When I was twelve or thirteen years old (around 1972, I believe), my older brother brought a paperback book home from college that he had to read for some course he was taking; a book that didn't seem to really interest him, yet fascinated me:  It was the second of Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan books, "A Separate Reality".  The tale unfolded therein struck a chord in me that rang deep and true.  I had been hungry for some sort of other explanation for the "way things were" as a form of spiritual sustenance, other than the fundamentalist Southern Baptist "war rations" I was being fed as a kid, which I sensed (instinctively) to be wrong for my constitution.  Believe me, Southern Baptist "war rations" just didn't "sit well" with me. 

By this time, I was already a brave little thinker, and had been deeply dissatisfied with all the explanations given me for "how things were" to the point of figuring out that mythology held more secrets to the true nature of things than the Southern Baptist Party Line.  Let's just say that Castaneda's mythos clicked with my own (still being discovered) mythos.  What I read between the covers of Castaneda's book sang out inside of me in a way that nothing else ever had, and I actually felt a little bit "sated" spiritually; finally--here was something I could grasp and understand as a much more logical representation of HOW THINGS WERE. 

It must be understood that I have always held a dim view of religions of any sort, in general. To me, a "fundamentalist" Wiccan or devout Satanist is just as off-base as a fundamentalist Christian. Anything organized under only one view or dogma just feels wrong and, well, downright dangerous to me as an entity.  Religion, or the total subjugation of your own personal will and spirit in awe of and in "service" to something that has to be bigger than you and know what's best for you just strikes me as creepy.  The true nature of spirit must transcend religion. We have Wills, we have minds, we have the ability to form Intent; we should not, then, hold ourselves as "beneath" anything that might exist outside of our normal dimensional selves. Can we not simply be trained (or follow our intuition and train ourselves) to use our innate interdimensional capabilities to interface as equals with this phenomenon?

The classic illustration of the silliness of it all is the segment in "Monty Python's Meaning Of Life", in the chapel at the English boy's school, where Michael Palin begins the prayer "Oh, Lord, You-Who-Are-So-Big, gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you.,,please don't boil us in oil or stew us in a pot..." You get the idea. Why must we feel so "inferior"?  This is where Castaneda spoke to me.

Don Juan met the Universe head-on as an equal--as a Warrior, not as some weak, awe-stricken piece of chattel.  His entire purpose was to NOT be absorbed into "the Eagle" (primal energy source or "god", if you will), but to KEEP your individual consciousness and outwit (or "go around") "the Eagle", and thus onward to the complete and utter freedom to explore and experience the entire Universe for eternity.  Pop in on the material plane now and then to see how things are shakin', and then dematerialize and go play--wink in, wink out.  That's what a true Wizard should be able to do.  That "kicked ass", as I recall my thirteen-year-old Self thinking at the time:  "Beats the hell out of sitting around playing a harp, picking lint out of my wings and singing "Cumbayah" for all eternity..."

Here was (finally) a clue to me that my own feelings about "how things were" might actually have some validity after all.  You must understand that it's difficult to hold on to such very weird individual convictions when assaulted by the Bludgeon of Banality on a continuous basis. Add to this the resonance I already felt with the song "Wind Up" ("I don't believe you, you got the whole damned thing all wrong...He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday...") on the "Aqualung" album by Jethro Tull, and, of course, John Lennon singing "God is a concept by which we measure our pain", and my own path to power began to take a decidedly different tone than "the family" would have liked, had they known. Of course, having the gnosis I was growing up "behind enemy lines", so to speak (as far as personal beliefs and expression of those beliefs, anyway), I learned to close myself and hide what was really going on inside at an early age, thus actually completing a substantial segment of my "Wizard's training" on my own, as a lad. 

As the rest of the Castaneda books became available in paperback, I gobbled them up eagerly, searching for more things I could utilize in my quest for knowledge.  I began to do the "light/shadow" "unfocused eye" techniques by the age of sixteen, and when I read "The Eagle's Gift", I was elated.  It contains a passage where Carlos falls on his knees in reverence and love to a "light entity" on a bridge that he feels is "God".  Don Juan and crew are laughing their asses off at him, and he gets huffy (in true Carlitos style) and wants to know why. 

Don Juan explains that the thing that most people feel "awe and Love" for as "God" is simply the stamp or mold of the human energy field, literally "the Mold of Man".  Thus, falling on your knees in "awe" of "god" is sorta like a plastic Gumby and Pokey bowing and scraping before the injection mold that stamped them. Ah, at last! Someone else who understood! I had recently read "Autobiography of a Yogi" and was extremely puzzled at why sitting around in a bliss coma was considered the epitome of enlightenment. There had to be something more.

Don Juan, if he existed at all, through Castaneda, had given me access to morphic fields I could then begin to explore and shape my own spiritual beliefs from.  Very important for a witch child in a Puritan household. 

As I got slightly older, I became wrapped up in the trials tribulations of trying to "get through with" being a "unique" teenager in a backwater South Texas town (no small feat),  and then on to my early twenties--due to the bewildered and naive state I was in, I didn't really think of Castaneda's principles as more than mental fodder.  (Believe me, I am painfully learning that there can, sadly, be no such thing as a "naive sorcerer"...ouch!)  I had not really thought to use them in an active way in my daily life, other than to protect myself. I still lacked the confidence (and experience) to wield power. A stint at that spiritual concentration camp known as Baylor University only served, through several embarrassing sidetracks, to strengthen my convictions. I felt stymied in my growth, since there is only so much you can glean from a book. I explored as much as my then-shy self would allow, eagerly absorbing any information that seemed to "fit" or "feel right". After several detours through "trying to be normal", I surfaced from the still waters of Lake Mundane in my late twenties just in time for the Crystal Twit explosion of the eighties. 

I became an eager customer at that establishment known as the "All-You-Can-Stomach New-Age Buffet":  "Let's see...this week, let's go out for Channeling...we had Take-out Tarot last week, and Drive-thru Shamanic Drumming the week before.  I've been wanting something a little exotic, even though we are meeting Bob and Sue for Sweat Lodge on Thursday..." and so forth.  Kind of embarrassing, in retrospect. 

My involvement with a group who were experimenting with Grofian Breathwork finally blasted me open, and things were never quite the same.  The links to the Castaneda teachings I had already internalized were phenomenal, and I eagerly re-read all the books.  When Castaneda's "The Art Of Dreaming" finally came out, I was astounded by his description of the "dreaming emissary" and the little creatures that jumped in and out of your chest, radiating love. 

Several years later, in 1995, when my friend SMiles Lewis introduced me to the writings of His Most High Cozmick Squirreliness, Terence McKenna, I was agog.  He also describes little guys who jump in and out of you, radiating love, and he describes a voice he calls "the Logos" that sounded just like Castaneda's "dreaming emissary" to me.  This led me to undertake the experiences documented in the series of articles entitled "Off To See The Elves" (elsewhere on this site).  I regret that the only thing preventing further research amongst said elves is lack of cash for "research materials"...Oh, well...

Alas, my bubble of steadfast faith in Castaneda as a sorcerer and an instrument of truth (yes, a HERO) was also about to be burst by my dear friend, SMiles, who showed me articles by his colleague Adam GoRightly which damned Castaneda as a blatant fraud.  A total fake.  An absolute zero on the scale of truth. 

Bummer, dude.

I didn't feel any easier when I was doing temporary office work for a true "Type A" yuppie, a man in his mid-fifties, a real "go-getter" in the worlds of finance, etc.  The scene around his home office was so totally unreal that I had a hard time hanging on to my sense of Self while there.  I looked up from my  tasks one day to see a flyer advertising a "Weekend Workshop For Men With Carlos Castaneda" pinned to the bulletin board.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I casually asked the yupster what this was about.  He then began to outline the sad story of what I was already uneasily guessing:  Castaneda had devolved into just another New-Age Tony Robbins Huckster with a schtick, which was, evidently, holding very expensive workshops and helping all these shut-down yuppie jerks cry about their daddies.  I lost all faith later in the week when another friend proudly thrust his new copy of the "Warrior Exercise" book and VIDEO at me.  Did the man know no shame?  Sorry...bitter?  Oh, a tad...but wait, there's more.  The article in Utne Reader (hey--it was at a friend's house, OK?) by Castaneda's WIFE (Hello?  Carlos was married?) about the first and only meeting between Carlos and Timothy Leary.  Evidently Leary and cohorts were total jerk-offs, making fun of Carlos' polyester suit and other such "enlightened"  things...Ah, well, so much for THAT particular fantasy "meeting of the minds!"

Then finally came the mysterious news in June of 1998 that Carlos Castaneda had died of liver cancer back in April of 1998.  I was left with a lot of weird, conflicting feelings.  OK--so what if the guy was a fraud.  He still wrote things that gave a frightened little warlock boy something to hang onto when he needed it most.  So the little boy is (slowly) outgrowing his security blanket.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the dependence on the blanket was a bad thing, or that the blanket itself was bad.  Michael Ventura's sensitive article in The Austin Chronicle after Castaneda's death brought me to tears, literally.  I had read previous things by Ventura on Castaneda, and they gave me insight to what may have been a side of the man that no one else could have reported.  They helped to soften my somewhat harsh and still very confusing feelings.

A true sorcerer wouldn't die of liver cancer.  How dare he?  A true sorcerer wouldn't allow himself to be wedged next to Shirley McClaine and Ramtha on the New-Age Fitness Workout-Video shelf.  How dare he?  I guess the question I should have been asking was this:  How dare I have the need to make a god out of this obvious, well, man?  Heroes are tough to have, and tough to lose.  When we hold someone out, over and above other things as something special, something "sacred" (ugh!), something to look up to, we screw ourselves royally.  I was really worshipping the first tree I saw, when I should have been making my way through the forest to a hilltop clearing to get a better view.

Other of my "heroes" have fallen, (musical, political, etc.) and yet not had the impact of the fall of Carlos Castaneda from the lofty pedestal upon which I had so precariously perched him.  The end result of it, I think, has been the de-Romanticising of my whole approach to this phenomenon.  No more bowing and scraping, no more awe-stricken descriptions of "the Light":  no more mystical mumbo jumbo--just the facts, ma'am.

I simply wish to collect information and go about my business, thank you. I also know, however, the Universe extracts a price for any knowledge that it grants you; this I have found to be true in every case.

I have been finally convinced that, although we should honor those who help blaze the paths we choose to tread, we should not, at any time, hold any one individual out as a Hero, or Guru, for that matter.  Anyone who proclaims themselves as any sort of "master" should automatically be subject to the most sincere scrutiny, and, rather than give your total devotion, why not just give a sincere thanks, and give back a gift of goodwill, and be on your way?  Why "worship" anyone?  That automatically conjures up images of being a helpless, lost little sheep, who needs guidance.  I'm sorry, but that's not quite where I am. I'm what I would call a semi-conscious, everawakening Individual who requires information to keep evolving. 

I simply request a civil interface with "That Which Can Truly Give More Information."   (Key word: truly). I don't really feel the need to grovel at the feet of anything, to tell you the truth. I don't think it's healthy.

So...

Hey, Carlos, wherever you are: 

I thank you for providing me with reinforcement of my own beliefs at a time in my life when I greatly needed it, and for providing additional information I needed to re-shape them further on down the road.  I am sorry that I kinda missed the boat on a few things, but, hey...I'm catchin' up.  Didn't mean to put so much pressure on you, honest.  So, by the way, if all that terrible stuff that everybody's saying about you is true, then, that's cool too, dude--don't sweat it, I forgive ya; Middle Earth wasn't true, and I don't hate Tolkien, ya know?  Geez, man, I even named one of my cats after you, OK? So, Carlos, if we ever bump into one another "out there", I'd like to buy you a beer, shoot the shit, and give ya a hug, OK?

Later, dude.