Carlos Castaneda was an American author with a Ph.D. in anthropology. Starting with the Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, the writer created a series of books that taught shamanism. In many reviews of Carlos Castaneda, it is noted that books narrated in the first person narrate the experience under the guidance of a “man of knowledge” named don Matus. The circulation of his 12 books, which were sold, amounted to 28 million copies in 17 languages. Critics have suggested that they are works of art. But proponents argue that books appear to be either outstanding or at least valuable philosophical works.
Castaneda lived in a large house in Westwood, California, from 1973 until his death in 1998 with three colleagues, whom he called fellow travelers. The author founded Cleargreen, an organization that promotes Tensegrity, which the author christened the modern version of the “magic passes” of the shamans of ancient Mexico.
early life
Castaneda moved to the United States in the early 1950s and became a citizen on June 21, 1957. He was educated at the University of California at Los Angeles. Castaneda married Margaret Runyan in Mexico in 1960.
The author is indicated in the birth certificate of the son of Runyan as his father, although he was a different person biologically. It is unclear whether Carlos and Margaret have been divorced since 1960 or not, and his death certificate even indicated that he had never been married.
Career
The first two books are Don Juan's Teachings: The Way of Knowledge of Yaki and Separate Reality. The third work, judging by the reviews on Carlos Castaneda - "Journey to Ixtlan" made a splash. These books were written when the author was still a student of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He wrote them as a research journal describing his apprenticeship with the traditional “Knowledge Man,” identified as don Juan Matus, allegedly an Indian Yaki from northern Mexico. The author received a bachelor's and doctoral degree on the basis of the work described in these works. This is exactly what the list of Carlos Castaneda's first books looks in order.
In 1974, his fourth work, Tales of Strength, was published, which tells about the end of his training under the tutelage of Matus. Castaneda continued to be popular with the reading public, with subsequent editions that revealed further aspects of his life with don Juan.
Activity history
Juan Carlos Castaneda wrote that the don recognized him as the new hidden or leader of a group of seers of his origin. Matus also used the term nagual to refer to that part of perception that is in the realm of the unknown, but still achievable by man. Assuming that for his own group of visionaries, Matus was associated with this unknown. Castaneda often called this unfamiliar kingdom an "extraordinary reality."
The term nagual was used by anthropologists to refer to a shaman or sorcerer who claims to be able to transform into an animal form or metaphorically “switch” to another configuration using magical rituals, shamanism, and experience with psychoactive drugs (for example, peyote and jimson).
Although Castaneda was a prominent cultural figure, he rarely appeared in public forums. He was the subject of an accompanying article in the March 5, 1973 issue, which described him as "a mystery wrapped in mystery and then in tortilla." There was a dispute when it turned out that Castaneda might have used a surrogate for his cover portrait. When the author came across a correspondent, Sandra Burton, about the discrepancies in his personal history, he replied: “Asking me to confirm my life by providing you with my statistics is like using science to test witchcraft.” After this interview, the writer completely removed from the public.
Carlos Castaneda: The Teachings of Juan
This work has been widely debated. Many people wondered, “Was Castaneda a student of the alleged sorcerer Yaki don Juan Matus, or did he invent all this? Books to date are classified as non-fiction, although they have been criticized as fictitious. In two works, judging by the reviews of Carlos Castaneda: "Journey to Ixtlan" and "Documents of don Juan" it is shown that the hero is quite imaginary, although critics have questioned this. Walter Shelburne argues that "Don Juan's chronicle cannot be a literally true story." Other critics remain agnostic, arguing that there is no evidence on either side of the issue.
Tensegrity
In the 1990s, Castaneda again began to appear in public to promote his work, which was described in advertising materials as a modernized version of some movements called magic passes developed by Indian shamans who lived in Mexico in the times preceding the Spanish conquest.
Castaneda, along with Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelard, created Cleargreen Incorporated in 1995. The stated purpose of the organization is "following instructions and publishing Tensegrity." Workshops, books, and other products were sold through Cleargreen.
Many reviews of Carlos Castaneda's “The Teachings of Don Juan: The Way of Knowledge of Yaki” said that although the work was published by the University of California Publishing House in 1968 as a work of anthropology, it is most likely fiction. The book was presented as a master's thesis at the school of anthropology. The work is intended to document the events that took place during the training with the self-proclaimed Indian sorcerer Yaki, don Juan Matus from Sonora, between 1960 and 1965.
The book consists of two sections. The main one is a first-person narrative documenting the initial interaction with don Juan. The author talks about his meetings with Mescalito (the teachings of Carlos Castaneda about the spirits inhabiting all peyote plants), with fortune-telling with lizards flying with the help of Yerba del Diablo and turning into thrushes with the help of Humito (lit. “little smoke”, smoked powder ) The second, Structural Analysis, is an attempt to reveal the inner cohesion and credibility of the teachings of don Juan.
New Theses
The 30th edition, published by the University of California in 1998, contains reviews by Carlos Castane, which are not in the original edition. He writes about the general disappointment of the project by his professors (besides Clement Meigan, who supported him at the beginning of the concept). He offers a new thesis about the state of mind, which he calls “complete freedom”, and claims that he used the teachings of his shaman Yaki as a springboard to new horizons of knowledge. In addition, the work contains a foreword by anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt, who was a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.
The teachings are mentioned in the 2013 film Case with You, in which the main character reads a book to impress the girl of her dreams.
Some events: further conversations with the author led to additional reviews of Carlos Castaneda on anthropology, published in 1971. They describe the events that took place during his training with the Indian sorcerer Yaki - don Juan Matus, between 1960 and 1965.
In the book, Castaneda continues the description of his life under the tutelage of the Don. As in the previous work, the author describes the experiences that he experiences with the hero, being under the influence of psychotropic plants, peyote and a smoking mixture. By the way, Castaneda preferred among other plants dried mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe.
Judging by the reviews, Carlos Castaneda focused on don Juan’s attempts to make the author see and see the main attention. And this practice, in the writer's own words, is best described as a direct perception of the energy that flows through the universe.
Also judging by the reviews, the “Art of Dreaming" by Carlos Castaneda has an ambiguous semantic load. At the same time, readers like the book. It contains an introduction, an epilogue and two separate parts. The first part, “Preliminary Information on the Vision,” describes his repeated initiation into apprenticeship, from which he emerged in late 1965. And also talks about his acquaintance with another brujo (sorcerer) named don Genaro. The second part, “The Task of Vision,” describes in detail the mental processes associated with this phenomenon. It all starts with the fact that Castaneda realizes that plants are a necessary tool for achieving dreams.
Death
Castaneda died on April 27, 1998 in Los Angeles due to complications from hepatocellular cancer. According to the last will, the author was cremated, and the ashes sent to Mexico. His death was unknown to the outside world until almost two months later - on June 19, 1998, an obituary called "Hidden Death for a Mystical Writer" by full-time journalist J. R. Meringer appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
Four months after the death of Castaneda, his son, also known as Adrian Vashon, challenged the will in a succession court. CJ tried to deny his authenticity. The task was ultimately unsuccessful. The death certificate of Carlos indicates metabolic encephalopathy (72 hours before his death), however, the will was allegedly signed 48 hours before the tragic minute, which, of course, cannot be.
An amazing fact is that reviews on the books of Carlos Castaneda, since 1998 began to have a positive color.
Colleagues
After Castaneda left public life in 1973, he bought a large multi-apartment property in Los Angeles, which he shared with some of his followers. Among those who lived with him were Taisha Abelard (formerly Marianne Simcoe) and Florinda donner-Grau (Regine Tal). All three were students of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Each continued to write books that explored the experience of following a feminist perspective on the teachings of Carlos Castaneda. Psychologists' comments on such works also turned out to be mixed, but almost every one of them says that they need to be read.
Around the time Castaneda died in April 1998, his companions donner-Grau, Abelard and Patricia Partin informed friends that they were leaving on a long trip. Amalia Marquez (known as Talia Bay) and Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundal also left Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Partin's red Ford Escort was found abandoned in Death Valley.
Luis Marquez, the brother of Talia Bey, went to the police in 1999 because of the disappearance of his sister, but could not convince them that it deserves an investigation.
21st century
In 2006, Partin’s skeleton, burnt in the sun, was discovered by a couple of tourists in the Panamine Dune area, in the Death Valley. He was identified using DNA analysis. The investigating authorities found Partin's death uncertain.
After his death, Carol Tiggs, Castaneda's colleague, spoke at seminars around the world, including in Ontario (California) in 1998, Sochi (Russia) in 2015 and Merida (Yucatan) in 2016. Tiggs had the longest connection with Castaneda. That is why she represented his work. Today she works as a consultant at Cleargreen.
Public acceptance of work
Although Castaneda’s tales of don Juan’s teachings were initially well accepted as non-fiction works of ethnography, books are now widely regarded as fiction.
At first, with the support of the academic qualifications and the anthropological department of UCLA, the work of Carlos was mainly evaluated by reviewers. And, for example, Edmund Leach praised the book. Anthropologist E.H. Spicer offered a somewhat mixed overview of the teachings of don Juan, emphasizing Castaneda's expressive prose and his vivid description of his relationship with the hero. However, the critic noted that the events in the book did not correspond to other ethnographic reports on the cultural traditions of the yaks. And he concluded that it was unlikely that don Juan had ever participated in the life of this group.
In a series of articles, R. Gordon Wasson, an ethnobotanist who made psychoactive mushrooms famous, also praised the work of Castaneda, while at the same time expressing doubts about the accuracy of some statements. Weston's early unpublished review of anthropologist was more critical. La Barre questioned the accuracy of the book, calling it a pseudo-deeply vulgar pseudo-ethnography. The review, originally commissioned by the New York Times Review of Books, was rejected and replaced by a more positive review by another anthropologist.
Later reviews turned out to be critical, as some claimed that the books were fabricated. Starting in 1976, Richard de Mill published a series of comments that revealed inconsistencies in Castaneda's field notes, as well as several examples of obvious plagiarism.
Later, anthropologists specializing in Indian Yaki culture, such as Jane Holden Kelly, questioned the accuracy of the books. Other criticisms of Castaneda's work include the complete lack of a yaki vocabulary or terms for any of his experiences, as well as his refusal to defend himself from accusing him of receiving a doctorate from the University of California as a result of fraud.
Stephen S. Thomas noted that Muriel Thayer Painter, in his book “With a Good Heart: Yaki Beliefs and Rites in the Village of Pasqua”, gives examples of a dictionary related to spirituality: “Morea” - the equivalent of the Spanish brujo, “saurino” - used to describe people with the gift of fortune-telling, and "sitaka" or spiritual power. Carlos Castaneda did not include such examples. Thomas also states that it is hard to believe that the author’s benefactor, a self-proclaimed yaki, could not use these natural expressions throughout his studies. Eliminating such inherently terms from ethnography, Castaneda critically undermines his portrait as a conscientious sorcerer.
John Dedrick, a Protestant missionary who lived among the Wikama Indians from 1940 to 1979, stated in his review of Don Juan’s Teachings of Carlos Castaneda that he had only read this book and before he began reading the third part, he knew that the author and the hero was not on the Rio Yaki River. And also that there is no terminology in the language of the people for any instructions and explanations that don Juan gave him.
Clement Meigan and Stephen Thomas note that books, mostly and for the most part, do not describe culture at all with its emphasis on Catholic education and the conflict with the Federated State of Mexico. They point to the international movements and life of don Juan, who is shown in books as traveling and having many connections and residences in the southwestern United States (Arizona), northern Mexico and Oaxaca. The hero was described in books as a shaman, impregnated mainly with the lost Toltec philosophy and clearly anti-Catholic.
Sandra Burton's article, published March 5, 1973, provided a more mundane statement about the importance of Castaneda's books. It says that it is impossible to realize that they are anthropology, a concrete and truthful report on the aspect of Mexican Indian culture, as evidenced by the words and actions of one person - a shaman named Juan Matus. This proof depends on the authority of the hero as a creature, and the teachings of don Carlos Castaneda, as the lessons of a witness. However, apart from the scriptures, there is no evidence that Juan really did everything the reader knows.
David Silverman also wrote reviews on the books of Carlos Castaneda. The critic sees value in the works, even considering them fictitious. In Castaneda's Reading, he describes the apparent deception as a criticism of the anthropological field work as a whole, in an area that relies heavily on personal experience and necessarily considers other cultures through a prism. According to Silverman, not only descriptions of trips to peyote, but also a fictional character are called upon to cast doubt on other works of anthropology.
Donald Viv quotes the writer to explain the problem of the insider or the outsider, as they are connected with mystical experience, while acknowledging the fictional nature of all the books of Carlos Castaneda in order.