An Interview with Carlos Castaneda on Navigating into the Unknown

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An Interview with Carlos Castaneda on Navigating into the Unknown

In the early 1960s, Carlos Castaneda made an impact on the world when he published his first of nine books, The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. In this work he related his experiences as a sorcerer’s apprentice under the guidance of a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico. As a doctoral student in anthropology at UCLA, he encountered don Juan Matus while collecting information about medicinal plants. From the moment of the book’s publication, the world of don Juan Matus became a subject of worldwide fascination. His works presented a vision of “the warrior’s way”: living impeccably, erasing personal history, using death as one’s advisor, and losing self-importance. Castaneda’s interactions with don Juan and his fellow teachers and apprentices depict a serious Western scholar who becomes the target of jeers and criticisms, who then puts aside his social paradigm, and awakens to the mysteries of the unknown.

This interview by Daniel Trujillo Rivas was first published in Chile and Argentina in the magazine Uno Mismo, February 1997.


In the early 1960s, Carlos Castaneda made an impact on the world when he published his first of nine books, The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. In this work he related his experiences as a sorcerer’s apprentice under the guidance of a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico. As a doctoral student in anthropology at UCLA, he encountered don Juan Matus while collecting information about medicinal plants.

From the moment of the book’s publication, the world of don Juan Matus became a subject of worldwide fascination. His works presented a vision of “the warrior’s way”: living impeccably, erasing personal history, using death as one’s advisor, and losing self-importance. Castaneda’s interactions with don Juan and his fellow teachers and apprentices depict a serious Western scholar who becomes the target of jeers and criticisms, who then puts aside his social paradigm, and awakens to the mysteries of the unknown.

Q: Mr Castaneda, for years you’ve remained in absolute anonymity. What drove you to change this condition and talk publicly about the teachings that you and your three companions received from the nagual Juan Matus?

CC: What compels us to disseminate don Juan Matus’ ideas is a need to clarify what he taught us. For us, this is a task that can no longer be postponed. I and his other three students have reached the unanimous conclusion that the world to which don Juan Matus introduced us is within the perceptual possibilities of all human beings. We’ve discussed among us what would be the appropriate road to take. To remain anonymous the way don Juan proposed to us? This option was not acceptable. The other available road was to disseminate don Juan’s ideas: an infinitely more dangerous and exhausting choice, but the only one that, we believe, has the dignity don Juan imbued in all his teachings.

Q: As far as I’ve been able to corroborate, orthodox anthropology, as well as the alleged defenders of the cultural pre-Colombian cultural heritage of America, undermine the credibility of your work. The belief that your work is merely the product of your literary talent, which, by the way, is exceptional, continues to exist today. There are also other sectors that accuse you of having a double standard because, supposedly, your lifestyle and your activities contradict what the majority expect from a shaman. How can you clear up these suspicions?

CC: The cognitive system of the Western man forces us to rely on preconceived ideas. We base our judgments on something that is always “a priori”, for example the idea of what is “orthodox”. What is orthodox anthropology? The one taught at university lecture halls? What is a shaman’s behavior? To wear feathers on one’s head and dance to the spirits?

For 30 years, people have accused Carlos Castaneda of creating a literary character simply because what I report to them does not concur with the anthropological “a priori”, the ideas established in the lecture halls or in anthropological field work. However, what don Juan presented to me can only apply to a situation that calls for total action and, under such circumstances, very little or almost nothing of the preconceived occurs.

I have never been able to draw conclusions about shamanism because in order to do this one needs to be an active member in the shamans’ world. For a social scientist, let’s say for example a sociologist, it is very easy to arrive at sociological conclusions over any subject related to the Occidental world, because the sociologist is an active member of the Occidental world. But how can an anthropologist, who spends at the most two years studying other cultures, arrive at reliable conclusions about them? One needs a lifetime to be able to acquire membership in a cultural world. I’ve been working for more than 30 years in the cognitive world of the shamans of ancient Mexico and, sincerely, I don’t believe I have acquired the membership that would allow me to draw conclusions or to even propose them.
I have discussed this with people from different disciplines and they always seem to understand and agree with the premises I’m presenting. But then they turn around and they forget everything they agreed upon and continue to sustain “orthodox” academic principles, without caring about the possibility of an absurd error in their conclusions. Our cognitive system seems to be impenetrable.

Q: What’s the aim of not allowing yourself to be photographed, having your voice recorded or making biographical data known? Could this effect, and if so how, what you’ve achieved in your spiritual work? Don’t you think it would be useful for some sincere seekers of truth to know who you really are, as a way of corroborating that it is really possible to follow the path you proclaim?

CC: With reference to photographs and personal data, I and the other three disciples of don Juan follow his instructions. For a shaman like don Juan, the main idea behind refraining from giving personal data is very simple. It is imperative to leave aside what is called “personal history”. To get away from the “me” is something extremely annoying and difficult. What the shamans like don Juan seek is a state of fluidity where the personal “me” does not count. He believed that an absence of photography and biographical data effects whomever enters into this field of action in a positive, though subliminal way. We are endlessly accustomed to using photographs, recordings, and biographical data, all of which spring from the idea of personal importance. Don Juan said it was better not to know anything about a shaman. In this way, instead of encountering a person, one encounters an idea that can be sustained — the opposite of what happens in the everyday world where we are only faced with people with psychological problems and without ideas, all of these people filled to the brim with “me, me, me”.

Q: Let’s consider the meaning of the word “spirituality” to be a state of consciousness in which human beings are fully capable of controlling the potentials of the species, something achieved by transforming the simple animal condition through hard psychic, moral, and intellectual training. Do you agree with this assertion? How is don Juan’s world integrated into this context?

CC: For don Juan Matus, a pragmatic and extremely sober shaman, “spirituality” was an empty ideality, an assertion without basis that we believe to be very beautiful because it is encrusted with literary concepts and poetic expressions, but which never goes beyond that.

Shamans like don Juan are essentially practical. For them there only exists a predatory universe where intelligence or awareness is the product of life and death challenges. He considered himself a navigator of infinity and said that in order to navigate into the unknown like a shaman does, one needs unlimited pragmatism, boundless sobriety, and “guts of steel”.

In view of all this, don Juan believed that “spirituality” is simply a description of something impossible to achieve within the patterns of the world of everyday life, and it is not a real way of acting.

Q: If you allow me to assert the following, your literary work presents concepts that are closely related to Oriental philosophical teachings, but it contradicts what is commonly known about the Mexican indigenous culture. What are the similarities and the differences between the one and the other?

CC: I don’t have the slightest idea. I’m not learned in either one of them. My work is a phenomenological report of the cognitive world to which don Juan Matus introduced me. From the point of view of phenomenology as a philosophical method, it is impossible to make assertions that are related to the phenomenon under scrutiny. Don Juan Matus’s world is so vast, so mysterious and contradictory, that it isn’t suitable for an exercise in linear exposition; the most one can do is describe it, and that alone is a supreme effort.

Q: Concentrating specifically on your literary work, your readers find different Carlos Castanedas. We first find a somewhat incompetent Western scholar, permanently baffled at the power of old Indians like don Juan and don Genaro (mainly in The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, A Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power, and The Second Ring of Power). Later we find an apprentice versed in shamanism (in The Eagle’s Gift, The Fire Within, Silent Knowledge, and, particularly, The Art of Dreaming). If you agree with this assessment, when and how did you cease to be one to become the other?

CC: I don’t consider myself a shaman, or a teacher, or an advanced student of shamanism; neither do I consider myself an anthropologist or a social scientist of the Western world. My presentations have all been depictions of a phenomenon which is impossible to discern under the conditions of the linear knowledge of the Western world. I could never explain what don Juan was teaching me in terms of cause and effect. There was no way to foretell what he was going to say or what was going to happen. Under such circumstances, the passage from one state to another is subjective and not something elaborated, or premeditated, or a product of wisdom.

Q: One can find incredible episodes for the Western mind in your literary work. How could someone who’s not an initiate verify that all those “separate realities” are real, as you claim?

CC: It can be verified very easily by lending one’s whole body instead of only one’s intellect. One cannot enter don Juan’s world intellectually, like a dilettante seeking fast and fleeting knowledge. Nor, in don Juan’s world, can anything be verified absolutely. The only thing we can do is arrive at a state of increased awareness that allows us to perceive the world surrounding us in a more inclusive manner. In other words, the goal of don Juan’s shamanism is to break the parameters of historical and daily perception and to perceive the unknown. That’s why he called himself a navigator of infinity. He asserted that infinity lies beyond the parameters of daily perception. To break these parameters was the aim of his life. Because he was an extraordinary shaman, he instilled that same desire in all four of us. He forced us to transcend the intellect and to embody the concept of breaking the boundaries of historical perception.

Q: You assert that the basic characteristic of human beings is to be “perceivers of energy”. You refer to the movement of the assemblage point as something imperative to perceiving energy directly. How can this be useful to a man of the 21st century? According to the concept previously defined, how can the attainment of this goal help one’s spiritual improvement?

CC: Shamans like don Juan assert that all human beings have the capacity to see energy directly as it flows in the universe. They believe that the assemblage point, as they call it, is a point that exists in man’s total sphere of energy. In other words, when a shaman perceives a man as energy that flows in the universe, he sees a luminous ball. In that luminous ball, the shaman can see a point of greater brilliance located at the height of the shoulder blades, approximately an arm’s length behind them. Shamans maintain that perception is assembled at this point; that the energy that flows in the universe is transformed here into sensory data, and that the sensory data is later interpreted, giving as a result the world of everyday life. Shamans assert that we are taught to interpret, and therefore we are taught to perceive.

The pragmatic value of perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe for a man of the 21st century or a man of the 1st century is the same. It allows him to enlarge the limits of his perception and to use this enhancement within his realm. Don Juan said that to see directly the wonder of the order and the chaos of the universe would be extraordinary.

Q: In The Readers of Infinity, you’ve utilized the term “navigating” to define what sorcerers do. Are you going to hoist the sail to begin the definitive journey soon? Will the lineage of Toltec warriors, the keepers of this knowledge, end with you?

CC: Yes, that is correct, don Juan’s lineage ends with us.

Q: Here’s a question that I’ve often asked myself: Does the warrior’s path include, like other disciplines do, spiritual work for couples?

CC: The warrior’s path includes everything and everyone. There can be a whole family of impeccable warriors. The difficulty lies in the terrible fact that individual relationships are based in emotional investments, and the moment the practitioner really practices what she/he learns the relationship crumbles. In the everyday world, emotional investments are not normally examined, and we live an entire lifetime waiting to be reciprocated. Don Juan said I was a diehard investor and that my way of living and feeling could be described simply: “I only give what others give me.”

Q: What aspirations of possible advancement should someone have who wishes to work spiritually according to the knowledge disseminated in your books? What would you recommend for those who wish to practice don Juan’s teachings by themselves?

CC: There’s no way to put a limit on what one may accomplish individually if the intent is an impeccable intent. Don Juan’s teachings are not spiritual. I repeat this because the question has to come to the surface over and over. The idea of spirituality doesn’t fit with the iron discipline of a warrior. The most important thing for a shaman like don Juan is the idea of pragmatism. When I met him, I believed I was a practical man, a social scientist filled with objectivity and pragmatism. He destroyed my pretensions and made me see that, as a true Western man, I was neither pragmatic nor spiritual. I came to understand that I only repeated the word “spirituality” to contrast it with the mercenary aspect of the world of everyday life. I wanted to get away from the mercantilism of everyday life and the eagerness to do this is what I called spirituality. I realized don Juan was right when he demanded that I come to a conclusion; to define what I considered spirituality. I didn’t know what I was talking about.

What I’m saying might sound presumptuous, but there’s no other way to say it. What a shaman like don Juan wants is to increase awareness, that is, to be able to perceive with all the human possibilities of perception; this implies a colossal task and an unbending purpose, which cannot be replaced by the spirituality of the Western world.

http://www.lapismagazine.org/an-interview-with-carlos-castaneda-on-navigating-into-the-unknown/ 


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