By Héctor Loaiza, published on the site Resonancias.org, 2003.
Mexico City, July 17, 1982
At 7 am, Carlos Castaneda, dressed differently than the day before, I was waiting in the cafeteria of the Sheraton Maria Isabel. This time wearing a gray sport shirt with open collar over the lapels of his jacket also gray. In fact you could not figure her age seemed to be an eternal teenager. But his wrinkled brown face looked like that morning have been split further, carrying the logos of those addicted to peyote. Maybe it was fatigue, since he had slept very little (like me).
My first question Castaneda was "locked" for he had given a taped interview. He suggested I write it because he could not speak to the recorder, cold and mechanical control. I had to shut down. We talked until it without him noticing, turn it on again. The following is the result of a two-hour interview. HECTOR
LOAIZA: What has been your training, what books you read and which authors have influenced your work?
CARLOS CASTANEDA: At the beginning of my apprenticeship with Don Juan, I was a very conscientious student of anthropology, studied and read widely. So I prepared enough to talk to him about the uses of peyote. Once don Juan gave me an interesting joke, I said I had made in vain. "I prepare well," he added, "then the rabbit jumps unexpectedly in different places!" He warned me that I would not contribute to interpretations based on my reading of what he was saying. It was a wise decision on his part, since we had started great discussions. For me, had doubts about him. That man was a fake that I was cheating. With regard to the use of peyote was referring to the highest authority, Dr. Weston La Barre (1) (considering it as the ultimate authority was an aberration). But at that time believed in the authority of La Barre to the things that Don Juan was saying. I thought: "That old man does not know an iota of the uses of peyote, speaks as La Barre. There is nothing I can recognize what this animal, which has written the great Professor La Barre. "Short of that was very wise, I could not do otherwise.
HL: Through your books were best sellers in the United States and Europe, concludes that Don Juan exists, is real, and now lives in the imagination of your readers.
CC: No. Don Juan is like Carlos Castaneda, another character. It is the Nagual, the leader of a magical cycle and as such, Don Juan Matus is a great importance. As a social person don Juan did not attract attention. Furthermore, not only is an important figure in his magical cycle, but also testified to the circumstances that made him a character.
HL: Carlos, since yesterday, I noticed that your vision of beings and things is fictional. Because talk of "character" Carlos Castaneda, the "character" Don Juan. For you, reality is a fiction and Mentioning quote: "It's just a description."
CC: Yes, indeed. But it is a shared description. Humans are involved in a consensus that is challenging in the everyday. Consensus particular group of witches linked to the character Don Juan Matus, the Nagual, can spread and cover a longer number of participants.
HL: Can you explain a little more magical cycle of Don Juan?
CC: Don Juan says that according to a Toltec myth can transcend the biological sense of death. A man can be freed from the compulsion to die and can die in a different way. Don Juan calls it the "pursuit of freedom." Magic is a cycle that has nothing to do with perceptual units of our everyday world. The group of Don Juan is closed, not because it itself is an esoteric group, but simply not interested to reach people abroad. For unavoidable reasons, he conceived it was part of my cycle to approach strangers to him, without me being Indian or had anything to do with their tradition. Don Juan as a social person comes of course from one ethnic group. I had great difficulty in finding out where it came from the Nagual, I never said it, not because it was a secret, but reveal it just was not interested. If there are people looking for where I come I is not about me. If they are right and if not, that's not important! Don Juan wanted me to erase the traces of my personal history, but never told me how! Index is a category so vague as such as "college." Nobody really knows what "college." Everyone can have a different opinion, but we use the word as effectively as if we shared the uniform meaning of "college." Don Juan wanted me to do that with a method so vague as to erase my personal history. So the "fix" the contradictions of the philosophy of Don Juan, happens when one makes an "attempt" to carry out artistic and that's important to understand Don Juan and behavior.
HL: In one of your books, stories the way don Juan made you closer to your view of death. You said that "we must live with his death next door."
CC: course, is the world's reference style warrior Don Juan. The warrior must constantly refer to the inevitable end. Only when one takes, as Don Juan says death as a point of reference, without morbidity and without feeling embarrassed or offended, then you can actually overcome the natural meanness of life. Don Juan said that we live as immortals, without accounting for our actions to anyone, as if we were eternal. We afford to lose time and beating around in crap. I am convinced that Don Juan was right. It's a much more interesting approach to life and not my family, who live in terror of death and yet wasted their lives. How awful! It's a terrible way to not realize what they do!
HL: There are two attitudes towards death, the first is to have a morbid idea, for example, is to worship death. And the other is the suppression: not to think about it. This is what happens in the West, where people try to forget at all costs will one day die.
CC: Don Juan In that sense, where tradition is unique in considering that death is a point of dissolution, a reference to everything we do. But he wanted to transcend death and change. Knew what was coming, which will inevitably be extinguished. But the option adopted to change the finality of death and consciously transform it into something else. Do not want to leave his body (as I said last night). This seems an absurd idea, I can not conceive naturally and West that the intention of Don Juan had validity. Do not leave the body is absurd. And that was what he wanted for himself and his group, who were able to transcend that thing that death is inevitable and let the living force to escape from the body. He considered that the living force had sufficient capacity to transform the body into pure energy, as opposed to what happens to us men everyday world. We let the living force to escape the body and it is terminated as a dead body, inert. To me that is unique not know any author who has given me an idea similar to that of Don Juan in his pursuit of freedom and the transformation of the body into pure energy.
HL: Your words make me think of reincarnation, what can you say about that?
CC: Don Juan believed that believe in reincarnation is to give us too much. We are so unique that we will not return to the world, again and again, to refine our splendor. That would be absurd. For Don Juan are not made in the image and likeness of God. It is inconceivable! That is a huge aspect of Judeo-Christian selfishness, that of believing unique beings, made in the image and likeness of God. Don Juan used to say that accidents are beings who will die. That's it!
HL: In last night's conversation has outlined the idea of \u200b\u200bgetting rid of the emotional world of feelings. And it seems you've succeeded ...
CC: Indeed. After many years of practice, at one point I had a very serious illness, so I went to the doctor. He had what is called the "hyperventilation", that's what I thought. But it was not. According to the ideology of Don Juan, "was losing the human form." Well, I never took seriously. My logic did not allow me to believe that one can lose the human aspect, not even understood what don Juan meant. For him, "losing the human form" meant entering a state of detachment. But do not get to it gradually, as knowledge or "be aware" that is important to lose that addiction. Comes suddenly. A day comes when one loses the human form and the next day is wrapped in an unfamiliar feeling, inexplicable. So Don Juan lived.
HL: There is this notion also mentioned last night that is detachment, which I think is an eastern influence.
CC: comes a time in which the learner feel they have no more attachment, which the world has no force or coercive value had the previous day. That's the secret. The world requires us to act a certain way. In that sense they are important and extraordinary sophistication of the conclusions reached by the witches or shamans (as we like to call Don Juan). For them, "the world is a perception" and we are the ones who perceive it. Up to us to give you the meaning of one or the other way, not just cultural. And if we say, it's about my culture, my education, that relieves us of the responsibility to act. For Don Juan that is not important. We understand that the world is a perception and as such it is then possible act on it and change it. And we have to change the tenor of those perceptions. To achieve change in a way so subtle and yet so dramatic, it also changes the meaning of the world. It ceases to be fixed and barren, endless, incomplete, as we perceive as normal. Don Juan covers all that and takes it to its climax.
HL: When you said that detachment is not a rational concept, intellectual, voluntary ... The fact that it occurs suddenly, do not you think that is a kind of mutation?
CC: Yes, Don Juan and the members of his clan claim that morphological change is a man who suffers at the level of energy field and a mutation does not simply mean spiritual.
HL: This mutation then psycho-physio-biological.
CC: Of course, how we might understand a complete change, but more than that Don Juan believed to be a power shift. The man becomes energy field. Nagual says the pressure is like a seesaw in the state and the warrior training. That pressure, a good time is so strong that drives change in biology. Then the total change is not that one is repressing. I do not control, and desperately try not to get angry for example, or being off, it would be nice! Is not interested, I extinguished the interest. How do I relate to the world? What is important to me is the character Carlos Castaneda, and I have no link that binds me to the world as a person. The only way to bring this bridge to the world through the character, exactly as did Don Juan. He said he had no history. But I struggled like a demon following my anthropological canons, to find their history, their origin, their vital data. He never stopped me, that does not give a damn! But I always thought that Don Juan was tight, did not reveal anything, it seemed as if he had something to hide. Now I'm in the same case, I have nothing to hide. However, now I understand the behavior of Don Juan, he was a character, had lost the human form and could only relate to the world as the Nagual, the leader. I have not gotten to that state, I'm no leader or head of anything, but if I lost the need to perceive the world.
HL: in Europe is said that your books are always a critical position, very Western, and that's supposed to create a need in Don Juan to explain. Or on the other hand, I clung to the standard Western sense because you were too afraid to stay in that non-ordinary reality
CC: Both views are incorrect. Faced with the dissolution of perception, one is so vulnerable and so weak that there is no way to describe the feeling, the desire to have one to comfort her. This is important when one is pounding with the unknown, fear is an earthquake, biological, which has no name. This is not the fear of death. The psychological fear of dissolution is infinitely more important than biological extinction. And one needs to make use of all elements, bastions, ramparts, of everything that one can rely. At the same time I was very interested to ask Juan what was happening, he would tell me. Needed a more comprehensive elucidation. The only way to force don Juan was asking. I'm in the same situation now, if you ask me I no I can not explain anything. You have to ask and so I am compelled to explain. Some of his apprentices never asked anything, failed to "hook" intellectually. And they don Juan, the Nagual, was very different than it was for me. An apprentice never really understand what you are practicing. For my part, I understand what I'm doing, as I have the safeguard of the reader, I can not defend what is wrong with Castaneda, saying, "Oh these are monsters of your imagination!" I have to assume greater responsibility. I overtake the phenomenon it and understand it or took me Mandinga! There can be no way to accommodate me. I have to understand what is happening and so I have a minimal support.
HL: Carlos, you said you were not Indian, you said also that very well assimilated the teachings of Don Juan to "erase your personal history." In France they are surprised by the fact that you cut your roots, you have nothing to do with your past. On the other hand, now that I've heard reivindicarte mestizo, cholo, against the world's cultural values \u200b\u200bCreole, Hispanic, I think that is the wealth of your thinking.
CC: The fact that it is "cholo" Of course! That's what gives me a number of assumptions that involve contradictory points. The only way to resolve these contradictions is an artistic way. When I say I'm not Indian, I mean a cultural sense. What I have seen consistently in Don Juan had been that he took as an apprentice to a person born and raised in an Indian reserve in the United States. I come from outside, outside the context of Don Juan, did not even have an idea of \u200b\u200bthe Indian context of Don Juan.
HL: Thanks to the fact that two cultures come together in you, you were the only person who could capture the attention of Don Juan.
CC: The Nagual, as a seer, was able to see energy fields and saw in me the right power to undertake this learning. The fact that I was culturally assimilated to European thought became my support. But while I was distracted and I was braking the "overall intent." Let me be perfectly aware of my background, could not be otherwise! I had to take into account what was to pursue what don Juan wanted. He demanded that one is faced with itself without any passion, is in fact one of the highlights of their ideology. I forced myself to make my life count, and when I say that not be back again to where I was born I say in a sense that it I counted. Don Juan insisted that it was possible to give what he calls the "Eagle", the final force, which devours us, giving us support and created us. The Eagle, is the sum total of all living things on earth and beyond. You do not know the enormous potential biological, organic, conscious and the sum of all that is there. The Eagle devouring consciousness in the Toltec myth. If you give sustenance to the Eagle, in the sense of making a full recount of the events of your life, you will be free. But to make that count one ends with the feeling, that which makes us beings of the world. Don Juan ended roots. Because it forces us to be rooted bias and fills us with false security, gives us the idea of \u200b\u200bbelonging to a group, a tradition. That in itself keeps us flying! We removed the idea that we can stand on our own, we can go out, break of that fence that has created the world around us. And that's all I can think of an explanation. But you are obliged to take into account who you are to be able to make that break. That happens only when you know who you are. One thing that always bothered me is that I'm chump, short, dark-feito as Don Juan, in a tall white people, because Americans are looking, well done. So I was full of desperate complex. Don Juan believed there was no way out of this impasse. Go to a psychiatrist so that I arrange my feelings, to don Juan that was not the remedy. The important thing was to cut everything. The Nagual said that those who were born alive in the clouds we were princes. Then I was an ugly prince! Every time someone kept me in a balloon and I out the air, I fell to the ground frequently. Don Juan recommended that a walk on the ground, so low. That was fighting themselves, without lies, in a indestructible. Because if no illusions about what one is, the presentation of self in everyday life has another aspect, takes on a different meaning. There is no need to introduce ourselves as the prince or a person of great importance. Then that presentation is much more accurate, one is no longer the guy in the sky!
HL: What has attracted attention in Europe in your books is learning through psychotropic drugs to "pop" the way to the non-ordinary reality. What has allowed you to get into the so contradictory and frightening dimension to this Don Juan I drove.
CC: He was interested in my power to put the idea that the "intent" believe everything I perceive. The world is in my power as perceived through the magic of "intent." The only way to realize that the "intent" is a force manageable, by psychotropic drugs, especially for someone like me who then had "deep convictions" on the world. World was a misunderstanding and therefore immutable transcended me. And Don Juan believes that the world exists but I do not exist, but does not exist in the same sense that I perceive it. The world is not there with clouds, mountains and valleys unless I, a man who perceives, is not there. Because for Don Juan not only am he who sees, a man who works with stereoscopic vision, allowing me to perceive the world from an anthropomorphic perspective, but I learned to drive this vision through teaching I gave the society, to channel stereoscopic vision of man as descended from apes. I'm ready to see the world in a way, by my ideology. And the end result is that I perceive the world as a human being, that the world exists but I do not exist. The important thing for Don Juan was to understand and get my body to understand that this vision can be canceled, it was just a way to "see" the world. Although I like being over, adult, had not yet used the scope I was under the influence of a psychotropic came into play. Once this has been "trying", Don Juan was able to make available to my body the idea that I have more room than I think perceptive, then it is not necessary to use a psychotropic drug. I can not use it excessively, without purpose.
HL: But there were a series of abuses on the part of readers, you have taken at face value and wanted to reproduce the atmosphere that you described in your books.
CC: Can not play the context of Don Juan. At the beginning of my work I took great care to play and record everything he did. I learned ballet system used to encode the movements. Then coded gestures that don Juan did with the eyes, hands, feet, reaching to reproduce faithfully. When I went to the mountain don Juan picked up several leaves and bushes, mixing, the bruised and put them on my belly. That kept me warm all night without blankets and freezing cold. I came to collect seven versions of different plants and different ways to collect, bruised and applied to my body. When I tried using all the resources of the archives, to reproduce what don Juan had never worked, ever! And Don Juan laughed a lot, made fun of me, I was fascinated by the idea of \u200b\u200bme gave me so much trouble to point out his every move. He said that sooner or later I would realize that everything was related to "try" personal power. And one day he said: "Look, I'll end up with these hobbies take yours notes. "Having looked at the jeep he needed, he ordered:" Put this table rotten in the belly! "I put it and I had the same effect. For a long time believed that was the power of suggestion, the finally understood that Don Juan was a master of "intent".
HL: say that Don Juan as a shaman was the performances, the metteur-en-scène, who controlled the stage. stress the fact that this control over you used his hypnotic powers.
CC: Well, I always thought that Don Juan, and others close to him I beguile, to the point that I could explain what happened as a state hypnosis. Now I come to another conclusion. Don Juan the "master of intent" (do not know, English is not the right word, I would say the "master of intent") as an original wizard, not just to suggest something and leave me a mirage, immersed in a state hypnotic. At some point in history, man was able to handle the "intent" and of course bring up the rabbit in his hand. When man ceased to be master of "attempt," came the prestidigitation, the rabbit is now hidden in clothing of the magician and he pulls it out at the right time. But Don Juan did appear rabbits, not only for my vision. "intent" is what makes the world. The Teachings of Don Juan beyond my logic and my way of explaining the world. Being the master of "attempt" to Toltec sorcerers, Yaqui, Mazatec, who formed the group of Don Juan, meant to "control" what is the world's creation. For example, Don Juan once made to appear here in Alameda, Avenida Juarez, a squirrel in his hand, he had glasses and looked like a Japanese. What I could not get at the moment and could not tell you how to solve the case.
HL: The great success enjoyed your books on Anglo-Saxon countries is that much more attracted the message was the claim of the road individual. It is also by example, not by ideology or by an oral discourse, the shaman leads the master-apprentice to the understanding of certain phenomena of non-ordinary reality.
CC: Don Juan did not believe there is a body of knowledge, to which an apprentice may be referred, not to have internalized all the precepts of that body. I did not think the kind of action is suitable for psychiatrists, because I had my experiences while working in the office of a psychiatrist conducting surveys with people who had problems. And Don Juan was horrified by the idea that a person who helps, a psychiatrist, also has problems. I said: "What do whatever! "A superman?" Don Juan replied, "Of course, one has to require the help is a superman, that is free from all defects and meanness to interpret and suggest a behavior. Otherwise, what it does is validate himself. "To him, that had no meaning and of course the apprentice was all that existed. This, in the words of Don Juan, had to be impeccable if I wanted to be persuasive with him. The apprentice had to put all the components of his being on the table. If it was not flawless, monolithic in their behavior, he could not move anyone, had no personal power. The "intent" does not move. If I leave from flawless, if I had a double life, public and private, could not even go to the corner and there would be way to make the "bridge" I need at this time to move. It is the "intent" that moves me.
HL: in our American mentality we like to sing boleros about ourselves or we ourselves also like "novels roses" on our ego.
CC: We are colonial, tremendously influenced by all that is Europe. In Latin America live with one eye on the U.S. Embassy and the other, in France, awaiting influences. It is not something that we can avoid. Look where we are you and me: you are in France and I am in the United States. And there is no other way.
HL: In a conversation with Octavio Paz a few days ago we talked about the big issue between Latin America and the United States is cultural. We did not understand and yet are part of the same continent.
CC: Don Juan once gave me a very strange idea to me, told me that what I had to deal with something he called the "Torquemada" (2). What I had in me was not so much the European artist, the thinker, but the Inquisitor. And that's what he called the support of Europe and the totalitarian versions are not fetched, are not foreign visions. We are the inquisitors themselves! The Inquisitor's spirit carries within it the coercion, imposed on the other in a total. Don Juan said that his philosophy was the product of coercion than five years of indexes and archives as well as coercion of thought. Torquemada tremendous as it was pure and believed killed in the name of God, on behalf of a superior ideology unchallenged. The Nagual said that with such men had no way to fight, that was impossible. Only the warrior can escape the influence of Torquemada, who loaded us all up. That means freedom from yourself!
HL: In our continent is to replace a religion of the book, Catholic, on the other ideology derived from the Bible.
CC: Like all Latin, as you very well know how we are, when I met Don Juan, was imbued with ideas on reform and social injustice. Actually, I thought it might be useful politically or ideologically from a classical viewpoint. The rebel who wants to release bombs and revolution. Don Juan finished with all that my membership. He said: "Look, if there is someone between the two that should complain, it's me, I'm Yaqui Indian" I thought he would have to complain and not me. In the end, the Yaquis do not interest me as such, interested because they would put aside a more important: the salvation of the individual. I as an individual, not as a cultural element, understood the teachings of Don Juan of the best possible way, in my own interest. I put aside everything that meant social position. It is one of the criticisms that I made the night of the conference. They believed that Don Juan was not a shaman, in the sense that he had no social function.
HL: I referred several times to the fact that you were the "bridge" between Western civilization and the world of Don Juan. Could you explain this notion of being a "bridge" between these two worlds?
CC: would be impossible for the reader to go and talk to Don Juan. One criticism that I have done, is not having the sources of my information. If what I have told is true and must be taken seriously, I am obliged to present the sources: to bring people to know Don Juan, who speaks of his experiences, to say what he thinks and what it is. Don Juan could never do that, because he had no interest in doing so. In addition there are Americans who met with Don Juan, how they could have found me! If I were him I would have no incentive to disclose to anyone what I'm doing, it would be absurd! It would be tremendously superfluous close to me, as if imbued with the aura of Don Juan. If I were like him, there would be no way for me to say anything to anyone. Don Juan I used to me as a "vehicle" to express certain principles that governed his life, I had enough energy to undertake the task of conceptualizing, explaining, what don Juan was in his magical cycle. How do you explain Don Juan the world, the idea that he was one of the characters in a myth? I think there would be impossible and nobody approached him. When searching for the "Don Juan" of my books, of course it never was the Indian who was in front of them. If someone is found with Don Juan as the culmination a real search, the Nagual imprison him instantly and that person is out of the world. The compulsion of the warrior who is involved in this mythic cycle, is to bring freedom to anyone who approaches him. Don Juan gave me the task of explaining the universe, not because it concerns me or give me profits and in no way involves me. It's something like a term that comes from outside! If I leave me on my own, it would be impossible to meet, I talked to them, for what? But the Nagual "Unfortunately or fortunately, I was given the task of writing books and presenting them in the world. Never had to deal with this phenomenon and there was no way validated in terms of Western man his own existence. Not because it is hidden and has depths that separate us. With respect to the original question, how do I feel like a "bridge"? Don Juan chose me as a tight link between representing himself and the amorphous quality that we, the westerners. He's just locked up, and we are open to the point that we see nothing.
HL: I am interested in the randomness, chance encounters the most important thing you can do in life. You told me that Don Juan has chosen you, that you do not chose, but you got to him. What is the explanation?
CC: For Don Juan is the question of "intent" that governs the destiny of man, but the "intent" is not human intention. For him it is a major force that moves us, imprisons us. The "intent" is to tell the version of what we would know as God. The "intent" is not what Don Juan called the Nagual, the inexplicable, which can not be transcribed, that which has no form, is the All. While the Tonal is order, is an island of order, purpose, serial, equations, cycles of thoughts. All that is known to us in our role relacionantes beings. The "intent" is a force that is part of the Nagual, which can be describe and you can feel. And what applies this cycle is a matter of "intent" as a force that Don Juan found, so I came across on their way.
HL: The most admirable of your books, is the great sense of humor, ie not fall into the serious and solemn as ... Now that I know you understand because you have a sunny personality, a humorous view of life that is truly beneficial.
CC: That was the total insistence of Don Juan, cured me of the "long face and the ass of lead," the extraordinary weight. I was a man of great seriousness and of tremendous grief, nostalgia was feeling sad, sorry for myself, I pursued day and night. Don Juan cured me and that was a catharsis!
HL: I pointed out a contradiction, how to be the philosophy of your life that is truly funny is reconciled with a taste for poetry so sad and so tragic as that of César Vallejo (3)?
CC: As a distraction, I would read poems by Don Juan Vallejo and others who knew nothing of books. Spent hours talking with them. A Don Juan, he liked to pick just one verse of each poem, never more than one, said that verse summed up the whole vision of the poet. Beyond a stanza were complaints and cries. To show the truth of his assertions, don Juan made me read these poems and say, "Look, go back and read this part, that's the only thing worth in this poem, that's beyond absurd. The poet should have shortened his poem and leave it at four or five lines. " To me, I liked to read poetry very cerebral, Francophiles, that Don Juan did not like being too frivolous, were verbosity, crap. For me, Vallejo represented the end, as opposed to the position of Don Juan. "The second verse is an aberration, a grotesque" he said.
HL: I'll give you my personal opinion about the work of Vallejo, and not for the sensitive of our time. I see very Christian, very suffering that took five centuries of suffering of Peruvians.
CC: To me, I do not like César Vallejo, I feel extremely childish way bothers me about the idea of \u200b\u200bthe complaint and the staff crying. When I read in its entirety Vallejo me nauseous, too sad. To Don Juan's idea of \u200b\u200bthe conception of a human being is important, it should have been done by his parents with an extraordinary sensuality to give the child all possible options. Don Juan believed that it was an eyesore to conceive children in the ennui, boredom, take them after years of marriage, having acquired subsidiary that love has nothing to do with passion, but with civilization. Planning for the child after years of marriage, for Don Juan was a monster without a name, so awful as to have animals neutered at home. He said once the animals come from an irrational beings, we eat a power directly. They relate to an energy beings and not objects. Once I found a sparrow that had fallen from its nest, a rat had eaten a wing. Then I grabbed the sparrow and I tried to cauterize the wound, so it does not bleed. I told don Juan that he would pick the sparrow in my house, jumping with two feet without flying. Don Juan told me: "If you like monster Professional slave and dependent on you for everything. It is better to leave that is coupled with the Nagual, with the infinite ... "Don Juan said that the great tragedy of our time was the influence of beings created in disgust, and so were miserable beings who could not move by themselves dependent on the world, were burdensome, heavy, weak cry and complain ... and César Vallejo. Then the intelligence, melancholy, to me are an aberration. A horrible thing! appears that Vallejo was the son quinzavo of a marriage. Ugh
HL: I lived a very difficult time, you know everything that is told about prejudice in Peru early twentieth century against the Indian, mestizo, the cholo and these prejudices continue. The fact that in a famous poem complains of being treated "huaco" (4) is significant.
CC: That is the merit of César Vallejo. With Don Juan, we conclude that in fact terrible things happened to him. Don Juan used the "vehicle" of César Vallejo as a didactic element to me. As for myself, the idea of \u200b\u200bhow badly they treat me, I am reliving that situation and I am involved in another life vallejiana. He managed to escape the prejudices that are tremendous in the side of the world where I live.
HL: I think that's the problem with being "different." Any person sensitive, as the poet Vallejo. And in your case, this sensitivity to the surface and being aware of your "difference" will always have problems in any country where you live.
CC: Unless you behave like a warrior. Vallejo didactic vehicle for me was a uniquely important: Don Juan used Vallejo's life and his poems as an example of what you should not do.
HL: I've seen do not want to reveal details about yourself, you avoid the publication of your photo. This comment often heard in Europe: What happens to Carlos Castaneda? Are you or do not live up to what people ask? What as someone who was initiated into the secrets of an ancient gnosis, can contribute to our critical time?
CC: Well, the only way, I need to find a suitable word, convincing, so that I can persuade you. Again using his ideology, Don Juan insisted that the actual man is the "pirate." It does not ask, but grab what you can! The pirate is a loner who feels best in their loneliness. Do not cry, do not complain or cry! Because it is given its "piracy" and this gives a reason for being. As we are so far from where we come from, we got where we are. I think my assumption is correct, you and me are two pirates. So that I can convince other "pirate" as I can persuade him to have to produce a tangible result.
HL: a magical.
CC: would have-in the words of Don Juan, "" stop the world. " He felt that everything is a game of perceptions and therefore is a mutable thing. Organized beings have created a perception system that consists of perceptual units. Change the tenor of these units of perception, is to "stop the world." If I could, for example, do at this point a "miracle of intent" could then persuade you.
HL: If you have an atom of wisdom, being aware of what is happening in the world. I think that wisdom should be used to contribute with a grain of sand that does not end badly. I think the "hacker" needs to use all the cognitive elements to avoid the worst.
CC: Okay, I'm terribly disagree. The reason I said that my life was monolithic and that was to be a perfect man, only through the sinlessness could reach you or persuade another person to be like you. If I could not make that reassessment of energy, it would be impossible to apply the teachings of Don Juan. It would be a tremendous waste of time, because I could not reach the final synthesis. What you say is imperative that a contribution with a grain of sand and I am with you in a hundred percent, would provide that. The only way to do that for me is to stay within the canons of the teachings of Don Juan.
HL: I liked (I think it is the French translation of "A Separate Reality") the story: When you make the difference between the Yaqui has surrendered completely to alcohol, the victim of events, wants to own material objects, a motorcycle. And the difference with the Yaqui as Don Juan who has kept his inner self and has managed to reveal that diamond of wisdom that was in it. I think in that situation and there is the germ of an ethical project.
CC: precisely what gives pragmatic value to the conduct of Don Juan, is that it does so from a viewpoint of an ethic of "warrior" who totally transcends Christian morality. There is no interruption in their ethical concept as a whole person extends to cover everything. Between us, the world is split, we have an ethic that relates to politics, jurisprudence, a special division. There is an ethic that transcends the fractionation constant. Don Juan's conduct was that of a warrior which means a record total. His interest was guide, had no such interest in making friends always said I had no interest in making a slave for his mission.
HL: How can a man or a character like Carlos Castaneda was born in a remote part of the northern highlands of Peru (Castaneda laughed as if he liked my insistence that he publicly acknowledged that he was Peruvian) has been arrive at what has arrived?
CC: Indeed it is impossible to explain. Everything I think our luck. It is not possible to believe that we who come from what they call the "Third World", we rely solely on the work, talent. If we are unlucky we are nothing. Luck plays the ultimate role and is "trying." In my case it is an "attempt" stranger who comes from outside is not explained. You do not know how to explain it, you personally what happened in your life. I interpret it as luck, as something ethereal, as if I had smiled at the Dama.
HL: Or have a lucky star.
CC: That is the most appropriate way. Once one gets to the goal, is essential sinlessness that creates a link to the "Lucky Star." It is no longer an arbitrary thing of chance, something hasty.
HL: take the breath is needed. One may be born with a "lucky star" but without the vital impulse, then you end up practicing a worldly philosophy, snob ...
CC: Or just as a poker player with a lot of luck (laughs), making a fortune at baccarat, roulette.
HL: There are many people who are aware of what you say, what you write. What can you say about drug use?
CC: Don Juan told me, if one could see himself in a brutal manner, without passion, without mercy. If one were to understand, first of all, the idea of \u200b\u200bconception. If one was conceived in boredom, it is inevitable the use of drugs, the wiles of the supports easy as chemicals, psychoanalysis. According to Don Juan, modern man is the result of what he calls "boring caught." The individual who is a product of desperation born jaded intercourse, no matrix, no direction. If that person could have a brutal addition of itself, as would-be Don Juan-a miser of his power, and keep it for free from the tremendous needs, such as cigarettes, alcohol ... It must be that this dependence is due simply to a general discontent. The use of drugs is just an expression. Don Juan believed that was a reflection of how we were conceived.
HL: In Civilization posindustrializada, the father no longer fulfills its role. In fact, the father is the television. The father is no longer the educator of their children. For me, the ideal image of father would be the master ...
CC: One of the most terrible things that happened to me in my relationship with Don Juan. It's what made me realize what a child that we, boys. If they see with the eyes of the Yaqui sorcerer you will notice that we are engaged in a series of games and that women are much stronger. It seems like another species, however we are only children. That is a product of our time. Now the U.S. is more noticeable than elsewhere, you see a gentleman of sixty years boy feels, and that drags everyone, even women, in search of childhood, of immaturity. But youth is not what they want, do not want to be young. They want to be kids!
HL: In Europe, in France, I hear the same women facing the crisis of society and the alleged failure of male power: "The fault is that of men, they are the ones that have made wars. "
CC: One of the supports of the ideology of Don Juan is the idea that women are basically over. And no discussion! As a male chauvinistic coming from South America, it took an egg to accept this position. Now I have no problem in accepting it in all its depth. It would be a revolution if women did not have to rely on conjunctive units stolen from the man's masculinity. They do not need to be displayed as "butch."
HL: That is the risk of imitation of male power.
CC: Why would imitate the man, if he for them is the usurper? See them dressed butch, lesbian with a mustache. No kidding! That's too brought the hair!
HL: What do you see Europe from here in America?
CC: I see very old . Heh, heh, heh! Terribly decayed, intellectually hollow. I like America because you say there are no borders. They are wild children of bitches, as they say, but they have the youth and the initiative! Instead Europe, wrapped in terrible struggles of decline, is what Don Juan called Torquemada. ----------------------------------------------
------------------------------- (1) Weston La Barre, American professor of anthropology, author of "The Cult of peyote. "
(2) Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498), religious preacher, organized the Court of the Inquisition. Reyes was appointed by the Catholics as inquisitor general.
(3) Cesar Vallejo (1895-1938), Peruvian poet who lived from 1924 to 1938 in Paris, where he died. In his poetry denounces injustice, misery and misfortune that has befallen the man, praise the humanism and solidarity.
(4) Ceramics pre-Columbian civilizations with anthropomorphic, faces, especially in the Chimu and Mochica cultures that developed on the coast of the department of La Libertad where Vallejo was born.
http://www.geocities.com/diablisima
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