the teachings of don juan by carlos castaneda

What may seem cliché now only does so because stories like Castaneda’s were so frequently replicated. Furthermore, the world changed a great deal in the 1960s, especially insofar as its attitude to these sorts of things. Simply the reader can consider the implications of the experiences, and of the claims Don Juan makes. For the most part, he presents himself as clueless, afraid, out of his depth even over the course of the several years the book details he does not present himself as having come particularly far in his pursuits. Castaneda’s actual account, I would argue, largely sidesteps this problem. Whether it be retreating to a monastery to become a master meditator or martial artist somewhere in the Far East, or descending into tangled jungle to learn to live off the earth with a hunter gatherer tribe. We’ve become somewhat accustomed to romanticised stories of “civilised” folk journeying into the great unknown with a local as their guide. Looking back on Castaneda’s story in 2021 might cause some to wince, for a few reasons. If as the reader you are able to take his account at face value, then equally one’s own preconceptions are vaporised by the power of these experiences. Jimsom weed, peyote, and various other sacred plants and blends propel this naïve anthropology student into a powerful psychic realm, infinitely multiplistic and impossible to anticipate. He writes in a rather detached, clinical style, but this only serves to amplify the impact of his accounts. Castaneda’s experiences, as he presents them, are captivating. For obvious reasons, the former is of more interest to the general reader. The second attempts to take a structural approach to his teachings. It is broken up into two sections, the first detailing Castaneda’s experiences and his long conversations with Don Juan. The book is presented as the consolidation of many pages of “field notes” which Castaneda took while conversing with Don Juan. The first in a series of books detailing his experiences with the shaman Don Juan, ‘The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge’ is a fascinating exploration of altered states of consciousness.

The teachings of don juan by carlos castaneda