The rituals revolving around the psychoactive cactus plant Pyote as much as the cult and controversies sorounding Peruvian-American writer Carlos Castaneda always intrigued me.After reading his books on shamanism, I got interested about the poisonous flower Dhootoora that's been known to the Bengalis for thousand years.I wrote a long verse in Bengali, named DhooturaFM, depicting the fall from grace of the native Bengali goddess, Dhutura!!
Carlos Cesar Salvador Arana Castaneda (25 December 1925 – 27 April 1998) was a Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his purported training in traditional Mesoamerican Shamanism.
Castaneda
Castanedas12 books have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages. The books and Castaneda, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been controversial for many years. Supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices which enable an increased awareness. For several years, anthropologists considered his work authentic and important, but then a number of exposés questioned Castaneda's veracity. Academic critics now claim the books are works of fiction, citing the books' internal contradictions, discrepancies between the books and anthropological data, alternate sources for Castaneda's detailed knowledge of shamanic practices and lack of corroborating evidence.
In his books, Castaneda narrated in first person what he claimed were his experiences under the tutelage of a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus whom he met in 1960. Castaneda wrote that he was identified by don Juan Matus as having the energetic configuration of a "nagual", who, if the spirit chose, could become a leader of a party of warriors. He also used the term "nagual" to signify that part of perception which is in the realm of the unknown yet still reachable by man, implying that, for his party of seers, don Juan was in some way a connection to that unknown. Castaneda often referred to this unknown realm as nonordinary reality, which indicated that this realm was indeed a reality, but radically different from the ordinary reality experienced by human beings who are well engaged in everyday activities as part of their social conditioning. Ordinary reality as experienced by humans was simply a "description" that had been pounded into their awareness since they were infants.
Castaneda dropped out of public view in 1973, living in a large house with three "witches," women who had cut their ties to family and changed their names. He founded Cleargreen, an organization that promoted tensegrity, purportedly a traditional Toltec regimen of spiritually powerful exercises. After Castaneda died in 1998, the three witches and other people connected with Castaneda disappeared.
The witches:
After Castaneda dropped from public view in 1973, he bought a large house in Los Angeles which he shared with three of his female followers, who became known as the Witches.
The Witches were required to break off their relationships with friends and family when they joined Castaneda's group. They also refused to be photographed and took new names - Regina Thal became Florinda Donner-Grau, Maryann Simko became Taisha Abelar and Kathleen Pohlman became Carol Tiggs.
According to Corey Donovan (aka Richard Jennings), creator of the Sustained Action website:
The use of the term "the Witches" to relate to the three women Castaneda was eventually to claim had also been apprentices of don Juan seems to date to the early nineties, when books by two of these women purporting to describe their experiences with don Juan and his party were published. These three women are Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs. All three of them appeared and sometimes lectured at many of the Tensegrity workshops that began in July 1993, and Florinda and Taisha appeared at book signings and gave occasional lectures or radio interviews as well.
Shortly after Carlos died, Florinda and Taisha disappeared, along with Patricia Partin (see the Blue Scout below). Talia Bey (Cleargreen president - born Amalia Marquez) and Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundal had their phones disconnected and also disappeared. On August 2, 1998 Carol spoke at a workshop in Ontario. None of the Witches has been seen in public since. Spokespeople from Cleargreen have said only that they are "travelling", but no other information is available. It is speculated by some people that, contrary to the cotre teachings, they have committed suicide. Others believe that the Witches simply went completely into the teachings and stopped being available to the world of modern man, in all ways.
Because the women had cut all ties with family and friends it was some time before people noticed they were missing. There has been no official investigation into the disappearances of Donner-Grau, Simko and Lundal. Luis Marquez, the brother of Talia Bey, went to the police in 1999 over his sister's disappearance, but was unable to convince them that her disappearance merited investigation. Their opinion changed in 2006 after the remains of Patricia Partin were identified, and the LAPD finally added Talia to their missing person database.
In his book The Art of Dreaming, Castaneda describes an encounter during a lucid dreaming session with a supposed conscious entity that was trapped by other inorganic beings. The trapped entity was named the Blue Scout because its "energy" appeared blueish and it was an energetic scout (meaning it was outside of its original realm). The Blue Scout was apparently bait used by the inorganic beings to trap Castaneda as well. But instead they (Castaneda and the Blue Scout) escaped by supposedly merging their energies.
The alleged result of merging their energies was that the Blue Scout followed Castaneda to our world. Furthermore, Castaneda claimed that he gave the Blue Scout a human physical body by helping Carol Tiggs give normal birth to her.
A real girl was brought forward at various public sessions Castaneda and Tiggs and introduced as the Blue Scout, and Tiggs was referenced as her mother. This is strange because that girl was someone named Patricia Partin who had real, known biological parents other than Castaneda and Tiggs.
The remains of Partin, sometimes referred to by Castaneda as Blue Scout, Nury Alexander and/or Claude, were found in 2003 near where her abandoned car had been discovered a few weeks after Castaneda's death in 1998, on the edge of Death Valley. Her remains were in a condition requiring DNA identification, which was made in 2006.
Though the DNA traces confirmed Patricias identity, the missing DNA links with the ancient knowledges has yet to be established!Indoctrinated studies without insight is only making it more distant!
CKH
Compilation
