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- DON JUAN MATUS: REAL OR IMAGINED?
Castaneda's teacher Don Juan Matus is described as being a powerful Yaqui Indian shaman-sorcerer who learned his art under the direct auspices of a Diablero. Not everyone agrees Don Juan even existed. This site investigates the controversy.
- THE INFORMANT AND CARLOS CASTANEDA
Before Castaneda met Don Juan he met a mysterious bio-searcher in the desert that showed him the use of Datura and other hallucinogens.
- CARLOS CASTANEDA: THE ROAD TRIP
In the late spring, early summer of 1960 a colleague of Carlos Castaneda suggested that he and Castaneda go on a road trip together --- the cumulation of which ended in the very first meeting between Castaneda and Don Juan Matus.
- WILLIAM LAWRENCE CAMPBELL
The colleague that first directed Castaneda to Don Juan is either left anonymous or given only the first name "Bill" in all of Castaneda's writings. Here he is identified and his background explored.
- THE POTHUNTER
More insights into the background of Castaneda's anonymous colleague "Bill," only this time by a person who met him.
- CARLOS CASTANEDA: DON JUAN MATUS AND THE NOGALES BUS STATION MEETING
Castaneda is actually seen at the Nogales Greyhound bus station with his colleague Bill at the sametime he claims to have met Don Juan there.
- CARLOS CASTANEDA: THE SHAMAN AND THE POWER OF THE OMEN
Not one bit of what Castaneda has presented to the world would have unfolded the way it did without Castaneda's positive acceptance and eventual follow through from the suggestion of his colleague to go on the Road Trip. This site states that acceptance was based on what Don Juan has cited as being not only an omen, but a PERFECT OMEN.
- JULIAN OSORIO: DON JUAN'S TEACHER
Don Juan taught Castaneda. So who was Don Juan's teacher? At age 20 Don Juan is said to have come in contact with a master sorcerer named Julian Osorio who introduced him into a lineage of sorcerers that was 25 generations long. Here you can learn of their meeting.
- CARLOS CASTANEDA: BEFORE DON JUAN
What was Carlos Castaneda like before he ever met Don Juan. What did he do, who did he know? Find out from someone who met him in those early days.
- ELIAS ULLOA
Don Juan taught Castandea. Osorio was Don Juan's teacher. If the lineage was 25 generations long, who taught Osorio? Osorio's teacher was Elias Ulloa, who transmitted to BOTH he and Don Juan the full knowledge of Ulloa's lineage of sorcerers. True or false?
- DIABLERO
From Spanish: diablo, devil --- a sorcerer connoting a sense of evilness; usually with the ability to shapeshift. In seeming contrast to the above link, Don Juan Matus was said by Castaneda to have learned his craft from a Diablero.
- THE DEATH DEFIER
The Death Defier was a human from long ago that on becoming a shaman-sorcerer used his powers to try and escape death. Trapped between this world and the world of inorganic beings he made an alliance with Don Juan's lineage of Shaman-sorcerers to stay alive in exchange for knowledge.
- CLOUD SHAMANS
In an experience in the desert between himself and the mysterious bio-searcher called the informant, the informant, cloaked by shimmering desert heat waves, simply seemed to evaporate into the rocks and sagebrush without a trace, leaving Castaneda without a source.
- CASTANEDA, DON JUAN: DATURA OR PEYOTE?
When it comes to the use of drugs and hallucinogens most people associate Carlos Castaneda with Peyote. However, it wasn't Peyote but actually the plant Sacred Datura, known throughout in the desert southwest as jimsonweed, that played the primary role in his early experiences into other realities.
- CASTANEDA, DON JUAN MATUS: INTRODUCTION SCENES
Even though the initial introduction between Carlos Castaneda and Don Juan Matus in the bus station in Nogalas changes in minor respects between the various Don Juan books there is a major common theme that runs throughout ALL of them that does NOT change.
- LA CATALINA
Carlos Castaneda's and Don Juan's most formidable foe and arch nemesis. Known to both as a horrendous witch sorceress. Able to change forms, vanish at will, and cast spells.
- THE ALLY IN SHAMANISM
Is the ally in shamanism real? An actual spiritual entity, an ethereal or inorganic-being of some sort called up from the spirit world or beyond the conventional plane by the Shaman or sorcerer to assist them in accomplishing their tasks or deeds however pure or unsavory? Or is Castaneda's concept of an ally really no more than a conceptual construct?
- THE SEVEN COMPONENT THEMES OF SHAMANISM AS PRESCRIBED BY CARLOS CASTANEDA
The goal of Castaneda's teachings is to show how to become a man of knowledge. He writes there are seven proper components to become a man of knowledge: (1) it is a matter of learning; (2) have unbending intent ; (3) have clarity of mind; (4) it is a strenuous labor; (5) be a warrior; (6) it is an unceasing process; and (7) have an ally.
- CARLOS CASTANEDA: TIMELINE
CASTANEDA: Birth, death, publication dates. Even a link to his obituary with a link to his death certificate.
ABOUT THE WANDERLING AS THE AUTHOR OF THE MAJORITY OF THE ABOVE PAGES:
Over and over people ask why is it that they should accept what I have written about Castaneda as having any amount of credibility?
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For one thing I personally knew, met and interacted with Castaneda many times --- however, it was done so long before Castaneda became Castaneda. Matter of fact he was still a nobody student trying hard to obtain an AA degree from Los Angeles City College, working at Mattel Toy Company, and when I knew him, considered himself mostly as an aspiring artist rather than anything that remotely resembled an author or shaman. Secondly, and unrelated to Castaneda and I knowing each other, my uncle was the Informant that is so widely mentioned in Castaneda's works both by him and others, that introduced him to the rites and rituals of the use of the plant Sacred Datura that sent him into his initial experiences of altered states. Third, because things in Castaneda's life, lore, and legend have been repeated over and over so often that they have taken on a life of their own rather true or not, in an attempt on my part to confirm, clear up, or have them discounted, I have interviewed, talked to, or conversed with a number of individuals that were prominent in his life --- especially so in areas that raise conflict when people read one thing about him and I write another.
Originally when I first started writing about Castaneda it was for one reason only. It had to do with help substantiating an incident in my life that revolved around what are known in Buddhism and Hindu spiritual circles under the ancient Sanskrit word Siddhis. Siddhis are supernormal perceptual states that once fully ingrained at a deep spiritual level can be utilized by a practitioner to initiate or inhibit incidents that are beyond the realm of typical everyday manifestation.
In that the incident that occurred in my life, although bordering on the edges of what is generally conceived in the west as Shamanism or possibly the occult, was actually deeply immersed on the eastern spiritual side of things. To bridge the understanding between the eastern and western concepts I brought in for those who may have been so interested the legacy of one of the most well read practitioner of such crafts in the western world, Carlos Castaneda. Although highly controversial and most certainly not the fully unmitigated expert in the field, he is widely read and a known figure when mentioned, by camps both pro and con. So said, Castaneda has the highest profile in of all individuals to have claimed the ability through shamanistic rituals the ability to fly --- thus, for reasons as they related to me I used Castaneda in my works as an example. In doing so it opened a virtual Pandora's Box of never ending controversy, causing me to either ignore or substantiate what I presented. Hence, as questions were raised by me in my own writing or raised by those who read my material more pages were created to explain who, what, when, where, and why.
SO, DID THE WANDERLING FLY?
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The following people were all major movers in the life of Carlos Castaneda, and at one time or the other I met and talked with them all, which is more than most people who write about Castaneda has ever done. And I only did so on and off over time primarily to clarify questions about Castaneda that I had read that just did not make sense. Most people who question what I have presented about Castaneda simply gather their information from the standard already in existence party line. Some of the people I've talked to in reference to Castaneda who, following some rather extended discussions, clarified a lot for me --- after Castaneda himself of course, others are people like C. Scott Littleton, Alex Apostolides, Barbara G. Myerhoff, Edward H. Spicer, Clement Meighan, who Castaneda dedicated his first book to, and Castaneda's ex-wife Margaret Runyan.
Interestingly enough, my interview with Runyan came about because before she married Castaneda, she had been engaged to another author, the cowboy and western writer, with over 100 books to his credit, Louis L'amour. It just so happened my uncle who, if you recall, was the Informant in Castaneda lore, just happened to know L'Amour. My uncle took me with him one day he went to see L'Amour. When I had a chance to meet Runyan years later I used me knowing L'Amour as the wedge to talk with her. As it was, and not many people know about it, my uncle, who was influential with Castaneda also, along with another man deeply seeped in Native American spiritual lore by the name of H. Jackson Clark, worked together funneling Native American spiritual facts to L'Amour used as a theme in two of his books that borderlined much of what Castaneda wrote about, titled The Californios and Haunted Mesa.
YOU CAN EASILY CIRCLE THROUGH ALL FIFTEEN CASTANEDA SITES BY SIMPLY CONTINUING TO CLICK THROUGH THE "NEXT" LINK BELOW. EACH PAGE HAS A SIMILAR SITE
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WHAT HAPPENED TO AWAKENING 101 AND THE GEOCITIES PAGES?
