Carlos Castaneda discussion

I have just joined this group and am simply triggering a response...
I am a fully fledged warrior-traveller..Is anyone else?

That's very interesting. Most likley you will not find people on this site claiming the same status that you have. Since it is generally accepted that Castaneda was a charlitan who made up his stories (and this even by people who worked directly within his inner circle), most serious Shaman's look elsewhere for discusion. I have read his entire series and find the books entertaining, sometimes brilliant, sometimes dreadful. But if he made up his journey it's all the more brilliant. Good luck on your journey

yes. actually it doesn't matter if it was historically correct. But the technics and the way of life is very much 'real'. Well, as real as anything else is :)

Sternej wrote: "...most serious Shaman's look elsewhere for discusion..."
What would be those places, can you suggest some?

Thanks for your comments
Each much verify his own...

I have read, and reread Carlos Castenada's since first discovering 'The Teachings of Don Juan' in my teens. Whilst I take on board that they may not be historically accurate, or even that don Juan may ever had existed, the books do have a strange resonance to people who have experimented with mind expanding drugs. The philosophy of don Juan when he speaks about 'controlled folly' is remarkably similiar to existentualism and it is only when he mentions 'seeing' men looking like eggs that the bounds of credability get stretched. I don't know enough about the culture of the Yaqui but it seems entirely plausable that the environment, culture and ingestation of peyote and other 'herbs' could easily lead people to experince other worlds of reality. It seems foolish to me to say that the 'reality' of western culture is the only true reality.

If people read the entire series, there are some very interesting ideas about consciousness throughout. Apart from the contoversy about if these expierences actualy happened or didn't, the books alternate between sheer brilliance and nonsense.