Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I was wondering if you've ever read any Carlos Castaneda

Been reading a lot of his work lately. Incredibly fascinating stuff

(He was an anthropologist who went to Mexico to study Yaqui Indian brujos (he uses the word "sorcerors"), and ended up apprenticed to one of them. His books describe the most highly evolved model for magic that I've ever heard of. Definition of "sorcery" according to this model is simply learning to perceive in ways that reveal things that are invisible to the default mode of perception thrust upon us by society)

Back in the late sixties and early seventies the Castaneda books were all the rage. They offered an alternative view of reality from the numbing despair we had to trudge through. Actually the mirror of the despair was the counter-culture, a real foray into changing the dominant paradigm, structured controlled reality that we'd been programmed into and Don Juan was an alter ego along with various mystics. What was remarkable about these books was their proximity to the USA and the complete alteration in perspective the books pffered so that when we journeyed with them and returned we had freshness and belief in the possibility of having paths with heart.

Now have forgotten and lost my old books. Wonder and bewilderment is a part of the way, for sure.

The Teachings of Don Juan, Tales of Power, Journey to Ixtlan
fed me where i was most hungry.

Right on time, i absorbed a great deal from the words of Castenada - myth or not, irrelevant to me.

i loved the way he put it: We explain the world to our children.
With each parental description, the child's wide perceptions slowly dwindle into a replica of the parent's.

Hence, when i gave birth, i did not describe the world to my daughter - i shut up a great deal and simply walked with her endlessly through orange orchards and chicken houses and hot houses and streets and forests and we listened and smelled and i did not tell her what she was hearing, smelling or thinking.

The books helped me release past illusions and look beyond.
(with a little help from other entheogens)

judih

I loved the books. Important in my life also.

I had to look up entheogen. Duh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen

me too, i mean, i don't know those books, but the author's name i've sure seen passed around quite a bit. but i meant i had to look up the word. what a beautiful word it is... got this definition from dictionary.com

Definition: any substance, such as a plant or drug, taken to bring on a spiritual experience
Example: Entheogen is supposed to be a kinder term than hallucinogen or psychedelic.
Etymology: lit. `generating the divine within'

'generating the divine within'... now you're speaking my language.

One degree of separation from Florinda Donner to Carlos Castaneda: Florinda's book "Being-in-Dreaming." Carlos is actually a person written about in the book

The first Castaneda book I read was "The Power of Silence," which is tied with "The Art of Dreaming" for my favourite; the first 3 (well, not the 3rd so much), being the three that judih mentioned, deal too much with drugs for my taste. "The Power of Silence" circumvents any peripheral and cuts right to the bare nature of "sorcery," which, as the Marksman, is the way I prefer to do things, sharpshot-like

I think "Journey to Ixtlan" or "The Power of Silence" would be best to start with. If you read "Journey to Ixtlan," you should follow it up with "Tales of Power"; it seems to me that these two were intended by the author to be one book but they were split by the publisher or editor or something

I remember that the sorcerer eventually took his pupil beyond drugs. They were a doorway, yes, but heightened senses, and sensitivity, were developed.

Same thing can happen from anything that takes you into a radical transformation, including trauma, heartbreak, and the arts.
Shamanic aptitude comes to us by that heightened sensitivity, an experiental thing.

Whatever triggers it, tho, helped by community, if possible, and an element of trust and respect.

Marksman...Carlos opened a door. I could so relate personally to the shaman and curandero totems as I live on the Mexican border.

I was just refering to these books the other day. When don Juan was teaching Carlos about how to find his place, his comfort zone so to speak and how one will instinctively know it when it is found.

The metaphors in these books, the lessons...all amazed me when I first read them many years ago.

I was reviewing a few threads in here for fun, and came across this one. At the time this was posted I had read one Castenada book, about twenty years prior. But the question got me wanting to read him. Not for show. For real.
I did just that. Read everybook he wrote and it changed my attitude for the better immensely. Each book was engrossing.
I started out with Journey to Ixetlan and like you, I really dug the The Art of Dreaming. Speaking of Florinda Donner, I ran into her name in one of Casteneda's books and realized I had a book of hers called The Witches Broom, which I will never part with...great book. I haven't read the one you mentioned...yet.
This needed to be written down doncha think????!
H