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Carlos Castaneda died... or at least his personal history

Carlos Castaneda, author of 11 books on the teachings of the shamans of ancient Mexico, died on April 27 at his home in Westwood (Los Angeles) from liver cancer; his body was cremated and the ashes sent to Mexico - this is the official information. This was reported in the press (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, etc.) on June 19, i.e. almost two months later.

What does "died" mean?

The very first thing I would like to do is to clarify the term "died".

In most spiritual traditions, a person who has achieved enlightenment (in terms of Eastern traditions) retains awareness after death, while his physical body remains in this world. This happened, for example, with the Indian masters of the 20th century: Babajdi, Osho Rajneesh, this is how the Buddha died, the founder of Jainism Mahavir, the Orthodox Sergius of Radonezh. However, in some traditions such a valuable resource as the body is not left on Earth. At the end of his journey, the practitioner realizes Body of Light: he announces that he will die in seven days; it is closed in a room or tent, and on the eighth day only hair and nails are found there. In the Dzogchen tradition (translated means "Great Perfection") Body of Light realized by such masters as Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra, in the tradition of Bon - Tapihriyets.

Many traditions speak of incarnations, on the grave of Rajneesh it is written: “Never born, never died. Only visited this planet Earth between 12/11/31 and 1/19/90. Not all people can achieve realization in one life, the same Rajneesh remembered his previous incarnation, in which he lacked three days before enlightenment.

The tradition of Castaneda does not recognize reincarnation, nor does it recognize the possibility of retaining awareness, leaving the physical body to die in this world. According to the teachings of magicians, a human being, being born, receives awareness as an “advance” from an impersonal powerful Force, which magicians figuratively called Eagle. During life, a person develops this awareness, enriches it with his experience. When death comes, the Eagle takes away his awareness along with the accumulated experience and impressions. Therefore, each of us has only two possibilities: either we die and Eagle absorbs our consciousness, or we embark on the path of a warrior in order to have a "cubic centimeter of a chance to have a chance" to achieve absolute freedom, or, in other words, burn in flames from the inside. This happened to Castaneda's teacher, don Juan Matus, to his teacher, to the teacher of his teacher...

Don Juan said that further evolution of man in a biological body is no longer possible. According to the teachings of magicians, an ordinary person sees the world around him as solid physical bodies only because he is taught from childhood to interpret the energy that he perceives in this way. Magi see the universe as a set of luminous energy filaments, "stretching in all conceivable and inconceivable directions from infinity to infinity." From an energetic point of view, human beings are "glowing eggs", "cocoons" through which the energy fibers of the universe pass. At the moment of death, magicians transform their body (which, like everything else in the world, is energy) into pure energy and become creatures that do not have an organism. Don Juan believed that man by nature is a magical being, a being for whom perception is the main thing, and in perception a person can reach extraordinary depths. However, people who have grown up and live in society have forgotten about their journey of perception and are simply moving towards decrepitude and death.

Castaneda said: "I would like to find integrity in order to leave this world in the same way that he (don Juan) did, but there is no guarantee." If Carlos Castaneda really died, it only means that he could not realize his "cubic centimeter of chance." For those who practice the techniques described in Castaneda's books, they go to seminars on tensegrity(a modern version of the magical passes discovered by the shamans of ancient Mexico), nothing has changed - each of us can have a chance, but cannot have guarantees.

By the way, the seminars continue. They took place after April 27: May 2 in Santa Monica (USA), May 23-24 in Munich, June 6 and 13 in the USA. Seminars will continue to be held. The next one is planned in Los Angeles from July 31 to August 2, the next one is in November.

Version two

The data from unofficial sources are as follows. Castaneda and two female warriors of his magical group: Taisha Abelar (author of the book "Magical Transition") and Florinda Donner-Grau (author of the books "The Dream of the Witch", "Shabono", "Life in a Dream") - left this world, retaining awareness . This was stated by one of the energy trackers (energy investigators - this is the name of a group of female practitioners who demonstrate tensegrity at seminars) at a meeting with seminar participants. (There were no press reports of Taisha and Florinda's deaths.) Of the four members of Castaneda's magical group, only Carol Tiggs remained here.

Castaneda's literary agent, Tracy Kramer, reported: "In keeping with the tradition of the shamans of his lineage, Carlos Castaneda left this world in full awareness" (quoting from the Los Angeles Times).

Indeed, all three female warriors were present at the seminar on April 4 (Castaneda has not appeared at the seminars for more than a year). On May 2, Carol was alone (she did not say a word about Carlos's death). Taisha and Florinda were supposed to be at the Munich seminar at the end of May, but they did not come, the organizers even lowered the cost of the seminar and returned the difference to the participants. On June 6 and 13 none of the four magicians were present either. (I was at the seminars personally, so the information is first-hand.)

Great mystifier

It is possible that both versions of Castaneda's death are false. Newspapers note that the circumstances of Carlos's death are as full of hoaxes as his life. His death certificate says he's a teacher in a stake in Beverly Hills - but he doesn't appear on the school rolls.

According to the report, he was cremated "at once" ("instantly", "immediately") - a suspicious rush. However, the press reports were two months late, with Deborah Druz, Carlos Castaneda's "lawyer and friend", citing as an explanation for the publication: "He didn't like to be the center of attention. Knowing this, I did not take responsibility for releasing the press release."

Officially, he died of liver cancer - but seminar participants who saw Castaneda at his favorite restaurant in Los Angeles in February (i.e. two months before his death) report that he looked like anything but a person, suffering from liver cancer.

The photo "Castaneda in 1951" looks unrealistic: firstly, the man in the photo is under forty, and Castaneda in 1951 was no more than 26; secondly, I conducted a mini-survey of those who saw Castaneda - of course, we saw him in 1996, there is still little resemblance. In general, Castaneda forbade himself to be photographed and filmed: “Recording is a way to fix you in time. The only thing a magician should not do is become static, inert. A static world, a static picture is the opposite of a magician."

In 1997, a book by Margaret Runyan Castaneda, Carlos' ex-wife, was published in Canada, she describes him as a master of hoaxes. Here is an example. According to the questionnaires of the University of California, Carlos was born on 12/25/1931 in Brazil, according to the immigration card - 12/25/1925 in Peru. This contradiction in information was found and first published by a journalist in March 1973. But that's just one fact. According to the teachings, the magician erases his personal history, so there is no doubt that we will never know most of the information about Castaneda.

Why does a magician need hoaxes? The goal of the magician is to leave with awareness. And for this, the magician must not only have enough energy, he must be free and fluid. Personal history, public attention, as well as a sense of self-importance - this is what gets in the way: it binds, takes away energy. Almost every seminar is attended by people who very soon forget why they came - about practices, about self-improvement and about infinity. And they begin to collect facts about the biography of Castaneda and the women of his magical group. For the participants, this is an unacceptable waste of time and energy; for Castaneda's magical group, this is another attempt at fixation. But the magician cannot be fixed!

I will give an epigraph to Castaneda's book "Tales of Power": "Five conditions for a lonely bird:

First: it reaches its highest point

Second: for the company she does not suffer even birds like her

Third: her beak is directed to the sky

Fourth: it does not have a specific color

Fifth: and she sings very softly.

Main question

And now I would like to ask a question. Maybe we are solving the wrong problem? Castaneda died, Castaneda left, or freed from the burden of public attention - what can the possession of this information give us? How many spears have been broken in the discussion of the questions “was don Juan a real person?”, “Did Castaneda use the works of other anthropologists?”, “Are the events of his books real or is it fiction?”! But what and to whom did it give?

Why do we keep wasting time and energy on this? Is it because discussing these things is much more familiar and easier than asking yourself (yourself) the main question: do the techniques described by Carlos Castaneda work? After all, if we ask ourselves this question, we will face the fact that we have little time and only one choice: we can either blithely move towards our own death, or “abandon the damned pettiness that is characteristic of people who live life as if death would never touch them."

A fellow practitioner of Tensegrity said, “You know, it's more useful for us to assume that Castaneda really died. You become more determined. You understand that you are alone and you must mobilize all your forces.

Indeed, "the best we can do is when we're backed up against the wall."

Castaneda said: "Intention is not reasoning, it is action." The masters of the Dzogchen tradition emphasize: "This is not about philosophical doctrine, it is about the practical return of man to his true nature." There are many wonderful strong techniques described in different traditions: prayer, meditation, yogic asanas... Why do we ignore them, or turn them into a formality, following which we do not move anywhere, do not change?!

Let me finish with the words of Castaneda, said at one of the seminars: “We will all come face to face with infinity, whether we like it or not. Why do this when we are weak and decrepit, at the moment of death? Why not when we are strong? Why not now?"

Carlos Castaneda is one of the most popular esoteric authors. His name evokes a picture in which a shaman sits near a fire and listens to a wolf howl. The author's books are not clear to everyone, perhaps it is in this mystery and style of the author that all the charm is. Let us consider in more detail the biography of Carlos Castaneda.

Author identity

Who is Carlos Castaneda, fact or fiction? Wikipedia and other sources of information hint that he did exist in reality, only this reality was unusual for other people. The date of birth of the writer is unusual - it falls on Catholic Christmas. The future esoteric was born on December 25, 1925 in Peru. But, his biography was not without conflicting data.

Researchers of the biography of the writer and mystic say that the name Carlos Aranha is written in the documents, and the surname that brought him fame belongs to his mother. Carlos was known as a writer, he also had the fame of a researcher of Indian magic. In his books, he shared with readers about how to expand perception and about tools for understanding the Universe. Even the date of the mystic's death is a mystery. Officially, she is considered April 27, 1998, but the world learned about the loss only on June 18.

Childhood and youth

Like any hermit who came to esotericism, Carlos Castaneda had a difficult fate. The author said that his parents were not poor, but very young. The father was 17 and the mother 15 when they had a little son. The boy was given to be raised by his aunt, but she died when he was six. Young Carlos was often punished for breaking school rules and getting into bad company. At the age of ten, the boy went on a journey, finishing it in a boarding school in Buenos Aires. When he was fifteen, he went to the family of foster parents who lived in San Francisco. The guy studied at Hollywood High School, and after graduation he moved to Milan. The young man became a student at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, but did not discover the ability to draw and returned to California.

Carlos began to show interest in journalism, literature and psychology. For four years, he went to City College, located in Los Angeles, and supported himself with hard work. One day he became an assistant to a psychoanalyst and had to arrange notes. Having received US citizenship, the young man became a student at the Faculty of Anthropology.

Time magazine insisted that the writer was born in northern Peru in the city of Cajamarcay. The publication also cites data according to which Castaneda was a student at the College of the Holy Virgin Mary, and then entered the National School of Fine Arts, located in Peru.

Creative activity of the writer

Castaneda wrote works on medicinal plants used by the tribes of North American Indians, and on one of his business trips he met Juan Mantus. The knowledge gained in the process of communicating with him, the author used in his books. Juan mastered shamanistic practices that the scientific world was not ready to accept. Castaneda had followers who continue to follow his ideas today. In the books, the author presented a new arrangement of the world, alien to Europeans. Don Juan's disciples lived by rules called the Way of War.

According to the shaman, people and all living things on earth perceive not objects, but energy signals. Taking them, the body and the brain create their own model of the world order. Any knowledge is limited, and it is impossible to know everything. A person perceives a tonal - a small part of all the information in space. The Nagual is the part that contains all parts of the life of the universe. A person focuses maximum attention, stopping the internal dialogue. In 1968 the book A Separate Reality was published. After the release of Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos' career took off. In twenty years he created eight books.

Later years and death

Carlos' attempts to comprehend magic removed him from society until the early nineties. He became a teacher at the University of California, later he began to give seminars on a paid basis. Shortly before his death, he published two works: Magical Passes and The Wheel of Time. The writer was killed by liver cancer, usually such a disease occurs in those who drink alcohol a lot.

Very little is known about the official life of Carlos Cesar Arana Salvador Castaneda. But even what is known is intertwined with ambiguity and hoaxes, the origin of which he himself often contributed. Even the date and place of his birth are not exactly known. According to one version - entries in immigration documents - he was born on December 25, 1925 in the Peruvian city of Cajamarca, according to another - on December 25, 1931 in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Only by reading his books, which tell about a certain Don Juan, can we get some idea of ​​Castaneda the man. It is known that in 1951 Castaneda emigrated to the United States from Peru, and before that his family lived in Brazil, from where they fled, fleeing from another dictator. It is not known what he did before coming to the United States. In the USA, judging by the “transcript” of his dialogues with Don Juan, he worked as a taxi driver, wrote poetry, studied painting, and sold alcohol in a store. It is also known about his desire to penetrate the Hollywood environment.

It is known that he studied at San Francisco Community College, taking courses in creative writing and journalism there, then entered the University of California at Los Angeles in 1955 and after seven years became a bachelor in anthropology. He taught at the university, was a teacher in Beverly Hills. In one of the episodes, he describes how he walked around the prestigious cinemas in Los Angeles with a special card from his girlfriend, the daughter of a Hollywood boss.

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

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

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

Carlos Castaneda can be safely ranked among the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century. What is known about him is that he is the author of ten best-selling books and the founder of the Cleargreen company, which now owns the rights to Castaneda's creative heritage. Everything else is nothing more than speculation, if not speculation. Castaneda carefully kept his “personal secret”, practically did not give interviews and categorically refused to be photographed (however, by coincidence, several photographs of Castaneda still exist). He even denied that he was ever married, although Margaret Runyan, author of a book of memoirs about this man, claims that Castaneda was her husband. In other words, the true biography of Carlos Castaneda was known only to himself; the destiny of all others is to try to reconstruct it.

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

With don Juan's permission, Castaneda began to write down his words; thus was born the first of the world-famous books of Carlos Castaneda - “The Teachings of Don Juan. Path of the Yaqui Indians, published in 1968. This book became an instant best-seller, as did the next nine. All of them are recordings of don Juan's conversations with Castaneda, and the chain of events in them ends in 1973, when don Juan mysteriously disappeared - "melted like a fog." The legend says that Castaneda himself left our world in a similar way - as if he vanished into thin air. A less poetic version of the obituary states that he died on April 27, 1998 of liver cancer, and that after being cremated, Castaneda's ashes were sent to Mexico in accordance with his will.

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

The first full biography of Carlos Castaneda

The true story of the glowing egg

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

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

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

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

1926–1951 Novel origin

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

Castaneda's father, Caesar Arana Burungaray, after graduating from the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the University of San Marcos, preferred bachelor life in Lima among local bohemians and bullfighters to the quiet, well-established life of a teacher. Having married, he opened a jewelry store in Caiamarca, continuing to be interested in literature, art and philosophy.

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

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

Their memories of their comrade are filled with good-natured humor: Carlos made a living by playing (cards, horse races, dice), he liked to fill the fog around himself (a provincial complex?), He was very sensitive to the weaker sex, who willingly responded to him in return. Not handsome, he had the gift of a charmer: velvety eyes, an enigmatic smile with a sparkling gold tooth. And one more thing: after the death of his mother, the young man dreamed of leaving for the United States.

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

Poor Dolores, having given birth to an illegitimate child, the girl Mary, in order to avoid even more shame - a Catholic country, the beginning of the 1950s! - I gave her up for education in a monastery. For the runaway dad, this served as another beautiful autobiographical plot: later he would say that the main reason for his departure was the love pursuits of a certain Chinese opio-addict.

1951–1959 Conquest of the United States

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

The era of hippies has not yet arrived, but even then in California there was an atmosphere of passion for all kinds of prophets and messiahs. Marguerite preached the ideas of Nevil Goddard, one of the local gurus. Following the example of her lover, she entered the LACC, where she studied the Russian language and the history of religions. The Russian theme in the life of the couple does not end there: Carlos, in turn, highly appreciated Dostoevsky, adored Soviet cinema and admired Nikita Khrushchev.

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

The publication won an award. Castaneda was more and more attracted to literature, which found expression in a new family legend: the story about the uncle, the national Brazilian hero, was added to the story of an indirect relationship with Fernando Pessoa.

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

1960–1968 Towards the desert

On August 12, 1961, Margarita gave birth to a boy, Carlton Jeremiah, whose father was Carlos Aranja Castaneda. The child, without a doubt, was the prototype of the boy, whom the author of the Don Juan cycle fondly recalls, as almost the only creature that connected him with the ordinary world. Fatherhood was formal. Deciding by that time on sterilization, Carlos was no longer able to have children; the biological father of the child was one of their mutual acquaintances with Runian.

In September 1959, Castaneda entered the Department of Anthropology at the University of Los Angeles. As a specialization, he chose ethnobotany; this academic term defined the interest of an overage student in the narcotic substances used by the Indians during magical ceremonies. Shortly before that, Margarita introduced him to Andriy Puharich's book The Sacred Mushroom. A frankly delusional essay, it nevertheless aroused stormy delight among the "advanced" friends of Runian, not leaving her lover indifferent either.

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

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

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

He found Leary, for some reason handed him two church candlesticks and a leather pouch, and offered to conclude a pact: Leary accepts him as a student, and Castaneda shares information with him regarding the "warrior's path." Tired of all sorts of madmen who constantly besieged him, Leary sent the importunate visitor out with nothing.

In addition to Meighan, among the professors, Castaneda was very interested in Harold Garfinkel, who taught a course on phenomenology. A student of Husserl, Garfinkel developed the idea of ​​social consensus, as a result of which even the most incredible event can be recognized as true. A similar thesis will be consistently developed in Kastanedov's books: an ordinary person perceives reality not directly, but through the images imposed on him by cultural tradition.

In his memoirs, M. Runian reports that Carlos read Husserl and even received as a gift from Garfinkel an ivory object that belonged to the German master. As Castaneda told Runian, he donated the thing to Don Juan - in order to consolidate the union of philosophy and magic and. The mysterious old man studied it for a long time and eventually placed it in a box with "objects of power."

Despite the encouragement of Meygan and Garfinkel, work on a study of Yaqui magical doctrine has slowed down. The need to earn a living, now not only his own, but also his son's, forced Castaneda to leave the university in 1964; he worked as a cashier in a women's clothing store, a taxi driver. In 1966, Runian decided to move to Washington, in an effort to put an end to their relationship, which had completely exhausted both of them.

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

1968–1972 Prophet in gray suit

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

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

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

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

During the course of the seminar, he was mainly concerned with retelling his own magical adventures. Once he organized a trip to the "place of power" in the Malibu Canyon area. The students were told that Don Juan saw this place in a dream. There, Castaneda performed a series of mysterious gestures that outlined the "lines of the world." The rest imitated this choreographic fantasy as best they could, reminiscent of both baroque dance and exercises in oriental martial art. The most devoted members of the seminar, mostly women, were included in the group of students who later formed the intimate environment of the "nagual Carlos."

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

1973–1991 Blackout time

Since that time, his image has changed markedly. The gray-suited anthropologist became the nagual leader of an esoteric group in hiding, the nagual who took over the line of sorcerers after don Juan left this world in 1973. The general public readily accepted the new rules of the game. Journalists compared Castaneda with the great invisibles of American literature - Salinger and Pynchon.

Rumors made him a victim of a car accident, a hermit living in Brazil, a patient in a psychiatric hospital at Los Angeles University, a participant in a top-secret government sleep control program ... script. The great Italian stubbornly sought a way out to Castaneda and even in a fit of desperation went to Los Angeles, hoping for a personal meeting. The trip proved futile.

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

On August 24, 1985, he unexpectedly arranged a readership meeting at Phoenix, a well-known Santa Monica bookstore. Castaneda admitted that it was a gesture of desperation on his part. The era of the psychedelic revolution has ended, giving rise to a completely respectable "new age". His books continued to sell well, but the noisy debate around them was replaced by the silence of criticism, and the former electrical contact with the reader no longer existed.

1992–1998 Apocalypse cum figuris

In fact, Kastanedov's "Tensegrite" was a set of bizarre movements, or "magic passes". The project, which fully corresponded to the then general enthusiasm for aerobics and Chinese gymnastics, was received with a bang in the New Age environment. Those wishing to become enlightened could do so by enrolling in expensive courses and/or purchasing exercise videos.

Periodically arranged seminars gathered a large audience, reminiscent of the degree of exaltation rock festivals of the good old days. Having danced to their heart's content under the guidance of Kastanedov's students, the audience listened to the many hours of reasoning of the main "tensegrist".

Relations between Castaneda and his inner circle, in which men were rather an exception, were of a harem-sectarian nature. Preaching sexual abstinence, the aging guru had an indefatigable sexual appetite, satisfying it with the help of mutually jealous disciples.

Constantly changing anger to mercy, and mercy to anger, bringing some closer and others away, he practiced what was called in their circle "rough love." The apotheosis of "rough love" was the "Theater of Infinity", which was arranged during Sunday meetings for those close to him. The participants of the meetings, led by Nuri Alexander, parodied each other in front of Castaneda, who was sitting in the center of the hall. Getting rid of the "ego" was supposed to contribute to the complete severing of ties with loved ones.

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

Since then, he has not lost sight of her, periodically calling and sending her his books. Their real rapprochement happened much later, in 1991, which turned out to be difficult for Amy. She had just lost her father and got divorced. In addition, bats settled in her house, which only worsened the depression. On one of those days, Castaneda's phone rang. Carlos reacted with warm sympathy to her troubles. When he learned about the bats, he demanded that she banish them by force of will, and stated that he felt the spirit of a deceased parent in her house.

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

In 1997, Castaneda was diagnosed with cancer, which rapidly progressed throughout the body. In addition, he suffered from diabetes, his legs refused. In the last months of his life, he hardly got out of bed, watching old war films on video. Every morning meetings at his bedside turned into a sadistic nightmare.

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

According to the first option, the "nagual Carlos" group was to rent a ship and sink it along with them in neutral waters. Books on navigation were ordered via the Internet; Taisha Abelar, Nuri Alexander and Fabrizio Magaldi went to Florida to look after the ship. According to the second option, the "travelers" killed themselves with firearms, which were also hastily purchased.

On April 27, 1998, at three o'clock in the morning, Castaneda's attending physician pronounced him dead. The secret cremation took place at Spalding Cemetery in Culver City near Los Angeles. The ashes were handed over to the nearest environment. On the same day, the phones of Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar, Talia Bey and Kili Landal were switched off permanently. Officially, the death was announced only on June 19.

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

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

Problems of the biography of Carlos Castaneda

It is problematic to present biographical information about Carlos Castaneda, not only due to the fact that information about his life is extremely contradictory, but also because Carlos Castaneda himself had a negative attitude towards the public availability of information about himself, since this completely contradicted that esoteric, magical system, which he practiced and popularized. In particular, he himself wrote: “The more others know who you are and what should be expected of you, the more it limits your freedom.”

Carlos Castaneda's teacher insisted that it was necessary to "erase personal history", which is a product of the human ego, preoccupied with a sense of self-worth, and therefore hindering movement on the Path to Freedom. Therefore, Carlos Castaneda, whenever possible, tried to avoid taking photographs, filming with a video camera or recording with a voice recorder.

Also, do not forget that Carlos Castaneda himself was a very famous person, therefore, naturally, a lot of gossip and rumors spread around him, often frankly “yellow” content. Nevertheless, we can still, with a certain degree of relativity, restore the main milestones of his biography.

Childhood of Carlos Castaneda

The full name of Carlos Castaneda is Carlos Cesar Salvador Araña Castaneda. He was born on December 25, 1925, although some researchers of the biography of Carlos Castaneda also name other years of his birth, most often 1931 or 1935.

Carlos Castaneda was born in the city of Cajamarca in Peru, and, again, there are also discrepancies here, as some biographers call the city Mairiporan in Brazil.

Carlos Castaneda was born to very young parents - his mother at that time was fifteen years old, and his father was seventeen. Therefore, due to their youth, the son was transferred to the upbringing of one of the mother's sisters. True, she died when Carlos Castaneda was only six years old, but he had the warmest memories of her and he really treated her like his own mother.

Unfortunately, the personal "tragedies with mothers" did not end there. When Carlos Castaneda was twenty-five years old, his biological mother also passed away. All this affected his character, so many considered him a naughty and unbearable boy, always getting into various troubles.

Youth and youth of Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda's parents did not have a high level of parental responsibility and financial stability, so at the age of 10-12 they were forced to send their son to a boarding school in Buenos Aires. And right from there, fifteen-year-old Carlos Castaneda goes to America, where, in fact, officially, according to his passport, he becomes Carlos Castaneda.

The opportunity to move to the United States was apparently provided by a family from San Francisco, who decided to adopt him. Carlos Castaneda lived with them until he graduated from school. And only after that began his, more or less, independent life - he leaves for Milan to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. But, unfortunately, he quickly becomes convinced that fine art is not his element. And then Carlos Castaneda returns to California, where he completely devotes himself to literature and various humanities - he attends various courses in writing, journalism and psychology.

At this time, Carlos Castaneda is trying to earn a living on his own, working as an assistant to a professional psychoanalyst. All the work of Carlos Castaneda was to sort through the many tape audio recordings made during therapeutic procedures, of which there were several thousand. This work allowed him to look at his inner world from the outside, see all his phobias, fears, problems, and so on, which, of course, forced him to completely reconsider his life. As a result, Carlos Castaneda decides to continue his education more seriously and enters the University of California at Los Angeles, which he graduates two years later with a degree in anthropology.

In January 1960, Carlos Castaneda marries Margaret Runyan, but they disperse almost immediately, although they officially divorce only thirteen years later - on December 17, 1973.

Carlos Castaneda and Don Juan

Naturally, the most striking event in the life of Carlos Castaneda is a meeting with his teacher - Don Juan. After all, it was this memorable event that became the starting point both for the cycle of his book about the path of the warrior, and for his own magical practice and, of course, world fame as the author of books on esotericism.

Carlos Castaneda himself has repeatedly described in his works how he met with Don Juan (Juan Matusa) - an Indian from the Yaqui tribe, a Mexican shaman magician who belonged to the Toltec tradition.

The meeting of Carlos Castaneda with this amazing man took place in 1960.

Initially, Carlos Castaneda, as part of his anthropological research, planned to simply study the properties of peyote. Don Juan was recommended to him as one of the best experts on this plant. And, of course, at that time, Carlos Castaneda did not even think about any spiritual or magical practice - his goal was purely scientific. But events began to rapidly unfold in a completely different way.

Subsequently, it turned out that Don Juan himself saw special magical signs in Carlos Castaneda, in particular, that he was a nagual (a term quite difficult to understand by ordinary consciousness), which was reflected in the specific structure of his energy body. The signs of the nagual in Carlos Castaneda became not only a magical sign for don Juan himself, but also indicated that Carlos Castaneda himself was capable of becoming the leader of a group of "seers", that is, one around whom several magicians must gather in order to form a closed union of practitioners-shamans. It included dreamers, warriors, and so on.

After a memorable meeting, Carlos Castaneda for several years intermittently, from 1961 to 1965, was trained by don Juan, visiting his house in Sonora more than once. But in the fall of 1965, he temporarily stopped his studies and devoted himself entirely to literary activity - the description of the "warrior's path", which he passed under the guidance of his mentor.

The resumption of the apprenticeship will take place in 1968 until the "departure" of don Juan and his group of sorcerers.

Carlos Castaneda himself, having started the second stage of training, completely changes his life - he begins to “erase his personal history”, stops giving interviews and completely envelops his life in fog.

Books by Carlos Castaneda

In 1968, the University of California Press published Carlos Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of Don Juan. From that moment begins the triumphal procession of his works around the world. But first, for this work, he receives a master's degree from the university. And as the book quickly sells out in millions of copies, Carlos Castaneda also becomes a millionaire.

The next book by Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, was published in 1971, and a year later, another one, Journey to Ixtlan. This work brings him even more fame and money, as well as a doctoral degree.

In Carlos Castaneda's latest book, the emphasis shifts from the use of auxiliary plants to the practice of increasing awareness, vision, and lucid dreaming. In a word, a more detailed and complete exposition of The Way of the Warrior begins, in particular the most important moments of "stopping the internal dialogue", the art of stalking and lucid dreaming.

In 1974, the most important book of the entire cycle of "teachings" of a direct description of communication with the teacher was published. It is in "Tales of Power" that the moment is described when Don Juan and his group of magicians leave this world, "burning from the inside."

In his next works, Carlos Castaneda will describe his own memories of the "way of the warrior", which are what he received in an altered state of consciousness. This knowledge was hidden by his subconscious until the time, so the third stage of the path was precisely that Carlos Castaneda remembered this.

The remaining eight books Carlos Castaneda writes and publishes between 1977 and 1997. At the same time, for most of this time, he almost completely isolated himself from society - reducing the number of contacts to a minimum.

In 1998, the last two books of Carlos Castaneda were published. The first "Wheel of Time", which is, in fact, a collection of aphorisms from all past books with some comments. The second book, Magical Passes, describes the tensegrity system.

The Magical Life of Carlos Castaneda

After the release of the book Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda completely immersed himself in his own magical practice, as well as working with his own group of magicians, which included Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Carol Tiggs, Patricia Partin and several others. Some of them also wrote a number of books on topics similar to those of Carlos Castaneda.

The open life of Carlos Castaneda

Around the 1990s, Carlos Castaneda began to lead a more open lifestyle - he lectured at the University of California. At first, the seminars were free of charge, but then everything switched to a paid basis.

Five years later, on June 16, 1995, Carlos Castaneda founded his own publishing organization, Cleargreen, which is actively involved in the distribution of the tensegrity system and other activities.

Death of Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda left this world on April 27, 1998 in Los Angeles (USA). The official cause of death was liver cancer.

Naturally, the death of Carlos Castaneda gave rise to many rumors and gossip - from the most harmless "burnt from the inside" to the ridiculous - he and his associates committed suicide. But this does not matter, because all his life Carlos Castaneda was surrounded by an incredible number of different stories about himself, from exalted enthusiastic ones to frankly vulgar and vulgar ones. Most importantly, Carlos Castaneda left behind a great legacy that still lives on, awakening thousands of people to embark on the "Way of the Warrior."

© Alexey Kupreichik