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[Castaneda's Journey]

I have chosen to put this thread up here in light of the ongoing thread entitled "Has anybody seen Castaneda's assemblage point?" posted up on this particular astralpulse forum.

Also in light of the fact that Astral pulse has chosen to put up the official Castaneda website on its links page, and because many people here are familiar with the books of Castaneda and are fervent admirers of him; but do not know of the factual history and controversies surrounding Castaneda, I thought I would provide some information in this regard.

The link at astralpulse is to the official Castaneda website
http://www.castaneda.com/
It is the official tensegrity site, the name Castaneda gave to the special types of shamanic exercises specifically designed to elevate, expand and alter perception and consciousness in those who take up the practice of what he called "magical passes". One could I suppose compare it to Bruce's New Energy Ways, since they share similar goals and aims.

However there is a huge difference.
Castaneda's writings and workshops and the like are not truly based on any of his personal experiences resulting from initiation into the world of Yaqui shamanism. To get straight to the point, Castaneda was never initiated into Shamanic wisdom by one Don Juan simply because there was no Don Juan. Don Juan was a fictitious invention/fabrication of Castaneda's.

All this is laid out very articulately, thoroughly and indisputably by one Richard de MiIlle in his 1976 book Castaneda's Journey and in a later book The Don Juan Papers (1980).

As de Mille reveals in his thoroughly researched and exhaustive academic books, Don Juan was a fiction invented by Castanda. An invented fiction that was the result of an in-joke with the UCLA Berkeley anthropology/ethnology faculty, an in-joke that his examiners did not get (since they were the butt of this joke mocking pedantic academic "objective" scrutiny of aboriginal ways of knowledge), an in-joke that took the form of a thesis, accepted as such by Castaneda's examiners, and later published with a few changes as the book Journey to Ixtlan. A hoax accepted as fact not only by Berkeley professors, but published as seeming fact in Castaneda's book. As were the other hoaxes, The Teachings of Don Juan and A Seperate Reality.

Given the best selling success of these books which was completely unexpected, but in hindsight unsurprising given that the books answered a huge and growing demand for "authentic" (ironic indeed) esoteric wisdom, with the boom in the interest in the occult in the 1960s and early 70s; Castaneda realised he was onto something. Castaneda wrote ever more books on Don Juan and his non-existent experiences with this non-existent sorcerer and so began a huge profit making enterprise culminating in the formation of ClearGreen, a profit making company selling (and I do mean selling) "expanded consciousness", apparently authenticated through its supposed ancient Indian shamanic traditions.

All of Castaneda's books are a hoax mind you, not a fraud. Since Castaneda made it clear from the publication of his first book on, that he was not serious, he makes up obvious fictions, obvious if one thinks about what one is reading and what Castaneda is actually saying, and if one reads between the lines. This is especially obvious with Castaneda's later books such as The Second Ring of Power, The Fire From Within, The Art of Dreaming and the others. They became so obviously ridiculous and outlandish, as if Castandea were saying: "my hoaxing is not even subtle like it was in my first few books, how gullible are you people to fall for this as Factual Experience".

Yet Castaneda's writings (at least his first few books) are based in part at least on genuine shamanic knowledge and esoteric lore (which Castanada derived from a number of sources such as the literature on psychotropic drugs, Native Indian Shamanism, and shamanic practice and lore the world over, several schools of mysticism and esoteric literature in general). Yet Castaneda makes his trickery obvious, hence he was a hoaxer, not a fraudster. He was a Trickster (and I mean this in a positive way), and one has to appreciate the American Indian myth and archetype of the Trickster to truly appreciate Castaneda and his achievements.

Here are just a very few facts espoused by de Mille and recognised by most serious researchers and academics in the field of the paranormal/psi and in the study of shamanism:    
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/demille_1976_summary.htm                                                                  
                                                        http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/episode_of_the_two_lizards.htm
also read here for a brief account of Carlos written upon his death by somebody who knew him personally http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=1544

Anybody who reads de Mille's books with an open mind will be in no doubt as to the veracity of de Mille's discoveries regarding Carlos. De Mille proves his case with painstaking and comprehensive research and insightful scrutiny of the enigma that was Castaneda.

Victor Sanchez, a serious writer on Toltec shamanic lore, knowledge and practice is another who came to realise that Castaneda's experiences were not genuine. He was even sued by Castaneda who revealed his darker side in his insatiable pursuit and protection of material profit. The resulting court case gives the game away as far as Carlos is concerned and only proves the truth of what de Mille had written years earlier.

The difference being that even de Mille (interestingly enough he is the son of Cecil B de Mille) could not have predicted how the darker and more ruthless side of Castaneda's nature, over his playful and relatively benign trickster role playing and hoaxing, would come to the fore. Anybody who is aware of the Castaneda-Sanchez court case and the whole Castaneda-Sanchez affair can only realise, however reluctantly, that Carlos was no man enlightened in the ways of ancient wisdom. A man who had abandonded our insane and ruthelss materialism, our society of empty possessions and ambition; but on the contrary a man who had embraced the insanity of material posessiveness, ruthlessness and ambition, even though he pretended to know better. His insecurities and fears got the better of him as he got older as is so often the case.

See here re Sanchez - Castaneda
http://www.toltecas.com/ArticleCast.htm
and here
http://www.toltecas.com/Castaneda%20Controversies/VSstatement.htm

and here is a statement from Sanchez himself setting out his position viz a viz Carlos http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/statement_by_victor_sanchez.htm

For a good summary of the Castaneda - Sanchez affair  http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/Castaneda%20vs.%20Sanchez%20summarized.htm

An interview with Sanchez here http://www.enlightenment.com/media/interviews/sanchez/sanchez.html

Also here relating to Castaneda and Timothy Leary http://www.excludedmiddle.com/castaneda.htm

For a very good overview of Castaneda's life and career as the supposed sorcerer's apprentice and the controversies he generated, see http://www.geocities.com/skepdigest/sorcerer.html

For what Karlis Osis, a premier psychical researcher in the US had to say about Carlos http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/castaneda_and_psychic_research.htm

And go here for a list of links re General Critiques of Castaneda's philosophy  http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/explorations_iv.htm

I know that astralpulse member Nagual has brought up the sustainedaction website on a recent Castaneda thread entitled "Tensegrity - Castaneda stuff".

And I have just discovered that a documentary film about Castaneda entitled Carlos Castaneda - Enigma of a Sorcerer has recently been released, and it features de Mille and Sanchez and Richard Jennings (creator of sustainedaction)  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/12/prweb93154.htm

Anybody seen it? I would definitely like to see it but living in South Africa it is unlikely that I will have the opportunity to do so.


"Don Juan may be the biggest hoax in anthropology since the Piltdown man" -- Marcello Truzzi

I thought I would attempt to revive the discussion on suicide (there is an interesting one put up almost exactly a year ago, "Suicide and spiritual growth" started by Frank. Can't put up the link, am having PC problems my end, sorry).

Some interesting opinions expressed before it all goes offcourse. Because of the importance of the subject of suicide, and frankly because I think that much of the opinions and ideas expressed on the subject of suicide, whilst often interesting and even profound, have I think most often missed a central and obvious point re suicide, but as the American writer Charles Bukowski put it, "always the important thing is the obvious thing, which nobody is talking about."

Let me get to the crux of the matter, we live in a world where people do not have a problem with mass legal murder and maiming, which we call war, which everybody the world over loves, despite recent hypocritical protestations to the contrary. People indoctrinate children in the reverence of terrible lies and brutality, teaching hate, superstition and bigotry, usually in the name of divinity, in forms both subtle and unsubtle, and so history has no choice but to repeat itself endlessly.

We have no problem supporting and encouraging or turning a blind eye to various work professions that are destructive, absurd and brutal. We worship numerous false idols (to use an old fashioned terminology) with the resultant horror that is human society with all its myriad nightmares, from terrible impoverishment and ubiquitous exploitation, ecological degredation, pointless work projects; state, media and clergy sponsored hate and brutality, idiotic entertainments and diversions, so we don't have to think about any of the horrors and thus do not see them for what they are and so we can only add to and reinforce them, and on and on the viscious cycle goes.

And what you may be wondering does any of this have to do with suicide? Actually it has everything to do with suicide. All that I have mentioned above is suicide, we just don't call it that, we call it living.

The point is that practically everybody commits suicide every day of his or her life (as the wise sage Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895-1986] pointed out), spiritually, emotionally/psychologically and even physically considering the illnesses we get as the result of our destructive living. We throw our children to the wolves and at the same time we frown on people who choose to end their lives voluntarily because there is nothing left to live for. Now I can pick up that kind of palubum, that condemms physical suicide that is, on any Christian fundamentalist forum, think about it. The ancient Stoics among numerous other tribes around the world considered suicide noble and brave, Zeno and Seneca, both famous Stoics, committed suicide.

Let me put it another way, those who are most vocal in the condemnation of suicide are part of a tradition and culture that is responsible for mass genocide, slavery, exploitation, ecological degredation etc. This is merely a transference or projection of their own daily psychological suicides and more to the point the brutality, destructiveness and iniquity that is true suicide ie psychological suicide, on to those who choose to end their lives. In some of our languages suicide is defined as self-murder, for example in Afrikaans (perhaps the Dutch too) it is "selfmoord", literally selfmurder. In other words even the language we use to describe suicide is prejudicial.

Sometimes suicide is actually the right and noble thing to do, the intelligent thing to do, the only thing to do, the correct course of action. Not to commit suicide in certain cases is paradoxically comitting suicide. Let me give just one example. Say you are drafted in Wold War 2 into an Axis Army, such are your circumstances, and during some caputure of a town somewhere in Russia or wherever, your Kommando unit is ordered to round up the local Jews, you know it is wrong and terrible, so what do you do? You can't stop it, if you refuse to carry out your command you will either be shot or put into a concentration camp yourself. Probably the best thing to do would be to take your hand gun and put it to your temple and squeeze the trigger. Actually there are men who did this. Not to commit suicide in such a case is committing spiritual and mental suicide, because you are then party to a terrible crime. My statement should not be seen as a judgment on men, who knowing something wrong, perpetrated a crime anyhow, out of fear for their lives. What would you do? Who are any of us to judge? Remember that wise injunction - judge not. I am just making a point. Nor should anybody think I am romanticising suicide, not at all, or God forbid encouraging it in anyway, because I am not.

The point I wanted to make, and I hope I have made it, is that there is an obvious hypocrisy of a murderous society's condemnation of suicide. If a stupid insane society as a whole condems something, well in my eyes at least, they probably have things the wrong way round.

I also find that a negative judgement of suicide usually comes from people who have yet to really suffer, and I mean really suffer terribly, so that you understand the truth of Job's despair:
"Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they find the grave?"


mustang

Quite a while back (some years ago in fact - and I completely forget the name of the author), I read in a book or article on astral travel, about an astral traveller visiting some astral realm/dimension when he came across some "people" in a cave-like realm, not doing anything in particular. When he asked these people what they were doing there, one of them replied that they were all just waiting for their bodies on earth to die.

This is obviously a strange and disturbing comment. But as strange as the comment is, one has to ask what on earth is meant by it? What is implied by it? I have read of one person commenting on its possible meaning and thought it worth repeating here. It has been suggested that this astral traveller encountered the astral/mental aspects of people whose physical bodies were in a catatonic state on earth. Thus there bodies were no longer inhabited by their conscious minds and their consciousness had migrated permanently (and perhaps deliberately?) to this cave-like realm, and perhaps elsewhere, in the astral dimensions. In other words the people in the cave were the astral embodiments of catatonic and even comatose people on earth. I know that in several religious traditions from around the world (probably many that I am unaware of) it is believed that people in a coma have had their souls leave their bodies and travel to the underworld or the heavenly realms ie the astral dimensions.

Of course modern medical science laughs at this, but then I laugh at much of modern medical science.

Anyway I thought it worth bringing up here.

[Astral Dynamics]

When I was about 5 or 6 years of age, in bed one night I noticed the darkness of my room had a quality to it that it never seemed to possess before, it seemed to be made up of various constantly moving tiny bubble things. Some time later, I don't remember how much later, what I took to be a terrible nightmare began. A chattering disembodied monkey's head gnashing its teeth, looking ferocious and carnivorous not a foot away from my pillow...also a clown 'dancing' in front of me, but a clown that frightened me in a way that only supposedly comical things can, a clown out of a Stephen King novel. There were also some shadows on the bedroom curtains of various figures, but I have forgotten what of. I eventually must have fallen asleep but when I woke up in the morning and the light of the sun was shining into my bedroom, I noticed that a thickish white mist was there in a part of my room (I do not remember if I had noticed the mist in my room before), although it slowly dissipated.

I just assumed that what I had experienced was a nightmare, a bad dream, albeit unlike any I had ever experienced or remember having experienced, and more vivid and real than anything I could have imagined. It did not occur to my very young self that throughout this experience I did not sleep at all, but was very much awake. I remember burying my head in the pillow, trying to get away from the monkey head, and every time I looked up, much to my fright, it was still there. In other words I was not at all asleep during this entire experience.

But this obvious fact, and therefore the fact that it could not have been a bad dream in the classic meaning of the term, did not occur to me. I guess my young mind had to avoid cognitive dissonance anyway it could, and as is often the case when avoiding mental dissonance, I overlooked the obvious. Namely the fact that I was awake throughout the entire horrifying experience and so naturally it could not have been a nightmare in the usual meaning of the word.  

Needless to say this experience had a lasting effect on me. I couldn't go to sleep with the lights off for about a year after that. Note that I could not have heard about or known about what Bruce calls astral 'wildlife' at such an age and certainly not from my parents who had no real interest in such things.

It was only in my mid 20s that thinking back on the incident I realised that it could not have been a nightmare by the usual understanding of the term, because I realised certainly that I had been awake as a young boy when I perceived what I did. It took 20 years to overcome the cognitive dissonance regarding that experience of mine which never repeated itself.

It was only when I read Astral Dynamics, that my jaw dropped at Bruce's mention of astral 'wildlife'. He was so spot on in describing what I had witnessed as a child, but never understood before. Despite having read a considerable amount on astral travel I had never come across a mention of astral 'wildlife' as Bruce describes them. Here at last was an explanation of what I had witnessed in my bedroom more than a quarter of a century before.

However a very real problem remains, even though I am now a man in my 30s, that 5 year old boy is still very much with me. So when it comes to attempts to astral project I always shrink back at the last moment, recalling that frightening experience all those years ago. And so needless to say I have not ever succeeded in any attempt at OOBE, my childhood experience continues to haunt me in this respect. Basically I am scared stiff. Talk about OOBE techniques is meaningless because that is not where the problem lies. So how can I overcome the trauma of that long ago unwitting and inadvertent Astral Sight? Any advice?

[Dancing Naked in the Mind Field]

You all must be thinking, what on earth does astral travel have to do with genetics? What on earth is this mustang on about? Well read on, it's all very incredible.

Here is a true story that you should all find very fascinating. It shows that you cannot so easily separate one aspect of human experience from another, even if they may appear at a glance to occupy completely distinct realms that have nothing to do with one another.

You all may be interested to know that astral travel has a direct bearing on one of the most important inventions pertaining to the natural sciences in the last 30 years. I am referring to the PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a revolutionary technique used to amplify DNA,  in turn revolutionising all forms of genetic research and its applications. The PCR is used in medical forensics and diagnostics, specifically in the screening for genetic and infectious diseases, in phylogenetic classification (classifying the interrelatedness of organisms according to their DNA similarity), molecular paleontology and other related fields. It is also used in paternity testing. The PCR allows for an almost unlimited number of highly purified DNA molecules to be amplified for manipulation and analysis.

It was developed in 1983 by Kary Mullis, an American biochemist, and won him a Nobel prize in biochemistry in 1993. The patent of the PCR was sold by the biotech company Cetus which Mullis worked for to another bio-tech Hoffmann-La Roche for 300 million US dollars in 1991. To call the PCR a revolutionary development in microbiology is an understatement. So what does all this have to do with astral travel?

Well Mullis makes it clear in his book Dancing Naked in the Mind Field in a chapter entitled "Intervention on the astral plane" that without someone unknown to him travelling on the astral plane and saving his life in the physical plane of everyday existence ( I'll explain), he would never have lived to be around long enough to develop the PCR in the first place!

So what strange occult encounter that saved Mullis's life is he referring to? Well as Mullis describes in the chapter of his book already mentioned, in the 1970s he often used to imbibe nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in order to induce an altered blissful state of consciousness. He used to hook himself up by placing a tube connected to a cylinder of nitrous oxide over his mouth and opening up  the valve of the cylinder, the nitrous oxide would be ingested and he would enter NeverNeverland. Although in a blissful state he remained conscious and thus always turned off the valve of the cylinder himself.

However one day things went awry, prior to ingesting the oxide one day, he had taken a powerful antihistamine the night before. He failed to realise how dangerous the aftereffects of the antihistamine were when combined with the nitrous oxide, indeed it almost killed him, for he passed out into unconsciousness as soon as he had ingested some of the gas, with the tube still in his mouth and the valve of the tank still open. However the inexplicable mystery was that he later awoke and found the tube was lying on the floor, out of his mouth, the valve of the cylinder still open and the gas still running out. He called his girlfriend Cynthia who rushed him to hospital, he had frostbitten lips and tongue from the tube. He was fortunate to make a quick recovery, indeed an emergency tracheotomy was even considered.

However the mystery of the tube lying on the floor when he regained consciousness remained. Nobody was staying in his apartment other than him, nobody else could have removed the tube. How had it come of of his mouth if he was unconscious as he was, and he could not have taken it off? People and animals anaesthetised on nitrous oxide don't move a muscle, it is why dental surgeons use the gas, no wriggling or jerking by the patient. Yet unless the tube had been removed from his mouth he would have certainly entered into a coma and would even have most probably died. However having no way to account for what happened, Mullis filed it away in his memory as one of life's inexplicable mysteries and that was that until.....

One day some years later in 1978, Mullis found himself sitting in his local bakery when in walked a woman he did not know and she walked straight over to his table and introduced herself. Her name was Katherine O'Keefe. There was an instant chemistry between them and they went back to his place and you can imagine the rest. He found her to be unlike anyone he had ever met, she then gave him a shock unlike anything he had ever experienced. She asked him if he had ever figured out who pulled the tube out of his mouth that fateful day back in Kansas? His jaw dropped, nobody but Cynthia and his friend Marc who was working in the hospital that day he was admitted were aware of what had happened to him. He never talked about it. When he could speak again, he asked her how she knew what had happened. She replied, "I was there, and I pulled it out of your mouth. I waited until I was sure you were okay and then I left." He was astounded, how could she have been in his house in Kansas City?

She explained to Kary that she routinely engaged in astral travel and one day in astral flight she saw/sensed him in trouble in his apartment (Mullis does not give the details of how O'Keefe sensed his distress), removed the tube from his mouth while she was in the astral form, saving his life. She sensed at the time that he would later play a role in her life. Naturally they became friends. Katherine later taught Kary some meditation techniques. Shortly thereafter Katherine sadly contracted malignant melanoma and died of the disease.

Mullis tells this tale in the same matter-of-fact style that he relates his experience regarding his invention of the PCR . It almost goes without saying that Mullis is a notable exception as far as scientists accepting the paranormal/occult reality is concerned, especially in the world of microbiology which to an even greater degree than the other branches of the natural sciences is ruled by the dogma of scientific materialism and reductionism, and that is saying a lot.

So to sum up, if it were not for Katherine in her astral form saving Mullis's life that fateful day, he would never have lived to later develop the PCR.

The scientists and researchers who make use of the PCR and praise its revolutionary applications to microbiology are for the most part conservative and caught in reductionist mindsets as I have already mentioned. For the most part they would scoff at stories of telepathy and psychokinesis, but astral travel and astral dimensions would see them laugh uproariously and dismiss such a topic as delusional and the stuff of fantasy. They would then tell you to stop wasting their time with such outrageous nonsense and let them get back to genuine scientific work employing PCR primers in the amplification of nucleic acid sequences. The irony of all this of course being something they would be completely oblivious to. Who says the gods don't have a sense of humour? []

[physically she was inhabiting another dimensional reality - for 10 years!]

The EVIDENCE against Castaneda is there for those who are prepared to acknowledge it. For those who are not prepared to acknowledge it, no evidence is permissable. I have already covered all this in my previous post of 15th September.

I have barely hinted at the Florinda Donner and Carol Tiggs charlatanry. It is most emphatically asserted by Amy Wallace (also known by her "Castaneda name" - Ellis Laura Finnegan) that Donner and Tiggs were lying about their apprenticeship with Castaneda and under Don Juan. Wallace aka Ellis was part of Carlos's inner circle. She was his closest intimate until his death. She was his lover. She knew Donner and Tiggs very well, esp Donner.

If one follows these links (once again):
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Wallace_Book/chapter_3_of_Sorcerers_Apprentice.htm
and this interview with Wallace
http://www.magicalblend.com/library/cyberblend/AmyWallace.html
http://www.magicalblend.com/library/cyberblend/AmyWallace2.html

Here is an important link that I have not put up before, includes the Last Will and Testament of Castaneda
http://sociologyesoscience.com/castan.html

and for the true details of Carol Tiggs's life, go here (1st of 7 parts)
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Chronologies/chronTiggsI.htm

So Tiggs was living in "the Second Attention" for 10 years, meaning physically she was inhabiting another dimensional reality - for 10 years!
And true believers just accept this without question!! But that is exactly what one would expect from true believers. After all Carlos tells us this, not just Tiggs, so why would there be any need for those who hang on to Carlos's every word to question any of this.

But public records available through county offices, in the public domain, show her to have resided in Berkeley and Pacific Palisades, LA during that same 10 year period. She received a license in acupuncture in '81 when she was supposedly in the Second Attention. In jest a point could be made that Berkeley is another dimensional reality. []
UCLA Berkeley grads, students and residents (any out there?) will get the joke.
See above link re Tiggs chronology for details.


As for Patty Partin/Nury Alexander/Claudine/ the "Blue Scout":

Well if you just believe this story about the "blue scout" being incarnated physically into the world from the dimensional realm of the inorganic beings, after being rescued by the naguals - believe this without question; as related in The Art of Dreaming and elsewhere, then let me repeat you are lacking in healthy scepticism.

Actually it is emphatically proven that the so-called blue scout (real name Patty Partin aka Nury Alexander) has lived a fairly mundane all too human existence all her life in the physical world - what a surprise...not.

Florinda tells us the blue scout is Carol Tiggs's daughter, but she most certainly isn't. She was born on Sept. 4, 1957, given the name Patricia Lee Partin (later to be known as "the Blue Scout"). She was born in St. Luke Hospital in Pasadena to Marion Lee Partin, 30, and Joyce Jeanette Jensen, 30. [Birth certificate State file no. 57-207997.] She was the fourth of five daughters in the Partin family. See link below.

Yet Castaneda tells us that she has "non-human sexual organs."  

For her all too mundane real-life in the real world, which contradicts not only her own assertions but more importantly Castaneda's too (he insists she was rescued from the inorganics in their own dimension), ie for the true blue scout chronology and the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions here that give the lie to her and Carlos's account of her non-ordinary life in The Art of Dreaming and in workshops, Cleargreen publications and interviews - go here for the first of 5 parts.
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Chronologies/chron_blue_scoutI.htm

At first link above is the details of her (publicly documented) early life and high school career in California. She attends Bonita High School in La Verne, California in the early 70s (during which time she was supposedly in the realm of the inorganics) and later Chapparal Continuation High School in San Dimas, California. She later enrols in training for a position as a medical/legal secretary. Also details of her early adult life, her early marriage, name change etc. From above 5 part chronology it becomes very clear that Carlos was behind much of Patty/Nury's deliberate re-invention of herself, and her cutting herself off from her family. Carlos seems to have supported her financially as well.

At last link on chronology we are told that she disappears upon Carlos's death, her telephone disconnected. Did she attempt suicide? Did she succeed? Amy Wallace relates (see the interview with Wallace at magicalblend links above for details) that Carol told her Nury/blue scout attempts a bloody suicide in a desert hotel room, and is possibly dead. Although Wallace insists Carol is not to be trusted on anything she says.


As for Florinda Donner:

Her personal account of living with Amazonian Indians, published as the book Shobono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American Rain Forest. The book was praised by Castaneda and his endorsement features on the back cover of the book.
Thing is Shobono was exposed as a plagiarism by anthropologist Rebecca De Holmes in an article in the American Anthropologist.

Rebecca B. De Holmes, Shabono: Scandal or Superb Social Science,
American Anthropologist, 1983 vol 3, pages 664 - 667.

De Holmes suggests that Donner lifted her account of life with the Yanoama Indians from a book written by the Italian Ettore Biocca entitled Yanoáma: The Story of Helena Valero, a Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians (1966, republished 1996).

This is the amazing account of a Brazilian girl Helena Valero, kidnapped at the age of 11 in 1932 by Yanoami. She lived with them for 24 years. She married two Yanoámi men and had four children, eventually escaping in 1956 and returning to the world into which she had been born.

See here
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/Shabono%20and%20Yanoama%20compared.htm
and here http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/Shabono%20vs%20Yanoamo%20sample%20excerpts.htm

On problems with her (Donner's) faculty at UCLA re Shobono
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/shabono_ltr_UCLA.htm

Note that her faculty committee did not give her a PHD precisely because of serious doubts over the validity of Shobono. Also just like Carlos, Florinda could not give her faculty any field-notes on her supposed stay with the Indians. What a non-surprise.
Her faculty also discovered that the dates she eventually and reluctantly gave for her stay in the Amazon coincided with records showing she was a student studying at UCLA at the same time! See above links and below.

For a comprehensive account of Donner's life and chronology,
For the first of thirteen (yes thirteen) parts:
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Chronologies/chronFlorindaI.htm

The inconsistencies and contradictions re Florinda at the 13 pages/links starting from first one above are way too numerous to mention.  

And another link (I have put it up before)
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/a_conversation_with_cleargreen.htm
And for the background to the above
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/background_on_a_conversation_with_cleargreen.htm

So if Florinda, Tiggs and Partin/Nury aka Blue Scout are discredited by Wallace, former Tensegrity practicioners and university faculty staff, anthropologists, ethnologists and academics who likewise have examined their claims with scrutiny (though to true believers there can never be any evidence...ever), what does that imply re Carlos?

Well if Florinda's, Carol's and Partin/Nury Alexander's claims of apprenticing under Don Juan and with Carlos were not endorsed by Carlos in his own books, workshops, Cleargreen publications and interviews (if he dismissed or ignored their claims in other words), then the only people discredited would be Florinda, Carol and Nury. It would have no bearing at all on Carlos. HOWEVER that is not the case. Carlos endorsed their experiences as being 100% factual in his last few books, his workshops, Cleargreen publications and in interviews; and in so doing is himself discredited. In fact it is primarily through Carlos that we know about these people at all!

Here is a very revealing and must-read long interview with Castaneda given in '94.
http://www.nagual.net/ixtlan/interviews/details.html

This interview written by a Castaneda sycophant is replete with so many unintended ironies, it is inadvertently hilarious and sad at the same time. Note these ironies will be lost on true believers.

Here are a few gems from the above link:
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Castaneda:
"I do not lead a double life. I live this life: There is no gap between what I say and what I do. I am not here to pull your chain, or to be entertaining. What I am going to talk about today are not my opinions - they are those of don Juan Matus, the Mexican Indian who showed me this other world."

Interviewer Bruce Wagner: [blue text - mustang]
"After thirty years, there is still no price on his head. He has no interest in gurus or guruism; there will be no turbo Bentleys, no ranches of turbaned devotees, no guest - edit of Paris Vogue. There will be no Castaneda Institute, no Center for Advanced Sorcery Studies, no Academy of Dreaming - no infomercials, mushrooms, or Tantric sex. [I guess Cleargreen doesn't count] and There will be no biographies and there will be no scandals. [no scandals I love that] When he's invited to lecture, Castaneda receives no fee and offers to pay his travel fare. The gate is usually a few dollars, to cover rental of the hall. All that is asked of attendees is their total attention." [um yeah Castaneda was never concerned with making a buck from his Cleargreen workshops, publications, books, tours etc, his motives were totally selfless and he was concerned solely with helping others - excuse my sarcasm]

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Castaneda in this interview comes across as arrogant, deluded, always funny, haunted, whimsical, self-righteous, entertaining and even occasionally almost wise. In other words he reveals himself to be The Trickster Beyond Compare - an enigma who continues to fascinate and always will.

Castaneda never let up his charade
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/metafiction_%20CC%20said%20no.htm

Hell I got taken in by Castaneda when I first came across his books (his earlier ones). I admit it. I admit to having been gullible and ingenuous. I laugh at it now. I think it's funny. Leave your ego and pride out of it and you can only laugh at all this. It is because of Carlos's hoaxing which he committed with such apparent ease and insouciance that I can only have admiration for his incredible bravaro. Carlos was one of the twentieth century's greatest Jokers, and what a jest he played. Who has ever even heard of a similar con being pulled by anyone? He was one of a kind.

Just thought I would add some more interesting links.

For a very interesting interview with Amy Wallace (daughter of the writer Irving Wallace), who perhaps knew better than anybody else about Carlos's inner circle in his twilight years. Says she reckons that 4 witches of his inner circle all may have committed suicide upon Carlos's death! There is fascinating stuff about Carlos here from his last girlfriend, that nobody else outside of Carlos's inner circle could have known.
http://www.magicalblend.com/library/cyberblend/AmyWallace.html

Also here is an interesting link re Florinda Donner and Carol Tiggs that I should have put up earlier, related by Wallace (who knew Florinda well) in her book.
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Wallace_Book/chapter_3_of_Sorcerers_Apprentice.htm

Also other exerpts from her book
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Wallace_Book/Chapter_4_Sorcerers_Apprentice.htm
and here
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Wallace_Book/Chapter_12_Sorcerers_Apprentice.htm

Other important links that I should have put up before:
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/early_book_inconsistencies.htm
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/a_night_with_the_real_don_Juan.htm
and
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/a_conversation_with_cleargreen.htm

I suggest to those seriously interested in the whole Castaneda controversy, to check out the whole sustainedaction website. The links I have put up are just the tip of the iceberg. It is important to note that sustainedaction was started by people who attended the Tensegrity workshops, as Castaneda devotees and came to know Castaneda personally (such as Corey Donovan and Richard Jennings). Only later did they become disillusioned and dismissive of Carlos's claims, coming to the conclusion that they had been conned.

[The Don Juan Papers]

Firstly let me apologise to daem0n in advance because this is a long and in part repetitive post, but given the complexities of the subject I think it only appropriate that a long and detailed post is in order.

Nagual

quote:I will repeat it once more, since you don't want to understand: I don't care about wether it is a true story or a hoax.

Well if you are not interested in knowing whether Castaneda's books were a hoax or whether they were true, then you imply to not wanting to know any truth about Castaneda at all, at least any truth that is remotely critical of Castaneda. Then you admit to not being interested in the facts at all. And if you don't want to know, then don' t read anything I write, just ignore this thread.

quote:Which means, if you did not get it, that I am neither saying it is true, nor saying it is a hoax.

You wouldn't know whether it was true or a hoax, so what does it matter what you have to say about a controversy on which you know nothing?

By failing to acknowledge everything de Mille and Sanchez and others say in the links I provide (you don't even know what de Mille says because you have not read his book, so how can you refute things re Carlos and Don Juan when you don't even know what de Mille has written), you reveal a lack of impartiality despite your assertions to the contrary. Your emotional responses to my posts which are devoid of any factual argument whatsoever and are mere knee-jerk irrational attacks without any foundation in fact at all, mean you contradict your assertion below.

quote:"Let's say that I am agnostic to this controversy"

Nagual once again

quote:And, if you read again our posts, just look at who makes the most "assertions based on wishful thinking"...

Um yeah, I talk about the unsurpassed critical and microscopic scrutiny and investigations of de Mille which have been praised by serious invesitgators and writers of psychical research the world over and that includes anthropologists and ethnologists who specialise in the study of shamanism, and all Nagual can do in response is to imply de Mille is wrong, without telling us how he is wrong. But then Nagual, not having read his books has no idea what de Mille is saying. You can't know unless you read his books.  

So my irony meter is on overload when Nagual writes:
"And, if you read again our posts, just look at who makes the most "assertions based on wishful thinking"...

um yeah I do think it is obvious who is making assertions based on wishful thinking.  

Nagual

quote:So called facts...

Yeah the so-called facts of Don Juan's actual existence outside of Carlos's mind.

How would you know whether they are facts or otherwise, since you have no idea what de Mille has written nor do you have an idea of the evidence he uses to back up his assertions? You do not tell us how and where de Mille is mistaken. But then how could you? I'm still wating for Nagual and others so like-minded to refute what de Mille writes about Carlos's experiences with the 2 lizards. I have put up the appropriate link twice now on both my posts! Nagual has not even acknoweldged it, but then he can't.

I'm still waiting to hear from any true believer why Carlos tells us he was born and grew up in Brazil when de Mille reveals him to have been born and raised in Peru. There is absolutely no reason for Carlos to lie here since he would easily be found out, as it turned out. Surely the only reason Carlos lied about his country of origins is because he was reinventing himself and giving us a hint of his Trickster nature and his sense of humour here, a clue to his hoaxing nature that only de Mille bothered to uncover - revealing an intellectual laziness among anthropologists and ethnologists that is inexcusable.

An excerpt below from The Don Juan Papers taken from the web:
[Had a problem with the URL so can't put it up - sorry]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A warrior intent on mastering personal history would not be satisfied to keep his name out of the biographical dictionaries; he would submit his name along with false information.  Marquis's Who's Who in America (not to be mistake with St Martin's highly respected Who's Who) shows how sorcerers manipulate learning resources. The 1976-77 edition proposes that Carlos Castaneda was born in Sao Paulo in 1931 to C. N. and Susana (Aranha) Castaneda, received an M.A. in 1964 and a Ph.D. in 1970, and is the author of The Teachings of Don Juan and Tales of Power.

Since the editors of Who's Who in America ask their readers to point out any errors that may have crept in, I wrote to them on 5 November 1976 offering documentation that Castaneda had been born in Cajamarca in 1925 to C. B. and Susana (Castaneda) Arana, had received an M.A. never and a Ph.D. in 1973. Though the editors sent no word of thanks, they apparently wrote to Castaneda for an update. Naturally he didn't correct the errors, which the editors carefully preserve like Piltdown relics, but he did add to his list of publications, which the 1978-79 edition carries as: Teachings,Separate Reality, Ixtlan (with a wrong date), and Tales of Power (with a wrong date). What caught my eye was the subtitle he appended to A Separate Reality. It was not Further Conversations with Don Juan, which appears on the actual book (as the editors could easily have determined if they were in the habit of checking anything), but The Phenomenology of Special Consensus, which appears nowhere.

Castaneda, it seems, had answered me himself. His message was: If you think you can restore my personal history by writing to these
mercenary boobs in Chicago, you are pitifully mistaken; to show how
hopeless it is, I will now twist the tale still further, and they
won't do a thing about it." p. 244

On Castaneda's possible motives:

"What are the motives of hoaxers? More manageably, what are the
motives of the don Juan hoaxer? While turning his life into an
allegory, Castaneda has told us a lot about them, though not everyone
has understood what he has told us. Time, for instance, could find
no motive for a don Juan hoax. Here was an obscure undergraduate
bright enough to get a Ph. D. in the regular way, who took twice as
long as usual and had to write three best-sellers to get the same
degree in an irregular way, all the while risking exposure and
expulsion? To Time it didn't make sense. Well, of course it
doesn't make sense if you think hoaxers are mainly interested in
academic recognition or making money, but hoaxers are mainly interested in the exhilaration they feel when they prove their superiority to ordinary people by deceiving them. This is a fact hard for non-hoaxers
to grasp."  pp. 375-376

On why he was believed:
[From an interview between Barbara Myerhoff and de Mille]

BGM: People are not as canny as you would like them to be, Richard.  I endorsed his fantasies, and I'm not exceptionally stupid. The main
difference--if you'll excuse my saying so--between you [RdeM] and his
[CC's] academic supporters is not canniness but skepticism. They were
ready to believe.You were ready to doubt. As it turned out you had
more points on your side. Maybe that was just luck.

RdeM: Maybe it was luck, or maybe the fact that I had some prior
experience with charlatans. Most of us have never met a person like
Carlos Castaneda" p. 348


And from the new preface
(Upon the first(and only?)meeting with CC)

"And in that moment I saw that no con has only one side, and a hoxer
without his critic is like a bridegroom without his mother-in-law."

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I put up several links exposing the FACTS about the sad Castaneda-Sanchez litigation affair. Who here cares to dispute any of these facts relating to the deplorable bullying tactics of Castaneda here? His ridiculous and trivial legal suit brought against Sanchez in pursuit of profit and Carlos's attempt to control and monopolise all information relating to his writings on Yaqui shamanism, as if somehow Castaneda has a patent on ancient Native Indian shamanic practice! which he admits he did not originate! Sanchez's book was not even critical of Castaneda! Castaneda even sued his ex-wife Margaret in his attempt to quash all critics.

What about Daniel Noel who I have not even mentioned until now? Independently of de Mille he made a thorough intensive research into Castaneda's claims and in his book which he edited Seeing Castaneda and later The Soul of Shamanism came to the same conclusion as de Mille, that Carlos's claims were fiction. See here for an interview with Noel. http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/an_interview_with_daniel_noel.htm

For a summary of his book Seeing Castaneda
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/noel_Seeing_Castaneda_summary1.htm and here
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/noel_Seeing_Castaneda_summary2.htm

What about Jay Fikes? Fikes is an anthropologist and expert on Huichol Indian shamanism who likewise debunks Castaneda in his book Carlos Castaneda-Academic Opportunism and The Psychedelic Sixties.

For an interview with Fikes http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/an_interview_with_jay_c_fikes.htm
and here http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/an_interview_with_jay_fikes_pt2.htm

What about Amy Wallace, Carlos's lover in the years up to his death who likewise came to the conclusion that Carlos had invented Don Juan? But Nagual I guess knows better.

For a review of her book on Carlos: http://peyote.com/carlos-castaneda/

And here for numerous links relating to Amy Wallace and her recounting of Carlos:
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Wallace_Book/Wallace_Book.htm

Nagual

quote:I did not know mustang knew Castaneda that well

Um Amy Wallace as his lover for several years up to his death did know Castaneda very well (as well as anybody in his final years) and she came to the conclusion that Carlos had fabricated Don Juan.

So the only three academics who even bothered to make a serious and comprehensive study of Castaneda all came to the conclusion that Castaneda was making up his apprenticeship, inventing Don Juan, as did the individual who was the last person Castaneda was intimate with and closest to in the years before his death.

And yet it is important to note that even more so than de Mille, Noel considers Castaneda's books to be important and valuable in so far as they open up our minds to indigenous wisdom, even if via a fictitious character.  

Nagual and others like-minded fail to realise that the evidence in favour or against Castaneda cuts both ways.
What facts, what evidence do the believers in the genuineness of Castaneda's apprenticeship come up with? Uh none whatsoever. Nothing more than the circular logic of  "We're right because Castaneda is to be trusted because he is telling the truth" line of argument. That's circular logic and wishful thinking, not evidence.

In order for Castaneda to prove his case he needs to present evidence in favour of the truth of his experiences. It is not only the sceptics such as de Mille who must present evidence in favour of their case (which he does do in his book which nobody here but myself has read), but the Castaneda believers must present evidence in favour of their case. And so emotional argument along the lines of "de Mille is wrong even though I do not know what he says" and therefore failing to refute de Mille in a single instance, is a ridiculous assertion based solely on wishful thinking, NOT EVIDENCE.

I have only alluded in oversimplification to what de Mille writes in his first book. You cannot know what de Mille is saying unless you read his book. Since nobody here but myself has done that, Nagual you have no idea WHAT EVIDENCE DE MILLE PRESENTS IN DETAIL. A very very brief simplistic overview of what de Mille writes is all I have given in my first 2 posts. I do not have the book to hand and even if I did I cannot paste up whole chapters because of copyright laws. The book is not available on line, it is not in the public domain.

And what about the scrutiny and investigations of Fikes and Noel? What about Wallace? More nails in the coffin of the Castaneda myth.

The True Believers do not seem to realise that Castaneda has not presented a single shred of evidence in favour of the genuiness of his apprenticeship, nothing whatsover. The word of Castaneda is not evidence. The word of his followers who hung on to his every word is not evidence. The fact that Castaneda's books have sold in the millions is not anything in favour of them being true. The fact that the wider paranormal reality opened up by shamanic practice and understanding is true does not mean Castaneda's experiences are true.

quote:Translate that to "If you don't agree with me, it means you are close-minded, gullible, a blind follower , have no critical thinking"... Great. Reminds me of our good friend GW Bush saying "Either you are (agree) with us; or you are against us"...

This is argument from guilt by association.
I am tarred with the same brush as a dogmatic, ruthless and deceitful president such as Bush. How desperate Nagual has become to dismiss what I have to say that he has to resort to such spurious and baseless attacks.

If I say that people who believe the world to be ten or fifteen thousand years old in spite of all the evidence to the contrary are blind believers, gullible and indugling in wishful thinking then that's because it's so. If I  call religious fanatics religious fanatics it's because that is what they are. Likewise people who are unquestioning of Castaneda's claims (esp in his later books), and don't think the whole Sanchez affair and the investigations of de Mille and others matter at all are blind believers. I stand by that.

How such a stance can be compared to Bush's talk which can be translated as "if you do not support us in dubious, unnecessary, ill-affordable, ill-conceived, dangerous and doomed misadventures based purely on deceit and fear-mongering that will only detract necessary resouces away from the fight against terrorism, then you stand against the freedom of the Western world and against the US" is beyond me.  

 
MJ-12 writes:

quote:Good call, Nagual. Sounds like this guy has a real hate-on for Castenada

Yeah Riiiiight MJ-12. I guess that would explain why I write:

quote:mactombs makes a valid point quoting Sanchez that Carlos's books are important and valid if we understand them for what they are. Much of what he writes re shamanism esp in his earlier books is valid because it is based on genuine shamanic/esoteric knowledge (even if not Yaqui) taken from numerous different sources and Castaneda has many insightful things to say here. As he does with respect to human nature and society in general and its destructiveness and brutal and forced alienation of the individual from himself, from others and from nature; and in how we have abandoned and denied the sacred and magical in life in favour of a pointless and meaningless materialism on the one hand and old superstitions on the other hand. In both cases devoid not only of magic/magick but of the truth inherent in magic, with all its disastrous consequences - Castaneda is on the right track.

I guess that would explain why I write:

quote:Personally, I consider myself indebted to Castaneda. I came across his books at a time when my view of the world was cynical, bitter and conditioned by the mundane materialism of our times. Castaneda opened my eyes in this regard and from there I opened up to philosophies, metaphysics and occult knowledge that I would not have neccesarily considered before or quite when I did without a kick in the pants from Castaneda.

And why I write this:

quote:Despite his darker side getting the better of him in his old age, Carlos gave the world more good than not. Since at bottom he forced us to question our longheld assumptions on the nature of reality. Assumptions that in fact are often just plain wrong, derived as they are from a conditioning in a mundane worldview that denies the magic and sacredness fundamental to the universe and to our very selves and our true destinies.

So much for me hating Carlos.  

On the Astral Chat forum on 10th September Nagual writes:  

quote:Apparently, I think the main reason for a fee was more to filter members to leave out the trolls, and other annoying members who just post to flame people, etc

Nagual is obviously reffering to myself as much as anybody else, after all look at the date he posted the above comment.

Apparently I'm a troll and only post to flame people. As for being a troll, well anybody can search my posting history to see if that is the case. That's not even worth responding to.

I do understand Nagual how uncomfortable truths that crash against psychological defense barrriers can be annoying.

Nagual

quote:I guess you did not read his posts... did you?
First, he is making many affirmations like: "Don Juan was a fictitious invention/fabrication of Castaneda's.", which is just impossible to prove. How do you prove someone you never met does not exist?
"Castaneda realised he was onto something". I did not know mustang knew Castaneda that well

How do I know Santa and the Easter Bunny don't exist? I never met them so I guess I can't prove they don't exist according to the logic of Nagual. I never met Don Quixote. I never met the Mad-hatter from Alice in Wonderland and for that matter I never met the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat so I guess I can't prove that any of these characters don't exist. I never met Harry Potter, Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, Frodo, Aragorn so I guess I can't prove they don't exist. I never met Oliver Twist, Fagan, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn so I guess I can't prove they don't exist.

"How do you prove someone you never met does not exist?" has got to be the most nonsensical rhetorical question I have heard in years. But it's par for the course with Nagual who seems to mistake totally irrational rhetoric devoid of sense and reason for clever insightful commentary.

"How do you prove someone you never met does not exist?"    Priceless.

quote:I did not know mustang knew Castaneda that well.

I do not need to have known Castaneda in order to speak of his motivations, conscious or otherwise. All that is needed is to read up on the person concerned, his life and times and his behaviour. The modern biographers of Cortez, Newton, Galilleo, Einstein, Churchill, Lincoln, Dickens, Robert E Lee, Calvin, Luther, Emerson, Edison, Napolean etc etc do not need to have known their subjects personally in order to be able to comment on their psychological motivations, conscious and subconscious. All they need to do is to make a serious study of their subject and his life and actions and they are fit to comment on the psyche of their subject, as did de Mille, Noel, Sanchez and Wallace re Carlos.

Also see what I write above re Amy Wallace, but I guess Nagual knows better than her.

quote:"Don Juan was a fictitious invention/fabrication of Castaneda's.", which is just impossible to prove

It is not impossible to prove, as Nagual so desperately likes to believe. It has been proven (as much as anything of this nature can be proven) by de Mille more than a quarter of a century ago in Castaneda's Journey and his follow-up The Don Juan Papers. It has since been proven again by both Noel and Fikes.

quote:Then he said: "Since Castaneda made it clear from the publication of his first book on, that he was not serious, he makes up obvious fictions, obvious if one thinks about what one is reading and what Castaneda is actually saying, and if one reads between the lines."
What kind of proof is this?!?!?

It isn't a proof, it is merely an allusion to the proofs presented by de Mille of which you know nothing and ignore or misunderstand completely - like the lizards episode, like the field-note books, like the irreconcilable problems with chronology, dates and experiences recounted by Carlos and scrutinised by de Mille in his book of which Nagual knows nothing. One has to read his book to know. The proofs are in de Mille's books duh and for that matter in Noel's and Fikes's, not in 2 sentences that I write. The proofs are in the numerous links I provide.

quote:So deep runs the denial and the wishful thinking that goes with it, that knee-jerk irrational emotional responses to my first post come as no surprise." = Those who disagree are in denial, blablabla
"If you're a true believer no doubt what I write above or anywhere will not penetrate your minds... This post... is for all those who can still question everything they are told regarding Carlos and guard against wishful thinking in this respect. For the rest, to whom facts are not important don't bother, go back to sleep." Don't worry, I still have the ability to question your "truths"...
"If one reads ... with something called scrutiny and genuine scepticism" = if you don't see it my way, go learn how to read.
"If you're ingenuous and gullible and a true BLIND believer of Carlos and don't bother with something called scrutiny and scepticism"
Ok, enough quoting, you can get the rest yourself...
Is that enough for you Akensai? So, you are all that if you don't believe in mustang's affirmations

It's not so much my affirmations, it's the scholarly research of de Mille and others and Sanchez's experiences of which the believers have nothing to say. If you wilfully ignore all the facts and information they provide, after I have given it to your attention, then I will call you a blind believer and gullible. And let me say that the last few books do for the most part relate experiences that are highly questionable to those of us here who are of  a sceptical nature and are not prepared to swallow absolutely anything merely because one finds it appealing (and I for one do not doubt in astral travel, the reality of other intelligences and paranormal reality in general). If you do accept everything Carlos relates for instance in The Second Ring of Power, The Fire From Within and The Art of Dreaming then yes you are pretty gullible and lack necessary doubt and the ability to question highly incredible extraordinary claims. And if you wilfully ignore all the info at the links I provide then yes you are a blind believer. Sorry Daem0n for repeating myself. I am trying to hammer home a point.

quote:He implied I was a Castaneda fan/follower/believer/worshiper... I just explained that he was making gratuitious affirmations. In fact, I don't like Castaneda from what I read. But I like what he wrote.

From your first response to my first post Nagual it does come across that you really want to believe that Carlos did apprentice under Don Juan and that Don Juan was a real human being. As do many of your responses in your 2nd and subsequent posts despite your assertions to the contrary. The fact that you do not like Carlos as a person is irrelevant in this respect.

Also the fact that Carlos as a person especially in his later years was a vindictive and ruthless and greedy individual who instigated trivial and ridiculous legal proceedings against a scholar who paid tribute to Castaneda's early work and Carlos even sued his own ex-wife! should force one, however reluctantly, to ask hard questions about Carlos. Namely can he be trusted in other respects such as his shamanic initiations, his very writings? But such suspicions and the questioning that should accompany such suspicions, which requires breaking free of boxed thinking as well as the ability to hold healthy doubts about Castaneda's claims, would not occur to true believers.    

Nagual again quoting me:

quote:This makes no sense, the Spanish translator shouldn't have had any problems at all ... Unless of course the reason that the Spanish translation was such a problem was because there never were any Spanish field-notes in the first place and Castaneda just wrote what he did in English because there never were any Spanish conversations with Don Juan because there were no meetings with Don Juan because there was no Don Juan.

Nagual then writes:

quote:What kind of deduction is that?!?!? A problem of translation => no field notes => no conversation with DJ => no DJ !?!?!? Man, great job Sherlock. That's some serious proof!

You haven't even read what de Mille writes in his book in this regard and yet you profess to know what you are talking about. Sherlock. Here is the whole appropriate post:

quote:The problems with Carlos's field notes alone is huge (relating to its supposed translation from Spanish and the very serious inconsistencies here and the fact that most all the field notes which he must have taken when with or after being with Don Juan simply have not been verified to exist and those that under pressure he has shown have serious problems relating to their supposed Spanish-English translation as I have mentioned). Why did the translator of Castaneda's books into Spanish for the Spanish language editions have so many problems with Don Juan's monologues and speeches and his talk in general?

This makes no sense, the Spanish translator shouldn't have had any problems at all - it should have been a breeze - since he was only translating into Spanish from English the Don Juan field-notes that Castaneda had supposedly translated from the original Spanish field-notes in the first place! - remember all his talks with Don Juan were in Spanish. Unless of course the reason that the Spanish translation was such a problem was because there never were any Spanish field-notes in the first place and Castaneda just wrote what he did in English because there never were any Spanish conversations with Don Juan because there were no meetings with Don Juan because there was no Don Juan.

Nagual's response again:

quote:What kind of deduction is that?!?!? A problem of translation => no field notes => no conversation with DJ => no DJ !?!?!? Man, great job Sherlock. That's some serious proof!

If you used your brain Nagual then maybe you could comprehend why serious problems with translations into Spanish from ostensibly original Spanish field-notes is a cause for concern regarding the veracity or otherwise of the field-notes. There should be no translation problems if you are translating into Spanish from Spanish source material (even if via English or any other language)!

Castaneda has Don Juan employ English/American slang and English/American idioms that have no equivalent in the Spanish language, which is indeed a serious problem if Don Juan only spoke Spanish to Castaneda, which is what Castaneda himself tells us. You will have to read Castaneda's Journey in order to know exactly what de Mille is proving here, which Nagual has not done and then professes that I and by implication de Mille has no proof when Nagual has no idea what the evidence is that de Mille presents here or anywhere else.

And the absence of original field notes is also a problem for those of us who like to have something called evidence. But to Sherlock Nagual evidence in the form of field notes is obviously not important, and translation problems which should not exist is also not a problem. Perhaps Don Juan's use of English/American slang that have no Spanish equivalent by somebody who spoke only Spanish to Carlos is also no problem to Sherlock Nagual.

quote:Honestly, a single link to De Mille's book would have had a better chance (at least with me) than these biased marketing speeches and "newagers bashing".

Calling serious, painstaking and thorough intensive investigations into Castaneda's claims exactly that is not "biased marketing speeches". If I were to call the serious, impressive and thorough scientific investigation into the Piltdown skull by Weiner, Le Gros Clark and Oakley which uncovered the skull to be a hoax - serious and impressive and thorough -would that be "biased marketing" too. Perhaps calling the dedicated painstaking analysis of astronomical data by Clyde Tombaugh in discovering the existence of the planet Pluto - dedicated painstaking analysis - is likewise "biased marketing". I could give numerous other examples but I think I have made my point.

As for "new age bashing", well there is definitely a gulliblity and unquestioning willingness to believe almost anything by a large number of people in the new-age community. As can be seen at any new-age fair, bookstore and in the new-age magazines and in many threads on astralpulse (I don't mean this one). This gullibility is not harmless, as anybody who has given up everything and run off to some ashram only to be duped by the numerous charlatans pretending to be enlightened gurus, has proven. Some have been sexually abused, some have committed suicide, children have been left behind, families have been shattered, others have lost everything they had.

And what has this to do with Castaneda? Nothing at a superficial glance. However at a deeper level, when we look at these new-age types who blindly follow dubious gurus and the True Believer Castaneda followers, there is a common stream of unquestioning acceptance of revered authority figures who turn out to have feet of clay and often behave all too deplorably (in Carlos's case - his actions re Sanchez, ClearGreen and his ex-wife Margaret), and such behaviour is wilfully ignored by their followers. It is for this reason that I admit to being very harsh, even excessively so, and indulge in "new-age bashing". Many new-age types are in need of the equivalent of an intellectual cold-shower, and I don't apologise for being one to give it out.

I don't do it out of contempt or a feeling of superiority, but merely because I think this desperate need to believe no matter the facts can lead one seriously astray. In my teens and early twenties I was definitely such a type and I don't want others to be as unquestioning as I was in this regard, because it can lead to bigger problems further down the line. Tragic mistakes in judgment and discretion that can cost one dearly, and others too.

Nagual

quote:I would love to know the truth behind Castaneda's story... but, as far as I am concerned, there is no way to know for sure. Unless you accept to rely on second-hand "proofs"...

Really you would love to know the truth behind Castaneda's story? That would explain why you write "I don't care about wether it is a true story or a hoax". And once again Nagual dismisses thorough comprehensive exposes of which he knows nothing, praised by the world's leading psychical researchers and investigators of shamanism (but Nagual in his own mind knows better than they do on a subject [Castaneda criticism] of which he knows nothing), as second-hand "proofs".

You would love to know the truth behind Castaneda's story? So I guess you are doing all you can to see if you can get hold of copies of de Mille's books (and now Fikes's, Noel's, Margaret Castaneda's and Wallace's) at any libraries or second hand/esoteric bookstores, or ordering through amazon if you can afford it, in order to see what they have to say?

Nagual

quote:Apathy? Is saying that there is no point in arguing since there is no real way to know the truth a sign of apathy...?

Nagual, by saying there is no point in arguing means he does not consider any evidence against the claims of Carlos's supposed experiences to be worthy of even the slightest attention, he dismisses all Castaneda criticism on the grounds that they cannot prove their case (even though he has no idea about the case they make and wilfully ignores all the info at the links I provide). Nagual dismisses all the debunking of Carlos on a priori grounds ie Nagual does not care to enter into evidence anything that threatens the Castaneda myth, because in Nagual's eyes there is no evidence.

Nagual says so, so we must take his word for it. Nagual knows what he is talking about - we have his word. Imagine a judge in court saying there is no point in arguing whether a man on trial for murder or some such is guilty or not guilty because there is no evidence either way and as such he will not hear any evidence and testimony from either defendant or prosecutor!! Case Dismissed.

So Nagual contradicts himself by claiming not to be apathetic and by implication that he is impartial and objective re the Carlos controversy. By dismissing out of hand all the evidence against the supposed veracity of Carlos's claims as no evidence at all. To Nagual evidence in favour of a grand hoax is not evidence, because Nagual says so. Nagual tells us there can be no evidence....ever!

In Nagual's own words, "Is saying that there is no point in arguing since there is no real way to know the truth.." which actually contradicts his assertion that he is not apathetic. Not only is Nagual apathetic in this respect, he cannot even consider any evidence exposing a hoax (he tells us so after all) - "since there is no real way to know the truth" - but more than this Nagual to a large degree likes to believe in the myth Carlos built up around himself. He is not alone. Nagual can deny this all he likes, but his very words contradict his denials, even though Nagual would be the last to see this obvious contradiction.  


For an interesting overview of shamanism in the Western world today http://www.newagecities.com/neighborhoods/shamanism/content/Shamanism.asp        

Here for a review of a book written by Castaneda's ex-wife Margaret
http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/margaret_runyan_bookreview.htm
The date given at the url above for Margaret's book is wrong btw, it should be 1997, not 1977. Carlos launched a lawsuit against her over the publication of this book.

Here is a short article written by de Mille http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_intro/ofpiltmen_donjuanforg.html

They are even offering a course on the Castaneda controversy at Washington University at their religious studies department http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jhbauer/sorcerors.htm

Colin Wilson, a very prominent writer on the paranormal had this to say: from http://www.stormloader.com/users/abrax7/donjuan.htm
Pasted below.

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THE DON JUAN AFFAIR by COLIN WILSON

In I968, the University of California Press published a book called 'The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge' by Carlos Castaneda. Castaneda had entered the University of California - UCLA - as an undergraduate in 1959, and had received a BA in anthropology in 1962. The University of California Press accepted 'The Teachings of Don Juan' as an authentic account of Castaneda's `field work' in Mexico.

The book told how, when he was an anthropology student, in 1960, Castaneda made several trips to the southwest to collect information on medicinal plants used by the Indians. At a Greyhound bus station, he was introduced to a white-haired old Indian who apparently knew all about peyote, the hallucinogenic plant. Although this first meeting was abortive - Castaneda tells with touching honesty how he `talked nonsense' to Don Juan - Castaneda made a point of finding where Don Juan lived and was finally accepted by the old brujo (medicine man or magician) as a pupil, a sorcerer's apprentice.  

The teaching begins with an episode in which Don Juan tells Castaneda to look for his `spot', a place where he will feel more comfortable and at ease than anywhere else; he told Castaneda that there was such a spot within the confines of the porch. Castaneda describes how he spent all night trying different spots, lying in them, but felt no difference. Don Juan told him he ought to use his eyes. After this, he began to distinguish various colours in the darkness; purple, green and verdigris. When he finally chose one of these, he felt sick and had a sensation of panic. Exhausted, he lay by the wall and fell asleep. When he woke up, Don Juan told him that he had found his `spot' - where he had fallen asleep. The other spot was bad for him, the `enemy'.  

This episode helps to explain the subsequent popularity of the book which was published in paperback by Ballantine Books and sold 300,000 copies. Don Juan is a teacher, a man of knowledge - the kind of person that every undergraduate dreams of finding - and he introduces Castaneda to the most astonishing experiences. When Castaneda first eats a peyote button, he experiences amazing sensations and plays with a mescalito dog whose mind he can read. On a later occasion he sees the mescalito god himself as a green man with a pointed head. When Don Juan teaches him how to make a paste from the datura plant - Jimson weed - he anoints himself with it and has a sensation of flying through the air at a great speed. (In their book The Search for Abraxas, Stephen Skinner and Neville Drury speculate that witches of the Middle Ages used a similar concoction and that this explains how they `flew' to Witches's Sabbaths). He wakes up to find himself half a mile from Don Juan's house.  

During this period when the book was published many young Americans were smoking pot and experimenting with `psychedelic drugs' like mescalin and LSD, and Timothy Leary was advising American youth to `Turn on, tune in, drop out.' This apparently factual account of semi-magical experiences became as popular as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and for much the same reason: it was escapist literature, but, more important, it claimed to be true. Reviews were excellent. Anthropologists and scientists took the book seriously - the psychologist Carl Rogers called it `one of the most vividly convincing documents I have read.' The philosopher Joseph Margolis said that either Castaneda was recording an encounter with a master or he was himself a master.  

This was clearly a success that had to be followed up. A Separate Reality described how Castaneda had returned to Don Juan in 1968. A giant gnat, 100 feet high, circles around him; he rides on a bubble; he has a semi-mystical experience in which he hears extraordinary sounds and sees the sorcerer's `ally', who shows him a `spirit catcher.' The demand for more about Don Juan remained strong but Castaneda had a problem. A Separate Reality came to an end in 1970 and was published in 1971; for the time being he had used up his Don Juan material.  

But not quite. He explained in his next book, Journey to Ixtlan (1973) that he had made the erroneous assumption that the glimpses of reality that Don Juan had given him could only be obtained through drugs. Now he realized he was mistaken. In fact, Don Juan had told him many other things during his years as a sorcerer's apprentice, but although he had written these non-drug revelations in his `field notes', he had failed to see their significance. Now, looking back over his notes, he had failed to see their significance. Now, looking back over his notes, he realized that he had a vast amount of material that showed that drugs were not necessary for achieving unusual states of consciousness. So Journey to Ixtlan goes back to 1960 and recounts still more astonishing adventures: he has strange visions, mountains move, and Castaneda describes his encounter with a sinister but beautiful sorceress named Catalina. In retrospect, it seems that Castaneda made his first major error in writing Ixtlan (although it was one that, according to his agent, made him $1 million). The `lost' field notes sound just a little too convenient.  

Yet, oddly enough, scholars continued to take him seriously. Mary Douglas, a professor of social anthropology, wrote an article about the first three books called `The Authenticity of Castaneda', which concluded: `From these ideas we are likely to get advances in anthropology.' Moreover, UCLA granted Castaneda his Ph.D. for Ixtlan and he lectured on anthropology on the Irvine campus. If reviewers would swallow Ixtlan, they would clearly swallow anything.  

Now that enough time had elapsed since his last visit to Sonora, Castaneda could renew his acquaintance with Don Juan and bring his revelations up to date. But Tales of Power (1974) seems to indicate that either Castaneda or his publisher felt that the game would soon be up. The dust jacket declares that this is the `culmination of Castaneda's extraordinary initiation into the mysteries of sorcery.' At last, it declares, Castaneda completes his long journey into the world of magic and the books ends with a `deeply moving farewell'.  

In may ways Tales of Power - covering a period of a few days in 1971 - is more rewarding than the earlier Don Juan books because it attempts to present a philosophical theory about reality, in terms of two concepts which Don Juan calls the tonal and nagual. The tonal is `everything we are', while the nagual is pure potentiality. The tonal is the pair of Kantian spectacles through which we see the world and impose meaning on it; it consists mainly of linguistic concepts and preconceptions. These conceptions are illustrated with the usual tales of magical experiences: Don Juan shows him a squirrel wearing spectacles which swells and finds he has travelled one and a half miles. It was at this point, after publication of Tales of Power, that a teacher of psychology named Richard de Mille was persuaded by his niece to read all four Don Juan books one after the other. (`You have to take the whole trip.') The Teachings struck him as authentic and factual. A Separate Reality raised doubts; it was better written but somehow not so `factual'. And the character of Don Juan had changed; he seemed more `joky', while in the first book he had been grimly serious. Of course, Castaneda himself had already mentioned this. `He clowned during the truly crucial moments of the second cycle.' But when he came to Ixtlan, De Mille was puzzled to find that the Don Juan of the notes made as early as 1960 was as much of a humorist and a clown as the later Don Juan.  

Made suspicious by this inconsistency, he began to study the books more closely and soon found contradictions that confirmed his feeling that he was dealing with fiction rather than fact. A friend pointed out one obvious inconsistency: in October 1968, Castaneda leaves his car and walks for two days to the shack of Don Juan's fellow sorcerer Don Genaro but when they walk out of shack they climb straight into the car. De Mille discovered a single contradiction. In Ixtlan, Castaneda goes looking for a casertain bush on Don Juan's instructions and finds it has vanished; then Don Juan sees him to the far side of the hill, where he finds the bush he thought he had seen earlier on the other side. Later Don Juan tells him, `This moment you saw', giving the word special emphasis. Yet six years later, in which Castaneda is represented (in A Separate Reality) as asking Don Juan what is seeing and Don Juan tells him that in order to find the bush Castaneda must see for himself. He seems to have forgotten that Castaneda had an experience of seeing six years earlier. And while it is understandable that Don Juan should forget, it is quite incomprehensible that Castaneda should.  

These and may similar inconsistencies convinced De Mille that one of the two books had to be fiction, or that, more probably, the both were. He published his results in a book called Castaneda's Journey in 1976 and it led many anthropologists who had taken Don Juan seriously to change their views. Joseph K. Long felt `betrayed by Castaneda.; Marcello Truzzi, on the other hand, admitted that he felt aghast at the initial reactions of the scientific community on Castaneda's books and that he was equally outraged by the serious reaction now De Mille had exposed them as frauds.  

Castaneda's admirers were mostly infuriated. Their feeling was that even if Castaneda had invented Don Juan, the books were of genuine knowledge and wisdom, and should be gratefully accepted as works of genius. One lady wrote to De Mille saying she was convinced he didn't exist and asking him to prove it. De Mille had, in fact, accepted that the Don Juan books had a certain merit, both as literature and `occult teaching'. But, when, in 1980 he edited a large volume of papers on the `Castaneda hoax' called The Don Juan Papers his admiration had visibly dwindled.  

Some of the essays present an even more devastating exposure of Castaneda than De Mille's original volume. For example, Hans Sebald, an anthropologist who had spent a great deal of time in the southwestern desert, pointed out that it was so hot from May to September that no one with any sense ventures into it; dehydration and exhaustion follow within hours. Yet according to Castaneda, he and Don Juan wandered around the desert for days, engaging in conversation and ignoring the heat. Sebald goes on to describe Castaneda's animal lore: `Where . . . are the nine-inch centipedes and tarantulas big as saucers? Where are the king snakes, scarlet chuckawallas, horned toads, gila monsters. . .'  

A lengthy appendage on The Don Juan papers cites hundreds of parallel passages from the Castaneda books and from other works on anthropology and mysticism that bear a close resemblance. The book establishes, beyond all possible doubt, that the Castaneda books are a fraud. Richard De Mille's own research revealed that Carlos Arana was born in 1925 (not 1935, as he has told an interviewer) in Cajamarca, Peru, and came to San Francisco in 1951, leaving behind a Chinese-Peruvian wife who was pregnant. In 1955 he met Damon Runyan's distant cousin Margaret and married her in 1960; they separated after six months [their marriage lasted 13 years]. In 1959 he became an undergraduate at UCLA and the Don Juan story begins. . . Castaneda himself has proven to be an extremely elusive individual, as Time discovered when it sent a reporter to interview him in 1973.

In the light of De Mille's discoveries, this is easy to understand. Castaneda's career can be compared to that of the Shakespeare forger, William Ireland (see page 189), who began by forging a few Shakespeare signatures to gain his father's attention and found himself forced to continue until he had concocted a whole Shakespeare play, which brought about his discover and downfall. Castaneda presumably produced the original 'Teachings of Don Juan' as a mild form of hoax. The publication by Ballantine lauched him, whether he liked it or not, on the career of a trickster and confidence man. It would, perhaps, have been wiser to stop after Ixtlan, or possibly after Tales of Power.

But the demand for more Don Juan books has presumably overcome his caution. In fact, the fifth, The Second Ring of Power, reads so obviously as fiction that it raises the suspicion that Castaneda wanted to explode his own legend. But he shows caution in offering no dates, no doubt to escape De Mille's vigilant eye. Castaneda tells how he went back to Mexico looking for Don Juan and instead encountered one of his disciples, a sorceress named Madame Solitude. Last time he saw her she was fat and ugly and in her fifties; now she is young, slim and vital, and within a few pages, she has torn off her skirt and invited him to make love to her - an invitation he wisely resists. Then Castaneda somehow invokes his own double out of his head - not a mild-mannered scholar but a super-male authority figure who hits Madame Solitude on the head and almost kills her. Then four lady disciples arrive and make more assaults on Castaneda, which he overcomes, and after which they all encounter other-worldly beings. . .

In his sixth book, The Eagle's Gift, Castaneda returns to Mexico as 'a sorcerous leader and figure in his own right' (As the blurb says) and enters into a closer relationship with one of the female sorcerers of the previous books, La Gorda. The two of them develop the ability to dream in unison. It is clear that, since writing the earlier book, Castaneda has come across split-brain physiology and now we hear a great deal about the right and left sides of a human being, the left being the nagual and the right, the tonal. De Mille had pointed out that the Don Juan books seem to chart Castaneda's literary and philosophical discoveries over the years and this book confirms it. For those who read it with the certainty that the previous books were a hoax, it seems an insult to the intelligence. But it seems to demonstrate that Castaneda can continue indefinitely spinning fantasies for those who regard him as the greatest of modern gurus.

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[Castaneda's Journey]

Most of the responses here (with the exception of mactombs - hi mactombs hope you are well and have been reading up on those links and related material I gave you a while back) have been largely along the lines of "I believe what I want to believe, so don't confuse me with facts".

A personal assertion based on wishful thinking and the circular logic that goes with it along the lines of "Castaneda was trained by one Don Juan because he says so or because I feel that he was", is meaningless and indicative of a pervasive gullibility and suspension of critical thinking among the new-age crowd, which they are rightly and deservedly criticised for. The very word Ant uses - "feeling", indicates a knee-jerk emotional response, which has nothing to do with cold mental reflection, investigation and rumination.

Nagual:

quote:I personaly leave those controversies for others to play with... I prefer to think about the many interesting topics described in the books, rather than make up theories based on theories, based on hear say, based on logic, etc... It can be true, it can be a hoax. It may be a mix. I'm not interested in speculations.

I'm not interested in speculations either, just facts. De Mille and Sanchez are not talking about theories based on theories or hearsay, but FACTS. What they reveal are actual facts. This is obvious to anybody who is not a blind follower of Carlos and actually reads what they have written.

Who here would even be interested in reading de Mille's books even if one had the opportunity to pick up a copy? If not, then that means you don't even want to know what a thorough and extensive researcher who has undertaken a very serious and painstaking study of Castaneda (unsurpassed by anybody else), analysing with a microscope everything Castaneda has written, the chronology of his experiences according to Castaneda himself  (who here even knows that Carlos grew up in Peru - why does he say he was born and grew up in Brazil?), his studies in the US, the access Carlos had to extensive libraries at UCLA containing rare volumes on shamanism and psychotropic drugs (to which those of you who don't think and question much will say so what?), the nature of his thesis and its acceptance by his faculty which you can't actually know unless you read de Mille's Castaneda's Journey - I can't write up a 100k post explaining what actually happened.

The problems with Carlos's field notes alone is huge (relating to its supposed translation from Spanish and the very serious inconsistencies here and the fact that most all the field notes which he must have taken when with or after being with Don Juan simply have not been verified to exist and those that under pressure he has shown have serious problems relating to their supposed Spanish-English translation as I have mentioned). Why did the translator of Castaneda's books into Spanish for the Spanish language editions have so many problems with Don Juan's monologues and speeches and his talk in general?

This makes no sense, the Spanish translator shouldn't have had any problems at all - it should have been a breeze - since he was only translating into Spanish from English the Don Juan field-notes that Castaneda had supposedly translated from the original Spanish field-notes in the first place! - remember all his talks with Don Juan were in Spanish. Unless of course the reason that the Spanish translation was such a problem was because there never were any Spanish field-notes in the first place and Castaneda just wrote what he did in English because there never were any Spanish conversations with Don Juan because there were no meetings with Don Juan because there was no Don Juan.

On the chronology of Castaneda's experiences recounted in his first few books, this unravels completely as De Mille shows and this is FACT, if you actually even bother to read Castaneda's Journey you would have to concede this unless of course you are a blind believer. In fact it is serious indisputable and irreconcilable problems with the chronology of Carlos's suppossed encounters and learning from Don Juan that is arguably the BIGGEST PROBLEM and REFUTATION of the supposed veracity of Castaneda's experiences.

And anybody can verify this for themselves by reading his first few books in order (in fact just the first three: The Teachings of Don Juan, A Seperate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan) never mind the later ones in which even more insurmountable probems crop up; and painstakingly writing down in sequence when and where Carlos learned, what he learned, noting the order in which he learned the ways of the Nagual. De Mille actually did this, which is what one would have to do in order to discover if Carlos's experiences and learning were compatible within the time periods, dates and time sequences given by Carlos himself. In fact as de Mille points out, Carlos makes it clear to anybody who like de Mille bothers to do the work here, that what Carlos claims he did and when he did it is untenable wrt both the sequence and limited time period and dates given - to drum it in, Carlos himself makes it obvious!!

Which is just one reason why de Mille points out Carlos was making it fairly obvious that it was all a hoax, to anybody who even bothered to do a cursory investigation. This is not rocket science, all it takes is the ability to read and write and one can uncover for oneself what de Mille did.

All of the above is articulately set out in Castaneda's Journey and in brief summary at the link I have already provided  http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/demille_1976_summary.htm

De Mille's book is a must-read if you are to know exactly what he is proving and how.

But Carlos knew that most nobody would even bother to make the attempt as only de Mille seems to have bothered to do, and so it didn't matter. And when de Mille let Carlos know (via letter I think, it's in Castaneda's Journey) that he was writing a book about Carlos and would like to meet, Castaneda never got back to de Mille. De Mille rightly predicted in his book, that his (de Mille's) book wouldn't make a difference among the believers who just wouldn't want to know. Carlos's following was too large and his followers too desperate to believe (like all true believers)  - and still don't want to know as most all the responses - evasion, denial and wishful thinking - to my first post here prove.

quote:Also, there is a huge difference between Castaneda and his followers from ClearGreen

Well, yeah. Castaneda was doing the duping, and his followers were duped (not just those at ClearGreen), although one could argue that any body who dupes others is also duping himself. Whether Castaneda was really fully aware that he was duping people to the extent that he was at the time of ClearGreen, especially in the later years; or was just deceiving himself unknowingly, having gone too far and for too long with his hoax perhaps he started falling for his own trickery. As is often the case with tricksters. Who knows? This I admit seems a bit far-fetched but who really knows? On this I can only speculate.

quote:And I agree with Ant... Who said Castaneda did succeed? From what I read in his books; it looked like he failed

?? An argument from evasion and argument from red herring that misses the point entirely. As if I were arguing that Carlos never followed the lessons that he learned from Don Juan and the others and therefore should not be taken seriously for this reason. I said that there was no Don Juan in the first place and that serious scholarship and painstaking research have revealed this to be the case. So he could neither have succeeded nor failed in following in the footsteps of Don Juan BECAUSE THERE WAS NO DON JUAN!!

Kind of like somebody saying who said Santa can't fit down into chimneys, he doesn't have to because he lowers the presents down by rope or sends the elves down with the presents in response to somebody saying that Santa doesn't exist, it's just a fiction.

So deep runs the denial and the wishful thinking that goes with it, that knee-jerk irrational emotional responses to my first post come as no surprise.

In a sense, Castaneda did "fail". The whole Sanchez-Castaneda affair is proof of this as are the shenanigans of ClearGreen. However to see Castaneda's "failure" by taking what he writes in his books as literal fact and on Castaneda's own terms (ie failure as a shaman apprenticed to Don Juan and Don Genaro and the others) is to miss the point completely, to miss every point I was making in my first post - since it means accepting Carlos's experiences related in his books as biographically factual, which they are not! That is just the point I was making esp in mentioning de Mille!
A case of everything I write going in one ear and out the other, because it is not what some people are prepared to acknowledge.

It is not by what he writes in his books that we know he failed, since his books are fictions! but by his deplorable actions in his twilight years that his fervent admirers remain largely oblivious to or consider irrelevant. Although there is the possibility that his ficticious "failure" that he relates in his books is a reflection of his true failure in real life to transcend his base egoism and insecurities. Whether this relating of failure in his last books was consciously and deliberately made or solely subconscious and not necessarily deliberately intended, I would not know.    

If you're a true believer no doubt what I write above or anywhere re Carlos will not penetrate your minds anymore than my first post did. This post, like my first one is for all those who can still question everything they are told regarding Carlos and guard against wishful thinking in this respect. For the rest, to whom facts are not important don't bother, go back to sleep.

Castaneda did indeed succeed in pulling the wool over people's eyes, but then that's what Tricksters do.

Nagual quoting me:

quote:All of Castaneda's books are a hoax mind you, not a fraud. Since Castaneda made it clear from the publication of his first book on... obvious ... obvious... obvious... Yet Castaneda makes his trickery obvious, hence he was a hoaxer, not a fraudster.

Nagual then writes:

quote:Man, you do like the word "obvious"! I must be pretty dumb because it was not obvious at all for me... So, Castaneda made it clear it was a hoax??? Where? Between the lines???

Yeah Nagual, I suppose you have a valid point - it's not too obvious. I should have used another word. It is obvious after the fact/a posterio, after you know the facts as revealed by de Mille and others, but not I admit that obvious a priori.

However with that said..........
If one reads Castaneda's books with something called scrutiny and genuine scepticism then uh yeah it is fairly obvious that somethings just don't quite gell. See what I write above re chronology for the first 3 books and explained in detail by de Mille in his book.  
Also check this link I gave you in my first post http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/episode_of_the_two_lizards.htm

But maybe you have no problem with swallowing that whole lizard tale. If you're ingenuous and gullible and a true BLIND believer of Carlos and don't bother with something called scrutiny and  scepticism (I'm not talking about pseudo-scepticism here of the CSICOP and James Randi/Martin Gardner variety), doubtless you will not have a problem with the lizard story. As de Mille relates, Carlos is making this HOAX obvious to anybody who stops and thinks about what is entailed here. Think is the key word.

And when it comes to Carlos's later books such as The Second Ring of Power, The Fire From Within, and esp The Art Of Dreaming on, if you have no problems there with many of the outlandish and questionable "experiences" recounted by Carlos including the blue scout (why not the blue fairy?), well then yes you are a True Believer, and lack necessary doubt and scepticism.

Carlos's hoaxing which had I concede been somewhat subtle before (with the exception of the lizard tale), now becomes more obvious. But I guess it isn't really obvious to most people who want to believe in the veracity of Carlos's writings and experiences. After all people believe most anything if it's what they want to hear and satisfies their belief system no matter how outlandish and untenable it all becomes. In fact the more dubious and irrational it all becomes paradoxically the more likely they are to believe in it all so fanatically. Witness Religion or what passes for it.

To repeat myself - upon a very superficial and cursory read, Carlos's first few books are not obviously hoaxes. It is however upon investigation and scrutiny of his books that the hoaxing is obvious. Although with the later books this hoaxing in my eyes becomes more and more obvious.

But I guess not to the gullible new-age types who just don't want to know, the kind who really believe everything that their local "psychic/channeller" is telling them without question. Sorry if I am stereotyping the new-age type, I know this does not apply to all of you although it applies to a hell of a lot of people who frequent these astral pulse forums and frankly such naive people are not going to be the ones who will look at Castaneda's writings and life controversies with any proper scrutiny.

Castaneda himself knew he could write what he wanted and didn't have to bother with covering his tracks, since most who would read his books were not the types to question anything they read. As for the academics like de Mille and others, well nobody really listens to what serious academic writers and researchers have to say, so what difference does it make? The believers will go on believing no matter what. De Mille predicted what would happen here, that he would be ignored by Carlos's fans and largely only academics would take his work seriously and how right he proved to be.    

mactombs makes a valid point quoting Sanchez that Carlos's books are important and valid if we understand them for what they are. Much of what he writes re shamanism esp in his earlier books is valid because it is based on genuine shamanic/esoteric knowledge (even if not Yaqui) taken from numerous different sources and Castaneda has many insightful things to say here. As he does with respect to human nature and society in general and its destructiveness and brutal and forced alienation of the individual from himself, from others and from nature; and in how we have abandoned and denied the sacred and magical in life in favour of a pointless and meaningless materialism on the one hand and old superstitions on the other hand. In both cases devoid not only of magic/magick but of the truth inherent in magic, with all its disastrous consequences - Castaneda is on the right track.

Sanchez, de Mille and others recognise this, and thus see Carlos's earlier books as important and worthy, even if we do not recognise the fictional matrix in which they are founded. The latter books though are less important and valid and lose their way in cohesion and believability, perhaps a reflection of how Carlos had lost his way in his own life, caught up and ensnared in his own trickery, and was milking something dry when there was nothing left. For this reason I do not think that Carlos's later books have much validity even if recognised as fiction (with the exception of The Power of Silence which I feel in many ways is a return to the "purer" form of his earlier works). The only worth though I consider most of his later books to have is in trying to understand the author and his psyche, Carlos's own motivations, both conscious and subconscious.

By the time we get to Art of Dreaming, it as if Castaneda were indeed saying, "my hoaxing is not even subtle like it was in my first few books, how gullible are you people to fall for this as Factual Experience", as I wrote out in my first post.

Personally, I consider myself indebted to Castaneda. I came across his books at a time when my view of the world was cynical, bitter and conditioned by the mundane materialism of our times. Castaneda opened my eyes in this regard and from there I opened up to philosophies, metaphysics and occult knowledge that I would not have neccesarily considered before or quite when I did without a kick in the pants from Castaneda. The irony here is amusing, ironic since it took a ficticious and fabricated series of tales for me to open up to certain truths I had not acknowledged before. So is the way with the Trickster. Of course many Castaneda admirers have been saying exactly this for years.

This is why I say I think Carlos's trickery, as is the case with all Tricksters, can be beneficial up to a point and esp in his early career as an author. However as is often the case with Tricksters, when the trickery intensifies and goes on for too long, the Trickster falls prey to his own trickery and becomes ensnared in it, fooling himself as much as any other, with tragic consequences.

And if Castaneda was intentionally hoaxing his readers, why especially after he was recognised as a hoaxer by the serious writers and researchers into psychical matters and shamanism, did he not come out and say "OK the game is up"? Well because Tricksters generally don't do that, there's no fun to be had in taking off the mask.

The Trickster was his role (perhaps he took it too seriously or paradoxically not seriously enough, perhaps he just got caught up in egoism and greed, and forgot who he was in this repect and suffered the consequences - as Tricksters like Coyote in Indian myth are indeed wont to do!) and he would play it till the last curtain call, as all actors do.

Even in death he was still at it (if you read this relevant link I put up in my first post you will know what I mean). http://www.geocities.com/skepdigest/sorcerer.html

And as Shakespeare observed is actors not what we all are?

Here is an interesting and revealing interview with Castaneda http://www.nagual.net/ixtlan/interviews/psytoday2.html

I think it was De Mille who said Carlos was a "sham-man bearing gifts ... He lied to bring us the truth."
I could not have put it better myself.

Despite his darker side getting the better of him in his old age, Carlos gave the world more good than not. Since at bottom he forced us to question our longheld assumptions on the nature of reality. Assumptions that in fact are often just plain wrong, derived as they are from a conditioning in a mundane worldview that denies the magic and sacredness fundamental to the universe and to our very selves and our true destinies. By giving us magic he pointed the way to truth, even if he coud not travel down that road himself.

I realise that this charging for the new forums is unavoidable and there is a considerable expense in maintaining such a large forum, with so many sub-forums. But to many of us in the Third World, ten dollars is not as cheap as it is for those of you in North America, UK, Europe, Australasia. In fact in real terms, ten dollars is about equivalent to sixty dollars to one such as myself. And I am far far better off money-wise than 90% of South Africans. And I don't think I can spare the money for now. So I will be passing on all this.

And I don't want to be the one to burst everybody's bubble, but not all or even most of the posts put up at astralpulse are of the highest quality, or even of a decent quality. And that is putting it politely. I also fail to see how charging people ten dollars is goint to raise the bar so to speak, as if the people who are going to pay the member's fee by the very fact that they are paying a fee, somehow means that their posts are going to be of a high value. Doubtless, even if moderated the standard of the posts in this new forum will be the same as it has always been - of mixed quality.

Although I'm sure there will be a lot of good stuff posted up that I and others will miss out on, especially if all the best posters with the most informative stuff start posting solely on this new paid member's only forum. In fact if this is what happens then one can expect the regular astralpusle forums as a consequence to decline in quality, but I hope I'm wrong in this regard.

[the media support such concepts]

Jo Wolf writes

quote:We are talking about a "critical mass" of people who see the light. Once the media support such concepts, we could hope for a change in humanity's direction

The media are part of the problem, in every way. They will never support any concept that has anything to do with any truth whatsoever. The media has to tell people what they want to hear, and people want to hear lies, they want their bigotry and prejudices and delusions confirmed, and the media does that for them.

You would sooner get the AAAS and the NAS on board supporting such concepts, than getting the media on board for sure.

[a FIASCO unprecedented in the history of medicine and even science.]

Hello everybody

Firstly mactombs,

Thanks for your response. Sorry if you thought my anger in my post was directed at you, it wasn't but at the "New Inquisition" that call themselves scientists. I'm just trying to let people here know that they should not be so trusting of an authority ruled by dogma, careerism and in some cases, profiteering; and that hides behind obfuscatory jargon and inspeak that nobody understands (often not the scientists themselves) in order to intimidate and impress the layman. When you look behind the clever jargon, there is often nothing there - all smoke and mirrors like the Wizard of Oz. In other words a lot of naked emperors.

clandestino writes:

quote:Science is objective by definition ! This cannot be debated. I do agree though that the process of scientific exploration often appears very subjective, as you have pointed out above.

When I wrote above about science not being objective, I really meant what scientists often pass off for science, namely scientism and materialism and wishful thinking etc, not science per se. clandestino is correct in pointing out my improper use of the word "science", I should have written "scientists" for "science". Although I do think my meaning was clear in the context of what I wrote. Science is wonderful, unfortunately it is not always practised by scientists themselves esp in medicine where the ethics of mafia gangsters (although this is not quite fair on the mafia) is the norm. Remember science does not occur in a vaccuum, it is not given to us complete by the gods themselves or omniscient aliens but all too fallible human beings who are not in any way removed from their cultural and sociological background and the conditioning that it represents.

Wolf, thanks for your response. I am aware of the hostility that Wegener received, also the tragic Anton Mesmer and his successors re hypnotism. Mesmer of course gave his name to mesmerism. The paranormal phenomena often associated with hypnotism (eg telepathy, community of sensation, remote viewing/clairvoyance) though is still not accepted by the mainstream obviously.

Actually there are so many Wegeners and Mesmers out there today, facing ridicule, the loss of funding, blackballed and censored by the scientific journals and mass media and even risk their jobs for daring to contradict and contest the status quo. Things are actually far worse than they have ever been in this regard.

Btw when I write "New Inquistion" I am in no way exaggerating, in Medical Science this is truly and terribly the case. They are killing people for profit and the protection of tens of thousands of careers, and they call what they do life-saving! And they probably believe it too. Coton Mather and his fellow witch-hunters had nothing on the US National Institute of Health, the FDA and their fawning sheep around the world, since thanks to the moron media they have more power and influence than a Thomas de Torquemada could have even dreamed possible. He didn't have a fawning CNN, BBC, Newsweek and Time etc to sell his Inquisition to all corners of the globe.

The 3 blind mice -
1 Government departments, UN, NGOs: NIH, FDA and their ilk around the world, WHO, UNICEF, Health GAP, Medecins Sans Frontieres aka Doctors without Brains etc etc  
2 corporate thugs -the Bio-Techs and Pharmaceuticals
3 the media

Let me repeat, I am only hinting at something here. Something far more terrible than any of you can even begin to imagine is going on,  a FIASCO unprecedented in the history of medicine and even science. If anybody wants to really know what I am talking about, they can PM me or they can do their own investigation - SOUTH AFRICA and AFRICA is a big clue. Here's another clue - by fiasco I mean a MYTH passed off as science.
Because of censorship and intimidation and blatant deceit by vested interests and those whose reputations and careers are on the line, the internet is your only friend here, but use it wisely and with discretion.

And most importantly, go into it with an open mind, prepare to be shocked and don't respect any authority, no matter how clever and seemingly impressive the jargon that they employ that you don't understand. Don't be impressed by PHDs (there is a saying -"you have to have your PHD before you don't get it") or the sheer huge number of scientists who propagate a particular orthodox viewpoint - respectively the argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) and the argument from consensus (argumentum ad numerum). Both arguments are unscientific and fallacious, neither have anything to do with SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.
Or don't bother at all.

Lastly - There is an error in my previous post above, I write about the Bio-Tech 'Novisto', there is no such Bio-Tech - I meant to write 'Novartis', not 'Novisto'. Sorry about the error.

Oh and mactombs thanks for your very interesting link, I will get back to you on that but I am so very busy of late that I have really zero time for myself and private affairs, and will only be able to give you a proper detailed reply when I have the time, and I have no time at all for now. But I promise I will PM you back with a detailed reply as soon as I can, the same goes for anyone else who PM's me. I will not be able to reply for quite a while, but unless I drop dead in the next few weeks will reply to all PMs eventually.

Cheers
mustang

[Thomas Kuhn's]

mactombs writes

quote:Considering the objective stance of science, I would think that this is merely your subjective view of science. I see no such bias.

This is inadvertently very funny, science is objective like politics is honest. If you had an inkling of the history of science and what goes on in science you would know that science is anything but objective. I suggest you start with Thomas Kuhn's classic THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION, and then come talk on the forum about the so-called objectivity of science. Science is carried out by scientists (who are often very dim-witted despite what you and others may think), who are human beings and therefore a fortiori subjective in their conclusions and findings.

Also science itself gives evidence that science is anything but objective, in fact Quantum Mechanics itself gives more evidence of this than any other scientific discipline! Maybe as Wolf suggests, mactombs - you familiarise yourself with the QM forum here, and QM itself, before you talk about objectivity in science. In QM there is the Observer Effect remember? - associated with the Copenhagen Interpretation of the Quantum Paradox, extended by Eugene Wigner and others; and later Evan Walker's Quantum Tunnelling; all of which translates to a subjective universe!! There are lots of problems here (Einstein was understandably upset over all this and didn't accept such implications, hence the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen model). But if you knew so much about QM mactombs, you would know that this is one of its most startling findings; that the observer is not separate from that which he observes - so much for objectivity!

Also in perception, one perceives with the mind/brain first and foremost; not the eye, ear, skin, nose, tongue ie the senses, but with the mind/brain's interpretation of sensory data; which is not objective but dependent on numerous subjective factors including mental conditioning, emotional states, psychological expectations, physical health etc. The evidence for this is not only in biophysics and neuroscience but in practical spheres like hypnosis. Also language, where different concepts in language translate to a different perception of the world - but in our increasingly homogenised society this is increasingly no longer the case. Also regarding the ingestion of psychotropic drugs altering human perceptions reveals that an altering of brain chemistry affects and alters our perceptions considerably. There are numerous other examples, but I would be going on forever if I fleshed all of this out here. One may object that this has nothing to do with objectivity in terms of scientific data, but the point I am making is that our perception of the world is not completley objective, but at least partially subjective - and this very much extends to scientists who themselves are only human.

Scientists pass off philosophical materialism for science and don't even know it. Philosophical materialism and scientism (know what that is without doing a google for the word?) is so deep-rooted and pervasive in the scientific community, that it is second nature. Scientists are constantly fitting round pegs (scientific data) into square holes (scientific materialism) and calling it "objective findings".

Scientists chase after the money like most everyone, they have huge egos and are often most interested in securing tenure (which means pleasing your professors often at the expense of scientific truth) and getting grant money and research money (which means pleasing some giant multinational Bio-Tech or government department or both). In order to get a paper published in the relevant journal one needs to get past peer-review (and if the people sitting on peer review are nitwits who are biased against anything but conventional and orthodox explanations [and they almost always are] and your paper runs against the grain, you can forget about publication no matter how important or groundbreaking your paper may be).

If science is objective please explain the very hostile and often irrational disputes among socio-biologists and naturalists re the mechanisms of  neo-Darwinian evolution. The arguments between paleontologists and biologists re extinction of species, and among biologists and paleontologists themselves in this respect is heated to put it mildly. Neurologists are divided between the monists and dualists regarding the mind/brain controversy (a clue - if you are partial to astral travel and remote viewing you are a dualist).

Any geologist or astronomer who spoke of catostrophism in the earth's past (repeated cataclysms and upheavals in the earth's natural history) were ridiculed and dismissed, that is until about 25 years ago and since when neo-Catastrophism is now accepted as the norm.

Go talk on the objectivity of science to Dean Kenyon (a prominent microbiologist fired from San Fransisco State for going against the materialist grain on the Origin of Life aka OOL controversy even though his conclusions were based entirely on the scientific data, not on any religious agenda, he was re-instated after legal action was threatened; Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ who pioneered the work on remote viewing at Stanford Research Institute and the (unscientific) abuse they received from the scientific establishment; Thomas Lee, an archaeologist fired for merely pointing out that arrow points in North America go back further than we think (and therefore human habitation in N America).Virginia Steen-McIntyre lost her job with the US Geological survey for a similar reason.

What about Rupert Sheldrake, the biologist whose anti-materialist and unconventional but ground-breaking theory of formative causation (morphic resonance/morphic fields) and the mistreatment and abuse and ridicule he has faced from the scientific establishment, to this day. Nature called for his groundbreaking work A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE to be burnt...in 1981!

He is by no means alone, but a typical example of any scientist who dares to go against the scientific establishment and the conservative reductionist mindset it embraces.

There are so many examples - the Wright Brothers were being called frauds by Scientific American a full 5 years after their inaugural flight from Kitty Hawk and were hounded out of America and were forced to go to France for funding. Thomas Edison was repeatedly called a fraud and a liar by scientists themselves. So many other pioneers and geniuses in science were called the same thing, and still are. I could go on and on with so many other examples. It is all unfortunately much the norm.

In the controversy on genetic engineering, do you think it is objective? There is a lot of money involved, a lot of careers and a lot of reputations. GMOs are a disaster and the scientists who lie through their teeth saying it is safe are working for the Monsantos and Duponts and Novistos (giant Bio-Tech companies) who have invested millions of dollars into transgenics or they are working for the government departments who these Bio-Techs control and are very much in bed with; or they are just very stupid thinking you can mess with nature and not pay a heavy price. We know so little about genetics that we have no idea what the costs of GMOs is going to be long-term. There is also what is called subjective validation - scientists, being people, will see what they want to see and disregard the rest. One thing is certain, it is a huge mistake. So what objectivity?

In the medical sciences it is even worse and probably worst of all. Medical science is completely controlled by Bio-Techs and Pharmaceuticals. The medical journals are often just advertising for Glaxo Smithkline, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Abbot Labs, Merck, Bristol-Myers Sqibb etc. Fraud in medical trials and studies is routine. I'm not going to trust the scientists (full-time PR bullshitters) working for such companies to be telling the truth about the supposed safety and efficacy of their drugs. The editors and those doing peer review for med journals are often very buddy-buddy with senior management in the Pharma industry. Medical science is the most corrupt and damaging of all the sciences, a huge multi-billion dollar a year industry, where all those "objective" scientists are driving round in BMW's and getting big share options in greedy rapacious Pharmaceuticals concerned only with the bottom line, not any body's health I promise you.

Objective, my butt; rapacious and ruthless and worse - killers.  Know how many people die from iatrogenic (look it up) murder every year? In South Africa it is very bad, where largely the poor serve as guinea pigs for the Pharmas in their experiments in medical incompetence, stupidity and murder (yes murder) in serving the interests of the shareholders and management at Glaxo and the rest. Newsflash - doctors are just clueless drug salesmen. People have been killed in their tens of thousands and continue to be so; being killed by "Medical Science" and the media who blindly do their advertising. I am barely hinting at something here but am not going to come out and say it clearly and loudly, because this is not the thread for it and I don't want to thread-jack too much.

I will say this though - there is a fiasco and the mother of all blunders going on in medical science unlike anything seen before in its history (including the Thalidomide horrors, Swine Flu vaccine idiocy - a deadly vaccine that killed and maimed thousands developed to prevent the spread of a disease that turned out not to exist - swine flu - all this in 1976 in the US!; and the use of arsenic and mercury as a "tonic" by the medical profession to "cure" syphilis and scurvy and even mercury poisoning!! in the not too distant past) and because of censorship and special interests hardly anybody knows what is going on, and South Africa and its people are paying the heaviest price for it.

People tend to get their info on science and medical science from clueless scientifically illiterate journalists who don't know anything about science (the blind leading the blind). I have met journalists writing about Aids who naturally can't tell me what a retrovirus is or what Koch's Postulates are (the rules for infectious diseases) or anything basic about pathology and pharmacology. Imagine taking your car to a mechanic and telling him that you think you've got something wrong with your carbeurattor and the mecahnic replies "what's a carbeurattor?" You would drive your car straight out of there, right? But when it comes to much of the scientific data, the general public are getting their info (spin really) mainly from journalists, the vast majority of whom don't have a clue about what they are writing. This is something of an open secret in the scientific community, of which the general public is largely ignorant.

As far as parapsychology goes - here because science is ruled by scientific materialism ( more than 70% of scientists who are members of the most prestigious organisation of scientists in the world - the US National Academy of Sciences [NAS] - in a recent survey reported themselves to be atheists) - those doing research in this area and their findings in this field are always subject to routine abuse, ridicule and ad hominem attacks and completely unsubstantiated accusations of fraud and deception. The vast majority of scientists refuse to even look at the data on telepathy, psychokinesis, remote viewing etc and simply dismiss it on a priori grounds. They have to, otherwise they would be opening up a Pandora's Box and their whole world-view will come crashing down. They would be forced to re-evaluate everything that they think they know, they would be subject to a mental breakdown!

On a previous post on this astralpulse forum, I have briefly made mention of Brian Inglis, namely his writings on parapsychology and the 'New Inquisition' it is subject to. See his THE HIDDEN POWER.

Scientists, being human, are as subject to cognitive dissonance as everybody else and thus are anything but objective. Know something about Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger's Syndrome) and you know objectivity in science or in human affairs in general can only be a pipe dream. Remember science is practised by human beings and human psychology and sociology are thus integral to scientific affairs.

Hope there are people out there who actually bother to read this and this post does not just go out into the cyber-ether.

[Wholeness and The Implicate Order]

mactombs writes

quote: I agree with JoWo, at least as far as the importance of learning about quantum mechanics. You can't really understand today's world without it. The best way to form an opinion is to read more about it, rather than speculate on the opinions of others.

QM (or a holistic interpretation of it) may help us make sense and give us a sane and transcendent view of the universe and our role in it, but it is not at all necessary. It is an additional tool to our understanding of ourselves and the unity and interconnectedness of all things, and the essential mystery and value of all life. But it is not necessary to know anything at all about QM to come to a mystical/holistic understanding of life and its implications to our lives.

Let me put it this way:
What did Siddhartha know about QM, or Christ, or the writers of the Vedas, or the Siberian shamans, or Black Elk and Rolling Thunder and the other Native American medicine men whose traditional knowledge and wisdom they learned from, or Socrates, Plato and Heraclitus, or the Hebrew Zaddiks, Wordsworth, William Blake etc etc?

QM tells us that the mystics, shamans etc intuitively knew the workings of the universe, its essential unity and the illusory nature of seeming permanence and solidity in outward things and appearances, as well as understanding the true nature of time and space, and their interconnectivity etc. They knew themselves and so understood the universe as a consequence, and they understood it better than even the brightest particle physicists who share their view of the universe including such giants as Niels Bohr and David Bohm. It doesn't matter that they had never heard of an electron or an Eigen Function, or Bell's Inequality Theorem etc, it doesn't matter - it is all extraneous. More importantly such mystics, poets and shamans understood in their heart of hearts the unity and beauty and compassion written into the very structure of life and the universe and LIVED ACCORDINGLY. In other words they knew what lies behind QM intuitively. QM offers scientific evidence of the truth of "pure mysticism" uncluttered by superstition, not the other way around.

Imagine a scenario where David Bohm (and anyone sympathetic to a holistic interpretation of QM must read his classic Wholeness and The Implicate Order) had a conversation with a genuine mystic from the 10th century, everything that Bohm would say about a hologram-universe in language understandable to the mystic would be greeted by the mystic with approval and understanding, along the lines of "Yes I know all this", even though the mystic would never have heard of a hologram and QM. And better to be in the mystic's position then Bohm's, by Bohm's own admission, simply because the mystic is living what he knows whereas with Bohm his knowledge is only theoretical and not a practical knowing and living. Surely this recognition on Bohm's part (a genuinely humble and good man, but not a free man), the contrast between theoretical knowledge and its practical applications in his own life, is what probably contributed to his deep depressions in his twilight years.

In closing, QM, like parapsychology, and the natural sciences (the staggering, enormous complexities of all living organisms in every way and at every level from DNA and cellular functioning to organs and bodily systems, to ecosystems, and the biosphere as a whole); reveals an obvious hidden and Divine Hand in the workings of nature and the universe, obvious to any open-minded person, but the last people for the most part to see this, ironically enough, are the scientists themselves. Yet all of this is an adjunct (albeit important in its way) to a practical and pragmatic self-knowing and none of the scientific knowledge we garner can replace or substitute for this self-knowing.

For our scientific knowledge of itself (and by this I mean a holistic interpretation of our scientific data) cannot ever on its own make us better and wiser people, and by implication the world a better place. Only following the wise dictum to "Know Thyself" can do that.

[In spite of David's [David Spangler] warnings, the community had to learn its lesson about glamour. The problem came to a head with the 'crystal incident' in 1978. A small group of people began visiting the community, and some became members, who felt that only with certain kinds of decoration and design, and particularly through the use of crystals, could the appropriate energy be properly channelled here. Indeed, it was not so much divine energy, but the energy of the fabled past civilisation of Atlantis which was to be incorporated into our almost completed Universal Hall through a special configuration of crystals and wires. The whole conception was not properly communicated to the membership, and Peter's authority was still such that there was considerable acceptance of the new idea. A specially cut quartz crystal, about the size of a grapefruit, was prepared and suspended on gold wires in the centre of the Hall. The gold wires led to the supporting pillars, from which silver wires led down into the foundations. In the basement, a smaller crystal was embedded in the floor, and a piece of meteoritic iron sat above it. A third crystal was fixed to a light in the centre of the ceiling. The Hall was closed for some time before this occult arrangement was finished and then, around Christmas 1978, a special ceremony of invocation was held to inaugurate the energy transfer. Craig Gibsone, a later focaliser of the Foundation, remembers walking out of the ceremony and leaving the community, so great was his disgust. He returned only in 1983. A year and a half later, during a presentation by a visitor from the Edgar Cayce Foundation, the wires snapped and the crystal fell, smashing a two-inch-thick glass panel in the floor and narrowly missing the speaker, who had 'providentially' not chosen to stand in the centre of the Hall. The crystal shattered into many pieces, to almost everyone's great relief. Eileen was not present at the talk, but her comment when informed of the event was: "Thank God." She collected the crystal fragments and, following her guidance, they were returned to the earth from which they came. This curious incident ended a period which taught the community some hard lessons. 'Psychic glamour' is widespread in the 'new age' movement nowadays. It caters for people who are dissatisfied with the cruder aspects of materialism, but who still retain a desire to purchase personal transformation quickly for a fee. Such demands are fulfilled by a large coterie of 'psychic entrepreneurs' who advertise their wares in the host of 'new age' magazines. Many people still visit us expounding their 'visions' or new techniques, trying to set us to rights. We enjoy them and thank them, and they pass on elsewhere. We are becoming more and more conscious of the simplicity and directness of the divine message — that our purpose is to find the divine within, the criterion for which is the practice and experience of unconditional love. Our work is too important to be sidetracked.]

Has nobody here offered any criticisms of all this Crystal talk and their use in healing, meditation etc? I mean you are all just so accepting of all this, you are so naive and gullible. No wonder many people rightly dismiss esoteric types as off their heads with all this talk of crystal healing and related mumbo-jumbo. You make it easy for the materialists and others to poke fun at you. You set yourselves up for it. Now don't get me wrong, I for one do not doubt the reality of astral travel and related paranormal phenomena, as a search of my previous posts will reveal. But one must guard against being so accepting of absolutely everything pertaining to the "New-Age Movement".

I'm sure lots of people are making quite a bit of money selling crystals, so such people cannot be relied upon for objectivity on the efficacy or otherwise of crystal use.
If you think the crystals you have are working for you, how do you know this is not mere psychosomatics?

Somebody should see if a control study has been done in this regard, probably not, I don't know - What you do is you have 2 groups of people, the one lot have crystals and they use them for whatever they think effective, meditation, healing, raising Kundalini etc and we see the results, another group think they have their particular crystals but they have been given stones that are not their crystals, but look like them and are superficially indistinguishable from the real thing (note no group knows who has the real crystals and who doesn't), neither should those carrying out the research (this is called a double-blind control), and then see the results.

Why not try organise such a study, it is not hard to do and would be inexpensive, but what if the results went against your beliefs? Namely no differing results among the control and the non-control group, ie it would be the human mind and not the crystals that are making any difference. But of course you do not want to consider that option, not so?

Something so symbolic of this crystal mania and its essential riduculousness is in the history of the New-Age movement itself, namely "The crystal incident" at the Findhorn community in Scotland in the 1970s:



From Carol Riddell at http://users.northnet.com.au/~carolrid/Findhorn%20C%20History.html

quote: In spite of David's [David Spangler] warnings, the community had to learn its lesson about glamour. The problem came to a head with the 'crystal incident' in 1978. A small group of people began visiting the community, and some became members, who felt that only with certain kinds of decoration and design, and particularly through the use of crystals, could the appropriate energy be properly channelled here. Indeed, it was not so much divine energy, but the energy of the fabled past civilisation of Atlantis which was to be incorporated into our almost completed Universal Hall through a special configuration of crystals and wires. The whole conception was not properly communicated to the membership, and Peter's authority was still such that there was considerable acceptance of the new idea.

A specially cut quartz crystal, about the size of a grapefruit, was prepared and suspended on gold wires in the centre of the Hall. The gold wires led to the supporting pillars, from which silver wires led down into the foundations. In the basement, a smaller crystal was embedded in the floor, and a piece of meteoritic iron sat above it. A third crystal was fixed to a light in the centre of the ceiling. The Hall was closed for some time before this occult arrangement was finished and then, around Christmas 1978, a special ceremony of invocation was held to inaugurate the energy transfer. Craig Gibsone, a later focaliser of the Foundation, remembers walking out of the ceremony and leaving the community, so great was his disgust. He returned only in 1983.

A year and a half later, during a presentation by a visitor from the Edgar Cayce Foundation, the wires snapped and the crystal fell, smashing a two-inch-thick glass panel in the floor and narrowly missing the speaker, who had 'providentially' not chosen to stand in the centre of the Hall. The crystal shattered into many pieces, to almost everyone's great relief. Eileen was not present at the talk, but her comment when informed of the event was: "Thank God." She collected the crystal fragments and, following her guidance, they were returned to the earth from which they came. This curious incident ended a period which taught the community some hard lessons.

'Psychic glamour' is widespread in the 'new age' movement nowadays. It caters for people who are dissatisfied with the cruder aspects of materialism, but who still retain a desire to purchase personal transformation quickly for a fee. Such demands are fulfilled by a large coterie of 'psychic entrepreneurs' who advertise their wares in the host of 'new age' magazines. Many people still visit us expounding their 'visions' or new techniques, trying to set us to rights. We enjoy them and thank them, and they pass on elsewhere. We are becoming more and more conscious of the simplicity and directness of the divine message — that our purpose is to find the divine within, the criterion for which is the practice and experience of unconditional love. Our work is too important to be sidetracked.

I could not have put it better myself, especially that bit about 'psychic glamour'. It sums up the essential problem with New-Age types as does dream-catchers and other similar paraphenalia.

I say this not to belittle anybody here, but as a hopefully sobering reminder that if one is not careful one can end up getting caught up in superficialities that have no bearing on our essential humanity, on our goodness or lack of it. None of this "glamour" improves us as people, it does not make us wiser or kinder, it can only lead us astray. It is not an adjunct to any truth, but a diversion from the path to truth in all its subtle forms.

Jo Wolf are you related to the physicist and science writer Fred Alan Wolf?

Also what about all the particle physicists who are opposed to a holistic/mystical interpretation of QM such as Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg etc? A case of not seeing the wood for the trees and perhaps mistaking personal materialist philosophy for scientific evidence?

Probably the best book ever written on hypnosis is Robert KG Temple's "OPEN TO SUGGESTION", first published in the late 80s. It is a very comprehensive and thorough review and study of the history and development of hypnosis, its controversies and its scientific and psychological implications. Temple's book is exhaustive, he makes mentions of several little known studies in hypnosis and exposes common myths about hypnosis, such as you can't make people do something under hypnosis that they would not do in normal waking life. All the famous names in the history of hypnosis are there, from Mesmer to Braid and their successors, its importance in psychiatry - Freud etc, and medical surgery (as a substitute to anesthetic) is covered and much more besides.

There is no better book on the subject that has been written - it is unarguably the authoratitive work on the subject of hypnosis. A huge tome of several hundred pages that took Temple years of research to write.

Hope that helps you.

Will PM you T_K and put this up on the forum for others as well.

Cheers
mustang

exothen, in your response you evade everything I say, predictably so. You have no answers to my objections, just Christian rhetoric and dogma that you repeat like some mantra. Well it's your life.

exothen writes re Christ's supposed virgin birth and resurrection

quote:Illogical - something that is not logical. Which means, since you made the claim, the burden of proof is on you to show, using logic, that the virgin birth and physical resurrection of Christ are illogical. Surely if it is illogical you should be able to prove so. All I am asking is for you to back up your claim.

Actually the burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Muslims claim Mohammed split the moon, the burden of proof is with them, non-Muslims have the right to be sceptical of such claims. What evidence do they have, none. They also say they don't need any evidence, it is in the Koran or Hadith, that is all they need as proof ie mere blind faith is good enough, even in something that is prima facie
illogical.

exothen and others like minded will see the patent absurdity of this and the circular logic involved here:
namely it must be true because it is in the so-called holy book the Koran and/or Hadith,
how do you know the Koran/Hadith is holy and true?
because the holy book is the holy book, the Koran says so, Mohammed who gave us the Koran is the holy prophet,
how do you know Mohammed is the holy prophet?
because the Koran is the holy book given us by the holy prophet and the Koran says Mohammed is the holy prophet,
we have Mohammed's word for it and round and round we go.

The circular logic is obvious and we can all see it. But exothen and his ilk have one set of rules for other religions and abandon these logical rules when it comes to their own religion of Christianity.

Numerous pagan religions believe in the concept of the virgin birth of the favoured divine son, all this predates Chrisitanity and is a concept found in numerous religious traditions in the Meditteranean and North Africa and Asia. The ancient Greeks believed Zeus visited several young women in various forms, such as a Bull, a swan, a shower even, in order to possess them sexually and bear them children, brave and noble favoured by Zeus in their life on earth, even though unusual suffering and tribulations were placed in their way -sound familiar? Now obviously none of this is literally true and yet when it comes to the similar tale of the virgin birth of Christ, the Immaculate Conception, the visit of Gabriel etc you have no problem believing it. So why one set of rules for other religions and another set of rules for Christianity? Becuase it happens to be the religion you were indoctrinated in, rather than another? What if you were born in a Hindu or Muslim country? You would believe in Hindu or Muslim dogma, because you believe in whatever you are told.

Blind faith is all you have by your own admission in a dogma that is derived from pagan sources, including the dogma of the sacrifice of the divine son for the sake of the tribe and the resurrection, all of which occur throughout pagan religions that predate Christianity (there are elements of it in ancient Judaism - the sacrifice of the chosen son that is, the story of Abrahams's near sacrifice of Isaac is probably a remnant of this motif in Judaism which is in turn derived from very ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Ionian and other sources), that are in fact the basis of Christian dogma and yet you reject pagan beliefs as superstition but staunchly hold faith in the Christian dogma derived from these selfsame pagan beliefs! Talk about irony.

On the subject of virgin birth, you do know Christ had brothers, most famously James? So was Mary still a virgin when she had Christ's brothers? If so then were they also divine sons created by ImConception? But they can't be because Christ is the only son created by Divine Conception. So obviously 'ol Joseph must have had his way with his virgin bride after Christ's birth, so she is no longer a virgin then, get it. Of course you may argue that it doesn't matter because she was a virgin when Christ was born (even though to those of us who value something called science we know she wasn't, she had a kid see?), but note how no mention of this is made of in church and Sunday school, esp Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, but also Protestant Church.

Here's something else central to Christianity that is completely illogical, irrational and blatantly hypocritical - the Passion itself. Every critic of mad Mel's movie misses the point here as they only can, because hardly anybody can think for himself. What does it matter who killed Christ, the Romans or some of the rabbis or both (we'll ignore the mythical fairy-tale elements of the Passion, a recurring religious motif throughout the Meditteranean).

The Passion and the associated vilification and demonisation of those including Judas and Caiphus for killing Christ is obviously nonsensical, illogical and hypocritical; and so the whole story collapses on its house-of-cards absurdity and irrationality at its foundations and with it the whole of Christian dogma comes falling down. What am I talking about?

Simple. According  to Christian dogma, Christ's sacrifice on the cross is necessary for the salvation and redemption of humanity or at least the salvation of the believers. So his killing is completely necessary, without it no Passion, no Christianity at all since that is what his life and fate are, this is what his life is about, why he came to earth - the crucifixion. Without it there can be no salvation for humanity, no churches, no Christianity, gettit?

So then his betrayal by Judas leading to his subsequent arrest and his sacrifice on the cross is absolutely necessary as is the mob's call for his death, which means that without Judas etc The Passion cannot be set in motion, it cannot take place. If it doesn't take place there is no Christianity. So Judas, Caiphus, even Pilate and the mob are necessary vital figures, for without them there can be no sacrifice of the divine son. And so they are the true martyrs, for without their betrayal and lust for Christ's blood - no Passion, gettit? They get the whole Passion drama started, they set everything in motion, and only by their betrayal and bloodlust can the Passion come to be and so Christianity in its train.

And so how can Christians condemn and vilify the supposed Christ-killers when they should be praising them, they are the true heroes and even martyrs, for without them the Christian Passion drama cannot be and neither can the Christian dogma on which it is based, no churches neither. Without the Christ-killers there is no redemption and salvation for humanity because no sacrifice on the cross by Christ without them playing their vital roles.

And so the obvious hypocrisy, illogic and incredible stupidity of the Passion drama and its interpretation is revealed, yet note that in the broohaha surrounding Mel's fantasy epic, all the even harshest critics have missed this central point. To be fair at least some of them will no doubt know about the point I have made, but they cannot come out and say it on TV or print because it is too subversive and offensive to the true believers.

And exothen I do not dispute the damage done by atheism/communism or the carnage under Islam, but that is an evasion, how does this undo the blood and carnage under Christianity? If I were to say that under fascism, millions died during WW2, how does this negate the fact that millions also died under the cruel tyranny of Stalin? This thread is about Christianity after all, not communism or Islam. But evasion is the only tactic you have, along with denial, empty inane rhetoric and the circular logic of blind faith. Hey it's your life, believe what you want. I'm not gonna change your mind, unfortunately - hopefully others here who are open-minded can appreciate my post, that's who it is for.

To quote Christ; "don't cast pearls before swine". Wise advice which I don't always heed.

Btw exothen and other believers, I love riling you people, it is no less than you deserve. I take your insults as compliments because of who they are coming from.

exothen your response to my post is inadvertently hilarious.

You really see children as sinners for having tantrums and being demanding on one's attention? Well you are a Christian, so such non-thinking is par for the course. You think I have no experience with children, I have quite a lot actually. I worked with little children, I studied child development as a psychology undergrad and completed several projects on the psychodynamics of children aged 3 to 6 years of age. Oh yeah, exothen thinks children have to be taught to be good and selfless and considerate.... really. Actually they learn to be selfish, inconsiderate, and destructive from adults. They also learn Christian mumbo-jumbo from adults like you and thus learn guilt, shame, lies and fear and bigotry, what Christians call salvation. And thus the destructiveness and brutality is passed from one generation to the next, does not only include Christians of course but they are up there with the worst.

Christ actually supposedly said "until you become like little children, you shall not know the kingdome of heaven". I prefer spending time with children, like animals, unlike most adults, and especially those who consider themselves "saved".


exothen writes in response to my first post, without any sense of irony: what is illogical about the belief in a virgin birth and the belief in Christ's subsequent physical ressurection?
Apparently exothen wants me to show how these beliefs are illogical, that I must do so before claiming they are illogical.
exothen, because of his BLIND faith, fails to see that a belief in virgin birth and resurrection are prima facie illogical. But it's no good explaining that to the true believer.

He believes what he believes, and that is that, he is completely lost and beyond help, since he has abandoned all reason and logic and free-thinking. To think for yourself is the temptation of the devil, to the true believer.
On the subject of what Christ supposedly said, here's another; "by their fruits you shall know them". Guesss that gives the churches away then, that institution built on oceans of blood, torture, genocide, plunder, theft, annihilation of any other cultures and religions that got in its way, and obscene wealth.

Just in South Africa, the churches propped up apartheid, they laid down the "theological" basis for apartheid laws. In Europe it's been even worse, in Latin America too. You cannot understand the true history of Europe, its endless wars, slavery, tyrannies, imperialism and the 20th century horrors of fascism without taking into account the churches and the mindset of Christians.  

Most (not all) Christians would consider this website to be either deulsional or the Devil's trickery - which counts in its favour.

Christianity is junk food for the mind and soul.

Christianity is also sadistic and masochistic, if you don't know what I'm talking about see Mad Mel's Passion which its zealot filmmaker would fail to realise, really does reveal Christianity for what it is, but not in the way Gibson and the unthinkiing zombie public think. Mel's movie is a distorted lie riddled with fabrications built on a bigger lie. Christianity and deceit go hand in hand so Mel's fabrications are par for the course. Much of the criticism of the movie predictably misses the point entirely, they all assume the Passion is some grand truth, arguing over who really killed Christ, rather than seeing The Passion for the mythical tale that it is. Imagine arguing over the relationships between hobbits and men and elves in Middle Earth as if it were a historical truth, rather than a fantasy invented by Tolkien. People would think you had lost your mind, and yet people argue over the Passion and its related mythical hocus-pocus as if the religious delusion equates with historical truth. I am not necessarily disputing the crucifixion itself, though there are big problems there, but the religious mumbo-jumbo associated with it.

Christianity denies personal responsibility (somebody else "saves" me, I'm not responsible for my own life and finding my own way, it denies self-knowledge and opposes the enquiry into self-awareness and thus opposes truth in all its forms - it thus opens the way for tyranny and the censorship and brutality and injustice that goes with it. Helps to explain the history of the church.)

I could go on and on, whole books have been written on the subject. Literally hundreds and hundreds. I haven't even touched on the obvious contradictions in the Gospels, most of the Gospels and Acts is pure myth, fantasy fiction of the most puerile kind. Read them with an open mind (Christians don't bother, your minds are closed) and you'll see what I mean, the contradictions on the ressurection alone are staggering, and everything else relating to the life and death of Christ, never mind the character of Judas Iscariot and his supposed fate - BTW the "betrayal" of Judas not even mentioned by Paul.

Christianity is a FAT BIG LIE.

"If we believe in absurdities we commit atrocities" - Voltaire

onefromsomewhereelse writes

quote:Children don't have to learn sin; they inherit it. I see children sin all the time, including babies. When they don't get their way, they cry. That's sin, aka: selfishness manifest in the flesh. Get real.

Children sin by crying for attention? Inadvertently reveals just how Christianity is so intellectually bankrupt, never mind morally bankrupt too. Seems that onefromsomewhereelse has maybe spent too much time in the oxygen deprivation chambers that go by the name of churches. The resulting lack of oxygenated blood to the brain can result in the kind of madness that sees a baby's instinct for survival being dubbed sin, the only way a helpless baby can get attention from its caregiver is by crying, a way of letting its mother know it is hungry, wet, cold or just craving some affection, but I guess that's a sin.

Since the baby's instinct for crying is God-given as is the dog's instinct to bark, the bird's instinct to fly and the fish's instinct to swim etc etc, it follows that God is the sinner according to the logic of onefrometc. But then if you believe Christ was born of a virgin and suffered and died nailed on a cross to redeem mankind of his collective stupidity and sin and then was resurrected in the flesh, well then the kind of illogic and insanity postulated by onefrom... becomes inevitable. One brand of illogic breeds further illogic in its train. It is all consistent with the absurdity and irrationality at the very core of Christianity.

Yikes sorry about that screw-up link, here it is again, the overview of CSICOP by George Hansen originally published in The Journal of The American Society of Psychical Research  http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm

Also see within this link for how Randi made a real butt of himself, it's hilarious; the Dennis Stillings Project ROTSUC (Randi ought to sell used cars) hoax  http://www.uri-geller.com/geller-effect/tge14.htm

James Randi is a liar and fraud and conman, involved in cover-ups, such as the CSICOP fiasco relating to the Mars effect/Gauquelin affair, see here http://www.discord.org/~lippard/kammann.html and unending mendacity in the name of objective scientific investigation of the paranormal.

Randi's deceit and ad hominem attacks on serious researchers in the field of the paranormal is well known, as are his blatant fabrications and inventions in denying the reality of the paranormal. Indeed he has arguably done more lying in the name of supposedly exposing the paranormal as merely fraud and delusion than anybody else in the past few decades. He was one of the head inquisitors at CSICOP, but an ugly courtcase with Uri Geller forced him out. Randi is a pseudosceptic, since he he is a self declared atheist, he is so beloved by the majority in the scientific community, since he is telling them exactly what they want to hear and does their dirty work for them re the paranormal, and has been doing so for a few decades now.

All serious researchers in parapsychology know Randi for the liar that he is and his million dollar prize for the self serving  attention getting rubbish that it is. Bruce knows this for sure which is why he surely won't go near Randi with a ten foot pole.
For the expose of the liar and charlatan that is Randi see the book
The Hidden Power by Brian Inglis, also in the books of Colin Wilson and Guy Playfair, relating to his supposed expose of Geller. This by Playfair is pertinent
http://www.uri-geller.com/geller-effect/tge13.htm

James Randi goes after easy targets like Sylvia Brown on CNN, Brown is an obvious loony and fraud, but the genuine thing he doesn't go near, except to lie about it, such as his lies about Targ and Puthoff, prominent physicists who were involved in the pioneering research in remote viewing, http://www.michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm .
Rupert Sheldrake, the prominent biologist on Randi's supposed debunking of his work on experiments re a six sense in dogs http://www.sheldrake.org/controversies/randi.html
Randi just preaches to the converted and the like minded CSICOP crowd.
See here for an honest overview of CSICOP http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:MVf1mMDpFlwJ:www.psicounsel.com/binary/scicop.pdf+%22james+randi%22+puthoff+targ+michael+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

For a very good overview of the "career" of Randi and his million dollar prize see this article by Sam Nicholls, an astrophysicist http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/nicholls.html

Yeah it obviously makes no difference whether you believe in the gods or not, doesn't make you a better or wiser person either way. The problem with believing in God is that the god a person believes in is usually just a projection of a person's fears, desires, ignorance, prejudices, hopes, egotism and character - which is why most people's gods seem to be devils. A case of man making god in his own image. Personally I do not doubt in the existence of divinity, but I do not believe in divinity any more than I believe that the earth is round and orbits the sun or that society is insane; I know the earth is round and orbits the sun and that society is insane, it has nothing to do with belief.

On the subject of the quoted speech of the Buddha's, it gets to the crux of the problem in society, doesn't it? I think that the central problem in our world is the reverance for authority, all authority; believing whatever you are told to believe - by your parents and elders, teachers, priests, journalists, economists, politicians, scientists etc. But god forbid people think for themselves, I guess that would mean having to take responsibility for their own lives, and who wants that, really?

[Blackfoot Physics]

If you all like Fred Alan Wolf's stuff and Fritjof Capra's I assume as well, you should try get hold of F David Peat's Blackfoot Physics.

It is about the commonality between North American Indian metaphysics and Quantum Mechanics. Peat is a particle physicist who studied under one of the greatest particle physicists, David Bohm, who was a colleague of Einstein's at Princeton. Peat most recently wrote a biography on Bohm.

The book is well worth checking out.

A variant on Einstein's quote above,

"The most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and human stupidity" - Harlan Ellison, American writer.