I find Carlos Castaneda a cult leader, like Charles Manson, and Jim Jones. Castanedas followers still defend, and find “knowledge, and power, in his books.

@SeanMunger

11 ай бұрын

It's kind of amazing the number of people who, when confronted with evidence that five of his followers committed suicide for him, will hand-wave that away, blame the victims, or engage in some weird fantasy about them having "crossed over to another plane of existence."

@Unabomberr8

8 ай бұрын

I really enjoyed his books but in the same time there is no doubt in me that Castaneda is a deprived dangerous cult leader. I just believe that we should separate ones work from the artist because we can find usefull things that can help us everywhere. I have read good passages in the Bible (I'm an agnostic), i enjoy the music from the fascist band Death in June ( I'm an antifascist), i enjoy Woody Allen movies ( even though he is probably a child molester) etc. Of course this is a dangerous approach if you have the " follower mentality".

@bonzomcduffy8336

3 ай бұрын

At least the body count was lower.

@Oakleaf700

2 ай бұрын

@@SeanMunger I had a boyfriend who was into 'Gurus' and he thought Castaneda was a type of Guru- I just thought that a lot of Guru types were self styled egomaniacs, even as a teenager. Boyfriend tried to turn that around and said ''You don't choose your Guru...your Guru chooses YOU''. That basically meant ''You aren't good enough to be 'chosen'. Certain humans love to 'Follow' others..It makes them feel a sense of unity and belonging..But at one ''Guru'' meeting he took me to in London, all I could see was how the 'Guru' wanted money...and lots of it.

I had read every one of his books several times and I must say that, in spite of their being works of fiction, they are brilliantly written. If the goal of writing is tell a compelling story, he was most successful; if you are a fan of esoteric fiction, I would highly recommend them.

My father is a real fan of Castaneda and constantly tries to talk me in to how these teachings are real. I have no heart to tell him the truth because this is what holds his life together in the last 30 or so years. He uses internet rarely and cannot find this information alone, but he won't believe any of it anyways. He reads and re reads the books constantly like he is reading the bible and fills up every conversation with some Castaneda/Huan preaching. All I can do is to just listen and nod, because I don't want to leave him alone (the man has few friends and I am one of them). Sometimes I can hardly stand these conversations and I don't know what to do.

@ultang

3 ай бұрын

That's rough, I wish I had words to comfort you

@debrapaulino918

3 ай бұрын

Understandable. Maybe you've considered that he has been spiritually taken captive. You are being victimized similar to someone experiencing second hand smoke. You do not have to be. Your quandary comes from within yourself not him. It would be healthy for both of you if you draw the line and not participate any longer in his fantasy. It means receiving the emotional and communication aptitudes to do draw the line w/o walking out of his life. You are enabling him to be unhealthy. For as long as you participate you are also unhealthy. I suggest finding an activity to do together while simultaneously refusing to engage with his dialogue about Casteneda by listening to it. That's where you're going wrong. Other people vacated because it is easier. No responsibility. You do not know how to assert yourself with love or how to create other avenues for you both to enjoy as equals. He dominates. Don't permit it. He has fallen into habit. Through you he can be redirected. He needs that. Best of to you for new heights.

@BluDawg

2 ай бұрын

You are sweet and kind to spend precious time with him 💜

@MilesP757

2 ай бұрын

1. It is difficult to unpack the truth about Castaneda. Whereas guys like Charles Manson or Jim Jones are more clear cut, Castaneda's life and work seem a miry mix of good and bad along a downward slope somehow leading to a revival of interest in his legacy in recent years. Not without reason, I think. 2. It is important to get the record straight on what happened, a) prior to the writing and publishing of the infamous Don Juan text, b) from his brief stardom and subsequent fall into obscurity, through the following decades as he degraded the value of his work in various ways, and c) in recent years when a whole new generation of 'seekers' are turning to Castaneda and the teachings of Don Juan. 3. Until someone in academia tackles this issue, we will all be suffering from the cultural confusion stemming from the deep rooted conflicts entangled with Castaneda fiasco. My suggestion for your father, would be to accept that the author of the historical fiction expounding the (loosely based in reality) teachings of the Don Juan lineage of yacqui shaman/toltec sorcerers (or however it goes exactly, excuse my memory), eventually became the head of a coven. (He need not accept that Don Juan is largely a cover for the original coven and a product of Castaneda's own imaginings, NOT an accurate account of authentic initiation into a living current of native american/mexican sorcery.) I am incredibly fond of the first book, but as a grown man, I suggest he pick up James Maffie's Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion. He is not bad for a white academic and I promise it is about the closest thing you can find in English to a manual of toltec sorcery (at this time ^_^)

@MilesP757

2 ай бұрын

@@debrapaulino918 This is good advice, I am still learning from my father, often through negation. He is a non church attending, conservative Baptist fundamentalist with all the stereotypical right wing views and unwillingness to engage in critical, non-reactionary thought. Has been for as long as I''ve known him. 'When the son outgrows the beliefs of the father/acquires greater knowledge, he bears a greater responsibility to adhere to the values of his own beliefs,' credit to Manly P Hall, loosely paraphrased. Took a while for that to sink in, but it continues to bear fruit, more and more all the time.

i remember people reading those books back in the 70s they sure were popular

"Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Amy Wallace is a great book. Written by a cult insider who was very close to Castaneda. Worth a read for sure if you are interested

If one watches the Matrix & other sci-fi movies, one can see that tbe writers must have read Castanedas books. Eg. The early scene in Matrix 1 were Trinity ran along the walls of the room - this is taken from one of Castanedas characters which eas a witch that run along the walls. Eg. Another one is "The Jump". Which in the Matrix is jumping from reality to the matrix program vise versa. In the Castanedas Nagual, the Apprentice has to jump into an Abyss and goes through another dimension & does not die.

I was a fan of Castaneda, but I was never a believer. I thought of his philosophy as allegory and his books as fiction.

@squirlmy

3 ай бұрын

well, I believe you were skeptical, but his books definitely weren't "allegorical" they were presented as fact. The books themselves were published as "non-fiction" and were placed as such in bookstores. He was a con. You're defending him in a different way, but you're still defending him. I have my doubts if you really read his books, or just read critics in the newspaper or read samples on Amazon Kindle.

@stevengill1736

3 ай бұрын

Me too - when I read his first book back in the late 60s I'd already studied a little anthropology and shamanism, so I knew better than to take Castañeda's books as literal truth. They were period pieces - hard to even imagine his books being popular in the Internet age. Yet they were entertaining at the time. It's so sad to hear he became a sort of cult, which apparently ended tragically... I suppose one could quote the old saying, "follow the teachings, not the teacher"... Cheers.

The lady lost in the desert reminds me of some stories in Castaneda's work where they would "travel". I can't remember the terminology for it now. But they would run in the desert but travel in jumps that covered large distances quickly. Most of the stories took place in the desert. I went to school in the Southwest, and spent a lot of time in the outdoors. The desert is a unique and beautiful place. In the bible, Jesus went to the desert where he struggled with the devil for 40 days and 40 nights.

@Tenskwatawa4U

3 ай бұрын

I think the term is "magical passes". Perhaps I'm wrong.

@therealediesuperstar

2 ай бұрын

I had the video tape of the exercises. I think I bought it in 1996.

I devoured his books was a young man. When I found out that they had been debunked I was really upset. Now, looking back, I still admire them as fiction- tense, imaginative, brooding works that exude a strange power.

8:50 For the record: Tensegrity is a physical discipline (as in the book "Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico", 1998) that they taught in workshops, Cleargreen is the company.

@Tenskwatawa4U

3 ай бұрын

It's worth noting that there are two entirely different things using the name "Tensegrity", the first being a sort of architectural design system first coined by Buckminster Fuller in 1960. It is not easily explained in a few words or sentences. It's a portmanteau of the words "tension" and "integrity". This would mean, in my opinion, that Castaneda STOLE the term when it came to naming what we are (properly, I think) referring to as his "cult".

@user-ez2on4iy1v

2 ай бұрын

The word tensegrity I believe was invented by Bucky Fuller and Cleargreen was forced to call them Magical Passes afterwards.

So, they committed suicide is one probability or, they jumped into the unknown in their totality tagging to CC, thus no clue or remains to be found. Let's fully speculate.

I was a bit of a hippy back at the end of the 60s, start of the 70's in the UK. But it was a VERY broad church (so to speak). There were new agers and spiritual types, but most of us were just what you'd call 'stoners' nowadays. We didn't take any stock in the mumbo jumbo, but we would chat with people who did, just to be friendly. We were all outsiders, so we stuck together, up to a point. Castaneda was a definite fracture point - some people loved him, and others thought he was a fraud. I thought he was a fraud! ;-)

Living on Maui at the time, his books came like waves in the ocean. Non believing, but intriguing was the call from most. Very bizzare.

No, the window did not close. I lived in the California/ Nevada deserts and the Sonoran though the 80's and 90's and I took an anthropology class at the College in Tucson and the teacher began to teach what in Hinduism would be called "liberation" or in Buddhism "enlightenement", but in a unique way, in a way that prevailed in those deserts, he was a man of huge power, and when he entered a room everyone knew that he was there - they came to gather around him but not sure why. He didn't claim anything to himself or make promsises. I think that the "movement" went underground. To this day such men exist, and I know women in the Sonoran and in Northern California that are similar. I always knew that the "assemblage points" and their "alignement" that woud make us beings of light immortal were fictions, but it was his way of trying to turn things in a propitious way to reach the Other Knowledge. We are mysteriuous because before we came to be to the state that humans call "waking", we were in the state of "dreaming". I thinjk that he really believed it - and he does descibe Don Juan as the sort of man people would have gathered around - his power. Separate are the hallucinations. Reply

Castaneda was one of those life-changing experiences I stumbled onto in my early teens in the middle 90s. It's a fantastic story, and not true as you say. Still, it was an introduction to the fallibility of mind, language and behaviour that was a big influence that finally drove me into psychedelic experiences and finally segmented me into the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Much like the stories of the Indian Siddhas, they are amazing and unbelievable, but ultimately not to be taken literally. Or are they? ;) Reality is not as crystal clear as we think...

As a late teen/ early 20s living a spontaneous nomadic lifestyle in the 90s Carlos Castaneda was a crazy reference ... the way it appeared in my life was exactly in tune with what I got from the 1st novel I read by him , namely " 2nd Ring of power " ... really , really intriguing stuff . 20 years later of course I know better than to drink the kool aid so to speak , still , incredible engaging , powerful imagination at work there , that much is true about Carlos Castaneda´s writings , that´s for sure . On another note - think of this as paranoia if you will but , given how popular his work was and how social media recommends people everything all the time ... in Castaneda´s case I notice a deliberate bubble surrounding his work . You actually have to look for it , or , to be more precise even : to have acquainted yourself with it pre 00s .

I found this by accident; I'm an historian as well, and went to graduate school at UCLA and Nury Alexander was in my cohort. Very strange...

I went to two Tensegrity seminars, one a weekend affair that took place in a high school in Culver City, and a week long intensive the following year on the UCLA Campus. I remember Amy Wallace at the second one sold souvenirs. I remember an event she told in her book about recruiting one of the participants.

An interesting mystery indeed. ⚡️🙂⚡️

Nice video.

My friend's ex girlfriend foolishly followed the Castaneda circus. She was expected to lose contact with friends and family. (typical cult tactics) She was never heard of again - presumed dead.

I think both links in your description field are linking back to your previous video.

With all the aliases being used, was there maybe some criminal activity associated with this group? It amazes me that his teachings are still popular. There’s an old saying: “It’s easier to make a fool of someone than it is to convince them they’ve been made a fool.”

I wonder, would you have any interest in doing a long video looking at the tensegrity stuff? I think it would be a good video because of the visual material that's available, tons of videos online, etc. It is such a weird and robotic form of body work.

your link in the description to Joe Bui's "Desert Trippin," accidentally links to your own video on the subject... just wanted to let you know. thanks for your video.

Mr. Munger, I think your entertaining the notion that some of the women may still be alive has support in Castaneda's own work, namely, the third book in the series, Journey to Ixtlan, where Don Juan tells Carlos that he has to "erase personal history." So you're right in thinking that some of these women had experience in doing just that, as demonstrated by their numerous aliases. Furthermore, erasing personal history is part of the process of "cultification," cutting off relationships with family and friends, etc. I think your notion is astute.

Castanedas books were required reading in Anthropology/Archeology class in the early 1970's. You would have had to really live thru the Hippie years to understand .Doing LSD can really lead to insights about reality and perception.

@SeanMunger

2 ай бұрын

Required reading? That's horrifying. Castaneda's con was incredibly pervasive, it seems.

I suspect that the other four women - 2 of the 3 "witches", a "chacmool" (one of the Tensegrity demonstrators) and the director at the time of Cleargreen - didn't go to Death Valley. in Gaby Geuter's book, Filming Castaneda, she states that she and her boyfriend witnessed Patricia Partin in Los Angeles for several days and possibly as long as a week after the other four had disappeared. Geuter had been in the inner circle and after she was discarded, she and her boyfriend followed the witches and Carlos from the private Sunday classes in order to find out where Carlos lived. They started raiding the trash and also videotaped Carlos and the inner circle going in and out of their home and at classes around LA. I'd love to know why Patricia didn't go with the other four. It's my understanding that like many narcissists, Carlos played all the women of the inner circle against one another. I've read that he especially manipulated all the inner circle, men and women, using Partin. In other words, I doubt that that the other four liked Partin very much and perhaps that's why Partin took off later than the other women and went to Death Valley on her own.

Your link to Joe Bui's video in the description box is false, by the way. It just links back to your other video, same as the second link.

Just curious..during the time when the police found the body in the desert. At the time DNA testing was in its infancy so it took years to test the remains to identify the body. Where did they get the original DNA from to conclude that the DNA from the bones was the same person. Did she leave some DNA with her family in case she got lost even though DNA Testing did not exist while she was alive? Lol

@SeanMunger

Жыл бұрын

I have been asked this question before, and while I don't know the answer in this specific case, people are very often identified by DNA even if their deaths occurred long before the technology was developed. If for example someone kept a lock of her hair as a child in a photo album or something, that can be used. Or a close male relative can be the DNA donor and provide a match with near certainty. The Golden State Killer/Original Night Stalker was identified in this way in 2018. It doesn't even have to be a close relative; the fact that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings's children was determined with near certainty from DNA more than 150 years after his death by testing relatives of his male descendants.

@squirlmy

3 ай бұрын

the DNA analysis was done long after finding the body, which was found not far from her abandoned car, so there wasn't a whole lot of doubt, anyways.

I remember trying to read Castaneda's book back in the early 80's. It was for sale in my college bookstore. I was thrilled by the claim of actual magic happening - like turning into a crow! I didn't realize it was his actual thesis, so didn't expect the dry, dull, and inert writing. I stopped reading fairly soon into the book. Only a few years later did I hear it had all be debunked. - While sad and kind of creepy, I'm happy to have discovered what happened next with Castaneda.

Tensegrity is a term first coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, and I kept waiting for you to explain how Casteneda's cult beliefs had anything to do with Fuller's ideas, if they do in any way, or not... Just google "tensegrity" and you will find more references to Bucky Fuller's term, than Casteneda's cult. IS there any ersatz philosophical connection at all? Claimed, perceived or otherwise? This is an "elephant in the room" for me in regards to your video. IOW, WTF???

Se muestra mucho interes en el video polemico, ya que el hombre se busca constantemente y necesita respues, a decir verdad todo este tema es una controversia la forma en que desaparecieron y la forma en que tejieron ese sin fin de montones de supuestos seguidores, mas que seguidores eran unos dioses para el fanatismo, me gustaria que revisaras a manuel carballal y su libro "la vida secreta de carlos castaneda", puede ser que se encontraran a las brujas en esas condiciones por sumas millonarias de deudas que dejo carlos en sus equipos y grupos de tensegridad al ver que ya no tenian credibilidad fueron a la quiebra, buen video saludos.

Kylie Lundahls foto is in the german book TENSSEGRITY published by S. FISCHER.

I love Castenada's books but wasn't surprised to find out he was a fraud. I was disappointed because no other books made me feel the way these did. I never heatd of Tensegrity until now other than the sculptures, or that these women disappeared.

@AWildBard

10 ай бұрын

same ... I read all his books loved them, although I always viewed them as a kind of very vivid fantasy that I wanted to bring into my reality I never heard of Tensegrity

@rev.randall2292

3 ай бұрын

The way it was relayed on this channels main story video , his associates say the first book is all Carlos. Only starting on those books after began a progress of embellishment mixed with Carlos himself.

I was a huge fan of Castaneda in the 70’s……read all his books, which led me on a long strange trip spanning several years, that included consuming many fresh psilocybin mushrooms in southern Mexico ( Chiapas ) and roaming the Sonoran desert finding and devouring peyote ! So many peculiar occurrences were associated with my experience, along with other fellow seekers ! I can’t help but think these were such unusual events that still leave me extremely bewildered ! We hung out around many of the ancient Mayan pyramids as well ! What an amazing work of writing ,even though fiction!

Yes it's just fascinating Sean! Wouldn't you know it: Carlos Castaneda wrote one of the first books I ever read (someone gave it to me for a birthday). I don't think I really understand it at all but it makes much more sense now.

I read Castaneda's stuff in my early 20s. It had a lot of influence on me, but I always read it as fiction. I never believed that all this stuff actually happened.

Reading the first book was enjoyable, yet I didn't care for Castaneda's affinity for the Diablero's ways. Using foreign substances to gain 'insight' struck me as wholly assinine. Strange, but wisdom was never, in my experience, came by much else than embracing hard reality if needed, not liked.

She was the Blue Scout -- someone Castaneda met during dreaming.

@SeanMunger

3 жыл бұрын

Actually, Castaneda seems to have met Patricia Partin at UCLA in about 1977 when her then-husband was temporarily a member of his inner circle.

What if the little scout knocked off the rest and then ran off to the desert

It's incredible how Castaneda managed to fool so many people.

@flintliddon

10 ай бұрын

New age morons will believe most anything.

What would be interesting is what source material he borrowed from in the UCLA library.

@SeanMunger

7 ай бұрын

That would be interesting!

@unclejj13er75

4 ай бұрын

There's a book out there called the Don Juan Papers? I believe that is the title. It explores how nearly all of Castaneda's work was a farce. It was written by a couple of university professors. Might still be floating around.

Makes me wonder with all the name changes and secretive lives , that the others or maybe one had later ended up as a Jane Doe case somewhere , not putting things togerher.

@SeanMunger

3 ай бұрын

It's possible, but I very much doubt it (at least the aspect that they could be alive living under assumed names). There were four of them besides Partin, and more than 25 years later chances are high that if they were all alive at least one of them would have snapped out of the spell in all that time and come forward. Unfortunately I think they all probably suffered the same fate as Partin.

Anyone who has done shrooms before knows his info on them is bs.

Castaneda is nothing more than a less-successful L Ron Hubbard.

Here's the short version. A punk bullshitted some foolish young women. Happens all the time. The End.

Why are you digging into something that is long gone?

@SeanMunger

2 ай бұрын

It's my job. I'm a historian!

I think Castaneda is one of the best writers of fiction in the 20th century. But... " IF THERE WERE someone like Don Juan he would be enlightened, he would be like a Buddha or a Lao Tzu - but there is nobody like Don Juan. Carlos Castaneda's books are ninety-nine per cent fiction - beautiful, artful, but fiction. As there are scientific fictions, there are spiritual fictions also. There are third-rate spiritual fictions and first-rate ones: if you want third-rate, then read Lobsang Rampa; if you want first-rate, then read Carlos Castaneda. He is a great master - of fiction. But I say ninety-nine per cent fiction. One per cent of truth is there, hidden here and there; you will have to find it. It is good even to read it as fiction. Don't bother about Rampa's fiction, because it is rubbish created by a mediocre mind - and of course created for mediocre minds. But Carlos Castaneda is worth reading. When I say fiction I don't mean don't read him, I mean read him more carefully, because one per cent of truth is there. You will have to read it very carefully, but don't swallow it completely because it is ninety-nine per cent fiction. It can help your growth - it can create a desire to grow. That's why I say it is beautiful. But it can hinder growth also if you take it at its surface value. This man Carlos is really crafty, very clever. Rarely it happens, such cleverness - because it is very easy to create scientific fiction, not much imagination is needed, but to create spiritual fiction is very very difficult; one needs a great artistic and imaginary mind. Because things you don't know, how can you even imagine them? That's why I say one per cent of truth is there. On that one per cent of truth he has been able to create a big edifice. On that one per cent of truth he has been able to project much imagination. On that one iota of truth he has made the whole house, a beautiful palace - a fairy tale. But that one per cent of truth is there, otherwise it would have been impossible. So one per cent of Don Juan must be there somewhere or other. He must have met somebody; maybe his name was Don Juan, maybe not, that is not material, that doesn't matter. Carlos has come across a being superior to himself, he has come across a being who knows some secrets. Maybe he has not realized them, maybe he has stolen them, maybe he has just borrowed them from someone else. But he has met somebody who has somehow got some facts of spiritual life and this man has been able to create imagination around it. And the imagination becomes possible if you use drugs as a help - very easy, because drugs are nothing but an aid to imagination. This man has come across some being who knows something, and then through drugs, LSD and others, he has projected that small truth into imaginary worlds. Then his whole fiction is created. It is a drug trip, but a good experiment in itself. And when I say all these things I am not condemning Carlos. In fact I have come to love the man. It is a rare flight of imagination, and if it is a hundred per cent fiction then Carlos himself is a rare being. If he has not come across anybody at all then he must have that one per cent of reality in himself. Because otherwise it is impossible - you can only build a house on a foundation, even an imaginary house needs at least a foundation in reality. You can make a house of cards but at least the ground, the solid ground is needed. That much is true. So read, because you will have to read. Every age has its own fictions, romances; one has to pass through them. You will have to read. You cannot escape Carlos Castaneda. But remember that only one per cent is true - and you have to find it"

@theaman1786

6 ай бұрын

I heard that there's speculation he just copied most of what he read in some Occult book called Light Regime or something, which he had found in a library.

@sherrybirchall8677

2 ай бұрын

I guess I can escape Castaneda by not reading a bunch of b.s.

it's pronounced "ShAH-men" lol

More BS 'New Age' stuff debunked. Great job! My parents fell hook, line and sinker for this kind of stuff. Still requiring the debunking treatment: Rennes-le-Chateau. Edgar Cayce. Everything by Graham Hancock.

skip 10 minutes

algorithm stuff