05-30-2012, 12:10 AM
A Sorcerer's Corner: Carlos Castaneda's Doomed Romance with Knowledge
http://www.realitysandwic...orner_castanedas_romance
I: The Pen is Mightier (A Sorcerer-Academic in Exile)
Over the years, Carlos Castaneda (who
died of liver cancer in 1999) sold millions of books and stirred up a mountain of
speculation and controversy. He was called "the godfather of the New Age" by Time magazine, an ironic designation (his
works are hardly populist) but an indication of his influence on "alternative"
Western thought. Over the years, Castaneda has been denounced
as a trickster, hoaxer, opportunist, and just plain liar (for example, by
Richard de Mille in Castaneda's Journey
and The Don Juan Papers, and Jay
Courtney Fikes in Carlos Castaneda:
Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties). Without going into
detail, there are a considerable number of inconsistencies, if not glaring
contradictions, to be found in his books, and these have led skeptics to conclude
that the accounts were cut from whole cloth. I may as well say, right off the
bat, that I consider this idea untenable. There is simply too much in the books
of obvious merit -- too much insight, depth, and sheer novelty -- for me to believe that
the answer is as straightforward or convenient as that he made it all up. Ironically,
since Castaneda claimed to be recounting his initiation into a "separate
reality" in which the laws of physics were closer to quantum mechanics than
those of Newton (i.e., more microcosmic than macro-, more subjective dream
reality than objective consensus reality), the shaky, amorphous quality of his
accounts could even be said to confirm
their authenticity, rather than to undermine it
http://www.realitysandwic...orner_castanedas_romance
I: The Pen is Mightier (A Sorcerer-Academic in Exile)
Over the years, Carlos Castaneda (who
died of liver cancer in 1999) sold millions of books and stirred up a mountain of
speculation and controversy. He was called "the godfather of the New Age" by Time magazine, an ironic designation (his
works are hardly populist) but an indication of his influence on "alternative"
Western thought. Over the years, Castaneda has been denounced
as a trickster, hoaxer, opportunist, and just plain liar (for example, by
Richard de Mille in Castaneda's Journey
and The Don Juan Papers, and Jay
Courtney Fikes in Carlos Castaneda:
Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties). Without going into
detail, there are a considerable number of inconsistencies, if not glaring
contradictions, to be found in his books, and these have led skeptics to conclude
that the accounts were cut from whole cloth. I may as well say, right off the
bat, that I consider this idea untenable. There is simply too much in the books
of obvious merit -- too much insight, depth, and sheer novelty -- for me to believe that
the answer is as straightforward or convenient as that he made it all up. Ironically,
since Castaneda claimed to be recounting his initiation into a "separate
reality" in which the laws of physics were closer to quantum mechanics than
those of Newton (i.e., more microcosmic than macro-, more subjective dream
reality than objective consensus reality), the shaky, amorphous quality of his
accounts could even be said to confirm
their authenticity, rather than to undermine it