LADY SENOR WENCESLAO WROTE:
"Yaqui expert Dr. Ralph Beals asked to see Castaneda's field notes but
Carlos continually dodged the request. Dr. Jacques Maquet, then head of
UCLA's Department of Anthropology, also objected to the fact that no
hard evidence had ever been presented to back up Castaneda's accounts.
"What is essential is not simply to have the experience," says Maquet
today, "but, if it is anthropology, to make it possible for other
anthropologists to repeat the experience. Castaneda never did that."
MY RESPONSE:
You people never learn. Have YOU personally verified this as true? NO,
YOU HAVE NOT!. You're just a 'bottom feeding' skeptic and you know it!
Do tell everyone here how what you have written makes the book Journey
To Ixtlan less of a literary masterpiece? Can't do it, can you? Of
course not! The Mona Lisa is equally beautiful whether Leonardo used an
actual model or created a model from his imagination and that's just the
way it is whether you like it or not!
The Teachings of don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge - 1968 by Carlos Castaneda Intro
Acknowledgements
"I
wish to express profound gratitude to Professor Clement Meighan, who
started and set the course of my anthropological fieldwork; to Professor
Harold Garfinkel, who gave me the model and the spirit of exhaustive
inquiry; to Professor Robert Edgerton, who criticized my work from its
beginning; to Professors William Bright and Pedro Carrasco for their
criticisms and encouragement; and to Professor Lawrence Watson for his
invaluable help in the clarification of my analysis. Finally, I am
grateful to Mrs Grace Stimson and Mr F. A. Guilford for their assistance
in preparing the manuscript."
- Carlos Castaneda
MY COMMENT:
Fact of
the matter is these UCLA professors MUST have asked to see Castaneda's
field notes at one time or another. If Castaneda started making excuses
and could not produce any field notes, of which he supposedly had
VOLUMES, the jig would have been up. It would have been all over BEFORE
the book was ever published and Castaneda would have been kicked out of
UCLA disgraced as a fraud before any of us heard of his "don Juan". Now,
that is down to Earth logical and reasonable. How could anyone believe
Castaneda claiming to have volumes of field notes and never have been
able to produce any to the satisfaction of the UCLA administrative
faculty? That is a completely ridiculous concept. It's just completely
ridiculous and you all know it!
However, I could be wrong.
How about YOU.
Could
YOU be wrong, Jeremy Donovan? Or are you determined to remain a Richard
DeMille TB for the rest of your miserable life? I wonder when Jeremy
and Guy are going to finally get back from Jeremy's second trip to
Greece? Once I was was granted 3 posts a day he flew like a pigeon from a
bulldozer. Jeremy doesn't have the cohones to confront me on a level
playing field. The coward runs and hides and is hoping it will all blow
over. In the final analysis skeptics obviously tend to be very cowardly
when their views are properly cancelled out. They can't admit they could
be wrong. YOU ARE MY SPIRITUAL INFERIOR, JEREMY DONOVAN!!!
Most
of the reviews at Amazon.com for Journey To Ixtlan are 5 star. People
simply feel that Journey To Ixtlan is a literary masterpiece and that's
all there is to it. Nothing you bottom-feeding skeptics can say will
change that fact.
Here are excerpts from some of those reviews:
"This is a life-changing book and a spiritual classic (I rarely
give ANYTHING 5 stars) but someone ought to mention that there is a
certain amount of controversy about the accuracy of Castaneda's Don Juan
series. Researcher Richard de Mille is probably the most even-handed of
the critics and The_Don_Juan_Papers is worth a read, though some of the
criticisms are merely carping small-mindedness.
Regardless of
your attitude toward Castaneda's (or Don Juan's!)literal accuracy the
series, of which Journey_to_Ixtlan is the best, presents a coherent and
engaging spiritual existentialism. A Must Read!!! "
"It took a lot for me to get through Castaneda's first book, The
Teachings of Don Juan. I was totally unimpressed with it. The whole
book was essentially about how a Yaqui Indian "sorcerer" put naive
Carlos, then a graduate student in anthropology from UCLA doing research
on a hallucinogenic plant, through a bunch of weird drug trips that
shook his view of reality. And to me, that doesn't jive at all.But
in Journey to Ixtlan, Castaneda goes back and says, "wait, start over,
reset. I was wrong about all of that drug stuff, it's really not
necessary, don Juan just put me through that because I was too stubborn
and 'rational' to see that there may be other views of reality than the
ones I subscribe to." In this book he discovers that he doesn't need
drugs to experience other worlds. Rather, there are a series of
practices for right living that enable the possibility of perceiving in
nonordinary ways.
So Journey to Ixtlan is where the real lessons
about living life in the warrior's way begin. I recommend this book
highly as a starting point for Castaneda's work; forget the first two
books."
"Forget the debate as to whether Castaneda's writings were a hoax or that
his books became important reading for the drug culture. Although I
suggest you read his first two books before reading this one but if you
read only one book by Carlos Castaneda this is the book to read. Be his
books accurate reporting by a cultural anthropologist (which is becoming
increasingly more and more doubtful), mysticism or hokum, this
particular book is quite moving and lyrical. And whether his stories are
real or imagined and whether the teaching he transmutes came from Don
Juan or from his own mind by his knowledge as a trained anthropologist
the underlying mystical principles of these stories cannot be dismissed
out of hand.
Shaman, poet and perhaps an academic scoundrel it is Castaneda's
poetry and story telling that comes shining through in this book.
If Castaneda's books were a hoax and were represented as cultural
anthropology as a better hook to sell books it is a shame because he did
a disservice to science and to his legacy. Still I myself, as a former
researcher in Harvard University's anthropology department and a student
of human ethology, can forgive this sin on one level and enjoy this
book as a powerful work of liturature.
For if there has been a wrong that has been committed against
anthropology it is one that was done by the way the books were marketed
and perhaps by the author's personality itself. The works themselves
should not suffer and be shunned for this.
His legacy would have been better served if he wrote these same works as a writer of fiction.
I believe the author would have been wiser to present his works the
way Gurdjieff presented "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson" rather than
obstinately insisting there really was such a person as Don Juan (even
if in the off chance that his teacher did exist).
Despite the controversy his writing stands on its own and Journey
to Ixtlan is a powerful, touching, enchanting and beautiful book."
"I started reading ( & still re-read) Don Juan's
books by "Carlitos" long long ago , (mid 70's) &
still thank God that somehow I found his books
. The most important thing this book taught me
is to ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACT
IONS .
I was young & lost & scared & a mess & that
concept had never crossed my mind. I was us
-ed to blaming others & their actions towards me
etc....for the outcomes of my life.
Well let me tell youuuuuuu something. What an
EYE OPENER !!!!! ha ha ha . I also leared not
to judge people & still try not to..... I remember
Don Juan used to say something lilke " do not
send your bad thoughts to a person that may have
done something wrong. It doesn't do them any good or yourself."
I adore Don Juan &' Carlitos' as he used to call him. Don Juan
had the BEST sense of humor I've ever seen.
Castanedas' book enchanted me, terrified me
( to the point that I slept with the lights on a couple
of nights ) enlightened me, inspired me & finally
changed me inside for the better.
I got a lot out of this one book so I read..."
"Castaneda did the world a favor when he began chronicling his
apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus. Whether or not Don Juan was one or
three real people is irrelevant since what Castaneda learns is highly
relevant to all of us. Learning to "stalk" the self, learning to
achieve equilibrium in a world full of petty tyrants (including the
petty tyrant of the "self") are among the most trenchant lessons
Castaneda provides us. This book is the place to start with Castaneda
and you'll even find within it Don Juan doing magical passes 25 years
before Castaneda finally admitted there were such things. The books by
Castaneda are the most important books in my life and I highly recommend
them to anyone who's after an alternative way of looking at life and
the human condition."
MY COMMENT:
Out of 64 review 46 are FIVE-STAR reviews. Here is the most critical one:
"The question with regard to Carlos Casteneda is this: If we accept the
premise that this book is largely fiction, does that in turn trivialize
the message he is trying to impart? Just what is his message? If the
message is that the world is full of witches, sorcerers, irridescent
coyotes, allies, and phantoms, then the answer must be an unqualfied
"yes". These entities are no more real, and have no more importance
than angels and miracles, zombies, ghosts, or anything else whose
existence cannot be objectively observed. However, despite the cult
that has grown up around these writings, I don't think this is what
Casteneda had in mind. Don Juan warned against being trapped in the
world of sorcery, just as he did against getting trapped in the world
of everyday concerns. It was when Carlos, the character, realized that
he and the dung beetle were on even terms, even though their sensory
worlds were profoundly different, that he was finally able to "stop the
world". The warrior, says don Juan, takes responsibility for his
life, and interacts with every event as if it is his last. Moreover,
once one makes the transition to the path of knowledge, one can never
go back. "Ixtlan" is by definition childhood's home that one can never
return to. These are timeless and profound concepts, that transcend
the venue of leaping shadows and bridges in the fog. Casteneda is
an unusual writer, and his insistence on portraying his character as an
annoying whiner gets a little wearing after a while. The two messages
I found in this work - that the world is much more than appears, and
that it is important not to sleepwalk through our lives - these
concepts never wear thin for me. And the observation that our modern
man can learn these lessons from a superstitious old Yaqui is endlessly
gratifying to me.
There are many ways to get to the place that
Casteneda is trying to show us, and therefore I can't place this volume
in the "must read" category. But the concepts have value, and you
won't regret the effort in getting to the last page."
http://www.amazon.com/Jou...TF8&showViewpoints=1
MY CONCLUSIONAll your 'bottom-feeding' skeptic views
cannot change the minds of these intelligent people. Even the most
critical of them has good things to say about Castaneda's works
