The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps."
"When a man has fulfilled those four requisites there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his acts lose the blundering quality of a fool's acts. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that."
These are the words with which Carlos Castaneda opens his controversial book. From here, the reader is lead into an amazing new world, that of Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui Indian shaman. This world is filled with mystery, exploration, confusion and discovery. And with incredible psychedelic journeys affected by the hallucinogens contained in the peyote (a cactus local to Mexico, a.k.a. Lophophora williamsii - don't even try finding it at Canadian flower shops). And all this written before the cultural-religious-spiritual study before the hippy movement, Timothy Leary, or the Merry Pranksters!
Castaneda, during his course of study with don Juan Matus, Yaqui 'man of knowledge', learned to move into a non-ordinary reality, and experience not only magical events (he claims to have flown and grown a beak, among other things), but also that the ways of knowledge and power are difficult and dangerous.
Evidently, Castaneda has given a good deal of ammunition to the skeptics by stating during interviews that he would give false information about himself. This may have been simply a way for him to remind us Westerners that our methodologies are not the only way to know, and that one must look beneath the words and convenient "facts" to find the truth. The foreword declares that this book is both ethnography and allegory. The part of the allegory that is perhaps most exciting is the tension between Western science and other ways of knowing. Castaneda came to don Juan, proud and arrogant, and learned from him a healthy amount of humility and respect.
One of the lessons that Castaneda learns is the difference between a "power" and an "ally." Most individuals can become sorcerers by using a power, but to gain an ally, which is much more potent, one must work with the forces of nature, and learn the ways of real knowledge, following only the way of the heart (a thought also surfacing in the
my previous review of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist). It is of prime importance for the planet that all follow the way that has heart, turning toward the universe with respect. As it stands, most of us treat the earth as a natural resource only, to be exploited and discarded once used. Such actions and attitudes may give one temporary power, but at enormous expense to oneself and one's habitat.
Time and again, Don Juan's lessons remind us that we are not as powerful as we think. His lessons lead Castaneda into situations in which the anthropologist acts like a fool: rolling around on the ground for hours; playing with and actuing like a dog; clapping his thighs and assuming a "fighting form" for hours to regain his lost soul. These actions are apparently integral parts of Yaqui culture, but to Westerners they look foolish when performed by a supposedly "enlightened" and "objective" student of anthropology. Castaneda, in his search for power, must become, at least for a while, a fool. Dignity is a small price to pay for Don Juan's reminder that we are out of balance with the universe.
This book, though not among the greatest of literary achievement, is nonetheless recommended for those interested in counterculture movements of the 1960s to the present, mysticism, philosophical discussions of reality, drugs, and native American anthropology. In the larger sense, its lessons are of value for all Westerners: it is a subtle reminder of our temporary place in the universe, and of the costs of the way of power and knowledge.
