sustained re action

[ju4o]

"... there is an path, ..."

Well, I'm not just saying there is a path.  Probably there are millions, and dJ (if he existed) outlined one of them.  Hopefully one with heart.

Likewise there are probably millions of enemies along these paths and dJ (if he existed) described four.

As for which particular enemy (or enemies) Castaneda fell prey to ... or if indeed he fell prey at all ... I'm simply saying what I think most likely.  I'm giving this as an example of a complete explanation, in response to your earlier remark that "the explanation will always fall short due to the cherrys being from an tree that also grew nazpires".  The explanation I'm suggesting explains everything, i.e. it explains how the earlier books seem like an attempt to present a hard-to-understand world view which he encountered while doing field work in Mexico, while the later books seem too phantasmagoric to take seriously as possible reportage.

"Nazpires" belong to the later books, and when you say "if don juan was real for an time, who taught him, julian ?" bear in mind that Julian is first mentioned in TFfW (a very late book).

[Mr X]

hello there mr j,

paths, to what exactly. millions of paths leading to where ? no where ? why 'hopefully' one with heart, what does that matter. we are meatbags on an speck of dust in space, why does heart matter, where does an path lead.

millions of enemies, but you say casta just casually and conveniently fell to an pitfall he himself coined. the majestic and deep idea of 'clarity'. not the common and normal enemie of 'wanted power money sex and drugs, had and imagination'. which one is more likey.

if you are going to make an complete explainer, i suggest you do that. write and essay if you have to, i will read it. but to say it and complete explainer because the early books were good and the later books bad, says nothing. it just sets us back at square one. if the complete total explanation is 'he was reporting and real but hard to understand world, then he went of the rails', the first question is 'what culture was the source of the intial information, what was he reporting about, what is the name of the hard to understand world view, where did the informant learn it from'. if the first reaction is to look for the missing peices, then it is not complete.

i do appreciate the idea of an 'complete explantion', dont get me wrong, it is an nice idea for presenting an viewpoint. julian being from later books doesnt really matter, what matters is, if you think the early stuff was real, what is it, where is it from, what is the point of it. where extactly is the cut off point of it being real before it becomes fantasy.

mr x.

[ju4o]

Not sure if the exact cut off point matters.  I think there was a marked but gradual loss of believability round about the time that Castaneda said he was going to change his 'format' and I wouldn't pin it down to an exact point.

Questions about cultural source are interesting, or would be if there was any way of addressing them.  Which I think there aren't, in the case of Castaneda.  There could have been, back then in the 60s and 70s, people could have put him on the spot more.

These days anthropologists tend to accuse Castaneda (if they mention him at all) of misrepresenting the Yaquis.

My question to them is, looking at the content of his books instead of just their titles, where is he actually doing this (misrepresenting the Yaquis).

The friend who had introduced me to don Juan explained later that the old man was not a native of Arizona, where we met, but was a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico.

At first I saw don Juan simply as a rather peculiar man who knew a great deal about peyote and who spoke Spanish remarkably well. But the people with whom he lived believed that he had some sort of 'secret knowledge', that he was a 'brujo'. The Spanish word brujo means, in English, medicine man, curer, witch, sorcerer. It connotes essentially a person who has extraordinary, and usually evil, powers.

I had known don Juan for a whole year before he took me into his confidence. One day he explained that he possessed a certain knowledge that he had learned from a teacher, a 'benefactor' as he called him, who had directed him in a kind of apprenticeship. Don Juan had, in turn, chosen me to serve as his apprentice, but he warned me that I would have to make a very deep commitment and that the training was long and arduous.

I think there is nothing in any of the books which tie this in to Yaqui culture.

[ju4o]

Here is a typical example,

A seeker meets an ancient Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus in the desert. Mystical truth is shown to the hero through hallucinogenic drugs. And the mysteries of the universe are revealed.

What a trip.

Too bad it probably never happened. Not the drug part, anyway.

So says David Delgado Shorter, associate professor in UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures, about the generation-defining, bestselling, iconic -- and controversial -- stories by Carlos Castaneda '62, M.A. '64, Ph.D. '73.

Castaneda's books have sold 8 million copies in 17 languages since The Teachings of Don Juan was first published in 1968. But they spawned a firestorm of protest and criticism because of discrepancies, inaccuracies and other suspicions of exactly when, where and how Castaneda learned of the information in his books.

That's what Shorter suspects may have happened with the nonexistent Yaqui drug connection.

"Castaneda's books became benchmarks of New Age thinking and his representations fueled critiques about the way anthropologists and New Ageists link native people with drug culture," he notes. "The Yaqui are fascinating because they were the alternative way of understanding the world at a moment when there was a general suspicion of the government and the Western way of being ... but no psychotropic plants are indigenous to Yaqui areas."

Shorter grew up close to and among native people in New Mexico and has lived with the Yaqui (or Yoeme, as they call themselves) off and on for 15 years. He also is the author of a book about the Yaqui's way of knowledge, the recently published We Shall Dance Our Truth. And he underscores that while the drug link is unfortunate as well as inaccurate, there is, in truth, much to admire about Yoeme ideas about life.

"They maintain active relationships with plants, animals and the land in a way that's inseparable from how they know themselves," Shorter explains. "We Shall Dance Our Truth is primarily about that way of knowing the world. Academically, it's about understanding how that way of knowing the world affects how you represent yourself to others."

In fact, how "the other" is represented in general in American society is a keen interest of the Bruin scholar. At UCLA, he also teaches a course on aliens, psychics and ghosts.

"The way people think about ancient cultures is the same way they think about the future, and myths, other times and other spaces," Shorter concludes. "They are all easily misrepresented as well."

Far out, indeed.

http://magazine.ucla.edu/depts/quicktakes/the_dancing_truth/ (http://magazine.ucla.edu/depts/quicktakes/the_dancing_truth/)

[Mr X]

yes i agree, even as an skeptic, that casta should not be related to yaqui culture.

its is dumb and ingenuous for even professionals such as antro pologist, to go down that road.

the second quote sounds sanchez like, 'he was wrong, but i am right'. which is acceptable and fair, for them to want to describe their actual dealings with an culture, but referencing casta at all seems dumb.

the cut off point certainly would be valuable information in the scenario where some of it is true.

mr x.

[ju4o]

"the cut off point certainly would be valuable information in the scenario where some of it is true."

[ju4o]

Well perhaps after developing the negative and noticing the clock, he could have gone back and photographed the scene without the clock.  But that seems excessive.  Anyway, here are 4 possible scenarios:

S1: publish the original photo (with clock).

S2: publish the doctored photo (as he actually did).

S3: go back, re-photograph without clock, and publish the result.

S4: not publish.

[Mr X]

the difference between knowing the cut off point is black and white or sepia. or and clock. i admint i dont get it. could you dumb it down and notch.

the cut off point remains as mattering. should one reduce self importance and then jump of an cliff, or should one not. where does the realness end.

mr x.

mr g, just saying,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Y8t1IBTlA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzCEdSKMkdU
both to be watched in hd, it is glorious, i am happy.

[ju4o]

It's just that I think that knowing the exact cut off point wouldn't tell us anything much, with any reasonable degree of confidence, about reality.

For example, suppose that in some way we discovered that the first x books (for some value of x) were honest reportage and the subsequent books were fakes.

Well, even if everything that happened in the first x books really did appear to Carlos to happen ... it could still be the case (and I would imagine that a materialist would argue that it must have been the case) that everything of an apparently outlandish nature was simply the result of hallucinogenic ingestion.

[Mr X]

if on the morrow there was released an signed confession by casta saying the exact cut off. it would be interested.

"it was all real until i first used the word toltec to describe my informants world view, i came up with toltec while pooping after eating some spicy empanadas and went with that"

there would be, as and example, value in that. in that we could witness the mental gymnastics performed by all the beliefers who claimed he was right, and they turned an buck off of it.

what would the theun mares cult say when it is clear there are no toltecs. what would toltec eagle-scout miguel say.

for the average joe, if they want to belief in enemyes of man or drug fueled magic as their philosophy, there doesnt seem much harm in that. at least they dont subsribe to death for apostasy or other extreme beliefs. the exact cut off for them doesnt really matter, as even if there way of life view over extended into some magical thinking, the magic will never happen, and it wont hurt.

when people start selling and truth saying the magic, past cut off point ideas, there is and problem.

mr x.

[ju4o]

I don't know anything about Theun Mares and when I google on the name it says "This site may be hacked" and

You'll see the message "This site may be hacked" when we believe a website may have been hacked. The hacker may have changed some of the existing pages on the site, or added new spam pages. If you visit the site, you may be redirected to spam or malware.

We recommend that you don't visit the website until this message disappears from the search result.

The other name you mention, I'm guessing you mean Miguel Ruiz.  According to his (hopefully non-hacked) website

Don Miguel Ruiz was born into a humble family with ancient traditions in rural Mexico, the youngest of 13 children. He considers himself very lucky, as this was where he learned from an early age that everything is possible, if we really want it.

His parents, Don Jose and Dona Sarita, as well as his grandfather, Don Leonardo, all believed that Miguel would continue their legacy in the centuries old Toltec tradition. Instead Don Miguel attended medical school, and became a surgeon.

For several years he practiced medicine with his brothers, and he realized that what needed to be healed was not only the physical brain, but the human mind as well.

A near fatal car accident changed the direction of Don Miguel's life. He experienced himself as pure awareness outside of the constraints of his physical body. He realized that the Toltec wisdom of his family contained all of the tools needed to change the human mind. Don Miguel promptly returned to his mother to finish his training and he became a Shaman.

So according to your scenario,

if on the morrow there was released an signed confession by casta saying the exact cut off. it would be interested.

"it was all real until i first used the word toltec to describe my informants world view, i came up with toltec while pooping after eating some spicy empanadas and went with that"

there would be, as and example, value in that. in that we could witness the mental gymnastics performed by all the beliefers who claimed he was right, and they turned an buck off of it.

what would the theun mares cult say when it is clear there are no toltecs. what would toltec eagle-scout miguel say.

I think that a "signed confession by casta" would have no effect at all on Miguel Ruiz's claims to authenticity since he would simply say, presumably, that his toltec roots come from or through his family.

So, at least so far as concerns Ruiz, you may not be correct in supposing that there would be interesting mental gymnastics ensuing upon a confession by casta saying he'd invented a toltec connection.

There is also Victor Sanchez (see Toltecs of the New Millennium, "Sanchez describes the Toltec tradition living on in the practice of contemporary indigenous people of Mexico") and I think that a signed confession by Casta would do nothing to undermine him either.

Actually on his website (hopefully also non-hacked) it is quite interesting:

Let's begin from the beginning. For ethnologists and historians, the Toltecs were the pre-Columbian Indian people that lived in central Mexico - mainly from 8th century to 12th century. Their capital city was Tula in the Mexican State of Hidalgo. After the 12th century, the Toltecs abandoned Tula; codices and registers from 16th century talk about the Toltec dispersion, supposedly related with the departure of their leader, Quetzalcoatl. One of the most interesting, found in the codices is the one that talks about Quetzalcoatl going to a cave under the Chapultepec Hill (in Mexico City), where he would enter into another dimension (Mictlan, Nahual or Omeyocan) and disappear forever. Anyway, what it clear, is that Toltecs did spread themselves in ancient Mexico influencing with their knowledge many other indigenous cultures, such as the Mayas. That is history.

The fact is: The Toltecs are considered the greatest civilizators of the past, not only nowadays but since the 16th century when the Aztec people were used to call "Toltec", a man of knowledge, as a resemblance of the great wisdom of the Ancient Toltecs, and the Toltequity to be the highest level of knowledge a human being can achieve.

For average people, the Toltecs were some kind of wise Indian people that disappeared many centuries ago. Since the Toltecs left so long ago, anyone can state whatever he or she wants about them... anyway, the Toltecs are not here to defend themselves, or at least it seems so...

Are they still here?

Maybe because Toltec Indians have no voice in the topics about Toltec Indian knowledge there is so much controversy among non-indian teachers of Toltec knowledge. But, there is one point that almost nobody is taking into account: there are indian communities in the present Mexico, preserving and keeping alive the practices of ancient Toltequity. That's what I have discovered, and that is the body of practices I am involved with, and from where I have taken the clues for making a practical and wise use of the proposals contained in the books of Carlos Castaneda. The way and techniques I have developed inspired by the writings of Castaneda, do not pretend to reflect the unworldly goals of Castaneda's tales, but those which are congruent with the Toltequity I have learned among the living Indian Toltecs in the Mexican mountains where they do live.

I have written the testimony of my experience among the surviving Toltecs in the book "Toltecs of the New Millennium". In that book, I have included many references, photos, official witnesses, etc., in order to let people know that what I am talking about is really happening in the same world in which they are living, because I think it is important for the reader to be sure that what he or she is reading, it is real... especially when this reader is looking for something to apply in his or her life, in the everyday world. It isn't my interest to criticize anybody, but this is my point of view and I just want to be clear about it.

The inheritors of the ancient Toltequity call themselves Wirrarika. Most of them speak only the Wirrarika language but some speak Spanish also. Even though they are more than 50,000, not all the members of the community share the same amount of knowledge related with their spiritual tradition.

Among the Wirrarika, there are special groups of people called Jicareros, which are the keepers of the ancient magical practices. They live levels of experience in the world of perception that the other members of the community can't even imagine.

The spanish word "Tradicion" (tradition, custom, etc.) doesn't mean for the Wirrarika people a body of beliefs, but a body of very efficient practices, oriented for the practitioner to achieve highest levels of awareness and perception.

Among the surviving Toltecs, the figure of the master, as we are used to think of in western and some non-western societies, doesn't exist. They are used to learning directly from "Spirit". The man of knowledge, the shaman is a mere vehicle that pushes the practitioner to look for the Spirit at the sacred places. There aren't books, there aren't formal teachings and there aren't human teachers. There are just sets of specific actions, which are the way to knock on the door of Spirit. If Spirit opens the door, the learning begins. You cannot just hear about "Usi" (Wirrarika word for Great Spirit), you must see it and hear it for yourself, without intermediaries. That's the way of the Toltec.

The surviving Toltecs are indians which are involved in their own world and they do not seem to be interested in the non-indian world. They are not interested in teaching or selling anything to us. They are only interested in surviving and keeping the Tradition alive, because it is their way to assume their own role as fields of energy, as real sons and daughters of the Sun, with the same nature as Great Father Sun and with the same love as Great Mother Earth.

I don't know how true or substantiable that is, but I would think that a "signed confession" by Casta wouldn't come anywhere close to being a problem.

[Mr X]

hello there mr j, nice post. thank you for that.

it appears that we disagree on this, in an good way. i think the exact cut off point of truth vs lies matters (in the imaginary scenario that anything casta said was true). i just do, no big deal. you dont think it matters. this is when other voices would be nice, what do people other than you and i think.

if the america government said one day "some of the offical informations about the moon landing is true, some of it isnt, you dont need the details because it doesnt matter", and person would want to know what was true and what wasnt. why would anyone not want to know the exact details of and interested story.

in this hyper thetical thing we are discussioning, where some of castas reportage was true, and the rest wasnt, the imaginary memoirs of casta called "a tale that is partly true" would matter, have and effect, and be an problem*.

it does bewilder me, on the casta centric forums, that someone could be interested in the casta mystery but not be aware at least in an cursory way of all the spin offs. i said it at sr multiple times.

you are an very smart person, an scholar of casta lore, the king of quotes references and citations. but you dont know anything about an strong casta spin off like mares. it is weird. i feel like we are on the verge of an orginal conversation, not the same old things rehashed, as looking at the full toltec picture also weirdly didnt happen at sr.

it is funny about the mares site, i always thought his cult would not go well after he died. he did have lots of websites, which one was hacked. mares used casta as and base and built and very imaginative world around it, was successful, formed and cult, did the whole cult compound and everything. you would probably like his stuff for the novelty alone. he was all about the 'toltec tradition', claiming casta was in contact with an real toltec, but then became and fraud. but used the intial casta as an example of legit toltecness. "a tale that is partly true" would put an frog in his sprocket.

but, and a big but, i agree that the confession proof wouldnt ultimately matter to him as and problem, or miguel, or victor. the default human position is to not belief in ultra magical toltecs, yet, people do. like anything new age or religious, and person can say and claim anything, with no proof whatsoever, and there will be dummys that will buy into it. they would still be able to run their businesses and make money off things that dont exist. but in the histroy books - the records of reality - things would be different.

and chunk of casta debunking is based of him taking ideas from other books that were published before he published the same ideas. that is accepted. why would people view miguel any different. all the other main toltecs only came out as toltecs after reading castas books. they can claim all day they knew about it before casta, but it doesnt make it so.

who cares if he claims he knew about toltecs all along, that means nothing. anyone can and does claim anything, doesnt even remotley make it true. he came out as an toltec after he read casta. 1, there was and guy who wrote about toltecs, and turned out to be and total fraud. 2 there was another guy who wrote about toltecs, after the first guy, but he is totally legit. yeah, no. the simple and most direct answer is miguel got his toltec ideas from casta books. very similar to casta getting ideas from other books.

this is where some good research comes in for finesse, there has to be and quote on record from miguel somewhere in time where he says what he thinks of casta. it would be intereseted.

sanchez, is he or has he ever been relevant ? he is and total true beliefer, he made money writing about casta path being real. he wanted to find the real toltecs, he made what he found into toltecs.
oh, toltecs are really called wirrarika, ok. not toltecs then ? oh ok. so they werent and super magical order that trancended the cultures they lived in, just an very findable bunch of mexicans. i actually have that new millieum book right here, but have never looked at it. he is just and nother beliefer that tried to find real toltecs, and forced the fantasy.

the eagle feather guy claimed don juan was real and he met him, wouldnt the casta confession present and problem to him ?

cleargreen claims don juan was real and the teach his teachings, wouldnt the casta confession present and problem to them ?

lujan claims to have interacted with casta story warriors and the tenant, wouldnt the casta confession present and problem to him ?

admintedly, non of them would acknowldge the confession, they would continue to be crazy, but if we could have an discussion with them in light of the confession, there would be mental gymnastics, no ?

mr x.

[ju4o]

"it does bewilder me, on the casta centric forums, that someone could be interested in the casta mystery but not be aware at least in an cursory way of all the spin offs. i said it at sr multiple times."

I think no need to be bewildered.  I didn't say I'm not aware of these people.  I surely am aware, "at least in a cursory way", of the people you have mentioned.  I have heard of Theun Mares, not least through your own posts on SR.  I even recall replying to several of your posts so probably I did google at least some of the people.  But I don't find any of them interesting, except for Sanchez.

I note your suggestion that I might find out more about Theun Mares:

you would probably like his stuff for the novelty alone. he was all about the 'toltec tradition', claiming casta was in contact with an real toltec, but then became and fraud. but used the intial casta as an example of legit toltecness.

So OK I have now had a look, as fortunately I have access to a browser specially hardened against possible malware.  It has the amusing side effect of making google speak German: "Diese Website wurde möglicherweise gehackt".  This seems quite suitable.  The whole subject is supposed to be about being a warrior and somehow it feels easier to be intrepid in German.

But, browsing around the various sites associated with his name, I can't seem to find a single interesting thing.  He doesn't even claim to have met a magician at a bus stop, but simply says

In 1977, Theun started to remember details of his training as a Toltec Warrior in previous lifetimes, and, as his memory of all his training was restored, he began to prepare for his work as a nagal (pronounced nah-hal). A nagal is traditionally a leader of a Toltec unit of warriors, and part of a nagal's duties involve leading his unit to freedom. Because of this, a nagal's work is normally never in the public eye.

However, although he prefers not to be in the public eye, times have changed and Theun's role now requires a higher profile. In addition to his private work of teaching personal apprentices, Theun's current work involves revealing the Toltec Teachings to the world through his books, as well as teaching more widely through his residential retreats.

Well, if he is saying that his training is based solely on memories recovered from previous lifetimes, how can it be of any interest?  Maybe he is leaving out some crucial details, but that also makes it not interesting.

This is probably a pretty boring post, at least I find it boring reading other people posting about how something does not interest them, and I try not to do it myself.  I am making an exception on this occasion.  I hope it helps you feel less bewildered.

[Mr X]

could you explain more why you find sanchez interseted ?

yes his claim is past life times, and the nazgul 'j". big claim, but at the same level of "my grandparents were toltecs, they are dead now you cant question them, they taught my mom, now i am a toltec".

i met someone at an bustop, is not that much different. just someone claiming something we cant verify.

maybe he is leaving out crucial details is and bit silly, of course he is, what new ager doesnt, i think an cursory awareness goes an bit further than that. how can it be of real interest - it was an casta based cult that gained and foothold in the minds of real human beings. people lives were effected by it. it was 100% tied up in and an result of carlos castaneda. how is that not interestering.

when i used to keep an eye on the various spin offs as part of this casta hobby, it took regular checks on the mares sites to see how things changed over time, such as the locations of the compounds, and the strength of the 'group belief'. i havent looked for and while, i imagine the network is dead.

i dont find any of them interested, i more find the whole casta thing interested, purely because it is ear marked as "potential supernatural". just that tiny remote chance there is some supernatural seed somewhere in it. aside from that, the way it turned culty and spawned alternative cults and people* bought into it, is also interested. the people beliefing in it is and very interested topic.

i appreciate these words -  But I don't find any of them interesting, except for Sanchez.

i personally prefer to look at the whole thing casta spawned including casta, sanchez was one of them even though i dont like him, so if you want to look into sanchez more, i have two of his books here, tell me why he doesnt suck.

ps. i thought you would like the mares novelty as its like don juan meets madame blavatsky.

mr x.

*casta readers who bought into secondary cults

** i admint in advance that sanchez has and nice mustache.

[ju4o]

"yes his claim is past life times, and the nazgul 'j". big claim, but at the same level of "my grandparents were toltecs, they are dead now you cant question them, they taught my mom, now i am a toltec"."

No these (the Mares claim and the Ruiz claim) are very different.

Although as I have mentioned I am not interested in either of them, I am interested in the way that their claims are different and am happy to talk more about that.

The key thing in the Ruiz claim is that it posits the continuing presence of toltec lineage in the community he was born into.  This is something that is checkable and verifiable.  Sure it could be very difficult to check and/or verify.  The community might be very secretive.  Overcoming that challenge is one of the most interesting things that anthropology is beginning to try to come to terms with.

Here is an example of how anthropologists are trying to learn how to be more sensitive, and thereby have a better chance of studying indigenous wisdom, from the already mentioned yaqui expert now at UCLA.

It is a one hour video but on the whole worth watching I think.  There is an amusing cameo appearance of a very brief Castaneda-related anecdote in the middle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_mYlqDvo_o (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_mYlqDvo_o)