As someone native from South America, descendant from (Quechua/aymara), when i read Castaneda's books i saw many things that i previously experienced, specially around the amazonas. Many of the things he speaks about, entities and the power of the night and open areas, i can say that he speaks factually. Many natives who never went out to civilazation and stood in their villages have knowledge that he speaks about very clearly, even body techniques. To me, his work is a door to the occult that not many can reach, and he shares it. People waste a lot of time arguing about whether everything was a farse or about females he had relationships with. It's more a reflection of who you are and why it pisses you off, or makes you invest so much time discrediting. (Not meaning your video, i mean in general). People need to go out and find for themselves. Btw south america experimented through thousands of years with Ayahuasca. Yet the component of that plant and Peyote, as well as other cultures (Africa specially) who are believed to have aquired consciousness through the usage of such plants, with help of "beings". Our reality today is basically cement.

In the early 70s I was a university student interested in eastern philosophy and psychedelics. I had two experiences that were powerful but baffling to me. Two or three years later I encountered the Don Juan books and was startled to find my experiences described as losing the human form and hearing the voice of seeing. I was hooked on reading all the works. Not being a joiner I never became involved with the movement. After reading Castaneda I did have other experiences similar to those from the Books but the pre exposure experiences seem the most uncanny. The later books were mostly about Stalking which involves intentional creation of a false crisis to move the students assemblage point for magical experiences. At 73 I remain puzzled but unable to completely dismiss Castaneda.

My sister owned a hippie bookstore in the early 70’s and that’s where I read Castaneda. It was a mind trip for me at 14 years old. Wild times indeed.

Are you familiar with Merilyn Tunneshende? She wrote two books 📚 Medicine Dream-A Woman' Encounter with the Healing Realms of Don Juan and Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy. In the second book on pg 219 she describes Don Juan's death 💀. On pg 124 she describes diagnosing CC liver cancer. On pg 221 she talks about CC death 💀 in April 1998. No one mentioned her name in the comments so I 🤔 thought I would.😉

I was first introduced to the Castaneda books when I was 16 (76). They had a profound effect on me. They were my first introduction to metaphysical thought, other than Chrisianity that is. I am now 63. The exploration of consciousness has remained a primary interest.Having joined and left a cult myself, I can attest to the desire to find a teacher/guru that has walked the path before us. Jesus was a leader, that in the early days, was considered by many a cult leader and heratic. Read the history of early Christianity. Castaneda talked about how our description of the world influences our experience. Regardless of whether Don Juan was fiction, that notion remains true. What we believe, our description, does influence our perception and experience of the world. Whether you trust the findings of quantam physics, the Monroe Institute, Hinduism, Christianity, Magic, New Thought, Shamanism, the Placebo effect, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, or any number of other groups studying consciouncess, they all point to the same thing. Belief, i.e. thought + feelings, intersect with materialism. Matter is not solid. Consciousness is fundamental.

Ive read all of Castaneda's books and found them very interesting and thought provoking. And believable. My favourite is Tales Of Power.

I was drawn to the castaneda books in 71 after returning from viet nam. LSD, pot, left me with life altering experiences and also a good deal of confusion. Casataneda capitalized on that moment in time where conciousness expansion was only a toke or pill away. I recall that about the third book i began to see this was a scam, no doubt making castaneda wealthy, famous, and sexually satisfied. He was a gifted story teller but also an ass, preying on other peoples earnest desire to reach some deeper understanding of life. Turns out we're our own best teacher when we learn to listen to the spirit within. No mediator required though honest others are helpful.

My teacher in Tecate, the medicine man of the Yaquis, knew Carlos and helped him write the books. He told Carlos “if you make any money from these books bring some back to the tribe”. He never did. My teacher always referred to him as Pinche Carlos. Carlos took the spiritual practices of the Yaquis and twisted it for his own power. It is sad to see so many still follow Carlos

The eternal question: Can one separate the art from the artist? Carlos Castaneda was a captivating and gifted writer. Unfortunately, later on he became an abusive cult leader and egomaniac. On which basis do we judge him - by his art, or his personal life? I read his books as a teenager and young adult. I was hooked by his first three books which caught my imagination - so much so, that I once had a powerful acid trip that was inspired subconsciously by his writings. By the fourth book, however, I realized Castaneda was a huckster. Fraud or not, he was a fine storyteller. There was even a little wisdom in his books, sprinkled among the bullshit. Fertilizer does help the flowers grow, after all. It's a shame he didn't heed his own writings and grow wise as he aged. He did the opposite; he became a monster. At least he left three wonderful books for the world to read. Thanks for this wonderful video, and your two subsequent ones on this topic. I am currently reading "Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Amy Wallace. I highly recommend it.

Nice piece. It is probably difficult now at this later date to understand why these books were so important within the context of the time in which they were written. It was necessary THEN for me to hear what he had to say,(both Castenada and Don Juan ) and to incorporate, or square that into/with my understanding of the world. To have a more vital and comprehensible connection with the mystical and unseen forces I felt/sensed were otherwise all around us, but just beyond my knowing. I made some of my own investigations (as did my friends) into the metaphysical and altered states of consciousness spoken about. because I was a curious/seeking young man of that era. This videos information is interesting, but really does nothing to diminish the first books as they concerned or influenced myself or others I knew then (1970's). Certainly one of those, "you had to have been there" points in time in order to fully appreciate the cultural context. Likewise with Hesse's 'Siddartha' or McKenna's books, or even in some ways Richard Brautigan's poetry and verse. All still relevant, but also very era specific too. Thanks

I have always been enamored with Castanedas writings. The concepts seemed incongruous but they always had an element of truth. No self importance, no feelings of In superiority , or feelings of failure. Cutting off the internal dialogue is very important to developing the magic of Don Juan. This is all rather disconcerting and I would love to do further research on this whole subject.

It doesn’t matter that Carlos made it all up. His work stands as an amazing work of fiction regardless. It’s too bad Carlos went nuts and formed a cult around himself. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Around 1976 I visited Carlos Castaneda's house in the farming country north of Los Angeles, near Carpinteria. I went and knocked on his front door and the door was answered by an Hispanic woman whom I took to be his housekeeper. She said that he wasn't home and wouldn't be back for some days so I gave up and continued my motorcycle trip. I wonder if the woman I talked to was one of his "witches"?

Interesting, there's no mention of his son, and that the women close to him controlled all of his finances, except the one found dead of course. Did the finances magically disappear with them as well? Perhaps that's another video...SRi

I was in a position to interact with Carlos Castaneda on two occasions at UCLA in the early seventies because I knew two young women, roommates, who had both dated him. He readily admitted his primary motivation in writing the books and getting his PhD. stemmed from deep feelings of personal insecurity based on his ethnicity and background. He said (something along the lines of) ‘I’m a short, brown Hispanic man from Peru who very much wanted to get dates with tall blonde girls, and obtaining my PhD was my goal so I could ‘score.’ The two girls I knew who introduced me to him basically supported that premise. Their friendship with him bore this out. He wrote his books in the library at UCLA and gleaned the hodgepodge of philosophical BS they contained from other philosophical and spiritual books he read. He mixed in colorful stories from his own trips in and around Latin America and the American southwest. And he exploited the interests of the era in altered states of consciousness. He created a fictional narrative that he exploited meet girls who otherwise would have never even noticed him. It was all a ‘schtick.’ Even he admitted it.

I am an old Hippie, coming along as Hippiedom was just coalescing. A product of the psychedelic experience was the ever broadening of what Reality encompassed. A friend had written a book, THE PSYCHEDELIC GUIDE TO THE PREPARATION OF THE EUCHARIST, which very clearly describes how to create many psychedelics. Soon we were roaming the South Texas desert searching for peyote from which we chemically extracted mescaline. In the desert area were local peyote pickers, licensed to provide the plant to Native Americans. Later, as I became aware of the Don Juan series I realized that the story was likely a work of imagination. It bore too much of the experiences that the “psychedelic experience” had already proven to be imaginary. The REAL MAGIC that took place was how real Love is and how close to the psychological surface it truly lays.

I read Travels to Ixylan years ago and loved the way it challenged my concepts of reality. I never took it as a literal account of events but rather an imaginary and mythical dive into spirituality. I enjoyed it from that perspective. Erasing personal history goes back to early Christianity when one is born again. Nothing new here. Historically cults arise during times of conflict, change and or cataclysmic events. There is a good book that addresses this phenomena called “The First Messiah.”

Since they taught erasing personal history this seems to be the strongest clue.

If you want to find out the truth, follow the money. Who is in charge or benifiting from the eagles gift trust.

The historical moment you describe is not over at all. Meditation is more popular than ever but "gurus" or cult leaders are no longer very noticeable. The MSM however has lost interest decades ago. I read and loved his books in the '60's and I am still at it in terms of enquiring into consciousness. I have never become disillusioned even though some teachers were less than they claimed, because our consciousness itself is endlessly fascinating. From where does it arise?

I met Castaneda around 1994 up north México City, during a three day seminar about Transegrity, attended by hundreds of people, many of them younger than me, with lots of loyal women recieving and headed the "lessons" to visitors like me and "pupils" who payed a fee, the last day Castaneda himself held a talking and talked to a small group of press reporters --me among them. So, that is why I liked your video, Sean, since I somehow understand what you talk about in general, but those women dissapearing was something I didn't know, the theme here is treated very seriously here by you, congratulations 😮

*Funny that for the one of them witches you couldn't find any photo is Kylie Lundahl. Because here, on youtube, there's long interview with her and two more, explaining the lineage of Castaneda's mystic path and so on. Also, wherever you see a pictures of a woman in black jump suit, showing the 'Tensegrity' movements - that's Kylie. Blond, shorthaired, looking exactly like Nuri, Florinda and who know who else more of their magic convent.

I love everything about the warriors and Castanedians!

One important aspect of this story is that the ritualistic use of peyote, datura and other halucinogenic plants that was a part of Castaneda's 'cult' could lead to mental derangement and insanity. Especially when used over an extended period of time, these drugs can be very damaging to one's mental health. These poor women may well have been completely out of their minds by the time Castaneda died.

Nicely done. I was hooked by Carlos Castaneda’s adventures back in ‘73 and continued to read him right up to the bitter end, more out of lurid fascination at the whole saga than credulous adherence to his fantastic claims, which, if taken as psychotropic Vaseline dreams, might have loosely passed as phenomenological reports. They never were convincing enough that I would follow him over a cliff. Delving into his sources, digging out the truth of the matter occupied me for years. I think the philosophic seeds strewn throughout his far flung yarns owe more to Gurdjieff, Karlfried Von Durkheim, Alan Watts and others than to a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus. According to his ex-wife “Matus” was Castaneda’s favorite brand of port. Cheers! Tensegrity’s “magical passes” are clearly no more than rehashed Qi Gong-in fact his book “The Fire From Within” bears a dedication to his martial arts instructor. And having read, God help me, the “witches’” books as well, I believe those manuscripts were quite likely written by Castaneda himself in his tireless campaign to shore up the credibility of his mythos. The writing style reads exactly like his. Recently I went back and had a look at his writings from “Tales of Power” on (I have a whole file box stowed away in the garage) and found his schtick completely unreadable-just plain bad writing. Oh well, live and learn.

Cleargreen had to drop the term "Tensegrity" to "magical passes" because Buckminster Fuller's estate threatened a lawsuit.... Tensegrity is the foundation of geodesic domes as related by Buckminster Fuller. It combines the words tension and integrity. The very thing that makes structures impervious to outside influence. The book is "Critical Path". It is a cracking good read and then some... The point of Castaneda's teachings is internal silence It's all about challenging perception❤❤

Carlos was a fiction writer who used the growing popularity of psychedelic drugs to create fantastic stories of alternative realities. The lesson I learned from his writing is that THE BRAIN is the creator of all experiences high or low. When you introduce certain substances it alters brain activity and produces unusual changes in perception. Once I realized that I stopped trying to alter my consciousness and accepted ordinary awareness.

As a pre tee. I met Mr Castaneda, I spent time with some of the witches, I totally distrusted and hated him, he felt the same in spades.. .....

I ve been practising tensegrity before and it really worked. I never been into groups or leaders so i did it on my own. I started doing it again few days ago and it brings me energy and peace and the rest of drama I don’t care about.. not trying to jump from the cliff either ..but i always wondered what happened to Kylie L.

It's been interesting to reread the Castenada's first books recently and come across this critique. I feel (I don't know) his first book had some information that did come from Native Americans. Carlo's first experience with Mescalito is very different from the laid back high I observed in friends back in the 1970s when many thought doing drugs was cool. Now we have a resurgence of interest in Shamanism with the Ayahuasca drug who's point is to meet entities in another dimension. Rereading the first book it seems to me he is warning people of the dangers of hallucinogens and shamans by his awful experiences. Having seen people damaged by drugs back in the 1970s, especially jimsom weed and morning glories, it's amazes me why so many of my generation tried the drugs described in his books. Having met shaman, as designated by their tribe, they scare the hell out of me. Castaneda did plagiarize from a lot of sources that I find entertaining and some quotes valuable to me. After his third book I became convinced even in my teenage years he went into writing fantasy that I still found entertaining. I'm just hoping the first book isn't made into a movie, I'd hate to see young people pursue shamanism through drugs that can do permanent damage to their brains and nervous system. Please don't attempt to find knowledge from the drugs Carlos describes. As for the cult that Carlos surrounded himself with should be described as a horrible failure. Sorry for the women who thought they had found a path to spiritual powers, but ended up succumbing to one man's fantasy.

I read Castaneada's books as a teenager in the mid 80's. They blew my mind and changed the direction of my life. I became an acupuncturist and functional medicine practitioner. I explored his tensegrity system in the late-90's, and came to the conclusion that it was a rip off of simplistic Chinese Qi Gong and Taoist energy cultivation practices. I also realized back in the mid 90's that Castaneada fabricated the entire story.

Alan Watts named it perfectly: Once you got the message, put down the phone. CC got the message but wanted more and as always attracted some lost individuals who couldn't accept that this life is "just that much".

In or about 1998 I wrote to Deepak Chopra and asked if he ever read the 'Power Of Silence' He wrote back and said that it was one of his favorite books.

"Erasing personal history' is a basic method of all manipulators, even jealous husbands and wifes. It's easy to control someone with no familly and friend-ties. That is why cult-leaders using this method. No one need a 'saviour'. We are our own saviour and guru. Do not give away your power to anyone, by thinking, that they are better than you. As they say: "we are one", so why would anyone would search for a guru, or an authority figure to undermine his/her divinity? I enjoyed your story.

"I know it's fake, but it feels so right." Presumably Castaneda fan-girls

LIFEIowa 1 minute ago Kylie Lundahl is De Ann Jo Ahlvers from Iowa- she has 2 adult sons, who are looking for her. IF anyone knows where she is her Sons would like to Connect with her. Thank you.

If you hear of any updates please keep us posted. The whole saga fascinates me. Esp after reading all of his books multiple times and almost going off the edge myself

One question that you don't seem to have addressed is: Who got the money from CC's estate? He was a best-selling author and I'm sure royalties are still flowing (or trickling by now) into the coffers of someone. Did these women have access to a couple of million dollars and just go set themselves up in a compound somewhere else? As to the frustration with the police investigations, in the absence of any indications of foul play, the police are (quite rightly) inclined to presume that someone who doesn't want to be found is really not their business.

I'm of the generation that first read Castaneda, and read his first in 1969 when I was 18. Sean is correct when he says we were fascinated with altered states of consciousness, but I and everyone I knew understood that Castaneda was fiction, but that he had some acquired some knowledge of shamanistic practices including the peyote rituals, and found it a very interesting understanding of the universe. I still do. It's a lot more fun than christianity, et al.

...I was given the Carlos Castaneda book I mentioned in reaction to another post mid-eighties for a birthday... That means that all this happened AFTER I'd read the book. Because I was a small child in the seventies and wasn't even alive during the sixties, I sort of assumed this was like ancient history. Wow! Thanks for that contextualization!

Great video thanks for it looking for videos on this subject

thanks for the awesome video! i still think about them...

There is some profound knowledge in that fiction, yet the crux of it is very depressing. I took copious notes on the books. LOL. Tried to piece together something practical. One problem is spending 5 years in a small crate to recapitulate. Another is erasing personal history. There are other branches of Toltecs, and they have their problems as well. However, I would say glean what one can from it all and move on. In recognition of Don Juan's advice, self-importance makes one vulnerable to many bad things, including, I would say, scams.

Informative and concise video, subbed!

Im.just stumbling across your channel. I have fond memories of reading the Carlos Castenada books.

Really great that you have researched this. . .as important as Castaneda is to the culture as a writer, he did wield power in very selfish and dangerous ways with his celebrity cult. Amy Wallace’s book Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castandeda is a good look into that world

Superb video mate. Much obliged🤗🤗 His books are far above his own life...interesting to see how he, himself perceived them. Indeed...even if he was a master scammer....the ultimate Irony of Ironies. That said, various themes and concepts in Castanedas books can be found in various other esoteric traditions. Buddhism and various other practices from India. Indeed.....meditation and silence are KEY aspects of all altered states of awhereness.

The liver cancer that claimed Casteneda is most likely due to hepatitis C. Hepatobiliary carcinoma is a common outcome of hep C.

No, the eternal question is, "Why are you wearing headphones?"

Hi Sean, Three of these women were published authors. Who collects those royalties? Great report!

what happened to admiral byrds son ?

Fascinating! I read several of Castenada's books in the early 70's, and enjoyed his stories. Thanks for your film!

I love this video. Castaneda was a incredibly great writer, and it made his stories seem very real. He also knew that Americans were very hungry for what he wrote about. He wrote what everyone wanted to hear and believe at that time in history. Americans are still hungry for mythology and spirituality. Look at all the Big Foot, UFO, DogMan, and inter dimensional stories and videos on KZfaq. They all dabble in the paranormal world that goes beyond science and common reasoning. Castaneda was a genius to have written such elaborate and fantastical stories, about his adventures with someone that didn't even exist. But he also screwed up some people's lives along the way. How many people he left "emotionally gutted" is hard to say. Castaneda talked about certain plants and how to use them according to the Don Juan's instructions. I knew of a guy that ingested the seeds of one of those plants and he went a little crazy after that. Castaneda in his writings said not to ingest the seeds, but for some people that is not a deterrent. It was very sad that some people took Castaneda's BS stories for real. I won't mention the plant and its seeds, so as not to get someone curious about ingesting the seeds themselves. Through his phony teachings, Castaneda hurt people both physically and emotionally. I remember hearing about his death. I felt a bit vindicated that he died. He hadn't disappeared as he suggested he would in all his books. He had died a physical death just like anyone else. Unlike he said Shaman were supposed to do upon knowing they were going to die, Castaneda didn't go out and die in the desert. It sounds like the women actually did what he claimed the Shaman do upon knowing they are going to die. They disappear.

I wouldn't be surprised if they all jumped into a precipice like in his book: Tales of power.

Being able to interpret perception correctly results in finding out how we are habituated to look at the world the way that meets societal needs, not our own.

thanks very much for your work on this subject.

Omg. I used to idolized this guy. I’m tired of getting duped. It’s tiring finding out everything is a cult. Heavy to find out so much all at once, but it’s relieving to take a huge dump and leave it all behind. 😂❤

My advice is don't actually ascribe to Castanedas practices. If you use mushroom, peyote, etc., just let your own ways be found. Many of the indigenous people used the Virgin Mary with mushroom use. The Yaqui's where a hard Indian tribe that used large doses of the hallucinagenic plants and where proably more indoctrinated than other people. Dosage is really the difference between good and evil sometimes when it comes to medicine.

TY for your deep look into the ‘legend’ so many were/are familiar with and your sharing what seems at least to be “the rest of the story …….”

I am a big fan of Castaneda, I read all his books up to Eagles Gift, I was always skeptic of his "adventures" with Don Juan, but there was a lot to learn from his life lessons, I am pretty sure they were borrowed from oriental religion, but they are still valid. After Eagles Gift it became too much slush. I always thought it was fiction/new-age, but it was still lots of things to reflect on one's own life. I value his work and don't judge him for who he may be.

Thank you. Fantastic journalism. I always thought CC had genuine spiritual knowledge, but that he was also reinventing himself in pursuit of his personal objectives. Sounds like a combination of talent, drive, genuine knowledge & personal objectives. Sounds fairly rational, intelligent and human. He doesn’t offend me. Disillusioned former true believers do not alter my mixed assessment. Take what you can use and leave the rest. -Dan

Well done, very impartial article

Theres a book called (I believe) Don Coyote. Was a book that fully DISPROVES the whole Do Juan series. Timelines dont add up. Basically fully proves that it all was a fabricated LIE. Iwas very much a big fan and it crushed me to find out it was all a big lie. Possibly these ",witches" dont exist as well. Some of the knowledge ... perpetated had a lot of real knowledge and I experienced some world changing events as my personal life experience. I cant explain it. I had a moth speak to me. I witnessed the "crack'" between the worlds. Saw what I believed was an "Ally" etc. So the books I believed did contain some real knowledge. Thanks for this video. Very well done. 🤠

Thanks for this excellent video. I'm finishing reading Amy Wallace's book.

Great work! Fantastic.

I’ve read Castaneda’s books a few times; they’re well written, very evocative imagery and I enjoyed them very much. He could’ve had had a good career as an author, too bad that he chose the path that he did.

Castaneda's books had a profound influence upon me as a teenager. Your report cements the disillusionment I eventually experienced over it all - good work!

Good research, thanks!

Great video by the way.

I read Castaneda‘s books in college and found them compelling stories. I just saw them as part of that counter culture drug influenced indigenous kind of appropriation that was relatively common at the time. I remember the controversy when they were debunked but I wasn’t terribly surprised. It’s unfortunate that Castaneda felt compelled to fabricate his research because North American indigenous spirituality strikes me as a fascinating field of study.

I first read The Teaching Of Don Juan as a teenager. I was a deeply seeking person at that time. My older brother had a copy on his bookshelf. This was before Castaneda was exposed as a fraud (or at least long before I became aware of his exposure). I got about 1/4 of the way through the book and said to myself "This sounds like bullshit," and stopped reading. I guess my "detector" has always been in good working order.

Thank you for filling in so many blanks; I was in my early 20s when his book came out, it was on so many bookshelves of my contemporaries, I just never fell into the supposed offerings. It was nonetheless a cultural icon of those times, and has importance as a milestone in my own life. A good and appreciated story you have produced here.

I met Amy Wallace in Berkeley in about 1975. She came to my house with some friends and I remember her in my kitchen. She was a well-known psychic at that time.

Thanks for this video. First time seeing your work. I will check out others. I am revisiting Carlos Castaneda this week, after having read 4 of his books in the 1970s. I never really knew his story or the story of his cult after his fame in the 1970s. I revisited this because of several events in my own life related to one thing that "Don Juan Matus" said to Carlos and it happening in my own life. There have been other articles on this, including one in Salon in 2007 by Robert Marshall who also wrote a novel based on this, "A Separate Reality", which I have not read.

I read many of Castaneda’s books - “Journey to Ixtlan” being my favorite - but when in his later books the Toltec’s were flying around in warlike fashion and Castaneda’s protégés were climbing the walls in his studio I decided this was all too bizarre and frightening for me to continue because I had no intention of following those paths. Castaneda’s descriptions were so believable that I give credibility to their being authentic: I had a friend - the head of a sculpture foundry in N. Mexico who claimed drug-riddled trips into isolated locales in Mexico which sounded very much like those Castaneda described.

There are photos of Kylie Lundahl practicing Tensegrity in Castanadas "Magical Passes" book published 1998.

Not one mention of the late Maria Sabina who was with all respect Don Juan. Maria’s daughter has the knowledge Carlos lightly touches upon but very hard to contact

Appreciate your no-nonsense approach to this story.

Okay, Sean I will accept your premise as you have presented it.

How many organizations founded on some important truths eventually become 'infiltrated' by opportunists without scruples..

When I read Castenada's books in the late 70's I was fascinated by the style of his writing like a child stunned by the wild ride he was on. I found them most entertaining. Later in the 90's I then caught wind of his Tensegrity movement and the drift towards a cult. When I first heard of his death an later about his "Witches" gone missing my imagination once again went wild for a while. Sean with your video you helped me to put this into a context. Thanks for that!

I could easily watch your videos all day long.

Why the appeal?, I think it's pretty simple, he offered hope of something more then the dead materialism of our "culture", and in the beginning before he was seen through he had the veneer of scientific accreditation to back it, make it "believable".

There are many states of consciousness. Conscious, unconscious, drunk, high, and sober

Carlos Casteneda clicked all the righrt boxes for that era of the 70s. He had lived the life that restless middle class adolescents could only dream of. Everyone who was into self transformation, Eastern religions, Native American shamanism, antediluvian lost history, etc. thought he was the ultimate seeker of truth and a bonafide mystic who went out into the desert wilderness to encounter his spiritual Guide. It didn't even occur to any of us that he had made it all up.

I read Casteneda 45 years ago. I remember the end of one book where he with Don Juan and Don Juan Genaro solemly lead a group Nagual/Yaquai's up to the top of a high steep mesa and the rested at the edge of a cliff. The group seemed bemuddled with depressed issues and some of the group had actually made the climb to hurl themselves from it. It was actually the warriors last stand, but maybe it was really suicide as their complex problems of witchcraft (sorcery) had made them ill. Through death they would move on. Rise to a star.

"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark-that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” HST

Hey, it was the 1960s 1970s. This is nothing out of the ordinary for the times. I actually read most Castaneda's books back then. To us it seemed more like fiction back then. Between reading ancient Hindu, Buddhist and other such works, we were up for anything.

Would be intetesting to see where his money went. Maybe that could give some clues.

Awesome. Thank you!

Your delivery technique has really improved over the past 6 years, which is not to say that this video is bad.

Nobody has mentioned that there was contact at UCLA between Castañeda and an individual of Yaquí parentage who likely was the source for much of the indigenous informtion. I can't mention names. But I knew that individual, one of whose parents was Yaquí and the other of another indigenous people of the SW, and I joked to him once that, "You're don Juan!" he just laughed. Sadly the communal attempts of the 60s largely failed, the exceptions being when there was a strong cultish leader, e.g., Steven Gaskin, or of course Carlos Castañeda.

Thank you for this... its been 10+ years of wondering about Carlos Castaneda. Psychedelic experiences almost seemed to be alluding to things they mentioned, so I wondered if more was true... but I always had an investigative reservation on accepting things as fact... just taking experiences as I found them There are definitely mechanisms and dynamics of reality that are hard to explain... like the non-linearity of time... but these recent conclusions based on the cult-like events really paint it all differently than I expected. I know after research that Freemasonry and Mystery Schools run the world, and evil and cults are everywhere... some much more quiet than this... but these ideas/concepts really affected many to rely on themselves for salvation! Trusting in oneself is foolish when it comes to this large realm of spirit/consciousness after death... Could this have all been an agenda for the world disseminated through Carlos given to him from other groups of New Age/Cult like Mystery Schools?

The most important thing in life is to have a built-in, shock proof, twentfour carrat crap detector. ( modified from Henry Miller)

I went to a talk by Florida Donner at a bookstore in Santa Monica, Ca. Around 1988. What was remarkable was her complete inability to hold a train of thought. A very conflicted soul acting like someone on a heavy dose of speed. Jumpy and irrational. I expected too much.

I never made it through "The Teachings of Don Juan," concluding it was fictional before ever learning it had already been debunked, to no great surprise on my part. I didn't think there was anything very interesting about him, so I stopped paying him any attention. I have to admit there's an interesting mystery here. Until this came up on my KZfaq feed, I hadn't thought about Castaneda since the early eighties. Being something of a one time psychonaut, I can tell you that he is the last person you would want to rely on for information about psychoactive substances. In particular, daturas are a really bad idea that in no way will ever help you actually fly.

Thank you for saying their names.

Carlos Castenada wasn't the first. Cyril Henry Hoskin AKA Tuesday Lobsang Rampa pulled a similar stunt with "The Third Eye" in 1956. Although I'm not aware of him going beyond the books and founding a cult.

You have great content.

Too long video? Not long enough! Thanx and subbed