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.
