Terence McKenna put it best when he described how we in the West spend so much time turning over rocks in search of great mysteries, always looking down darkened byways of knowledge for the bizarre, the peculiar, the outré. For centuries the search for alchemical gold carved out huge chunks of the lives of learned people. Shamanism, on the other hand, long ago stopped searching for the Philosopher’s Stone; it has already found it. Carlos Castaneda, in the early 1960s, met according to him a man named Don Juan who, over the course of several years, inducted him into the practise. What Castaneda describes, if it is to be believed, proves McKenna’s claim. There is power at work in the world, wieldable by human beings, a ‘quality of experience besides which scientific inexactitude stands in peril of paling into insignificance’, said Theodore Roszak.
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 book is presented as the consolidation of many pages of “field notes” which Castaneda took while conversing with Don Juan. It is broken up into two sections, the first detailing Castaneda’s experiences and his long conversations with Don Juan. The second attempts to take a structural approach to his teachings. For obvious reasons, the former is of more interest to the general reader. Castaneda’s experiences, as he presents them, are captivating. He writes in a rather detached, clinical style, but this only serves to amplify the impact of his accounts. 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. 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.
Looking back on Castaneda’s story in 2021 might cause some to wince, for a few reasons. We’ve become somewhat accustomed to romanticised stories of “civilised” folk journeying into the great unknown with a local as their guide. 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. Castaneda’s actual account, I would argue, largely sidesteps this problem. 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. Simply the reader can consider the implications of the experiences, and of the claims Don Juan makes. Furthermore, the world changed a great deal in the 1960s, especially insofar as its attitude to these sorts of things. What may seem cliché now only does so because stories like Castaneda’s were so frequently replicated.
Nonetheless, many have pointed out wrinkles in Castaneda’s story, and some have even cast doubt on the whole account and the existence of Don Juan. I admit, I did find myself considering this possibility while reading. Castaneda details long conversations apparently only from notes, never mentioning having a tape recorder present for their conversations. Others point to details of their psychedelic foraging which do not square with our knowledge of the region he describes. My personal view is that the book represents a fictionalised account of things which really happened. This, I think, is the best way to read Castaneda; the high points, the moments of great drama, are the truths around which this narrative is constructed. If you can accept this, you find immediately that human beings do, indeed, have the means to experience magic. Take the other details as you will.
Looking back on Castaneda’s story in 2021 might cause some to wince, for a few reasons. We’ve become somewhat accustomed to romanticised stories of “civilised” folk journeying into the great unknown with a local as their guide. 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. Castaneda’s actual account, I would argue, largely sidesteps this problem. 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. Simply the reader can consider the implications of the experiences, and of the claims Don Juan makes. Furthermore, the world changed a great deal in the 1960s, especially insofar as its attitude to these sorts of things. What may seem cliché now only does so because stories like Castaneda’s were so frequently replicated.
Nonetheless, many have pointed out wrinkles in Castaneda’s story, and some have even cast doubt on the whole account and the existence of Don Juan. I admit, I did find myself considering this possibility while reading. Castaneda details long conversations apparently only from notes, never mentioning having a tape recorder present for their conversations. Others point to details of their psychedelic foraging which do not square with our knowledge of the region he describes. My personal view is that the book represents a fictionalised account of things which really happened. This, I think, is the best way to read Castaneda; the high points, the moments of great drama, are the truths around which this narrative is constructed. If you can accept this, you find immediately that human beings do, indeed, have the means to experience magic. Take the other details as you will.
review written by Sam Fenn
RSS Feed
