Syncretism, Syncretic Occultism, Carlos Castaneda and the Monetization of the Occult
When asked by an interviewer if don Juan Matus actually existed (as well as straightening out some inconsistencies in his personal biography), Carlos Castaneda replied, "To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics ... is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all."
What I take this to mean is that the Yaqui sorcerer don Juan was a convenient fiction made up by an anthropology student with a vivid imagination and a few too many peyote buttons. But Castaneda was a compelling story teller and we all believed it---and bought his books. It is not surprising that he and Naranjo became friends. He visited the early SAT groups, and perhaps used Naranjo’s group process to create his own Tensegrity, “the modernized version of some movements called magical passes developed by Indigenous shamans who lived in Mexico in times prior to the Spanish conquest."
One very deep root of the modern Western Enneagram teaching is the small world of Latin American esotericism and its deep, though convoluted connection with native shamanism. Naranjo’s own story is tied up with that of Ichazo who was never very clear about his sources--usually some version of the story of stopping for lunch at an ordinary wayside ristorante in Argentina and the waiter handing him a note from a group of ordinary-looking men sipping afternoon aperitifs while exchanging the latest in their research of the inner workings of the human psyche. Another partially verified story is Naranjo’s journey to Arica Chile where, after some vague initiation into a mystery cult, receiving instructions from a Bolivian esotericist named Oscar Ichazo who by the way was guided by his spiritual guide, the highest Archangel Metatron, Naranjo went out into the Atacama Desert for 40 days, the driest place on the face of the earth (drier than the place where Jesus stood down the devil in his 40 day retreat). There he told us that he went through a rebirth experience, and that having been trained as a medical doctor, he could recognize all the stages of the embryo being formed, the organs beginning to function, etc. I remember at the time wondering how high he was when he told that tale, something about his intonation, and phrasing.
But I did believe that Don Juan was real until the raccoon encounter.
Naranjo’s house was down on the Berkeley flatlands. I can see the house clearly in my memory and almost remember the exact address--14 hundred something Alston Way. It was not in those days all gentrified but a modest, even run down neighborhood of California bungalows. There was a small creek that ran at the back of the property, and Claudio had thrown up a shack, his study house, on its edge. Carlos and Claudio were doing some kind of drugs, and a raccoon came and sat by the screen door watching them in a rather intense way, or so they said. Castaneda was sure that the raccoon had been taken over by a spirit being to deliver a message.
Guys, you were high and tripping out on a raccoon looking for a yummy garbage dinner. I'm not using science to validate sorcery, but I am suspicious of the drugs.
6 comments:
In 1972 When I met with Castaneda at our agent's office (we had been summoned to review the cover art for books coming out at the same time) I was confirmed in my suspicion that don Juan was a fictitious character. I did an article on our meeting for America, which led to my contributing a piece for Richard de Mille's Don Juan Papers (an extensive consideration of the don Juan hoax).
At the time, as I best recall, he denied any ambition of becoming a cult leader. In a few years, no longer a best-selling author, this is just what happened. He was now very much a predator with a tiny harem that apparently vanished into the desert with a suicide pact when he died.
How could he get away with it? When I signed a contract for two books in which I wrote about "Tanya" (the woman I was living with and my son's mother) as a hereditary witch, no one ever asked me to verify her existence. If anything, my New York editor was after me to spice things up just as I suspect he did with Castaneda. Shortly after my second book came out, the company also brought out a book about a purportedly successful human cloning. The truth be damned, it's sales that count.
I pretty much believed--or did not disbelieve--in the existence of Don Juan Matus until some of the later books, which seemed strangely bizarre. But it's mainly Tensegrity and the later Casteneda harem, some who appear to have killed themselves in the desert, that caused me to lose interest.
By his own account, Don Juan's party discovered that the inclusion of Casteneda was a mistake--he wasn't a real but a "three-pronged" Nagual--wrong configuration. So, again according to Casteneda, he was stripped out of Don Juan's party and basically thrown out to find his own mini-group. But after that what was the point of Casteneda? He was no longer the Nagual heir apparent. He was basically a reject (according to his account) and became much less interesting, more eccentric, and less interesting.
I still haven't come to any real conclusion of Don Juan's existence or non-existence. But it simply doesn't seem very relevant any more.
Seems to me there is a perennial human experience where one finds deep meaning an intimacy with the whole of the universe, best described in art and metaphor, and then there's the near enemy of that, aptly represented here by a raccoon after the trash. How are we or our disciples to discern the difference?
Doug McFerran wrote "in 1972 When I met with Castaneda at our agent's office (we had been summoned to review the cover art for books coming out at the same time) I was confirmed in my suspicion that don Juan was a fictitious character."
How did he confirm that suspicion?
How was I confirmed in my suspicion that don Juan was not an actual person? It was a gut reaction when I became one of the very few people to meet him in person. I think in part it was the fact that Carlos looked like a beefy truck driver when I was expecting some skinny bookworm, but above all it was his reaction to my comparison of don Juan's attitude toward death with Greek values, as in the story of the duel between Achilles and Hector (it was as though I was one-upping him). Later, when I ran across an article by his first wife that mentioned his studies at LACC that brought him in contact with Hellenistic Gnosticism, I was able to put together the actual basis for don Juan as "the man of knowledge" and it was completely alien to actual Aztec and Mayan mythology. Later Time magazine completed the process of identifying his actual origins and the people who knew him back when and saw him as a consummate bullshit artist. "
I think in part it was the fact that Carlos looked like a beefy truck driver when I was expecting some skinny bookworm, but above all it was his reaction to a comment I made regarding his description of don Juan's attitude toward death (I forget how that even came up). I cited the similarity to ancient Greek values, as in the story of the duel between Achilles and Hector. He seemed miffed, maybe because he thought I was one-upping him. What had been a pleasant enough chat turned rather chilly.
Later, when I ran across an article by his first wife that mentioned his studies at LACC that brought him in contact with Hellenistic Gnosticism, I was able to put together the actual basis for don Juan as "the man of knowledge" and it was completely alien to actual Aztec and Mayan mythology. Later Time magazine completed the process of identifying his actual origins and the people who knew him back when and saw him as a consummate bullshit artist.
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