Interview with Carlos Castaneda for Self magazine, February 1997. By Daniel Trujillo Rivas
The number for January / February 1998 Utne Reader magazine, is the article "The World Conscious Dreams" by Michael Brennan, containing extracts from, and another interview with Carlos Castaneda .
Q: Mr. Castaneda, for years you remained in absolute anonymity. What has led him to leave that condition to devote today to publicly disseminate the lessons, along with their current partners, was the nagual Juan Matus?
Answer: What compels us to spread the ideas of Don Juan Matus is the urgent need to clarify what he taught us. I and three other students have come to the unanimous conclusion that the world we had Don Juan Matus is viewed by means of perception of all human beings. We argue among ourselves what would be the right path. "Anonymity as Don Juan told us to? This was not among us a pleasant echo. The other route available was to disseminate the ideas of Don Juan: a path vastly more dangerous and exhausting, but the only one we believe has the dignity with which Don Juan imbibed his teachings.
P: Considering that you said that the acts of a warrior are unpredictable, and in fact we have proven for three decades, can we expect that its public phase is prolonged in time? How long?
R: No way to set a time criterion for us. We live according to the assumptions proposed by Don Juan and never turn away from them. Don Juan Matus gave us the terrible example of a man who lived as he described. The monolithic example of a man who does not have two faces. And I say that is a terrible example because it is harder to emulate, to be monolithic and at the same time having the flexibility to address what was, that was the way of life of Don Juan.
Within these premises the only thing you can be is a perfect conduit. One is not the player of the cosmic chess game, one is simply a chess piece. Who decides everything is a conscious impersonal force which sorcerers call the Intent or Spirit.
Q: As I have seen, orthodox anthropology undermines the credibility of his work, as well as the supposed defenders of American pre-Columbian heritage. There remains the belief that his work is purely the result of his literary talent, of course, exceptional, while other sectors are accused of a double behavior, because, supposedly, their lifestyle and their activities are contrary to what most expect of a shaman. How can you bridge these suspicions?
R: The cognitive system of Western man forces us to move through preconceived ideas. We base our judgments on something that is always "a priori", for example the idea of \u200b\u200b"orthodox." What is the orthodox anthropology? Is taught in the classroom? And, what is the behavior of the shaman? "Putting feathers on their heads and dance to the spirits?
have accused Carlos Castaneda for thirty years to create a literary character, simply because what I said did not match the "a priori" anthropological, with the ideas set out in the classroom or anthropological scope. However, what I had Don Juan could only fit in a full scope, and under such circumstances happens very little or almost nothing preconceived.
I could never reach conclusions about shamanism, because this needs to be an active member of the world of shamans. It is very easy for a social scientist, say a sociologist, sociological conclusions about any topic related to the Western world, for the sociologist is an active member of the Western world. But how can an anthropologist who spends at most two years studying other cultures, draw conclusions reliable about them? To purchase membership in a cultural world needs a lifetime. I have been working for over thirty years in the cognitive world of shamans of ancient Mexico and sincerely believe that I have not yet come to acquire the membership that allows me to draw conclusions, or even propose them.
I have discussed about this with people from different disciplines and always seem to understand and agree with the assumptions I am making. But then turn and forget all that and agreed to continue to maintain academic principles "orthodox" regardless of the possibility of an absurd mistake in its findings. Our cognitive system seems to be impenetrable.
Q: What is the purpose that you refuse to be photographed, to which record your voice or biographical data known? Could any of this affect, and how, the achievements of his spiritual work? Do not you think it would be useful for some sincere seekers of truth know who you really are, as a way to prove it really is possible to follow the path that preaches?
R: For photos and personal, myself and the other three disciples of Don Juan Matus follow the dictates of it. The main idea to refrain from giving personal data is very simple for a shaman Don Juan. It is imperative to put aside what he called the "Personal History." Away from "I" is quite cumbersome and difficult. We are looking for shamans like don Juan is a state of flux where the personal "I" does not count. He believed that this undoubtedly affects who comes within that scope, and affects in a positive way though subliminal, because we are so accustomed to photographs, recordings, biographical data, all generated by the idea of \u200b\u200bself-importance. He said that it is better not to know anything about a shaman that way, instead of one person one encounters a sustainable idea, as opposed to what happens in the everyday world, where only people with psychological problems and without ideas, and they all filled to the top of the "me, me, me."
Q: How should his followers understand the existence of an entire commercial and promotional mechanism, regardless of their literary work in the knowledge that you and your companions spread? What relationship do you really Cleargreen Incorporated and other companies (Laugan Productions, Toltec Artists)? I refer to trade links.
A: At this point in my work I needed someone who could represent me in spreading the ideas of Don Juan Matus. Cleargreen is a corporation that has a great affinity with our work, as well as Laugan Productions and Toltec Artists. The idea of \u200b\u200bspreading Don Juan's teachings to a modern world like ours involves the use of commercial media and art that are not within my individual media. As corporations related to the ideas of Don Juan, Cleargreen Incorporated, Laugan Toltec Artists Productions and are able to provide the means to disseminate what I want to spread.
The impersonal corporations desire is always to dominate and transform all that is presented to them and adopt their own ideology. Were it not for the sincere interest Cleargreen Laugan and Toltec Artists Productions, everything don Juan said would already been transformed into something else.
Q: There are a number of characters in a way or another have "hung" for you to acquire notoriety. What do you think the actions of Victor Sanchez, who has played and rearranged his teachings to develop a personal theory? Or the claims of Ken Eagle Feather, who claims to have been chosen as a disciple of Don Juan himself, returned to this dimension only for it?
A: Indeed there are a number of people who call themselves my students themselves or the same Don Juan, whom I've never met and I can assure you that Don Juan has never met. Don Juan Matus was interested only in perpetuating their lineage of shamans. He had four disciples who endure until today. Others had left with him. Don Juan was not interested in teaching his knowledge, he did with his disciples to continue his lineage. His disciples, as they can not continue the lineage of Don Juan, have been forced to spread their ideas.
The concept of the teacher who teaches his knowledge is part of our cognitive system, but is not part of the cognitive system of the shamans of ancient Mexico. For them teaching was an absurdity. Transmit their knowledge to those who would perpetuate the life of the line was another matter.
The fact that there are a number of individuals determined to use my name or that of Don Juan is just an easy maneuver to benefit without much work.
Q: Consider the meaning of the word "spirituality" as a state of consciousness in which human beings are fully capable of controlling the potential of the species, an achievement that you get beyond simply animal condition, through an arduous mental fitness, moral and intellectual. Do you agree with this statement? How integrating the world of Don Juan in this context?
A: For Don Juan Matus, as a shaman pragmatic and full of wisdom, "spirituality" was an empty idealism, an assertion without foundation that we find very beautiful because it is embedded in literary concepts and poetic expressions, but never gets there.
shamans like don Juan is essentially practical. For them there is only a predatory universe where intelligence or awareness of being is the product of life and death challenges. He considered himself a navigator of infinity and said to sail into the unknown, as does a shaman, you need unlimited pragmatism, wisdom beyond measure and guts of steel. "
Given all this, Don Juan believed that "spirituality" is simply a description of something impossible to achieve under the patterns of the everyday world, and is not a live mode of action.
Q: You have pointed out that his literary activity is due to instructions Don Juan, as well as that of Taisha and Florinda Donner-Grau. For what purpose?
A: The purpose of writing the books was given by Don Juan. He asserted that if you are not a writer, you can still write, but writing is transformed from a literary action in a shamanistic action. Who decides the issue and the development of a book is the writer's mind, but a force which shamans consider as the basis of the universe and called the attempt. I try to decide who is the production of a shaman, whether literary or otherwise.
According to Don Juan, a practitioner of shamanism is the duty, the obligation to be saturated with all available information. The work of a shaman is that of a fully informed of everything related to the topic of interest. The shamanistic act is to abandon any interest in directing the course that information takes. "Who manages the ideas that arise from such a source of information is the shaman named Don Juan, but I try. The shaman is simply a perfect conduit." The writing was a challenge for Don Juan shamanistic, not a literary task.
Q: If I may make the following statement, his work presents concepts that are closely related to the Eastern philosophical doctrines, but it contradicts what is commonly known Mexican indigenous culture. Where are the similarities and differences between them?
A: I have no idea. I am not a scholar or what or the other. My work is a cognitive world phenomenological information which I introduced Don Juan Matus. From the point of view of phenomenology as a philosophical method, it is not possible to assertions related to the phenomenon under scrutiny. The world of Don Juan Matus is so vast, mysterious and contradictory that does not lend itself to a linear exposure exercise, at best, be described, and that making a supreme effort.
Q: Assuming that the teachings of Don Juan have become part of the occult literature, what you think about other teachings, such as the philosophies of the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Hermeticism, and disciplines such as the Kabbalah, the Tarot and Astrology, comparing them with the nagualism? Have you ever had or has contact with any of these areas or their fans?
A: Again I have no idea of \u200b\u200bwhat the premises, points of view, nor the subject of these disciplines. Don Juan we introduced the problem of navigating the unknown and that we take every effort available.
Q: Some of the concepts of his work, as the assemblage point, the emanations of energy that make up the universe, the world of inorganic beings Intent, Stalking and Dreaming, have a counterpart in Western knowledge? For example, there are those who see man as an expression of the luminous egg
aura ... A: No, nothing that Don Juan taught us seem to have a counterpart in Western knowledge that I know.
Once, when Don Juan was still present, I spent a year in search of gurus, teachers, scholars give me a clue what they were doing. I wanted to know if there was anything in the world then that would be similar to what don Juan said and did.
My resources were very limited and only took me to meet the teachers had established that thousands of followers, and unfortunately I could not find anything.
Q: Focusing now specifically on his work, his readers we met Carlos Castaneda different. First, a Western scholar somewhat inept and constantly baffled by the power of old Indians cone Don Juan and Don Genaro (mainly in The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power and The Second Ring of Power) then, with a seasoned shaman apprentice (in The Eagle's Gift, The Fire Inside, The Power of Silence and, especially, in The Art of Dreaming). If you agree with that assessment, when and how it disappeared one to make way for another?
R: I do not consider nor shaman or teacher, or an advanced student of shamanism, nor do I consider myself an anthropologist and social scientist of the Western world. My presentations were all descriptions of a phenomenon impossible to discern under the conditions of linear knowledge of the Western world. I could never give what Don Juan taught me an explanation of cause and effect or had the ability to predict what he would say or what would happen. Under these conditions, the passage from one state to another is subjective and not something worked or product of premeditation or wisdom.
Q: In your book you can find really incredible episodes Western mentality. How could anyone uninitiated make sure that they are true these "separate realities" that you describe?
A: It can be seen in a very simple. Paying the entire body instead of intellect. The world of Don Juan can not enter as a dilettante intellectually towards a rapid and transient knowledge, nor can prove anything. The only thing you can do is reach a state of heightened awareness that allows us to perceive the world around us in a broader way. In other words, the goal of shamanism of Don Juan is to break the parameters of historical perception and everyday, and come to perceive the unknown. Hence he was called himself a navigator of infinity. He argued that beyond the parameters of everyday perception, is the Infinite. Come to that was the goal of his life, and since he was a shaman extraordinary, four of us taught us that desire. Forced us to transcend the intellect and to embody the concept of breaking the parameters of historical perception.
Q: You argue that the basic characteristic of human beings is their capacity as "beneficiaries of energy." Indicates the movement of the assemblage point as an imperative to perceive energy directly. What might serve that to a man twenty-first century? How does the achievement goal of this spiritual growth, according to the previously defined concept?
R: Shamans as Don Juan maintain that all human beings possess the ability to perceive energy directly as it flows in the universe. Consider that the assemblage point, as they call it, is a point that exists in the energy field of the whole man. In other words, when a shaman sees a man as energy that flows in the universe, "sees" a luminous ball. In this luminous ball shaman can "see" a point of high brightness which is situated at the height of the blades and the distance of about one meter behind them. The shamans say that this is where it performs perception that energy flows in the universe is transformed there into sensory data and that these sensory data are then interpreted to result in the world of everyday life. Shamans maintain that we are taught to interpret, therefore, we are taught to perceive.
The pragmatic value of perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe for the XXI century man or the first century is the same. Allows you to extend the boundaries of their perception and use within their environmental means such an extension. Don Juan said that would be extraordinary directly "see" the wonder of order and chaos of the universe.
Q: Recently you have made a discipline of physical exercises called Tensegrity. Can you explain exactly what it is? What is the purpose? What spiritual benefits it can find who practice individually?
A: From what we taught Don Juan Matus, the shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times discovered a series of movements, executed with the body, that led to a state of physical and mental development of such magnitude that they decided to call such movements magical passes.
Don Juan told us that through his magic, shamans acquired such a level of heightened awareness that allowed them to run indescribable feats of perception.
magical passes were taught through the generations only to practitioners of shamanism, in the midst of a terrible secret and complex rituals. This is how they were taught to don Juan Matus, and that's how he passed on to his four disciples.
Our effort has been to extend the teaching of those magical passes to anyone who wants to learn them. We've called Tensegrity and we have become entirely personal and movements of each of the four disciples of don Juan, generic movements applicable to anyone.
The practice of Tensegrity individually or collective promotes health, vigor, youth and the general welfare. Don Juan said that the practice of the magical passes helps to accumulate the energy needed to increase awareness and expand the parameters of perception.
Q: Aside from his three companions, those who attended his seminars have met another group of people, such as Chacmools, the Energy Trackers, Elements, Explorer Blue ... Who are they? Is this a new game of visionaries led by you? If so, how could anyone join this group of learners?
A: Each one of those people about whom you question are people defined Don Juan Matus as director of his family asked us to wait. He predicted the arrival of each one of them as an integral part of a vision. Since their lineage could not continue due to its own energy configurations of the four students, their mission became to perpetuate the lineage to close it, if possible with a flourish.
We are not in a position to change this policy. We can not seek or accept trainees or existing members of the new vision of Don Juan. All we can do is access the opinions of Intent.
The fact that they are teaching the magical passes, guarded jealously by many generations, is a sign that yes you can become part of this new vision in an indirect way through the practice of Tensegrity and observation of the premises of the path of the warrior.
Q: Readers of the Infinite you have used the term "navigation" to define what sorcerers do. Are you ready to hoist sails and weigh anchor to begin the final journey? "It will end with you the lineage of Toltec warriors repository of this knowledge?
A: Yes, indeed, the lineage of Don Juan ends with us.
Q: Does the way of the warrior's spiritual work groups, as found in other proposals?
R: The Road Warrior includes everything and everyone. There may be a whole family of impeccable warriors. The difficulty lies in the terrible fact that individual relationships are based on emotional investments, which are crumbling at the time in which the practitioner actually practice what you learn. Usually, in the everyday world, the emotional investments are never considered and live a lifetime waiting for us to apply. Don Juan said that my way of living and feeling was described very simply: "I only give what they give me, and I was an avid investor.
Q: If someone would like to do the spiritual work adjusting to the knowledge disseminated in his books, what possibilities progress can aspire? What recommendations would you have those who wish to practice on his own account of the teachings of Don Juan?
A: There is no way to put a limit to what one can achieve on an individual basis if the attempt is an attempt impeccable. The Teachings of Don Juan are not spiritual, I repeat again, since this issue has surfaced again and again. The idea of \u200b\u200bspirituality does not fit the strict discipline of the warrior. What counts most for a shaman like don Juan is the idea of \u200b\u200bpragmatism. When I met Don Juan I thought was a practical man, a full social scientific objectivity and pragmatism. He finished with my airs and made me see that as true Western man, I had nothing pragmatic and nothing spiritual. I came to understand that I simply repeated the word "spirituality" to oppose to the mercenary world every day. I wanted to get away from the more accurate the commercialism of daily life and the eagerness I called spirituality. When Don Juan I am required to reach a conclusion, a definition of what I considered to be spiritual, I realized he was right. I do not know what to say.
sounds a bit presumptuous to say what I'm saying, but there is no other way to say it. What you want a shaman like don Juan is the aggrandizement of consciousness to be, that is, to perceive all human possibilities of perception, which involves a huge task and a purpose beyond measure, things that can not be substituted for spirituality in the Western world.
Q: Is there anything you would like to explain to the South Americans, especially Chileans? Do you want to expose other approaches beyond those made?
R: I have nothing more to add. All human beings are at the same level. At the beginning of my apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus he tried to make me see the commonality of the human situation. I, like South America, was very involved intellectually with the idea of \u200b\u200bsocial reform. One day I put the question that I believed was fatal. I said how is it, Don Juan, you remain unmoved by the appalling situation of their counterparts, the Yaqui Indians of Sonora?
I knew that a percentage of the Yaqui people suffering from tuberculosis and had no remedy for their economic status.
Yes - I said Don Juan, is a very sad thing, but Imagine is also very sad that your situation, and if you think you are in better condition than the Yaqui Indians, you're wrong. It is the human condition in general staying in a spooky state of chaos. No one is better than another. We are all beings that are going to die, and unless we take full account of this situation, there is no remedy for us.
This is another point of pragmatism of shamans: the realization that we are beings that are going to die. The shamans say that this all takes a measure and a transcendental order.
Copyright 1997-2002 Self Magazine
