The cold hard truth about Castaneda

[Mustardseed]

If you read the posts Mustang has written and still say...."there is no way to know what the truth is", I can only conclude that you do not want to accept the truth, if it interfers with your preconcieved notion. When you run out of reasonable arguments and then want to stop the conversation, with such a statement you loose credability as one who sincerly seeks the truth, come what may, and has no subjective opinion....in other words someone openminded. From the onset of your reasoning you have shown only that your "belief" in Carlos Castaneda is based on just that...... belief, I have no problem with that and only say.....again.....welcome to the "Belief system terretories"[].

Regards MS

[Nagual]

quote:if you read the posts Mustang has written and still say "there is no way to know what the truth is", I can only conclude that you do not want to accept the truth.

And we go back to the "if you don't agree with my point of view (theory,  beliefs), you are wrong"...  As I said before, if you want to believe it is fake, it's your choice!  I won't.  As annoying as not knowing the truth can be, I choose not to rush to conclusions.  You think mustang has proven something; I don't think so.

Castaneda is supposed to have had some personal experiences with a "secret" group of people.  The only things we know is through Castaneda.  It's Castaneda's own experience.  How can someone pretend to know what he did or did not do...?

If I tell you that I met with secret JohnDoe-1 or secret JohnDoe-137 and did A and B with them... good luck trying to prove me right or wrong!  It's my personal/own experience and you can say sh*t about it.

The only guy who knows the truth is Castaneda.  Or, if what he said in his books is true, the people who shared these experiences with him.  Everybody else can only play guessing games, which is just pointless.

[mustang]

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.

[mustang]

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

[Carlos]

Thanks Mustang for your article: It is well written and truthful.  I started reading Castaneda a while ago, inspired by another book I read from a different author,  and had even bought several of Castaneda books. As I was still reading the first book,  I felt uncomfortable about it. I then decided that I was not going to read his books. I usually donate my used books, but I decided that the best I could do with his books was to throw them in the trash instead of passing them to somebody else.

I am glad that I read your article which basically confirms my suspicions.

[Carlos]

You said: People should realize that they have an Ethical Duty to appreciate the Truth.

I don't mean to start a new thought here, but you make a very interesting point.  However, the entirely opposite happens in our world. If the majority of us indeed appreciated the Truth, the world today would be entirely different. We would be thousands of years ahead in intellectual development. There would be no religion and people would not be believers but thinkers, etc.

[ilithmar]

mustang, man, all that just to destroy someone's image of their hero? ouch, perhaps i am sensing a little "do unto others what has been done to you"...

I've only read Castaneda's first book, and i seem to recall in the introduction or foreward or something, it said it was a work of ALLEGORY...

I found it to be a very enjoying read.  I never realised there was such a heated debate about the whole thing... its weird, when reading it i never assumed it to be 100% scientific fact, and it really doesnt matter either way.

It seems a little psychotic when people start calling him a liar and comparing him to politicians, or writing multi-page posts just to prove their point, which only seems have a negative impact on others.  Trickster seems a more appropraite term.  We will never know for sure, and in the end it really doesnt matter anyway.

Its really weird, because this is a 'spiritual text' of sorts.  Most spiritual texts are symbolic in nature.  Your conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg.  Take jesus, most christians think that he was a simple, gentle beggar, but they forget that everything he said was meant to be a parable.  That simply because a spiritual experience, when the subconscious mind rears its head, is simply inneffible and impossible to be explained literally. The realm of the subconscious is that of symbols and metaphors, the ultimate truth is that there is no truth.  If Castaneda is a trickster, then perahps this might only makes his works stronger and more impressive.  Perhaps i need to read his first book again...

Nietzsche said "there are no facts, only interpretations".  As far as i can see the only people who Castaneda 'lied to' are those with an egoic-fundamentalist streak in them... I'm with Nagual when he says 'there is no way of knowing the truth', thats true (haha) about anything.

Castaneda wrote some books (which included Datura experiences... AHEM)
Some people found them entertaining, educational and useful.
Some people, perhaps feeling a little desperate at never being able to know anything for sure, got all worked up and wasted a lot of time trying to prove Castaneda (who, remember, entertained and educated) wrong.

I should probably get round to reading his other books.  As I found the first one entertaining and useful.

I'll leave the last word to Bill Hicks:

"That's what fundamentalism breeds, no irony. They take the word
literally. Once again I recommend a healthy dose of psylocibin mushrooms."

Enjoy (isnt that the most important thing, after all?)  

[LittlePenguin]

Ilithmar
You raise a very good question. Is the main purpose of our existence to "enjoy"......or ? I guess you may have said that in a rhetorical way but lets for a minute ask that question. What is our purpose in life. Is it to feel without understanding is it to experience without learning and is it to enjoy without growing?

My own way of seeing this is that in youth we are mostly wrapped up in in the experiences but later in life or shall we call it maturity we start to ask more in depth questions and become more interested in what makes the world and people tick so to speak. As we do this we become increasingly more concerned with truth. If people tell truth we can add their experiences to our pool of knowledge and circumstantial experiences to explain different issues. However if people lie it messes up this pool of knowledge if you will, with falsehoods, making it even harder to determine the true nature and reason for various questions we may have.

In a way it seems unimportant that Carlos lied but to many of us it is disheartening as we now have to throw out his entire testimony as unreliable. As in a court if a witness perjures himself he is deemed false and expelled from presenting his case, his books now have to join the ranks of fiction. Although they makes up interesting reading, and no doubt contains insights and truths to some unknown extend, they cannot be trusted and have to be dismissed as we look else where for a reliable source, may that be in our own life or in the lives and experiences of others.

This is why so many of us have very little interest and patience with his claims and this is why so many respond with such gusto. I hope you understand my point though we may not agree on the conclusions I have made.

Regards Little P

[Nostic]

Ilithmar
You raise a very good question. Is the main purpose of our existence to "enjoy"......or ? I guess you may have said that in a rhetorical way but lets for a minute ask that question. What is our purpose in life. Is it to feel without understanding is it to experience without learning and is it to enjoy without growing?

My own way of seeing this is that in youth we are mostly wrapped up in in the experiences but later in life or shall we call it maturity we start to ask more in depth questions and become more interested in what makes the world and people tick so to speak. As we do this we become increasingly more concerned with truth. If people tell truth we can add their experiences to our pool of knowledge and circumstantial experiences to explain different issues. However if people lie it messes up this pool of knowledge if you will, with falsehoods, making it even harder to determine the true nature and reason for various questions we may have.

In a way it seems unimportant that Carlos lied but to many of us it is disheartening as we now have to throw out his entire testimony as unreliable. As in a court if a witness perjures himself he is deemed false and expelled from presenting his case, his books now have to join the ranks of fiction. Although they makes up interesting reading, and no doubt contains insights and truths to some unknown extend, they cannot be trusted and have to be dismissed as we look else where for a reliable source, may that be in our own life or in the lives and experiences of others.

This is why so many of us have very little interest and patience with his claims and this is why so many respond with such gusto. I hope you understand my point though we may not agree on the conclusions I have made.

Regards Little P

Hi LittlePenguin

I totally understand your point and see where you are coming from.
But also consider, it's been our history to believe that we know certain things, until such a time comes that we gain some new information and come to realize that, in reality, we either had it all wrong, or that we only had a piece of the puzzle. And this is often not because someone lied to us, but because we've gained some new understanding. This is why it's of the utmost importance to have direct experience with the kinds of things we talk about on this board. I think the point some were trying to make was, there is so much information out there that we absolutely THINK we know is true. But are they really true? Or do we believe they are true only because of our limited understanding? Do we ever really know?
Some people here seem to be of the mind-set, well you never really know if any of this stuff is really true (until you have direct experience), so as long as I've gained something from it, weather it was true or not, I don't really have any concerns. And that's respectable IMO.

[LittlePenguin]

I really have no problem with that however I think it is a very important issue that we as responsible seekers of truth if you will, draw a line between those who conclude or theorize based on experience, that of one self or others, and those who knowingly deceive and make guesses based on nothing but their own Fancy full hopes and wishes or worse their desire to be thought of as great original thinkers writers or the like. The motive in a persons heart will often though not always be a very important factor. It seems evident that Castaneda deceived on purpose, and for this fact he separates himself from others such as Robert Bruce Monroe Martinus etc etc. It is one thing to have one opinion till life teaches you that it was flawed and you adapt another, it is quite another to make up people and places and draw conclusions based on hearsay fantasy and imagination. What do you think?
Regards LittleP

[Frank]

Hello:

What an interesting debate this turned out to be.

I'm not very well read when it comes to these kinds of topics, but have read The Yaqui Way of Knowledge after coming across it on a friend's bookshelf. I suppose it was worth the read. Had me entertained in parts, but didn't really inspire me to read the rest of them. I found the book infuriating in places, simply childish in others and, like I say, entertaining here and there. But, to be honest, entertaining only just to the point where it stimulated me to keep reading.

The main book was rather short, fortunately, as just when you start thinking you've had enough, it comes to a close. So I guess you could say that aspect is something the author judged to a tee.

At the end of the day, you cannot get away from the fact that the guys are taking psychotropic drugs! These kinds of substances are known to give people all manner of whacky experiences. These days you don't need to faff about in some jungle somewhere making all kinds of weird and wonderful potions. Modern-day Europeans simply visit Amsterdam.

History is replete with tales of people taking these kinds of drugs and believing they can fly, being totally spaced out, seeing all manner of visions including those of "plant spirits" and so forth, waking up miles from anywhere, not knowing what happened, etc., etc. All this is just a normal by-product of taking these kinds of drugs. It would have been a thoroughly amazing book, had it not been for the drugs. An aspect that I suspect many of the book's supporters conveniently tend to overlook.

To my mind, all the author is doing is wrapping up their psychotropic drug experiences in a highly mystical way - which is also nothing new. Tribal people have done this for thousands of years.

So on the whole; I really cannot understand what all the fuss is about. If some acidhead published some work about all the trips he took, everyone would yawn saying, "Tell me something new". Oh, but put a great mystical slant on it and all the new-age whatnots start beating a path to the proverbial, lol.

Yours,
Frank

[LittlePenguin]

Hi Frank
Yes I agree and I am on the same page in this regard. I guess the question or debate became "why can you not just accept that Carlos was a great thinker no matter if he is a proven liar".

I guess that was where I came in. Maybe he was a great thinker I have no idea, I guess it is possible, however I feel violated when I am asked  to accept his drug induced experiences constructs and tales, as a path I would be wise to follow.

Thats all

Regards LittleP