Carlos Castaneda biography. Don Juan's Teachings

The first full biography of Carlos Castaneda

The True Story of the Glowing Egg

Castaneda's books, written in the form of a scrupulous account of his magical adventures, already seem like a gigantic autobiography. The autobiography is all the more plausible because the author, on the one hand, never tires of being amazed at the improbability of what he describes as personal experience, and on the other hand, insists on belonging to the scientific circle of anthropologists who are able to keep a field diary, even while shitting their pants out of fear.

And yet: who is he, what is known about him, besides the information that Castaneda and his entourage found it necessary to communicate to the public? And what is the degree of truthfulness of the information they provided? These questions are by no means idle. The obituaries published by the world press in 1998 in connection with the death of the author of “The Teachings of Don Juan,” “Journey to Ixtlan,” “Tales of Power” and other bestsellers about the secret teachings of the Mexican Indians are not very accurate. The photo is fake, the year and place of birth are distorted, the real name is inaccurate. The machine of erasing personal history launched by Castaneda continued to work properly after his death.

There are memories about him. There are also plenty of analyzes of his work - enthusiastic and poisonous. But only now, with the appearance of a book by the Frenchman Christophe Bourceier, can we talk about the existence of a real biography of Carlos Castaneda. The definition of “real” in this case requires some clarification. The main difficulty that the researcher faced was the absence of any other sources regarding the magical side of the hero’s life, except for his own compositions.

Nevertheless, there is enough evidence to restore the general outline of his “extramagical” existence, and this evidence often differs from what Castaneda preferred to tell about himself. “The Truth of Lies” is divided into six large chapters, each of which corresponds to one of the periods of his life. In my retelling, I keep the author's chapter titles.

1926–1951. Novel origin

Castaneda liked to say that his father was an eminent professor of literature, and his mother died young. In A Separate Reality, he delights in developing the dramatic potential of this touching fiction. There is a story here about how, from the age of six, half-orphan Carlos was forced to wander among his uncles and aunts, competing for their attention in a hostile environment of twenty-two cousins. Except that the reality looked a little different.

Castaneda's father, Cesar Arana Burungaray, graduated from the Faculty liberal arts University of San Marcos, preferred a bachelor's life in Lima among the local bohemia and bullfighters to the quiet, well-functioning life of a teacher. After getting married, he opened a jewelry store in Cayamarca, continuing his interest in literature, art and philosophy.

As for Carlitos's mother, Susana Castaneda Novoa, the Lord God turned out to be less inventive in her case, but much more merciful than her own son: in fact, she died when the latter was already twenty-two years old. The Italian theme in Castaneda's pseudo-biography arose in connection with the origins of his maternal grandfather. A fairly prosperous farmer, my grandfather had a reputation for originality and was especially proud of his design for a new toilet system. History is silent about whether it was introduced into everyday life.

In 1948, the Arana family moved to Lima. After graduating from school, Carlos entered the local academy fine arts. A promising sculptor, he was fascinated by the art of pre-Columbian America. A year later his mother died. The son was so shocked by her death that, locking himself in the room, he refused to attend the funeral. After leaving family nest, the young man shared an apartment with two classmates.

Their memories of their comrade are filled with good-natured humor: Carlos earned his living by gambling (cards, horse racing, dice), loved to create fog around himself (provincial complex?), and was very sensitive to the weaker sex, who willingly reciprocated his feelings. Not a handsome man, he had the gift of a charmer: velvet eyes, a mysterious smile with a sparkling gold tooth. And one more thing: after the death of his mother, the young man dreamed of leaving for the USA.

The last Lima passion of the young Don Juan was Dolores del Rosario, a Peruvian Chinese origin. Having promised a gullible student that he would marry her, he abandoned her when he learned that she was pregnant. Apparently, it was this event that was the decisive impetus for his departure to the States. In September 1951, twenty-four-year-old Carlos Arana, after a two-day sea voyage, arrived in San Francisco, never to return to his homeland.

Poor Dolores, having given birth to an illegitimate child, the girl Maria, to avoid even greater shame - a Catholic country, early 1950s! – gave her to be raised in a monastery. For the runaway dad, this served as another beautiful autobiographical plot: he would later say that the main reason for his departure was the amorous pursuit of a certain Chinese opium addict.

1951–1959. Conquest of the United States

In Los Angeles, he enrolled in journalism and writing courses at one of the local colleges (Los Angeles Community College, LACC) - this time under the name Carlos Castaneda, a Peruvian citizen born on December 25, 1931. For most of his new acquaintances, he remained Carlos Aranja. In 1955, Castaneda-Arana-Aranja met Margarita Runian. Margarita was five years older than him, which did not stop them from falling head over heels in love with each other.

The hippie era had not yet arrived, but even then an atmosphere of fascination with all kinds of prophets and messiahs reigned in California. Margarita preached the ideas of Neville Goddard, one of the local gurus. Following her lover's example, she entered LACC, where she studied Russian and the history of religions. The Russian theme in the couple’s life does not end there: Carlos, in turn, highly valued Dostoevsky, adored Soviet cinema and admired Nikita Khrushchev.

But Castaneda's main hobby was the work of Aldous Huxley. It was Huxley who infected him with an interest in peyote cults, and the "Gate of Perception" became reference book those years. In 1956, the first publication under the name "Carlos Castaneda" was published in Collegian, the LACC magazine. The biographer reports on this work from the words of Castaneda's former teacher in writing courses. Apparently, it was a poetic work, from which he especially remembered the line about the “strange shaman of the night.”

The publication received a prize. Castaneda was increasingly attracted to literature, which found expression in a new family legend: to the story about his uncle, the national Brazilian hero, was added a story about an indirect relationship with Fernando Pessoa.

On what means did he exist during this era? Quite likely, with money sent by the family from Peru. For some time, Castaneda worked as an artist for a children's toy production company. In June 1959, he received his college diploma. Nevertheless, the years of training continued.

1960–1968. Towards the desert

On August 12, 1961, Margarita gave birth to a boy, Carlton Jeremiah, whose father was Carlos Aranja Castaneda. The child, without a doubt, was the prototype of the little boy whom the author of the Don Juan cycle recalls with tenderness - as perhaps the only creature that connected him with the ordinary world. Paternity was formal. Having decided by that time to be sterilized, Carlos was no longer able to have children; the biological father of the child was one of their mutual acquaintances with Runian.

In September 1959, Castaneda entered the anthropology department at Los Angeles University. He chose ethnobotany as his specialization; This academic term defined the interest of an over-aged student in narcotic substances used by Indians during magical ceremonies. Not long before, Margarita introduced him to Andrij Puharich’s book “The Sacred Mushroom.” An openly delusional essay, it nevertheless caused great delight among Runian’s “advanced” friends, not leaving her lover indifferent.

To be fair, it should be said that Castaneda was inspired not only by Puharich. He diligently studied academic literature, including the research of his supervisor Clement Meighan. According to Castaneda, the decisive event in his life occurred in June 1961. He met Don Juan Matus, an elderly Yaqui Indian. Don Juan initiated the anthropology student into the secrets of the cults associated with the use of peyote, datura and the hallucinogenic mushroom psilocybe mexicana. Most often, their meetings took place in the Sonoran Desert in the southern United States.

Meighan read his mentee's reports with enthusiasm, having complete confidence in the materials he supplied. Castaneda himself did everything possible to maintain the image of a serious researcher in university circles - while leading a different, secret life full of strange adventures. In Acid Memoirs, Timothy Leary mockingly describes Castaneda's visit to the Mexican Hotel Catalina, where the famous LSD promoter and his adherents settled in 1963 after he was expelled from Harvard. (The name of the hotel will become Castaneda’s name for the evil magician.)

Having confused Leary with his close associate Richard Alpert, the stranger initially introduced himself as the Peruvian journalist Arana, who wanted to interview Alpert. Unable to win over his interlocutor in this way, he revealed to him a heartbreaking “secret”: it turns out that he and Alpert were twin brothers. Having suffered a fiasco, Castaneda turned to a local healer, asking her to help in a magical battle with an evil wizard named Timothy Leary. She, being familiar with the Harvard ex-professor, refused. The next morning, Castaneda reappeared at Catalina - this time with a companion, supposedly a famous curandera.

He found Leary, for some reason handed him two church candlesticks and a leather bag and proposed to conclude a pact: Leary accepts him as a student, and Castaneda shares with him information regarding the “path of the warrior.” Tired of all sorts of madmen constantly besieging him, Leary sent the annoying visitor away with nothing.

Except Meighan from the professors big interest Castaneda was called by Harold Garfinkel, who taught a course on phenomenology. A student of Husserl, Garfinkel developed the idea of ​​social consensus, as a result of which even the most incredible event can be recognized as true. A similar thesis will be consistently developed in Castaneda’s books: ordinary person perceives reality not directly, but through images imposed on him by cultural tradition.

In his memoirs, M. Runian reports that Carlos was engrossed in Husserl and even received a certain ivory object that belonged to the German master as a gift from Garfinkel. As Castaneda told Runian, he gave the thing to Don Juan - in order to cement the union of philosophy and magic and. The mysterious old man studied it for a long time and eventually placed it in a box with “items of power.”

Despite the support of Meighan and Garfinkel, work on research on the magical doctrine of the Yaqui Indians slowed down. The need to earn a living, now not only for himself, but also for his son, forced Castaneda to leave the university in 1964; he worked as a cashier in a store women's clothing, taxi driver. In 1966, Runian decided to move to Washington, thus seeking to end their relationship, which had completely exhausted both of them.

Castaneda was left alone; Despite the pain of parting with the baby and his mother, the separation allowed him to return to his studies, finish his first book and begin publishing it. In September 1967, he signed a contract with his university publishing house. The Teachings of Don Juan: The Yaqui Way of Knowledge was published in June 1968. Refusing two options for a fashionable psychedelic cover, Castaneda insisted that the book look like scientific work. The release of the book was celebrated by him purchasing a strict gray suit.

1968–1972. Prophet in a gray suit

The audience, which consisted mainly of hippie youth, was perplexed when he refused a joint, passed around to the sounds of the Grateful Dead rehearsing nearby, or demanded that the dogs brought with them by the hairy “flower children” be removed from the hall.

The success of the book provoked serious academic controversy. The scientific community was divided into two opposing camps. Castaneda's supporters perceived her as a new word in anthropology, combining scientific sobriety and high poetry. Opponents insisted that the author was best case scenario talented writer. “Dear Mr. Castaneda,” the most authoritative anthropologist Robert Gordon Wasson addressed him, “I was asked to make a critical analysis of the “Teachings of Don Juan” for Boteni Economists.

I read it and was impressed by the quality of the writing as well as the hallucinogenic effects you experienced." And yet: “Am I right in my conclusion: You have never tried [hallucinogenic] mushrooms or even seen them?” What followed was a harsh analysis of the book, which made me seriously doubt its veracity. Wasson, in particular, pointed out that these mushrooms simply do not grow in the Sonoran Desert, and the method of their consumption described by Castaneda smacks of obvious fantasy. Finally, he questioned the existence of Don Juan.

Despite accusations of scientific dishonesty, Castaneda's authority grew, as the circulation of his books grew rapidly. The second book, “A Separate Reality. Further Conversations with Don Juan" (1971), published by Simon and Schuster, one of the largest American publishing houses. At the same time, its author received an invitation to lead a seminar at the University of Irvine, a town located in southern California. The seminar was called “Phenomenology of Shamanism”, lasted a year and became the only case when Castaneda agreed to act as a university teacher.

During the seminar, he was mainly engaged in retelling his own magical adventures. One day he organized a trip to a “place of power” in the Malibu Canyon area. The students were informed that Don Juan had seen this place in a dream. There, Castaneda performed a series of mysterious body movements that marked the “lines of the world.” The rest imitated this choreographic fantasy as best they could, which was reminiscent of both baroque dance and exercises in oriental martial art. The most devoted members of the seminar, mostly women, became part of the group of students who later formed the intimate circle of “Nagal Carlos.”

Other tricks with which Castaneda liked to amaze his acquaintances included assurances that he could be in two places at the same time. One of the journalists recalled how, having encountered Castaneda in a New York cafe, he tried to strike up a conversation with him, to which he received a significant answer: “I don’t have much time, since I’m actually in Mexico now.” And this is not the only evidence of this kind.

1973–1991. It's time to darken

Since that time, his image has changed noticeably. Anthropologist in gray suit turned into the leader of an esoteric group, a nagual, hiding from people, who became the head of the line of magicians after Don Juan left this world in 1973. The general public readily accepted the new rules of the game. Journalists compared Castaneda with the great invisible figures of American literature - Salinger and Pynchon.

Rumors made him a victim of a car accident, a hermit living in Brazil, a patient in a mental hospital at the University of Los Angeles, a participant in a top-secret government program to control dreams... In 1984, Federico Felinni conceived a film adaptation of The Teachings of Don Juan, inviting Alejandro Jodorowsky to participate in the writing script. The great Italian persistently searched for a way to contact Castaneda and even in a fit of despair went to Los Angeles, hoping for a personal meeting. The trip was in vain.

All this time, Castaneda preferred to communicate with the outside world through students, known to readers mainly under fictitious names. According to his will, drawn up in 1985, his estate was to be divided between Mary Joan Barker, Marianne Simcoe (Taisha Abelar), Regina Tal (Florinda Donner) and Patricia Lee Partin (Nuri Alexander).

On August 24, 1985, he unexpectedly arranged a meeting with readers at Phoenix, a famous bookstore in Santa Monica. Castaneda admitted that it was a gesture of despair on his part. The era of the psychedelic revolution ended, giving birth to a completely respectable “New Age”. His books still sold well, but the noisy debate around them was replaced by the silence of criticism, and the former electric contact with the reader no longer existed.

1992–1998 Apocalypse cum figuris

In fact, Castaneda's "Tensegrite" was a set of bizarre movements, or "magic passes." The project, which fully corresponded to the then general passion for aerobics and Chinese gymnastics, was received with a bang in the New Age environment. Those who wanted to become enlightened could do this by enrolling in expensive courses and/or purchasing videotapes with exercises.

Periodically organized seminars attracted large audiences, reminiscent in the degree of exaltation of the rock festivals of the good old days. Having danced to their heart's content under the guidance of Castaneda's students, the audience listened to many hours of reasoning by the main "tensegrist".

The relations between Castaneda and his inner circle, in which men were rather the exception, were of a harem-sectarian nature. Preaching sexual abstinence, the aging guru had an insatiable sexual appetite, satisfying it with the help of his female students who were mutually jealous.

Constantly replacing anger with mercy, and mercy with anger, bringing some closer and pushing others away, he practiced what was called in their circle “tough love.” The apotheosis of “tough love” was the “Theater of Infinity”, which was held during Sunday meetings for close associates. Participants in the meetings led by Nuri Alexander parodied each other in front of Castaneda, who was seated in the center of the hall. Getting rid of the “ego” was also supposed to be facilitated by a complete severance of ties with loved ones.

Amy Wallace's memoirs quite vividly depict the habits of the “nagual Carlos” in the last years of his life. Daughter successful writer, Wallace met Castaneda in 1973 in Los Angeles. The seventeen-year-old hippie beauty, who was interested in otherworldly matters, immediately made an impression on the family guest.

Since then, he did not lose sight of her, periodically calling and sending her his books. Their real rapprochement occurred much later, in 1991, which turned out to be difficult for Amy. She just lost her father and got divorced. In addition, bats took up residence in her house, which only worsened her depression. On one of these days, Castaneda called. Carlos reacted with warm sympathy to her troubles. Having learned about bats, he demanded that she expel them by force of will, and declared that he felt the spirit of a deceased parent in her house.

Florinda Donner and Carole Tiggs, who arrived a few days later with an “inspection”, forced Wallace to destroy valuable autographs of famous writers from family archive- as the first important step on the path of abandoning my former life.

In 1997, Castaneda was diagnosed with cancer, which was rapidly progressing throughout the body. In addition, he suffered from diabetes and his legs were failing. IN recent months Throughout his life, he almost never got out of bed, watching old films about the war on video. Every morning meetings at his bedside turned into a sadistic nightmare.

Castaneda listened brief retelling newspaper news, and then, choosing the next victim among those present, literally mixed it with dirt. The idea of ​​a “final journey” like the one Don Juan had made was in the air: members of the previous nagual’s group had jumped off a cliff with him in the Mexican desert to dissolve into infinity and become pure awareness. Translated into normal human language, this meant collective suicide.

According to the first option, the group of “nagual Carlos” was supposed to rent a ship and sink it with them in neutral waters. Navigation books were ordered online; Taisha Abelar, Nuri Alexander and Fabrizio Magaldi traveled to Florida to look after the vessel. According to the second option, the “travelers” killed themselves with firearms, which were also hastily purchased.

On April 27, 1998, at three o'clock in the morning, Castaneda's attending physician pronounced him dead. Secret cremation took place at Spalding Cemetery in Culver City near Los Angeles. The ashes were handed over to the immediate surroundings. That same day, the phones of Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar, Talia Bey and Keely Lundahl were permanently disconnected. The death was officially announced only on June 19.

In February 2003, the remains of four bodies were found in Death Valley, California, in the place where Michelangelo Antonioni filmed Zabriskie Point. The local sheriff recalled that not far from there in May 1998 there was an empty abandoned car. The corpses were so eaten up by wild animals that they could not be identified.

At the scene, police found an unusual item: a French five-franc coin with a blade embedded in it. The thing was too unique for those who knew the truth to make a mistake. Belonging to Patricia Lee Partin (Nuri Alexander), the coin was most likely given by her to one of those who went on the "ultimate journey."

Information about the biography of Carlos Castaneda, American writer and thinkers of esoteric orientation, not so many, and they are all quite contradictory. In order not to deviate from his concept of “erasing personal history,” Carlos deliberately hid information about his life, and as a result, the writer’s biography more than once became the object of various speculations.

Full name: Carlos Cesar Salvador Aranha Castaneda. The first controversial fact was the date and place of birth of Castaneda. A number of sources claim that he was born on December 25, 1925 in Peru in the town of Cajamarca. Such data were reported by Time magazine in March 1973. Subsequently, the writer rejected this version. The second possible date of birth was December 25, 1931. The author himself stated in some of his publications that he was born on December 25, 1935. In addition, Castaneda claimed that he was born in Brazil, and not in Peru.

In 1951 he moved to the United States, where he began studying at San Francisco Community College. From 1955 to 1959 in Los Angeles he attended various courses in literature and psychology at City College. In 1955 he met his future wife Margaret Runyan. He became a US citizen in 1959 and married Margaret a year later. In fact, the marriage lasted several months, but the official divorce took place in 1973.

Castaneda claimed that in 1960 an incident happened to him that turned his fate around. Going on a trip to Arizona, he met a shaman from the Yaqui tribe (in his books he nicknamed him Juan Matus). Don Juan was Castaneda's mentor from 1961 to 1965, teaching him magical practices. In 1968, the author’s first book, “The Teachings of Don Juan,” was published, thanks to which he became the holder of a master’s degree. This book became a real bestseller, providing the writer with financial independence and wide fame.

The writer resumed his studies with his mentor and already in 1971-1972 two more books were published in which he described his apprenticeship. For his third work (Journey to Ixtlan), Castaneda was awarded a master's degree in anthropology.

According to Carlos Castaneda, don Juan passed away in 1973. In 1974, the world saw the last book that described Castaneda's experience of communicating with don Juan. “A Tale of Strength” described how the author’s mentor said goodbye to his life. From about this period, the writer broke off contact with the outside world and until the early 90s devoted himself to developing the teachings of don Juan together with a small team of his followers. Any contacts with society were possible only through books and with the help of intermediaries. Carlos Castaneda increasingly shrouded his personality in mysteries, embarking on the stage of “erasing his history.”

Since the early 90s, the writer stopped writing isolated image life: at the University of California, he lectured, taught small groups, and paid seminars in Mexico and the USA. In 1995, he created the Cleargreen organization, which published the author’s books and held meetings of followers of Castaneda’s teachings. In 1998, the author published his last two books, “Magical Passes” and “The Wheel of Time.”

There are still many followers of Castaneda who perceive his works not only as a poetic metaphor, but also as a direct guide to action. Some followers joined the training in the seminars started by the writer. Nowadays, the works of many authors writing on similar topics are published.

Carlos Castaneda passed away on April 27, 1998. According to official data, the cause of death was liver cancer. News of Castaneda's death appeared in the press only on June 18, 1998.

About official life Very little is known about Carlos Cesar Arana Salvador Castaneda. But even what is known is intertwined with ambiguity and mystification, the emergence of which he himself often contributed. Even the exact date and place of his birth are unknown. According to one version - entries in immigration documents - he was born on December 25, 1925 in the Peruvian city of Cajamarca, according to another - on December 25, 1931 in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Only after reading his books, which tell about a certain Don Juan, can we get some idea of ​​Castaneda the man. It is known that in 1951 Castaneda emigrated to the United States from Peru, and before that his family lived in Brazil, from where they fled to escape another dictator. It is unknown what he did before coming to the United States. In the USA, judging by the “transcript” of his dialogues with Don Juan, he worked as a taxi driver, wrote poetry, studied painting, and sold alcohol in a store. It is also known about his desire to penetrate the Hollywood environment.

It is known that he attended San Francisco Community College, taking courses in creative writing and journalism, then entered the University of California at Los Angeles in 1955 and seven years later received a bachelor's degree in anthropology. He taught at the university, was a teacher in Beverly Hills. In one episode, he describes how he went to prestigious cinemas in Los Angeles with a special card from his girlfriend, the daughter of a Hollywood boss.

In 1968, Castaneda gained fame. He was 37 or 43. Having integrated into the environment of the free-thinking intelligentsia, he was full of strength and ambitious aspirations. His ambitions were given direction thanks to a grant University of California allocated to his anthropological studies. Under the terms of this grant, he went to central Mexico, where for several years he was engaged in “field work”, which, however, did not end scientific discovery, but a completely unusual novel for that time, “The Teachings of Don Juan: The Way of Knowledge of the Yaqui Indians.” Castaneda's literary and scientific endeavors were appreciated, and in 1973, Castaneda received his PhD and became a professor at the University of California, where he defended a dissertation on anthropology almost identical to his third book, Journey to Ixtlan (1972). The appearance of the first books, “The Teaching of Don Juan” (1968) and “A Separate Reality” (1971), made the author a celebrity, and “Tales of Power” (1974) and “The Second circle of power" (The Second Ring of Power, 1977) also became bestsellers. The sixth of the books in this series, The Eagle's Gift, was published in 1981. The books were published in millions of copies and were translated into 17 languages, including Russian.

The texts of Castaneda’s works themselves claim to be a detailed presentation of the impressions and experiences of the author (under the name “Carlos”), received while studying with an old Indian from the Yaqui tribe Don Juan Matus, who allegedly knew some higher revelation, and his assistant Don Genaro. Carlos, as a fact-finding graduate student, undergoes a bizarre course of study that is designed to change the way he perceives the world so that he can see, think and live completely differently than before. The training consists of performing a sequence of ritually assigned actions while taking narcotic herbal remedies, which don Juan gives and recommends. In addition to the natural hallucinogens that Carlos initially takes for his transformation, the old sorcerer emphasizes the importance of certain physical exercise, such as squinting the eyes for altered vision or "walking the force" to move safely through the desert at night. The result of the training was a complete transformation of the hero's personality and his entire perception of reality (which is quite natural for a person who has turned into a drug addict). Criticism has always doubted the real existence of Don Juan, and not without reason. Castaneda did not show the world a single proof of the existence of his Don Juan and in 1973 he “sent” him along with a group of characters on a magical journey from which they never returned. However, Castaneda's students and admirers believe that the question of the authenticity of his stories has nothing to do with the problem of the truth of the “path of knowledge” proposed by don Juan.

It is known about the personal life of Carlos Castaneda that he was married. He divorced six months later, although he finally separated from his wife in 1973. There is a man who calls himself his son, Adrian Vachon (C. J. Castaneda), but whether this is really so is unclear. Castaneda died in Westwood (California, USA) from liver cancer on April 27, 1998. IN last period he led " healthy image life": not only did he not drink alcohol and drugs, to the glorification of which he devoted his work, not only did he not smoke, but he did not even drink tea or coffee. The best-selling producers exploited his “mysterious passing” for some time, claiming that he was “burnt up from the inside,” even though he was routinely cremated and his remains were transported to Mexico. Castaneda was supposed to remain a mystery. After all, based on the teachings of the unmercenary Don Juan, its author left behind a perfectly functioning industry with a multimillion-dollar income. His estate after his death was valued at $1 million (quite modest for an author whose books sold a total of about 8 million in 17 languages). All of it was donated to the Eagle Foundation, established shortly before his death. The estimated total capital of the fund was 20 million.

Carlos Castaneda can safely be considered one of the the greatest mysteries XX century. All that is known for certain about him is that he is the author of ten best-selling books and the founder of the company Cleargreen, which now owns the rights to creative heritage Castaneda. Everything else is nothing more than assumptions, if not speculation. Castaneda carefully maintained his “secret identity”, practically did not give interviews and categorically refused to be photographed (however, by coincidence, several photographs of Castaneda still exist). He even denied that he had ever been married, although Margaret Runyan, the author of a book of memoirs about this man, claims that Castaneda was her husband. In other words, the true biography of Carlos Castaneda was known only to himself; the lot of everyone else is to try to reconstruct it.

Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda (presumably that's his name) full name) was born on December 25, 1925 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1951, he emigrated to the USA, and in 1960 an event occurred that radically changed the life of Carlos Castaneda himself and thousands of his followers - Castaneda, then a student at the University of California, who came to Mexico for “field materials” for his thesis, met don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian. Don Juan became Castaneda's spiritual teacher and for twelve years passed on the secret knowledge of his tribe to his ward.

With don Juan's permission, Castaneda began to write down his words; This is how the first of Carlos Castaneda’s world-famous books was born - “The Teachings of Don Juan. The Way of the Yaqui Indians,” published in 1968. This book instantly became a bestseller, as did the nine that followed. All of them are recordings of don Juan's conversations with Castaneda, and the chain of events in them ends in 1973, when don Juan mysteriously disappeared - “melted like fog.” Legend has it that Castaneda himself left our world in a similar way - as if he had disappeared into thin air. A less poetic version of the obituary reports that he died on April 27, 1998 from liver cancer and that after cremation, Castaneda's ashes were sent to Mexico, according to his will.

(19267-199 8) - Spanish anthropologist, thinker of esoteric orientation, author of a number of books devoted to the presentation of the worldview of the Mexican Yaqui Indian Don Juan Matus, one of (according to K.) Teachers of humanity. The meeting between K. and don Juan took place in 1960. Works by K.: “Conversations with Don Juan” (1968), “A Separate Reality” (1971), “Journey to Ixtlan” (1972), “The Tale of Power” (1974), "The Second Ring of Power" (1977), "The Gift of the Eagle" (1981), "The Fire Within" (1984), "The Power of Silence" (1987), "The Art of Dreaming" (1994), "The Active Side of Infinity" (1995), “Tensegrity: The Magical Passes of the Magicians of Ancient Mexico” (1996), “The Wheel of Time” (1998), etc. K.’s work clearly demonstrates the almost complete mutual exclusion of the approaches to the worldview of the mystic and esotericist Don Juan, on the one hand, and the worldview of the Western intellectual of the 20th century . About the latter, Don Juan says: “The life you lead is not life at all. You don't know the happiness that comes from doing things mindfully." After the first separation and reunion of the Teacher and the student (i.e. K.), Don Juan postulates the need for a unique and unconventional view of the world in order to comprehend it: “You got scared and ran away because you feel so damn important. A sense of importance makes a person heavy, clumsy and complacent. And to become a man of knowledge, you need to be light and fluid.” K.'s experiments on himself with psychotropic plants (taking hallucinogens - peyote, Datura inoxia, a mushroom from the Psylocybe family - was mistakenly accepted by K. as the main method of understanding the world among the Yaqui Indians), as well as joint attempts to comprehend the basics of witchcraft played a role (in the context Don Juan’s implicit understanding of the situation) are only a means for liberation from the inert worldview, categorical-conceptual, logistic, two-dimensional spatio-temporal, etc. clutches of the known world. (“You consider yourself too real,” Don Juan said to K.) The reality of K. himself and Don Juan is wisdom, specific value and a special psychotechnical installation, presupposing and setting a significant number of conceivable, very conditional interpretations. Undoubtedly more important were, in particular, the techniques of vision and “stopping the world,” which, according to K., Don Juan possessed. Don Juan's vision is not analogous to the traditionalist view. The latter presupposes interpretation; it is a thinking process, within the boundaries of which thoughts about an object are more significant than its true vision. In the process of looking, the individual “I” is replaced, supplanted by the visible object. Freedom is gained from the yoke of any predetermined assessments, comments, etc. The world we look at, according to Don Juan, is only one of its possible descriptions. (At the beginning of the second volume, K. wrote: “...At that time, don Juan’s teachings began to pose a serious threat to my “idea of ​​peace.” I began to lose the confidence that we all have that the reality of everyday life is something then such that we can take it for granted and for granted.”) Seeing This (an object in its own boundless clarity that surpasses any designation of itself) means comprehending its hidden beingness. Vision is intended to replace “thinking” - a discrete stream of thoughts of an individual, initiated about anything. Comparisons, according to K., in such a context are meaningless - all things are equally important and unimportant: “... a person who has entered the path of magic gradually begins to realize that ordinary life is forever left behind, that knowledge in reality is a scarecrow, that means the ordinary world will no longer be a means for him and that he must adapt to a new way of life if he is going to survive... By the time knowledge becomes a frightening matter, man also begins to realize that death is an irreplaceable partner who sits next to him on one mat. Every drop of knowledge that becomes power has death as its central force. Death makes the finishing touch, and everything touched by death does become power... But focusing on death will cause any of us to focus on ourselves, and that is a decline. So the next thing that is needed... is detachment. The thought of imminent death, instead of becoming an obstacle, becomes indifference." A “man of action,” according to Don Juan, lives by action, and not by thoughts of action. Such a person is least concerned about what he will “think” when the action stops. According to don Juan, " man walking to knowledge just as he goes to war, fully awake, with fear, with respect and with absolute confidence. Going towards knowledge or going to war in any other way is a mistake, and the one who makes it will live to regret the steps taken...” A man who is ripe for “doing without thinking” is a man of knowledge, capable of performing an action and disappearing without bothering himself with thoughts about the results. “To become a man of knowledge,” noted Don Juan, “you need to be a warrior. You have to fight and not give up, without complaining or retreating until you can see only in order to understand that nothing matters... The art of a warrior is to find a balance between the horror of being human and the admiration of that you are human." The main meaning of such assessments is that, in addition to the world of our perceptions, it is legitimate to posit other possible worlds, to recognize the pluralism of existing existence. In an effort to refute in the third volume of the work the traditional values ​​of the Western individual (integrity and uniqueness of the individual - the presence of a history in the “I”, self-esteem, the assumption of essential reality as the only possible one, etc.), Don Juan postulates that since our personal story- the providence of others, therefore we must get rid of “the enveloping thoughts of other people.” Don Juan in K. introduces the concepts of “tonal” and “nagual” to depict the architectonics of the universe. “Tonal” is the “recorder” of the world; everything that a person is able to describe (any thing for which a person has a word is referred to as “tonal”), the world given in language, culture, looking, doing. “Nagal” (eternal, unchanging and calm) is the actual and potentially indescribable, the true creator of the universe (and not its witness), accessible to discovery only in a state of elimination of one’s own mental beliefs. All “fragments” of a person’s future “I” (bodily sensations, feelings and thoughts) before the birth of the individual are located in nagual-shaped “shuttles”, subsequently they are connected together by the “spark of life”. Having been born, a person immediately loses the feeling of the nagual and plunges into the hypostases of the tonal. Unlike the Hindu “It,” which lies outside the existence of people, the nagual Don Juan can be used by a sorcerer for his own purposes, giving a person immeasurable possibilities. The meaning of this teaching is, most likely, not reduced to descriptions of the incredible abilities of “initiated” people. (When K., in 1968, tried to present Don Juan with the first volume of a book about Don Juan, he refused the gift, remarking: “You know what we do with paper in Mexico.”) K.’s Don Juan sees that people are deceiving themselves, giving names to the world, while expecting it to correspond to their designations, schemes and models; people are mistaken in believing that human actions constitute the world, and that they are the world. “The world is a mystery... The world is incomprehensible, and... we constantly strive to discover its secrets. You have to accept him for what he is - mysterious! The esoteric world (for K. is quite “valent” to the ordinary individual) dictates its own rules of the game to the neophyte who is joining: according to Don Juan, “accepting responsibility for one’s decisions means that a person is ready to die for them.” A European, hiding behind the sacred authority of cultural traditions and thinking of himself as potentially immortal, is thereby able to evade responsibility: according to don Juan, “the decisions of an immortal person can be changed, they can be regretted or questioned.” Expectation public recognition merit, self-respect as special maxims - in the space of esotericism lose all meaning: according to don Juan, “you are so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don’t turn out the way you would like... A person is only the sum of personal strength . This amount determines how he lives and dies." K.’s desire not only to present personal experience contact with representatives of esoteric reality, but also to set a possible universal language for its description along with promising models for its theoretical reconstructions - gives a particularly significant heuristic status to his writings.

Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda(eng. Carlos Castaneda)

Many people say “Castaneda is a writer!” Let's say we agree with this and let everything he wrote is neither mysticism nor occultism. Let everyone be his strong books, let’s say the first five, should be considered as the works of a writer: allegorical, artistic image some problems in an ethnically colored form.

If you call Castaneda a writer, you must understand that a writer is a person who reflects artistic form the problematics of his era, the problem of the subject in his era.

What did the “writer Castaneda” write about? He tried to solve the same problems that<послевоенные 50-80 года>were the problems of the era: the problem of freedom, the problem of further human evolution, the problem of social confusion and uncertainty of prospects. He reflected the aspirations and hopes of that time in social, psychological, anthropological terms.

Where did these people who call Castaneda a writer show the essence of what exactly he is a writer? By the word “writer” they mean the word “dreamer”. They say Castaneda is a visionary about mysticism and they say they understand this more than some “upstart” Castaneda.

In fact, even as a writer, Castaneda is a lump. He proposed a detailed attempt to describe methods and options (models) for solving the problems of society and man for his time. Castaneda, on the one hand, wanted to get rid of isolation on a personal level - this is ala Freudianism, the separation of a person in his impulsive instinctive attempts to achieve something that he himself does not know, but constantly rationalizes in the form of a fairy tale. He raised the problem of robotization, which society offers, and here Hubbard, Gurdjieff, and others immediately join in on the problems of behaviorism.

And when some fool says "he's just a writer," he doesn't understand that he's entering a field where he has nothing to rely on at all.<для аргументации своей позиции>. If drug addicts can still be offended by the fact that, after taking dope, the miracles described by Castaneda do not happen and pose questions to him as a mystic, then people who discard mysticism and say “Castaneda is a writer” is an absolutely counterproductive statement because , that, as a writer, Castaneda raised such layers and problems that these people have no idea about.

People who consider Castaneda a writer cannot present anything to him because they do not have the slightest idea about the hermeneutic approach - that is, that which always requires interpretation in accordance with certain logical structures and databases with an understanding of what scheme to build a counter-position to Castaneda. You still need to enter the teachings expounded by Castaneda, cross the hermeneutic circle and become an insider, that is, understand this matter.

And all these people stand outside the hermeneutic circle. They see something gurgling in Castaneda’s mouth and interpret it in their own psychological or philosophical way. They begin to compose their own version, that is, to rationalize, in the image and likeness of Castaneda, their inner desires and aspirations. In psychoanalysis this is called “rationalization” - secret desires, clothed in a certain shell for self-justification. These people are engaged in self-justification, that is, indulgence.

Thus, these people pass off their indulgence as what Castaneda wrote about.

If someone wants to talk to you about Castaneda, ask the question - in what perspective will we talk? Historical, where is Castaneda a writer, publicist and social anthropologist of his era? Occultist? Revolutionary? Marginal? And if someone says that everything is in one, then this cannot be done, there must be an emphasis<и соответствующая база данных>.

And here all these people, filled with the eyes of wisdom and considering Castaneda a writer, turn out to be dummies. They have nothing to oppose except their rationalization, their indulgence.

If we consider the body of two books (Fire from Within, The Power of Silence), then in them Castaneda indirectly establishes his affiliation with the Western philosophical tradition.

Thus Castaneda shows belonging to the Western philosophical tradition, and, as you know, she stole and adapted Eastern philosophy throughout her history.

What does this mean? Castaneda needs to be read in a certain context. If you know him, Castaneda's terminological gibberish starts to get interesting. Castaneda introduces terminology not to isolate himself from tradition, but to build it into a structure with its own useful features. He, like a structuralist anthropologist, tells you the geometry or mathematics of the occult. This material is not for fools.

For Castaneda, each term is a multi-passport. Stalking, dreaming, a sense of self-importance, personal history - these are many semantic concepts that are interpreted both within the structure of the teaching set forth by Castaneda and at the level of parallel databases. In order to somehow advance in practice, you need to be able to calculate and connect these values.

<...>Have you ever associated the view, path and fruit from Buddhism with Castaneda? The art of awareness is the view, dreaming (moving the assemblage point) is the path, and stalking (fixing the assemblage point) is the fruit.

<...>The theme of the sense of self-importance (SSI) is the problem of incorrect formulation of the location or definition of the Self or soul, as a result of which the Self dissolves in the false Self or false ego. ESF is not an odious matter of manifestations that diverge from this false ego, for example, pride, arrogance, arrogance, importance. FWS is a question of the entire package of conditioning associated with the unresolved issue of the false ego: mental confusion, affectivity, problems associated with conditioning external environment. We are conditioned by ourselves based on the fact that we have not correctly defined our Self (reference point) and because of this, a certain cascade of interaction with the external environment develops, which also constitutes conditioning and its own specific problematic, separate from the conditioning of the Self.

Castaneda did not write about magic

“We have to find another word for magician,” he says. "It's too dark. We associate it with medieval absurdities: ritual, the devil. I like 'warrior' or 'navigator'. That's what magicians do - navigation."

He wrote that the working definition of the word magician is “to comprehend energy directly.”

Average person, being unable to find the energy to perceive beyond one's everyday life, calls the area of ​​extraordinary perception magic

Calling them magicians is not my whim. "Brujo" or "bruja", meaning sorcerer or witch, are Spanish words used to describe a man or woman who practices witchcraft. I always resented the special additional connotation of these words. But the magicians themselves reassured me by explaining once and for all that “magic” means something completely abstract: an ability that some people have developed to expand the limits of ordinary perception. In this case, the abstract characterization of magic automatically excludes any positive or negative connotations of the names used to designate people involved in the practice of magic.

Castaneda did not write about bridges and ghosts

Silvio Manuel decided to use the bridge (conceived the idea of ​​using the bridge - conceived idea bridge use) How symbol (symbol) real intersection.

ally can only be perceived as a quality of feeling (quality of the senses). That is, since the ally is formless, its presence can only be noticed by its effect on the magician. Don Juan classified some of these effects as having anthropomorphic qualities.

Castaneda did not write about recluse and withdrawal from society

“Now you must renounce,” he said.

- To renounce what?

- Detach yourself from everything.

- But this is impossible. I don't intend to become a hermit.