The Informant and Carlos Castaneda
The Informant and Carlos Castaneda
 
the Wanderling
Deep in the desert southwest, before Carlos Castaneda met the Shaman-sorcerer that became famous in his series of Don Juan books, Castaneda had a chance encounter with a somewhat mysterious hallucinogenic bio-searcher and mushroom hunter from the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico area. It has been chronicled that the bio-searcher, known only as the informant in various Castaneda writings, some written by Castaneda himself, some by others, and some even written by those not always sympathetic toward Castaneda, agree for the most part --- unsympathetic or not --- that the informant was the actual person that FIRST introduced Castaneda to the rituals and use of medicinal plants.
Shortly after that encounter with the mysterious informant, for the first time ever, Castaneda reportedly crossed paths with the nearly white-haired Yaqui Indian called Don Juan Matus at a Greyhound bus station in Nogales, Arizona.[1] Castaneda had been told by a fellow colleague, a onetime former Pothunter turned reputable archeaologist he sometimes refers to as Bill in his writings and sometimes leaves unnamed, that the old man was an expert on medicinal plants and such, not unlike the informant. Unbeknownst to Castaneda at the time, Don Juan was also a powerful Shaman-sorcerer who had learned his art from a Diablero, a sorcerer with evil powers said to have the ability to shape shift.
Only a few weeks or possibly even just days earlier than the bus station encounter, 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. To continue what he was searching for he was thankful for the old man in the bus station. After several meetings along isolated sections of the desert border, Don Juan revealed to Castaneda that he was indeed a sorcerer. The following year, according to Castaneda, he became Don Juan's apprentice, an arrangement that continued from 1961 to the Autumn of 1965. During those years, under the direct tutelage of Don Juan, Castaneda used various amounts and types of hallucinogenic herbs and medicinal plants to enlarge his vision of reality. His experiences were the basis of his first book, THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, published by the University of California Press (1968).
However, again, regardless of what may or may not have blossomed between Castaneda and the person he calls Don Juan Matus following the meeting in the bus station, as stated above, initially it was the mysterious bio-searcher dubbed the informant that FIRST introduced Castaneda to the actual use and rituals of medicinal plants.
Now, if you have read anything at all about Castaneda, it basically goes without saying that there is a significant amount of controversy surrounding the question as to whether Don Juan Matus was an actual person or not and/or if Castaneda's works are fiction or not --- in whole or in part --- but such controversy remains neither here nor there for our discussion here. Even the staunchest critic against Don Juan existing, that is, if he was real or not, would not go as far to say that Castaneda wasn't. Thus said it is fairly clear in all that has been written about him that during the Spring semester of 1960, and only a scant six months prior to the time stated for that first Karma and Omen infested meeting with Don Juan in the bus station, Castaneda, as an undergraduate student at UCLA enrolled in a class called "Methods in Field Archaeology." The class was taught by Professor Clement Meighan, and was, interestingly enough, one of Castaneda's first major forays into the exploration of Shamanism.
The professor told the class if any individual student interviewed a Native American as part of a mandatory paper he assigned, they would automatically receive an "A" in the course. As a result of that offer Castaneda traveled several hours east of Los Angeles to visit the Morongo Indian Reservation near Banning, went to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians reservation near Palm Springs, as well as going to the Colorado River area to interview Native Americans there. A few years before, in the Fall of 1957, while attending classes at Los Angeles Community College, Castaneda had written a term paper on Aldous Huxley for an English class, developing in the process a strong interest in things occult after reading Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and its account on the use of mescaline. During his interviews for Dr. Meighan's UCLA class he somehow began putting together bits and pieces of information from both endeavors after his curiosity was piqued from inferences that the Cahuilla had, albeit obscured to outsiders, of which he was one, a historical background in the use of certain native-to-the-desert, hallucinogenic plants. That led him to start making trips farther and farther into remote sections of the southwest to study the use of medicinal plants by Native Americans.
On one of those excursions deep into the desert Castaneda had an encounter with a man who was also bio-searching similar plants and it was he who related the information about the plant Datura to Castaneda. The man was a somewhat mysterious bio-searcher that had several plant species named after him and who, as described below, came to be refered to in various Castaneda related writings only as the "informant." It was information garnered from those encounters with the informant that served as the major grounding point for the paper Castaneda eventually turned in for his 1960 spring semester field archaeology class.[2]
In the book A Magical Journey by Castaneda's ex-wife Margaret Runyan, she, writing of his 1960 paper, states Professor Meighan recalled: "His informant knew a great deal about Datura, which was a drug used in initiating ceremonies by some California groups, but had presumed by me and I think most other anthropologists to have passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago. So he found an informant who still actually knew something about this and still had used it." Castaneda's paper included fairly academic references to the plant’s four heads, their various purposes, the roots and their significance, and the method of preparation, cooking and rituals involved, all information that he supposedly learns later from Don Juan between August 23 and September 10, 1961 and describes in The Teachings of Don Juan. (A Magical Journey pp. 83-85 and 91.)[3]
It may well be true that Castaneda interviewed Native Americans for parts of his paper as claimed, but his primary informant on Datura and other hallucinogenic plants was NOT one of them. As mentioned above, Castaneda was an outsider and those he interviewed were not always so forthright in what they revealed. Castaneda's information, although written as though from a field interview, and presented in 1968 in
The Teachings of Don Juan almost word for word, but much more casually and not credited, was way too structured in his 1960 paper anyway --- as if the information had been obtained from a formally educated academic or field research expert, which it was, rather than simply a native user or naturalist (again, please refer to Footnote [2]). True, his paper was being written for his field archaeology class, and may have been presented in a more formal format to reflect that. However, Castaneda's, as stated by the students turning papers in, was one of only three involving actual interviews of Native Americans by members of the class --- and, although an excellent paper, there was no convincing hint of actual field interviews or contact with native users at the level one would expect. Because of such, that is, not knowing the full circumstances surrounding how Castaneda garnered his information, his professor, although accepting Castaneda's word on what he said it was, still remained somewhat hesitant and slightly perplexed, saying, as stated previously, he and "most other anthropologists thought the use of Datura had passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago." Apparently by inference, assuming from extrapolation that the informant and/or informants were ALL not other than Native American, he thought it most interesting Castaneda had "found an informant who still actually knew something about this and still had used it."
The UCLA spring classes Castaneda enrolled in ran roughly from sometime mid-January to around the middle of June, 1960. His paper was due to be turned in at least by the end of that period, that is, not much later than two or three weeks into June at the most, perhaps somewhat earlier. That would mean his interviews and study of medicinal plants would need to be completed no later than the end of May, 1960. Datura is a night blooming plant. Often times for ritual or strength purposes the plants are picked or dealt with during the full moon phase. In May of that year the full moon occurred during the first third of the month, on Wednesday, May 11th and in June it was Thursday the 9th. There is a good chance Castaneda's informant was probably bio-searching around that same time in order to maximize the plant and take advantage of the moonlight. For the most part the month of May and sometimes early June are almost a perfect time in the southwestern desert, especially at night and during the early morning hours. The cold of winter has pretty much dissipated and spring is in its final throes of unflolding prior to the oncoming intense summer heat.(see) It is my contention that on a very important fact finding Road Trip, set into motion by a colleague during that period, that Castaneda and his informant met. The interesting part is the coincidence at the end of that special Road Trip of the so-called "chance" meeting between CASTANEDA and Don Juan at the Nogales Bus Station sometime in the late summer of 1960 --- which happened at the most only a few short weeks AFTER Castaneda met with his informant in the desert for the very first time.
When the summer of 1960 finally rolled to an end and finding himself in a much better mood psychologically AFTER his lessons during the spring and early summer in the desert regarding the use and rituals of Datura from the informant, followed by a brief meeting with the old man in the bus station, Castaneda formally returned to the Fall of 1960 classes at UCLA. In the process of his return he wrote a paper on halluncinogenic plants for a class taught by Dr. William A. Lessa. Although Castaneda was still an undergraduate, Lessa was so favorably impressed with what Castaneda presented in his paper he requested that Castaneda give a report on his findings to his graduate-level seminar titled "Myth and Ritual." C. Scott Littleton, a now retired professor of anthropology at Occidental College, who was a graduate student of Lessa's at the time, was asked by Lessa to sit in on the seminar --- telling Littleton "he had this Peruvian guy in his class who'd collected the best information from a shaman he'd ever seen, bar none." Afterwards, taking advantage of the scheduled UCLA winter break at the completion of his Fall of 1960 classes, Castaneda left California for Arizona and Mexico searching for Don Juan, hoping for a meeting. On December 17, 1960, he eventually caught up with him at his home, their FIRST face-to-face meeting since their initial bus station encounter.(see) Sometime thereafter Don Juan revealed he was a Shaman-sorcerer who learned his art from a diablero. Six months later, on June 23, 1961, at the end of his spring classes of that year --- and one full year after he and Don Juan first met --- Castaneda formally began his training as a man of knowledge. It was not until August 6, 1961 that Castaneda had his first experience with any sort of psychotropic plants under Don Juan and not until September 7, 1961, before he experienced a brew concocted from Datura. What is being said here of course, is that it is quite easy to extrapolate from the dates presented and documented by Castaneda himself in his own works --- and not by an outsider or by a person with an ax to grind --- that BOTH of the papers he wrote, the one for Meighan and the one for Lessa were written and turned in PRIOR to any indepth interaction or indoctrination with or by Don Juan --- and all of the information presented and said to be "the best information from a shaman ever seen, bar none" by his academic superiors came NOT from Don Juan, but from none other than the informant.
So how does all this play together, especially when in the above I present:
Both of the papers he wrote, the one for Meighan and the one for Lessa were written and turned in prior to any indepth interaction or indoctrination with or by Don Juan --- and all of the information presented and said to be "the best information from a shaman ever seen, bar none" by his academic superiors came not from Don Juan, but from none other than the informant.
While the statement is backed by facts and information that are seemingly reeking with dates and times that chafe against future events as Castaneda describes them, in the end the answer is summed up in his last published book, The Active Side of Infinity (1998) when Castaneda asks his colleague if the old man in the bus station is the Cloud Shaman and the colleague tells Castaneda:
"No. But I think he is a companion or a teacher of the Cloud Shaman. I saw both of them together in the distance various times, many years ago."
Castaneda and his anthropologist colleague Bill, after traveling weeks on end throughout Arizona and New Mexico including having met the informant along the way, ended up at the bus station in Nogales, either through a carefully concocted minipulation of known or upcoming events or simple predestination, vis-a'-vis with those forces. The colleague, upon seeing the old man sitting on the bench by the corner in the bus station, suddenly remembers seeing the old man --- whether it is Don Juan Matus or not --- and the Cloud Shaman in the distance various times many years ago, and instantly realizes that the Cloud Shaman he saw with the old man AND the bio-searcher (that is, the informant) are one and the same person.
What has been presented by Castaneda all along the way in his many books and interviews stemming from his ever important and crucial first Introduction Scene in the bus station between he and Don Juan, a meeting that lasted no more than only a very few minutes at the most, was simply based on Castaneda NOT interpreting correctly (for the readers) what he saw in the first place. What he thought he saw and took as the truth was inaccurate and he compounded the whole thing to his readers throughout his writings because of that misinterpretation. While the conversation regarding the Cloud Shaman no doubt occurred in the bus station initially, and the Cloud Shaman was actually a MAJOR player in the scheme of things, Castaneda simply left it out of his first book not bothering to bring it up until his last book. Why? Because the Cloud Shaman undermines Don Juan Matus as he is written. While it is accurate to say that the Cloud Shaman and the old man are companions or friends (i.e., "No. But I think he is a companion or a teacher of the Cloud Shaman...") in reality he (the old man) is in NO WAY a teacher of the Cloud Shaman. If anything, at the very most, both the old man (if you take the old man to be Don Juan Matus or not) and the Cloud Shaman have the SAME teacher --- or to be even more accurate, and the secret to all of Castaneda's writings ---
Don Juan's own unknown, unheralded, diablero real life teacher and the Cloud Shaman, that is, the informant, were actually peers or equals. What Castaneda learned from the informant was the SAME as having learned it directly from Don Juan's teacher, the same original grounding source Don Juan would have learned it from --- and why he wrote it the way he did --- albeit giving credit to Don Juan.
If you remember correctly, at the time of the bus station encounter Don Juan wasn't even really Don Juan --- and why I have overly emphasized the if in "IF you take him (the old man) to BE Don Juan Matus," above. Reading Castaneda's works it is easy to see it is a given Bill did not seem to think so, and at the time of the bus station encounter, neither did Castaneda. So the question is, why should anybody else? In A Separate Reality (1971) Castaneda writes:
Bill said convincingly that he had encountered people like him before, people who gave the impression of knowing a great deal. In his judgment, he said, such people were not worth the trouble, because sooner or later one could obtain the same information from someone else who did not play hard to get. He said that he had neither patience nor time for old fogies, and that it was possible that the old man was only presenting himself as being knowledgeable about herbs, when in reality he knew as little as the next man.
It should be said here, in a quick side note regarding Don Juan, the old man in the bus station, et al, although the possibility exists otherwise, and even though I hint above that the whole bus station meeting could have possibly been orchestrated by a series of carefully concocted minipulation of known or upcoming events, there is nothing in what I know personally or on a first hand basis about the informant that would indicate he knew, met, set the meeting, ever heard of Don Juan --- or knew if he was an actual person or not.[4]
Taking a cue from such hints as presented previously, anthropologist Jay Courtney Fikes in his book Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties (1993) suggests that rather than being one individual, the chance exists that Don Juan was actually a composite of two or possibly even three authentic Indian shamans, of which one was the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina, with another being the venerated Cahuilla Shaman, Salvador Lopez, albeit not mentioned by Fikes in his book, but by others.[5]
The informant knew Maria Sabina and knew her quite well. I think that during the informant's discussion of plants and herbs sitting around in the middle of the night in some shabby motel, isolated shack, or rock-ring campfire in the desert someplace, Maria Sabina's name came up and may have had an impact on Castaneda. Again, if Don Juan was an actual person, a composite of several people, a total fabrication or a figment of Castaneda's imagination, the events leading up to meeting Don Juan and the various interactions with people, places, and things don't necessarily have to be discarded. Then again, if the informant was used as a model by Castaneda for Don Juan, or if aspects of his manners or abilities seeped into the characterization of Don Juan, I can't really say as he was neither Yaqui, Native American, Mexican-Indian nor Mesoamerican or Hispanic. Except for a possible hint in the closing paragraph of Cloud Shaman, relating to the fact cited above where the informant "cloaked by shimmering desert heat waves, simply seemed to evaporate into the rocks and sagebrush without a trace," it was never made clear to me specifically if he himself was a Shaman.[6] In later years I may of had my suspicions, but in his own actions he always ensured that nothing fell into an area or realm that might frighten or compromise any belief a person held in the natural order of things. He was simply a person in search of the truth and tried honorably to convey that truth once discovered.
Even though Bill told Castaneda convincingly that the old man in the bus station "knew as little as the next man" Castaneda NEEDED someone that would stand up to a closer scrutiny of what a shaman should be than what the informant was, i.e., he was neither Yaqui, Native American, Mexican-Indian, nor Mesoamerican or Hispanic. What better than an old man who was apparently a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico. In his third book of the series, Journey to Ixtlan (1972), Castaneda writes:
I prepared myself for six months, after that first meeting, reading up on the uses of peyote among the American Indians, especially about the peyote cult of the Indians of the Plains. I became acquainted with every work available, and when I felt I was ready I went back to Arizona.(see)
The "after that first meeting" in the above refers to Castaneda and the old man in the bus station and their very first encounter some say was sometime in early June of 1960 but actually unfolded more toward the end of the summer of 1960 --- a meeting, by the way, that lasted no more than 15 minutes at the very most.[7] Then, still in his third book, citing the date Saturday, December 17, 1960, after allowing nearly six months to lapse without ever seeing or talking with Don Juan, refering to their second meeting, Castaneda writes:
I found his house after making long and taxing inquiries among the local Indians. It was early afternoon when I arrived and parked in front of it. I saw him sitting on a wooden milk crate. He seemed to recognize me and greeted me as I got out of my car.
The six month period that Castaneda prepared himself was of course, the Fall semester of 1960, during of which he wrote, completed, and turned in the paper to Lessa as well as presented in Lessa's graduate level seminar --- garnering the comment in the process that what Castaneda had was "the best information from a shaman he (Lessa) had ever seen, bar none." During the semester PRIOR, to Lessa's, that is, the Spring semester of 1960 and BEFORE he ever met Don Juan Matus those couple of minutes in the bus station, Castaneda had already turned in his paper to Meighan on Sacred Datura that was filled with all the same information about the plant and various rituals that he supposedly learns later from Don Juan between August 23 and September 10, 1961 --- all of which in both cases he had learned previously from the informant while on the Road Trip.[8]
To learn first hand WHO Castaneda's mysterious informant was, please refer back to [4] combining that visit with the information found in Footnote [9]. See also ZEN, THE BUDDHA, AND SHAMANISM.
THE BEST OFCARLOS CASTANEDA
>
SEE:
THE POTHUNTER
CARLOS CASTANEDA: TIMELINE
CARLOS CASTANEDA: THE ROAD TRIP
CARLOS CASTANEDA: THE SHAMAN AND THE POWER OF THE OMEN
SEE ALSO:
POWER OF THE SHAMAN: WHERE DOES IT COME FROM, HOW DOES IT WORK?
MEDITATION ALONG METEOR CRATER RIM
SHAMANS AND SHAMANISM
THE SUN DAGGER
the Wanderling's Journey
(click image)
SOURCES:
FLYING OINTMENTS
DON JUAN MATUS
SUSTAINED ACTION
A MAGICAL JOURNEY
Margaret Runyan Castaneda
Paperback, 204 pages
Published by Millenia Press
Publication date: December 1, 1996
ISBN: 0969696019
THE TEACHING OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Carlos Castaneda
Hardback, 288 pages
Published by Univ. of California Press, Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 1968, 1973
ISBN : 0671600419
THIS SITE LISTED ON
THE GATE KEEPER'S
LIST OF SPIRITUAL TEACHERS
FOOTNOTE [2]
In Castaneda's last book, The Active Side of Infinity, he writes that while in Arizona during the late Spring of 1960 "he met with an extremely seasoned anthropologist" --- not the informant --- but thought possibly to be Edward H. Spicer, who had written and published a great deal on both the Yaqui Indians of Arizona and those of Sonora, Mexico. Castaneda, a Peruvian, was told "that the Indian societies of the Southwest were extremely isolationist, and that foreigners, especially those of Hispanic origin, were distrusted, even abhorred, by those Indians." Interestingly enough, on the use of Datura, Spicer is on record as saying "I know of no information or reference concerning Yaquis using Datura" which, if so and if correct AND if the "Indian societies of the Southwest" typically blocked the flow of any meaningful information to outsiders as stated, it only underlines and strengthens the Wanderling's thesis that the knowledge of 'how to use and rituals of Datura' as coming from another source, most notably the informant.
Other than Spicer two others that have been mentioned who could have been one of the "extremely seasoned anthropologists" offering Castaneda advice are Dr. W. Curry Holden and Dr. William A. Lessa. Interestingly enough, both are Williams, thus then possibly Bill as in Castaneda's Road Trip colleage Bill. Lessa however, although obliquely influential in Castaneda's early rise, was neither Yaqui scholar nor known to have any substantial interest as a "southwest" field type. Holden, on the other hand, is somewhat different. He was both a Yaqui scholar of some repute and known to be a field expert in the southwest --- albeit one that became somewhat notorious in his later years as it came out for having led a group of students on one specific field exercise in the summer of 1947. According to the Roswell Incident Udated and other sources such as author Thomas J. Carey, Holden inadvertently stumbled across the wreckage of a mysterious craft of an unknown nature that slammed into the lower north slope of the Capitan Mountains outside of Roswell, New Mexico. The craft was considered by many to have been of extraterrestrial in origin. Holden never really discussed the incident and it was well into his later years before he was actually even inteviewed on the subject.
In a quick note, Holden's archaeologist daughter, Jane (Holden) Kelley, was age 32 in 1960. Like her father she became an expert in the Yaqui Indians of Sonora and scholar in her own right. Although it was not unusual to find her traveling with her father, or possibly even operating in the same broad general area on her own, from the tempo and flow of Castaneda's writing she can pretty well be eliminated as a candidate for one of the "extremely seasoned anthropologists." Regarding the Roswell Incident and the so-called Roswell UFO, the daughter is on record as saying that at the time interviews were being conducted, because of his age, her father was easily confused. Memories from his life were jumbled and reordered, and, even though she and her dad were close, he had never mentioned it.
Another colleague told Castaneda he was better off reading herbalists' books. It was his opinion "that anything to be known about medicinal plants from the Southwest had already been classified and talked about in various publications. He went as far as to say that the sources of any Indian curer of the day were precisely THOSE exact same publications rather than any traditional knowledge. He finished off with the assertion that if there still were any traditional curing practices, the Indians would not divulge them to a stranger."
Castaneda, who most likely at the time was not at peer level and not seen or perceived as much more than a LOWLY undergraduate student by "those experienced social scientists," felt there was nothing left to do except take their seasoned advice and leave Arizona for Los Angeles. However, at the last minute a not nearly so high ranking working stiff and seat-of-the-pants ground-pounder, versed in four-field anthropology (Ethnology, Archeology, Linguistic and Biological) --- and eventually to be camouflaged by Castaneda in the narrative by using only his first name Bill for unknown reasons, told Castaneda he intended to go on a Road Trip and drive throughout Arizona and New Mexico revisiting "all the places where he had done work in the past, renewing in this fashion his relationships with the people (Native American or otherwise) who had been his anthropological informants," telling Castaneda:
"You're welcome to come with me," he said. "I'm not going to do any work. I'm just going to visit with them, have a few drinks with them, bullshit with them. I bought gifts for them-blankets, booze, jackets, ammunition for twenty-two-caliber rifles. My car is loaded with goodies. I usually drive alone whenever I go to see them, but by myself I always run the risk of falling asleep. You could keep me company, keep me from dozing off, or drive a little bit if I'm too drunk."
Portending an Omen like sense of the future, thus pushing aside surface concerns, in The Active Side of Infinity, Castaneda writes:
Disregarding my feelings of defeat, I started on a journey with him.
It was during that excursion that Castaneda met the "informant."
SOURCE:
THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY
Carlos Castaneda
Hardback, 272 pages
Published by Harpercollins
Publication date: January 1999
ISBN: 0060192208
FOR ENLIGHTENMENT ON
THE RAZOR'S EDGE
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FOOTNOTE [4]
In The Informant and Carlos Castaneda, above, the following is written by the Wanderling:
"Although the possibility exists otherwise, there is nothing in what I know personally or on a first hand basis about the informant that would indicate he knew, met, set the meeting, ever heard of Don Juan --- or knew if he was an actual person or not."
As stated above and clarified more thoroughly in the section on Cloud Shamans, Castaneda's colleague, having met the informant while traveling with Castaneda on their Road Trip throughout Arizona and New Mexico, states, upon seeing the "old man" in the bus station, that he remembers seeing both of them TOGETHER (that is, the "old man," whether it is Don Juan Matus or not, and the Cloud Shaman) in the distance various times many years ago. From that recollection the colleague suddenly realizes that the Cloud Shaman he saw with the "old man" AND the bio-searcher (that is, the informant) are one and the same person.
In a quick overview there may seem to be a contradiction in information between the two sources. However, the key here is in the Wanderling's statement: "there is nothing in what I know personally or on a first hand basis". What is being said here is, even though the colleague may know that the Cloud Shaman and the informant are one and the same person and that the Cloud Shaman knew the "old man" (again, whether is Don Juan Matus or not), the Wanderling DOES NOT know it on a first hand basis himself. That is to say, even though his uncle may have told him he knew Carlos Castaneda he never told him, nor did it ever come up, that he knew, met, or heard of Don Juan Matus --- which doesn't necessarily mean he didn't, only that he never told the Wanderling he did, nor was it the case that the Wanderling was ever witness to such a fact. However, in that Castaneda's colleague Bill and the informant knew each other all along AND the informant knew the "old man" and of his shaman-sorcerer background --- because the two of them had studied under the same teacher at one time --- strong indications stemming from deep personal suspicions by the Wanderling point to the fact that the informant actually orchestrated or choreographed the whole bus station meeting.
The colleague says the "old man" and the Cloud Shaman knew each other. He also says the Cloud Shaman and the informant are one and the same person, AND it is known that "one person" is the Wanderling's Uncle. Castaneda says the "old man" he met in the bus station IS Don Juan Matus, which if so, would imply by default then that the Wanderling's uncle knew Don Juan Matus. The clinker is that Castaneda is the ONLY one out of everybody or anybody involved that seems to know or says the "old man" in the bus station is or turned out to be, Don Juan Matus.
By the time the Wanderling reached his teenage years he had already begun study under his Mentor and no longer under the auspices of his uncle. It was during those teenage years, when the Wanderling and his uncle were separated, that his uncle crossed paths with Carlos Castaneda. It was only in passing conversation many, many years later that the Wanderling came to realize the importance of the time spent with his uncle, the knowledge he held, and where it led to. You have to remember that during the period Castaneda was interviewing the Wanderling's uncle regarding Sacred Datura and other medicinal plants Castaneda was an undergraduate student carrying with him all the baggage of an unassured novitate. The Wanderling's uncle was always running into people that sought various amounts of information from him about natural desert plants and any effect they may have. Castaneda was just another in a long line of seekers and wasn't particularly memorable except for, in retrospect, a certain amount of persistance. Not to undercut Castaneda, but the Wanderling's uncle was surprised --- as well as pleased to a certain extent --- to find out THAT specific person who had tramped around the desert with him all those days and nights and arranged to eventually hook-up with the "old man," achieved the level of success he did and that he actually became "somebody." To his knowledge nobody he had ever come into contact in the past had. His uncle was glad, regardless of how Castaneda may have presented it in his books and the public, that at least some or part of the information and knowledge he carried with him was not going to be simply lost forever to the winds and the rocks and sand of the desert.
When his father and stepmother divorced the Wanderling was living in a foster home. By high school, AFTER a previously arranged summer of traveling with his uncle, he ended up living with his grandmother in a southern California beach community.(see) Except for the aforementioned short summer interlude his uncle had long returned to the Santa Fe, Taos area. The Wanderling went from a pre-teen to a job to having been in and out of the Army. Eighteen years passed. Then one day early in 1968, out of the blue, his uncle called saying he needed his help. They met in Kingman, Arizona.
His uncle gave him a small taped up cardboard box six or eight inches square and told him to deliver it in person and only in person to a man in Laguna Beach, California --- and whatever he did, NOT give it to anybody else under any circumstances. When the Wanderling arrived in Laguna Beach to deliver the package he found the man sequestered in a remote cave hidden in the hills above Laguna Canyon Road. The man, Dr. Timothy Leary. The contents of the box not known.
For the Wanderling the importance of the meeting in Kingman had nothing to do with the fact that it involved Timothy Leary in any way, but that the meeting eventually rekindled his relationship with his uncle.
However, as the years passed, before every bit of information could be garnered the Wanderling's uncle died after being medi-vacked back to the United States from South America. He had been on an extended trip exploring the Vortexes at Machu Picchu high in the Andes then bio-searching the banisteriopsis caapi vine associated with the Ayahuasca Sorcerer's Brew along the upper reaches of the Amazon when he broke his leg. He died of complications from that break two years later at age eighty-four. (see)
Between the time of the meeting in Kingman and the death of the Wanderling's uncle a number of other meetings occurred. At one of those meetings Castaneda's colleague Bill, that is William Lawrence Campbell, was in attendance. At that meeting Campbell discussed his relationship with Castaneda, how they met, the Nogales bus station where Castaneda met Don Juan for the first time, etc. (see)
You must remember we may be dealing with two totally different people here. Castaneda's colleague Bill was never in the picture after the bus station encounter --- and neither was anybody else for that matter --- so there is no one or no way to confirm if the "old man" that both the informant knew and Bill saw and Castaneda met at the end of the summer of 1960 in the Nogales bus station AND the person he met up with in Yuma in December of 1960 and called Don Juan Matus are actually the same person. The closing half of JULIAN OSORIO: Don Juan's Teacher explores just such a scenario as does The Old Man In the Desert.
FOOTNOTE [6]
In The Informant and Carlos Castaneda, above, the following is written by the Wanderling:
"Except for a possible hint in the closing paragraph of Cloud Shaman, relating to the fact cited above where the informant "cloaked by shimmering desert heat waves, simply seemed to evaporate into the rocks and sagebrush without a trace," it was never made clear to me specifically if he himself was a Shaman."
Again, as with Footnote [3], in a quick overview there may seem to be a contradiction in information between two sources. As found in the Roswell Incident Updated the Wanderling as a ten-year old boy is traveling with his uncle. His uncle is called in by the eminent meteorite hunter Dr. Lincoln La Paz to assist in determining the trajectory of the mysterious object said to have crashed in the Capitan Mountains near Roswell, New Mexico. The Wanderling, while busying himself looking for horn toads and lizards in the surrounding scrub brush and sandy terrain as well as breaking up rocks for the first time with a newly aquired prospector's pick, comes across a few pieces of some foil-like material.(see) The military person in charge quickly gathers up the pieces and, in a rather harsh and abrupt fashion, orders the Wanderling and his uncle back to the vehicle they arrived in, placing them under guard with orders not to let them leave. When the military person returns to the truck he finds the Wanderling and his uncle gone, and the guard assigned to watch them having no clue where they went or what happened to them. A search of the area shows no sign of either anywhere in the vicinity, as though they simply disappeared or vanished, the desert and the surrounding environment somehow swallowing them up without a trace. (source)
The seeming contradiction arises in the last part of the quote above: "...it was never made clear to me specifically if he himself was a Shaman." Now, how could the Wanderling just disappear with his uncle and not know it. That is where a great deal about Shamanism is missed by the non-Shaman. To the OUTSIDE OBSERVER both seemed to have just vanished, however to themselves everything was normal. The Wanderling walking with his uncle wasn't aware of any difference. His uncle may have been fully aware of the situation, but for the Wanderling, not versed in such things, just went along with his uncle enveloped by the circumstances. The only difference, still recalled very vividly, was that the distance they traveled by vehicle that day to the debris field was quite far and took quite a long time, however the trip walking back across the desert on foot took only a short time. As a young boy the Wanderling never really thought much about the time-distance difference one way or the other, as a grown man it is another matter.
Interestingly enough, some one hundred years before the above Roswell incident transpired with the boy and his uncle, a highly similar event was recorded involving a venerated Indian holy man and saint, Swami Ramalinga Swamigal, popularly known as Vallalar, and some of his devotees.
One day, while in Madras, the Swami along with several devotees and disciples, were walking to Tiruvottiyur inorder to worship at the Ishwara temple. During the journey he and his party got caught in an exceptionally heavy downpour, all in the group suffering much difficulty because of the sudden flooding and rushing water. The Swami showed them a shortcut and in an instant they reached Tiruvottiyur. T.V.G. Chetty, in the book Life of Swami Ramalingam, describes the incident as follows:
They had reached half the way to Tiruvottiyur. There was heavy rain. His followers began to run pell‑mell. But the Swami "rallied them all together and darted through some mysterious bye‑lane" and got the entire body in front of the temple in a second of time.
Chetty goes on to write:
The above incident seems to be a case of collective dematerialisation and materialisation, that is to say the Swami took them within his subtle‑physical body or possibly enveloped them in his environmental body which is its extension and reached the destination instantly and projected them out again. His devotees should have felt the whole process as going through a mysterious way and reaching the temple in an instant.
See Apportation as well as Chalabhinna the sixfold knowledge of the worthy ones. See also At the Feet of the Bhagavan and the final paragraphs of The Sun Dagger.
FOOTNOTE [3]
In The Informant and Carlos Castaneda, above, refering to a quote by UCLA Professor Clement Meighan, the following is written:
"His informant knew a great deal about Datura, which was a drug used in initiating ceremonies by some California groups, but had presumed by me and I think most other anthropologists to have passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago."
Carlos Castaneda wrote that he learned about Datura from his informant. There is no conflict or disagreement with that thesis UNTIL he frames his idea around the fact that the informant who taught him about Datura WAS Don Juan Matus. Don Juan Matus, real or imagined, may have been or become Castaneda's informant in Castaneda's books, but initially it was the bio-searcher that instructed him in the preparation and uses of all parts of the plant, roots, leaves, flowers and seeds.
Castaneda also claims it was Don Juan that first taught him how to approach the plant properly and how to ask permission from the plant-spirit before digging it up. He writes his informant was very particular about these details and instructed Castaneda to never use an iron or metal tool when digging up Datura. He was told to use only a branch from a tree-friend of the plant in order to ensure that the plant would not be unduly hurt and be more likely to act beneficially and friendly during any subsequent encounter.
As well Castaneda writes that Don Juan taught him the secrets of a lizard ritual in which the use of Datura plays a central role. According to Castaneda, under Don Juan's instructions two lizards are caught with no equipment or traps. The fiber of a century plant and thorn of a prickly pear is used to sew shut the eyes of one lizard and the mouth of the other. While under the influence of Datura the diviner asks the lizards to help find the answer to his question. One reptile is sent away to search for clues while the other remains sitting on the shoulder of the diviner, whispering into his ear all that the other lizard is seeing and experiencing.
All the details about how to dig up plants --- not using a metal tool, using branches from tree-friends of the plant, and even apologizing to the plant-spirit every time for taking them and assuring them that someday the diviner's own body will serve as food for them "so, all in all, the plants and ourselves are even" --- are all things my uncle taught me. The taboo surrounding the use of iron or metal tools when digging up medicinal or spiritual plants is encountered frequently with magical and medicinal plants. The sacredness of the custom dates way back, to an extremely ancient use of the plant --- well before the first iron or metal tools were ever cast or made. That and the rest of the plant rituals were told me by my uncle almost verbatim as a kid while hunting mushrooms and medicinal plants under his auspices in the High Sierras and the desert southwest --- all things in Castaneda's 1960s that were thought "to have passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago."
The lizard ritual is TOTALLY another thing --- something of which I question the validity of --- for two reasons. First, none of it is approached in the text as being much more than an ordinary exercise, in line with grinding seeds or collecting plants. Castaneda basically accomplished the whole thing with little or no trouble --- under the darkening sky of the twilight hours and never having done it before. In real life it is questionable that a neophyte anthropology student from UCLA would have the knowledge or refined expertise to turn cactus fiber into thread, a thorn into a needle, or able to hold two lizards still while stitching their eyelids and lips shut. Some say it was easily accomplished by Castaneda because he was on his way to being a sorcerer. However, previous encounters had been under outside influence. Castaneda had been without drugs over three months --- fifteen weeks --- so it was not even a hallucination.
Secondly, as it relates to my own case, I can draw an inference from a highly personal experience that transpired before I even reached my teen years. My uncle had taken me to a sacred Native American site called Fajada Butte that, for reasons unclear to me at the time, he had cause to ascend. As a ten year old boy with no mountain climbing skills I was somewhat apprehensive to ascend the mountain either by unmarked trail or scale the straight up 400 foot cliff walls of the butte. The two of us were traveling with a local tribal spiritual elder my uncle was somehow associated with that had been waiting for us two days before at some nearby ruins. The tribal elder, sensing my apprehension, under the gaze of the rising full moon went into the desert to obtain something he thought might help. The following is presented in The Sun Dagger outlining what happened:
"When he returned he had some plants with him he said warriors used sometimes before going into battle in order to make them strong and brave, and if I used some I would be strong and brave too, inturn alleviating any concern about making my way to the top of the butte. As my uncle nodded an approval, I did as prescribed under the direction of the tribal elder. Then I was told to lay down and rest as there was a difficult trip before us."
"At sunrise my uncle shook me awake and said he and his friend would be gone for a while and not to leave, telling me there was food and water in the corner if I wanted it. I rolled back over thinking I would go back to sleep when it dawned on me my uncle had said "corner." When I sat up I could see I was in some sort of a room. Actually, it was more of a "some sort of ruin" barely stuck on a ledge on the side of the butte hundreds and hundreds of feet above the valley floor."
I had no clue how I got there. The day passed, darkness slowly came across the desert and the temperature began to drop. My uncle's friend gave me more of the plants in the same manner as the previous night, then I curled up and fell asleep. I woke up the next morning in the cab of the truck parked in the ruins northwest of the the butte we started from. As we were leaving I turned to the man and asked how all this happened and he responded by saying something in his native tongue. I asked my uncle what the man had said and he told me it translated into something like, "Eagles don't climb, they fly." Years later my uncle all but cetified that the plants used by the tribal elder that night was Sacred Datura. However, all the rituals were done by the elder, and for the magic of the plant to unfold, which apparently it must have as I ended up on the butte, required nothing remotely close to the use of a lizard or any other animal in any fashion --- nor since then in any similar situation have I ever observed such a ritual or the need for such a ritual. Although Jane Holden Kelley, for example, would most likely disagree, it is my opinion that Castaneda was concerned, and perhaps ONLY SO early on, that through his books he was in effect promoting and sanctioning the use of a dangerous hallucinogenic and potentially toxic drug, information that might reach a wide audience and cause harm if consumed or used in quanities unmetered by someone not versed in their safe administration. By introducing an amost impossible ritual to accomplish, that had to be done in conjunction with the use of the drug if expected results were to be forthcoming, he created a scenario that was basically untenable and unworkable.
The following is from The Ally In Shamanism and refers to Castaneda's swearing off drugs or the use of drugs by the time of his fourth book:
Although a lot of people do not know it, nor are all people particularly pleased by it or willing to accept it, by Castaneda's fourth book, Tales of Power (1974) and written in a time period circa autumn of 1971 --- ten years after his first use of psychotropic plants under the auspices of Don Juan on Monday, August 7, 1961 --- Castaneda is blatantly DENYING the use of or need of drugs in any way, shape or form, just like I have stated above and for the same reasons. If you recall I wrote:
In reality, the "full use of power can only be acquired with the help of an 'ally'," that Castaneda speaks of, like the use of medicinal plants, drugs, or herbs (Aushadhis) --- which he used intially, but denied the necessary use of later --- is a second level of use between the Shaman and the actual power source, the same source the "ally" would draw upon for power
So said, Castaneda, in agreement with the non-use of drugs as I have stated above --- because a true shaman can reach the Power of the Shaman without outside crutches --- in Castaneda's fourth book in the chapter titled: "An Appointment with Knowledge" he writes:
Finally I managed to steer the conversation onto the topic of my interest. I began by mentioning that I had reviewed my early notes, and had realized that he had been giving me a detailed description of the sorcerers' world from the beginning of our association. In light of what he had said to me in those stages, I had begun to question the role of hallucinogenic plants.
"Why did you make me take those power plants so many times?" I asked.
He laughed and mumbled very softly, "'Cause you're dumb."
I heard him the first time but I wanted to make sure and, pretended I had not understood.
"I beg your pardon?" I asked.
"You know what I said," he replied and stood up.
He tapped me on the head as he walked by me.
"You're rather slow," he said. "And there was no other way to jolt you."
"So none of that was absolutely necessary?" I asked.
"It was in your case. There are other types of people, however, that do not seem to need them."
Again from Castaneda's fourth book, Tales of Power in the chapter titled: "The Strategy of a Sorcerer"
The extraordinary effect that psychotropic plants had had on me was what gave me the bias that their use was the key feature of the teachings. I held on to that conviction.
It was only in the later years of my apprenticeship that I realized that the meaningful transformations and findings of sorcerers were always done in states of sober consciousness.
For more on the Castaneda Peyote/Datura discussion-controversy, please see |
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