided this was all too bizarre and frightening for me to continue because I had no intention of following those paths.
Castaneda’s descriptions were so believable that I give credibility to their being authentic: I had a friend - the head of a sculpture foundry in N. Mexico who claimed drug-riddled trips into isolated locales in Mexico which sounded very much like those Castaneda described.
Appreciate your no-nonsense approach to this story.
I think it's evident from reading his books that they are an amalgamation of indigenous folk lore, psychedelic trips, and some new age philosophy. He was a good storyteller, a good writer, and knew how to put it all together. Of course, even though it is all fiction there is some truth in there - as there is in many stories, especially existential or spiritual ones. No doubt he had some charisma too and the power and attention went to his head which he capitalised on by charming a handful of gullible woman.
There is some profound knowledge in that fiction, yet the crux of it is very depressing. I took copious notes on the books. LOL. Tried to piece together something practical. One problem is spending 5 years in a small crate to recapitulate. Another is erasing personal history. There are other branches of Toltecs, and they have their problems as well. However, I would say glean what one can from it all and move on. In recognition of Don Juan's advice, self-importance makes one vulnerable to many bad things, including, I would say, scams.
very good report 👍🏼
There are many states of consciousness. Conscious, unconscious, drunk, high, and sober
Don't forget dreaming! 😊
and subconscious too, like most people in LA
Hi Sean,
Three of these women were published authors. Who collects those royalties? Great report!
There are photos of Kylie Lundahl practicing Tensegrity in Castanadas "Magical Passes" book published 1998.
Not one mention of the late Maria Sabina who was with all respect Don Juan. Maria’s daughter has the knowledge Carlos lightly touches upon but very hard to contact
There's always a genuine story somewhere. Note he changed th sorceress 🎉to sorceror of course. Too bad those witches were sacrificed for his ego.
I read Casteneda 45 years ago. I remember the end of one book where he with Don Juan and Don Juan Genaro solemly lead a group Nagual/Yaquai's up to the top of a high steep mesa and the rested at the edge of a cliff. The group seemed bemuddled with depressed issues and some of the group had actually made the climb to hurl themselves from it. It was actually the warriors last stand, but maybe it was really suicide as their complex problems of witchcraft (sorcery) had made them ill. Through death they would move on. Rise to a star.
I guess pure bunk can make a good fairy tale.
All these years later...
I still pondered taking a leap from that mountain.
Impressionable Fools like me (at the time) mixed metaphor & reality.
I didn't have discernment back then, and took his stories quite literally.
In fact, back in the 70's, I consumed them as if they were true, and followed a path of exploring the nature of consciousness rather than do/ make something sustainable for my life in the real world.
Really bad choice on my part.
Good research, thanks!
After four years in the Navy, which included 25 months in Vietnam as a combat medic I attended the university of the Americas in Mexico. That was in 1969. At some point Castaneda became very popular on campus. I read a couple of his books and found them to be fantastical, naïve and more along the lines of psychological fiction. However, there were many fellow students who thought all of Castañeda‘s writings were based on reality.
Panamint Dunes are remote but not necessarily dangerous. They are a beautiful and constantly shifting landform beyond the end of a rocky road in the Panamint Valley, California. All of this is within Death Valley National Park, so caution is required if hiking alone, especially during the unforgiving summer months.
Thank you for filling in so many blanks; I was in my early 20s when his book came out, it was on so many bookshelves of my contemporaries, I just never fell into the supposed offerings. It was nonetheless a cultural icon of those times, and has importance as a milestone in my own life. A good and appreciated story you have produced here.
what happened to admiral byrds son ?
I never made it through "The Teachings of Don Juan," concluding it was fictional before ever learning it had already been debunked, to no great surprise on my part. I didn't think there was anything very interesting about him, so I stopped paying him any attention. I have to admit there's an interesting mystery here. Until this came up on my RUclips feed, I hadn't thought about Castaneda since the early eighties. Being something of a one time psychonaut, I can tell you that he is the last person you would want to rely on for information about psychoactive substances. In particular, daturas are a really bad idea that in no way will ever help you actually fly.
and do not jump out of a cliff, either
Carlos Castenada wasn't the first. Cyril Henry Hoskin AKA Tuesday Lobsang Rampa pulled a similar stunt with "The Third Eye" in 1956. Although I'm not aware of him going beyond the books and founding a cult.
How weird, I just finished reading that book ( of T. Lobsang Rampa )before seeing this clip... 😮
There is always the next con man.
My understanding is that Carlos shacked up with an heiress who died relatively recently at the age of 90-plus. She is alleged to have said that among other things he liked to drink a Spanish wine called Matus. It's also interesting that his probably most incisive critic, Richard DeMille, wrote that even though he didn't believe Carlos went to the Sanoran Desert to meet "Don Juan" or that he necessarily experienced any of the effects he described, nevertheless not everything he said was contrived. His theory was that CC's "journey" was not to any Mexican desert but simply across the campus to UC Irvine's library where he dug up weird information from the cultural anthropology section.
Nobody has mentioned that there was contact at UCLA between Castañeda and an individual of Yaquí parentage who likely was the source for much of the indigenous informtion. I can't mention names. But I knew that individual, one of whose parents was Yaquí and the other of another indigenous people of the SW, and I joked to him once that, "You're don Juan!" he just laughed.
Sadly the communal attempts of the 60s largely failed, the exceptions being when there was a strong cultish leader, e.g., Steven Gaskin, or of course Carlos Castañeda.
How about Charles Manson? He was sort of successful for a while.
@@christopherskipp1525 but he couldn´t fly
I am a big fan of Castaneda, I read all his books up to Eagles Gift, I was always skeptic of his "adventures" with Don Juan, but there was a lot to learn from his life lessons, I am pretty sure they were borrowed from oriental religion, but they are still valid. After Eagles Gift it became too much slush. I always thought it was fiction/new-age, but it was still lots of things to reflect on one's own life. I value his work and don't judge him for who he may be.
Okay, Sean I will accept your premise as you have presented it.
Thanks for this excellent video. I'm finishing reading Amy Wallace's book.
Me too, it´s really insightfull.
That book is awsome, superb.
The liver cancer that claimed Casteneda is most likely due to hepatitis C. Hepatobiliary carcinoma is a common outcome of hep C.
I recall reading that he may have had that.
I could easily watch your videos all day long.
TY for your deep look into the ‘legend’ so many were/are familiar with and your sharing what seems at least to be “the rest of the story …….”
I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Port Townsend, WA, a long time ago, and the owner of it told me that one of Castenada's witches had spent the summer there, at his rambling Victorian manor.
Your delivery technique has really improved over the past 6 years, which is not to say that this video is bad.
Thank you for this... its been 10+ years of wondering about Carlos Castaneda. Psychedelic experiences almost seemed to be alluding to things they mentioned, so I wondered if more was true... but I always had an investigative reservation on accepting things as fact... just taking experiences as I found them
There are definitely mechanisms and dynamics of reality that are hard to explain... like the non-linearity of time... but these recent conclusions based on the cult-like events really paint it all differently than I expected.
I know after research that Freemasonry and Mystery Schools run the world, and evil and cults are everywhere... some much more quiet than this... but these ideas/concepts really affected many to rely on themselves for salvation! Trusting in oneself is foolish when it comes to this large realm of spirit/consciousness after death... Could this have all been an agenda for the world disseminated through Carlos given to him from other groups of New Age/Cult like Mystery Schools?
His wife (Margaret) has suggested that Matus was a composite character, like Plato made a fictionalized Socrates a character in his work, in order to personify certain themes or ideas. She also hypothesized that Matus' name was inspired by Castaneda's fondness for Mateus wine.
Under these circumstances I can't see him, the writer, as a fraud and liar; just that he was too "clever" and people misunderstood his writing style.
I read him as a teenager, and I didn't get a lot of what he wrote, but I did understand that it was fiction, even if I didn't understand that it was meant to be symbolic.
I found an article by Daniel Miller that I tend to agree with. I think he started writing the books to describe something he aspired to, thinking that if he wrote long enough, the answers would come to him. And when they didn't, he fell into a cynical con game he practiced because he was tired of trying; and because he liked adulation, which might have kept him in a condition too material to get free of the world. Ironically.
I would have liked to fly, but there was no way I was ever going to pee on my fingers to make it happen.
Castaneda was not a very good writer. As a result, I haven't thought about him in about 50 years.
Superb video mate. Much obliged🤗🤗
His books are far above his own life...interesting to see how he, himself perceived them. Indeed...even if he was a master scammer....the ultimate Irony of Ironies.
That said, various themes and concepts in Castanedas books can be found in various other esoteric traditions. Buddhism and various other practices from India. Indeed.....meditation and silence are KEY aspects of all altered states of awhereness.
Thanks!
Theres a book called (I believe) Don Coyote. Was a book that fully DISPROVES the whole Do Juan series. Timelines dont add up. Basically fully proves that it all was a fabricated LIE. Iwas very much a big fan and it crushed me to find out it was all a big lie. Possibly these ",witches" dont exist as well. Some of the knowledge ... perpetated had a lot of real knowledge and I experienced some world changing events as my personal life experience. I cant explain it. I had a moth speak to me. I witnessed the "crack'" between the worlds. Saw what I believed was an "Ally" etc. So the books I believed did contain some real knowledge. Thanks for this video. Very well done. 🤠
Great video thanks for it looking for videos on this subject
Something very suspicious about his death not being reported until much later and those woman disappearing at the alleged time of his official death.
thanks very much for your work on this subject.
Thanks for this video. First time seeing your work. I will check out others. I am revisiting Carlos Castaneda this week, after having read 4 of his books in the 1970s. I never really knew his story or the story of his cult after his fame in the 1970s. I revisited this because of several events in my own life related to one thing that "Don Juan Matus" said to Carlos and it happening in my own life. There have been other articles on this, including one in Salon in 2007 by Robert Marshall who also wrote a novel based on this, "A Separate Reality", which I have not read.
No, the eternal question is, "Why are you wearing headphones?"
He was listening to some Judas Priest.
😄
I love the story about mescalito the dog peeing on Carlos
Why the appeal?, I think it's pretty simple, he offered hope of something more then the dead materialism of our "culture", and in the beginning before he was seen through he had the veneer of scientific accreditation to back it, make it "believable".
Just found your Channel. love the content👌
I think he made it up. A rational person wouldnt believe the extremely subtle detail. The entire story is about a person whos thinking was a step beyond what a normal person thinks...who somehow saw beyond the frailties typical of people. While extremely creative...the story itself gives the impression of walking on a borderline of an alternate reality. It didnt take much for me to think it was made up but your analysis verifies that for me.
First time I read Carlos I found it odd that he was able to talk to his guru, take extremely detailed notes, and then remember exacly what he was feeling and thinking while they were together. Too much detail into some things that are very forgetable. A second thing I think it's odd, little to no descriptions of the terrain, the house, objects, clothes, etc, things that are easy to remember and harder to make up from a anthropological point of view.
Great work! Fantastic.
I met Amy Wallace in Berkeley in about 1975. She came to my house with some friends and I remember her in my kitchen. She was a well-known psychic at that time.
The most important thing in life is to have a built-in, shock proof, twentfour carrat crap detector. ( modified from Henry Miller)
I read the first three of Castenada's books when they came out. They are very well written and very compelling. His degrees from UCLA gave him great credence at the time and many people were fascinated by psychedelic drugs The later books became more and more unbelievable, although they continued to sell extremely well even after his basic story was debunked. It is possible that he did have some experiences with native teachers in Mexico, enough to convince UCLA to give him degrees.
The fact that many of the missing women were not even investigated is highly disturbing, imgaine being the family members
And this book was suggested to me about 10 years ago, I never heard of it before. It was well written, but since I was in my early 30s, I thought it was kind of dumb. I don’t really understand the appeal of someone having visions from Hallucinogenics, as some great revealed wisdom. In any case, whether he met some old guy named Don Juan, or not really doesn’t make a difference to me just some hippie stuff that I was too old for.
Does this belief system have with the engineering principle of tensegrity popularized by Buckminster Fuller?
No, I think that's totally separate.