Word: castaneda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...pursue this new myth? Urban life in the U.S. is a poor training ground for becoming a hunter and a warrior, especially without a teacher. As in any discipline, a teacher is an essential. Each of Castaneda's books is terribly exciting, but after a few weeks the inspiration to live like a warrior fades. Don Juan would laugh at anyone for even trying to learn it from a book...
...Juan also tells Castaneda that a warrior must have a worthy opponent, and that Castaneda's opponent is a sorceress named La Catalina. La Catalina appeared briefly in A Separate Reality as a trap (Don Juan later admits) to ensnare Castaneda's warrior spirit. She is a formidable foe, yet she inexplicably fails to kill Castaneda when he bungles an encounter with her. As suddenly as she is brought up, La Catalina is mysteriously dropped after one chapter. For his final showdown with her, Castaneda will need an "ally," a spirit he must conquer for his personal...
Much is left hanging in this final installment. The highly imaginative, novelistic qualities of Castaneda's three books have led some people to doubt that Don Juan exists. A few paranoid hippies doubt even that Castaneda exists. (He does). But whether it is Castaneda's fiction or the turn of real events, the narrative has taken its readers for a bizarre ride. The popularity of the first book can be explained in part by the fascination with psychedelic drugs which peaked near the time of its publication. The accounts of supernatural events told in sober, unadorned prose were a welcome...
However, with this book, Castaneda seems well on his way to creating a new mythology designed for the Western hemisphere. Don Juan's teachings can be analyzed as a melange of Zen, Sufism, the dream control of Tibetan Buddhism, and other disciplines. But this essentially Eastern message is transmitted by a member of the fierce Yaquis of northern Mexico, the only unconquered tribe of North America. Don Juan is no pacifist and no vegetarian--he is a warrior. The natural world of predator and prey is his pantheon: the cactus, rattlesnake, coyote, mountain lion--all of which are equal...
...ally as female-like: violent, cruel, unpredictable. On the other hand, mescalito, the spirit of peyote, is described as male-like: kind, generous, giver of pleasure. Don Juan can be kind and nurturant towards his protege, but the emphasis is always on stoic courage. It appears no accident that Castaneda's opponent is the deadly sorceress La Catalina, who is the only woman in the three books...