Claudio Naranjo, Carlos Castaneda, and a raccoon share a moment.
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 storyteller, 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 SAT 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 deep root of modern Western Enneagram teaching lies in the small world of Latin American esotericism and its deep, though convoluted, connection to native shamanism. Claudio Naranjo’s own story is tied up with that of Oscar 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 inviting him to their table where, while sipping afternoon aperitifs, they exchanged 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, and receiving instructions from Ichazo in his role as an esotericist who, by the way, was guided by his Kabbalist 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 had undergone a rebirth experience and that, having been trained as a medical doctor, he could recognize all the stages of an embryo's formation, the organs beginning to function, etc. I remember wondering how high he was when he told that tale, probably as high as he was when being reborn, something about his intonation and phrasing.
But I did believe that Don Juan was real until the raccoon encounter.
Claudio told us this story by way of introducing Castaneda.
But I did believe that Don Juan was real until the raccoon encounter.
Claudio told us this story by way of introducing Castaneda.
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 all gentrified in those days, 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 drug, and a raccoon came and sat by the screen door, watching them in what they perceived to be 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. The contents of that message were also apparently an occult secret.
Guys, you were high and tripping out on a raccoon looking for a yummy garbage dinner. I'm not using science to invalidate your sorcery. I am suspicious of the drugs.
Guys, you were high and tripping out on a raccoon looking for a yummy garbage dinner. I'm not using science to invalidate your sorcery. I am suspicious of the drugs.
