Castaneda Dissection

[fiveelementtao]

I was a castaneda fan for a while in the early 90's. I have read all of Casteneda's books several times. I have also read the works of his followers and even the "Toltec" knock offs like Sanchez and Miguel Ruiz. But, sadly, as the evidence piled up against him, I had to admit that he was a genius fraud. There is also the previously mentioned book by Amy wallace

http://www.amazon.com/Sorcerers-Apprentice...a/dp/1583940766

I probably would have resisted the truth about him longer if it hadn't been for the whole "assemblage point" nonsense. Also I tried his "Tensegrity, Magical Passes". My impression was that it was invented by someone trying to copy Qigong who has had zero energy experiences. later, I heard that this is exactly what happened, Castaneda took some Tai Chi and Qigong classes and then tried to invent his own style of "toltec" Qigong.

 

As far as Sanchez is concerned, Castaneda brought a law suit against him

http://www.sustainedaction.org/Exploration...tor_sanchez.htm

Sanchez now says Castaneda was a fraud.

Miguel Ruiz is shamelessly "Certifying" students as Nagual masters. Of course after they shell out thousands to him to learn his secret "Toltec" knowledge.

It is unfortunate that Castaneda and his groupies/copycats have become permanent fixtures in new age spiritual circles and that he is used as a prophet by some who believe that enlightenment and energy cultivation can be found through drug use and denial of emotions...

[宁]

there's a Zen parable about the man that first sees mountains and valleys as mountains and valleys, in the next phase of the training he doesn't see mountains and valleys as mountains and valleys, and in the third phase of the training he again sees mountains as mountains and valleys as valleys.

 

to me it was the same with CC's work: genius, fraud, genius.

i choose to judge teachings, not teachers.

in his teachings there are things of such outstanding clarity and power, that i tend to believe that for most part they were true.

i still yearn for a direct experience with that line of knowledge, and still think it has alot to offer to a new commer, if it is received with wisdom and common sense.

 

clear intent! for that

Edited October 4, 2009 by Little1

[goldisheavy]

So,is anyone up for a Castaneda debate ? My favourite references for this are Richard de Mille's CASTANEDAS JOURNEY ,as well as THE DON JUAN PAPERS:FURTHER CASTANEDA CONTROVERSIES that he edited.Also Amy Wallaces SORCERERS APPRENTICE:MY LIFE WITH CARLOS CASTANEDA is a must!Im in the mood to sling some venom about,& will start of by saying that his 'feildwork' was plagiarism,his 'wisdom' fraught with a cowardly fear of intimacy,his" shamanism" ripped off from pop-occultism,his teacher an unconvincing composite of his university lecturers and his legacy the misogynistic exploitation & disempowerment of his personal students (some nice bits of poetry here & there though).There,that should be enough to start the ball rolling,someone out there MUST disagree with me Regards,Cloud.

 

Why bother with personality attacks? Why not take something from the doctrine that Castaneda outlined and try to attack that, if you can? Instead you are focusing on rumor mongering and various tangential things.

 

Who cares if Castaneda stole something or even invented it or maybe hallucinated the whole thing? It's not important. Just because something is invention doesn't mean it's bad or wrong. Just because something is not considered a hallucination by the majority does not mean it's real.

 

The real question is not whether or not Castaneda was a good guy or not, but, is the doctrine as outlined by Castaneda useful? I think it is. I did exercises from the book "The power of dreaming" or similarly named, and benefited tremendously from it. I don't care if he stole it or not. And maybe if he stole it, that's even better, because maybe the original owner wanted to keep it a secret and without this rascally thief I'd never find out eh?

[Mal]