Trance Forum | Stats | Register | Search | Parties | Advertise | Login

There are 0 trance users currently browsing this page
Trance Forum » » Forum  Books - Carlos Castaneda (1925 - 1998)
Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on StumbleUpon
Author

Carlos Castaneda (1925 - 1998)

kin beat
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  62
Posts :  953
Posted : Jun 12, 2008 07:09:53
Carlos Castaneda
(1925-1998)

* Books by Carlos Castaneda
(Bibliography)

Carlos Castaneda, previously Castañeda, (December 25, 1925- April 27, 1998) was an author of a controversial series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism.

Castaneda claimed to have met a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus in 1960. Castaneda's experiences with Don Juan allegedly inspired the works for which he is known. He claimed to have inherited from don Juan the position of nagual, or leader of a party of seers. He also used the term "nagual" to signify that which is unknowable, neither known nor knowable; implying that, for his party of seers, don Juan was a connection in some way to that unknowable. The term has been used by anthropologists to mean a shaman or sorcerer who is capable of shapeshifting, or changing to an animal form, and also to mean the form to which such a person might shift.

Castaneda's works contain descriptions of paranormal and magical experiences, several psychological techniques, Toltec magic rituals, shamanism and experiences with psychoactive drugs (e.g. peyote, Datura, Mushrooms). Carlos Castaneda's works have been printed in more than 8 million copies in 17 languages.


His first three books, The Teachings of don Juan: a Yaqui way of knowledge, A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan were written while Castaneda was an anthropology student at UCLA. Castaneda wrote these books as if they were his research log describing his studies under a traditional shaman he identified as don Juan (used the name Juan Matus, but not the man's 'real' name). Castaneda was granted his masters and doctoral degrees for the work described in these books, although he later had his Ph.D taken away for pretending his fiction was actual anthropological research.

In Castaneda's first two books he describes that the Yaqui way of knowledge also required the heavy use of powerful psychoactive or entheogenic plants, such as peyote and datura. In his third book, Journey to Ixtlan, he essentially reverses his emphasis on 'power plants'. In this book he describes don Juan telling him he only needed to use drugs with Carlos because Carlos was so dumb. In this book the way of knowledge that don Juan describes was perceived by some as resembling the newly popular New Age movement. Castaneda, however, emphatically denied any real similarity between them in several lectures.

Castaneda was a popular enough phenomenon for Time magazine to do a cover article on Castaneda on March 5, 1973 (Vol. 101 No. 10) that was five or six pages long.


According to Castaneda, the most significant facts in a person's life are his possession of awareness and its impending termination at death. The primary goal of a Toltec "Warrior" is the continuation of his awareness after bodily death: to "dart past the Eagle and be free", in the words of the tradition, where the Eagle is the force which consumes the awareness of all living beings.

To cheat death in this way requires all of the discipline and procedures that constitute the Warrior's way of life. These practices are devised to maximise the Warrior's personal power, or energy. The condition of not wasting this energy is known as "impeccability".

Sufficient personal power leads to the mastery of awareness, chiefly the controlled movement of what is known as the "assemblage point". This is an artifact of the tradition's description of another world underlying what we perceive as ordinary reality. In this description men are glowing cocoons of awareness inhabiting a universe consisting of the Eagle's "emanations", described euphemistically as all-pervading filaments of light.

Humans' cocoons are intersected throughout by these filaments, producing perception, but they filter our perceptions by concentrating on only a small bundle. The assemblage point is the focusing lens which selects from the emanations. In its accustomed position, the assemblage point produces what humans perceive as everyday, 'normal' reality. Movement of the assemblage point permits perception of the world in different ways; small movements lead to small changes in perception and large movements to radical changes. For example, dreaming is presented as the result of a movement of the assemblage point; "power plants" such as Peyote, used in the early stages of Castaneda's apprenticeship, produce powerfully altered states of mind through such movement.

Castaneda describes complex and bizarre worlds experienced through the controlled movement of the assemblage point in dreaming; his premise is that the world of the dreams of a warrior is no less real than the world of daily life. This follows logically from the description of both worlds as being simply the result of positions of the assemblage point. He depicts complex interactions with unearthly beings in dream worlds and describes his fear of being physically trapped by these malicious but charismatic beings.

here is brief Description of his Books:

1. The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge- description of plant allies and way towards knowledge: mescalito (peyote cactus)- the protector of man, seeing beings as liquid colors; mushrooms- learning to handle, fly, and perceive as animal form; datura (weed)- female spirit, hard to handle, gives strength, lengthy procedure. This book was unique of the series in that the last part included a detailed scholarly "Structural Analysis" of the teachings.

2. A Separate Reality- Discusses the ideas of will, controlled folly, and seeing (as opposed to looking) as tools a warrior uses to be a man/person of knowledge.

3. Journey to Ixtlan- lessons about the warriors way, or stalking the world, routines, personal history, self-importance, death as an advisor, not-doing, dreaming.

4. Tales of Power- description of points of perception in body or luminous cocoon, tonal or toñal (1st attention, known, right side awareness, [possibly the left-brain]) and nagual (2nd attention, unknown, left side awareness, right-brain), dreaming double.

5. The Second Ring of Power- describes events after don Juan's departure, experiences with the women warriors of the original nagual's party, 2nd attention (second ring of power), losing "human 'form"', human mold, dreaming, gazing.

6. The Eagle's Gift- description of the force that creates, destroys, and rules the universe (or at least the 48 bands of earth), also source of emanations themselves, description of the eagle's command to man, the rule of the nagual, various levels of petty tyrants, and way towards freedom, self-stalking and dreaming, power spots. Note that don Juan described the energy-structure/entity called eagle a thing that is not what we call an eagle, but rather a thing so vast as to be incomprehensible.

7. The Fire From Within- step by step (actually chapter by chapter) elucidation of the mastery of awareness or the new seers' knowledge: everything is energy (the Eagle's emanations or luminous emanations), the luminous cocoon and assemblage point(glow of awareness), the known (1st attention or tonal), unknown (2nd attention or nagual), unknowable (outside luminous cocoon), petty tyrants as a way to move assemblage point and foster warrior's way, twin worlds of organic and inorganic ( more correctly matter-beings and non-matter-bound beings- carbon-based/not carbon based wasn't what was meant), shifting the assemblage point and other bands of awareness, bundles of emanations that are the basis for the different species source of awareness and forms/molds, the human mold, the rolling force or tumbler (that hits luminous cocoon), the death defier, self-stalking, intent, and dreaming.

8. The Power of Silence- stories about essentially the mastery of intent, set into what were called sorcery cores.

9. The Art of Dreaming - steps to mastering control and consciousness of dreams.

10. Magical Passes- descriptions with photos of sorcery-based physical movements intended to increase well-being, a system which became known as Tensegrity.

11. The Active Side of Infinity- recapitulation, making a log of significant life events (as seen by the spirit).

12. The Wheel of Time- recollection of the mood in which each previous book was written; significant quotes from each previous book.


definitely a must read and widely recommended from me to you!!


          www.instagram.com/ckloro
www.twitter.com/ckloro
DETOX
Moderator

Started Topics :  296
Posts :  6194
Posted : Jun 21, 2008 16:04
Nice presentation Kin Beat           Toodaloo Motherfuckers!!!!!
-Abatwa-
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  42
Posts :  1087
Posted : Jul 7, 2009 12:22
thanks for sharing, valuable info.           `Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules, which are repeated without end` Mandelbrot
Alecu Babaleku
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  10
Posts :  116
Posted : Jul 27, 2009 14:00
I read almost all his books
They are powerfull and magic.
For me it really doesn't matter if it's true or fiction.
Stories are simple written and it will take you easy away, on a special frequency.
There are groups in the world practicing his exercises.

          carpe diem
TimeTraveller
IsraTrance Full Member

Started Topics :  80
Posts :  3207
Posted : May 25, 2010 12:21
I read some of them.Espescially when being very far it is extraordinary special.
Probably the most remarkable book I read in such state.Far more special than Huxleys works,that I read in and out or like too often in such states.
For me it is not fiction.           https://soundcloud.com/shivagarden
Trance Forum » » Forum  Books - Carlos Castaneda (1925 - 1998)
 
Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on StumbleUpon


Copyright © 1997-2024 IsraTrance