To begin with I have to state categorically that reading Castaneda has helped me. It particularly helped me in my formative (post-breakdown) years but like another of my favourites at that time (Pirsig) I feel I must issue a warning. Now the warning I gave concerning Pirsig applies - http://zandtao.com/bzblog/60sgenerationwarning.htm.
But with Castaneda people have cast doubt on his integrity. Initially I thought that doubt was the system knocking an alternative view, that I am happy to ignore. When reading I found his personal descriptions left a lot to be desired, but focused on the words of Don Juan. But some have criticised his reporting as false. He presents the image of a student who carries a notebook diligently writng the words of these Toltecs, but even that has been questioned.
From my position I cannot ask you to trust anything that is written because I just don't know. From my own point of view I have learnt from what he has written. Having the image of death over my left shoulder (discussed in Journey to Ixtlan) was a helpful image in my 20s, and perhaps could help me now in my comfortable complacency. Then reading Fire from Within I started on the Eagle's Emanations a reasonable metaphor for the Source but then it began to ask me to feel the emanations. That became a scenario in which I was being asked to fashion a belief, to make a belief have substance. At this point I began to question whether I was beginning to create a "reality" based in Castaneda's writings and as I could not trust his writings I became stuck.
So that left me with this warning.
I had discussed this book with a monk and this is part of an email I wrote to him:-
I had taken the Castaneda books as being true in the sense that he quoted verbatim the teachings of Don Juan and other nagual, but there are some that bring even that into question. It is this type of question that makes me so much more comfortable with the Vinaya. Whilst not having studied the Vinaya I know that it places clear restrictions on the way that vagaries of the mind might interpolate, and this restriction gives strength.
I am at present stuck in the middle of the Eagle's emanations, an image that emanations from within the cocoon, he describes as humans, align with emanations outside, and that these emanations become still in a seer - when there is an insight. This could well be an excellent way of perceiving and it could also be a flight of fancy of the author. As I do not experience these emanations do I engage with the approach?
So I have doubts about the authority, and am now considering whether to continue studying his books.
Through my net travels on his authority I have no doubts that there are charlatans associated with the products of his work. Someone, I think Castaneda, came up with a programme called Tensegrity, a series of exercises that help with left and right alignment, discussed in the book "Magical Passes":-
http://www.castaneda.com/
Is it a business of charlatans?
Please be warned if this blog encourages you to read Castaneda.
