Reply #5: amazing....just talking to a friend about this last night, which led to this, sort of:

[Gabi Hayes]

http://www.evolver.net/node/56519

Castaneda was a fake! A charlatan, I tell you......

a response:

Being one of those who got into Casteneda as a young pup... I have spent 30 odd years studying everything from his work to mystical systems around the world to tantra and yoga.... Let me say that Carlos is absolutely true. Carlos tells an amazing story. It was his intent from the beginning to place the teachings in a story form out there for all to see and understand if they choose to. And he challenged the hell out of the anthropology community all over the world. A challenge they despirately needed.

There was an actual Don Juan.... don Juan Black Crow was an amazing elder who worked with Carlos but not for as long as the books state. Carlos worked with many bujos, elders and people of knowledge. He was able to fall into a warrior's group and they trained and shared with him... yet he also wandered away from the pack... and went out on his own... erasing personal history also meant protecting many of these people. And I think it astonished the global community to realize that knowledge was there in the Mexican people for hundreds of years. Don't underestimate any culture!

But added to his work by either his own hand or by the people that he learned from is yoga/tai chi - which was also just coming to the US, as well as a deeply researched awareness of the myths and stories around the plummed serpent and a ton of mystical stuff from Buddhism. Finding these tidbits from all over the world - the Rule of the Eagle is directly lifted from tantric or esoteric buddhism... was for me a revelation of the brilliance of Carlos Casteneda and his ability to weave human systems of thought and spiritual practice together.

Seriously out there... Carlos brought probably one of the most integrated structures from the warrior's practice of freedom to traditional enlightenment (freedom!). He made all these foreign systems very American (in the north and south sense not US). When I met my benefactor it surprised me at first at his broad awareness of esoteric spirituality and knowledge and not just the traditional teachings of his own tribe. From yoga to tai chit to aliens, he was fascinated by it all. As were and are the brujo communities of Mexico which Carlos speaks of... hell as any group of humans who learn about spirit would be. There are no limits to knowledge when one walks the path... we look at everything. (see Daniel Pinchbeck)

Does this mean that what he wrote was historically true in the sense which the newspapers write.... absolutely not (neither are the stories in the bible for that matter - they are filled with agenda as all writing is)... But it does mean that he does a great job of pointing a finger at the moon. The question is, will you get lost in the finger or will you come to know the moon for yourself.

As the Siddhartha Gautama noted when he was dying..... Follow not the person of the path, for you will find nothing there... instead follow the path for yourself. Test and try everything for its own truth. Only then will the doorways be open to nirvana (which means snuffing out the candle).

And such was Carlos' legacy.... a truly integrated system which aids the seeker on a path of freedom if they make it there own. If you are looking for Carlos, he is not there, not even in the books. But you may find yourself.