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Huehuecoyotl
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Registered: 06/13/04
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don Juan
#5625288 - 05/13/06 05:23 PM (18 years, 1 month ago) |
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Here is some interesting info. The information has surfaced recently that in the course of writing his books that Carlos Castaneda consulted as many as 11 shaman. The one that influenced his views the most was a Yaqui Shaman from Sonora Mexico His name is Grandfather Tezlcazi Guitimea Cachora. Castaneda reportedly studied with him for 3 to 4 years. Yaqui shamanism is the source for most of the techniques and ideas promoted in his books. Of course his books were fictionalized accounts of his apprenticeship mixed with symbolic references designed to convey a teaching. I attached a picture of this guy, who is actually still alive and nearly 90 years old.
"Grandfather Tezlcazi Guitimea Cachora, alias Don Juan, has been written about extensively since the early sixties. Carlos Castaneda wrote about his experiences with grandfather and also his interpretations of Cachoras knowledge. Through his numerous books, Castaneda helped introduce people from all over the world to the ancient Yaqui ways."

Here are some links about this guy. http://www.jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=549 http://www.wisdomtraditions.com/yaqui.html
This info was uncovered by www.sustainedaction.org an effort to debunk Castaneda, but this appears to give him credibility. It is the view of Sustained Action that if one small detail is false then it is all false. It is funny that no other spiritual text is held to this standard. If so, all of the worlds religions would have been debunked years ago.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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Very interesting indeed. So then what do you think? Has Carlos used these teachings as a stepping stone for creating his own ideas on the nature of reality and the path to freedom, or did all of his ideas come from the Toltec seers and maybe some eastern religion thrown in?
Carlos's ideas seem to be vastly more developed than Cachoras. Cachoras ideas for the most part seem quite tame and more like the modern traditional Indian spiritual teachings. Do you think he might have been holding back some information in his interviews?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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"Very interesting indeed. So then what do you think? Has Carlos used these teachings as a stepping stone for creating his own ideas on the nature of reality and the path to freedom, or did all of his ideas come from the Toltec seers and maybe some eastern religion thrown in?" No I do not. I think it is mostly traditional lore.
"Carlos's ideas seem to be vastly more developed than Cachoras. Cachoras ideas for the most part seem quite tame and more like the modern traditional Indian spiritual teachings. Do you think he might have been holding back some information in his interviews?" In a short interview you will not get 4 years of knowledge. Cachora said in a lecture (check the other link) that stalking and dreaming are Yaqui practices. I know from my own research into shamanism that most of Carlos's ideas are common among traditional cultures of southern Mexico and Guatamala like the Mazatec and the Maya.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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Are you saying that his discription of tonal and nagual from Tales of Power are traditional toltec?
What about the new toltec seers? Do you think the things he discribes are practiced by groups of warrior/seers today?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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I posted a book on Naugaiism last week on this site which I have sent to you as well. It discusses Tonal and Naugal. They are traditional ideas. http://library.case.edu/ksl/ecoll/books/brinag00/brinag00.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagualism I have seen reference to these ideas by different names in traditional literature before as well. Mr. Cachora had never heard of the idea of the warrior group of 8 sorcerers...and neither have I outside of Castaneda.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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Don Juan seemed to describe them differently than the traditional ideas. At least that's my take from Tales of Power. I'll have to look at it again.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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A complete survey of the practices of the Indians of Southern Mexico may help. I have done this to my own satisfaction in learning about world traditions of shamanism. The nagualism book discusses the terms, but misinterprets many of the ideas due to cultural bias. Note: Castaneda's descriptions are interpretations that are very specific. Such descriptions can not be picked up by scanning over traditional literature, but one sees references to them. To truly verify or discount this work would require a multiyear apprenticeship in such a tradtion.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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What about the new toltec seers? Do you think the things he discribes are practiced by groups of warrior/seers today?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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Mr. Cachora had never heard of the idea of the warrior group of 8 sorcerers...and neither have I outside of Castaneda. So, who really knows how deep the rabbit hole goes...or not.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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I have a hard time finding anyone interested (really) much less the good (huge understatement) luck of finding a benefactor.
Hey Sporetacus!, chime in here, I know you want to.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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The notion of the sorcerers group has no relevance to modern humans....if it was ever a custom....but I have found spiritual truth in in many ancient Toltec techniques as I know you have, but I am not getting together with a group of dorks to play "don Juan sorcerers group"....it would be like being a trekkie.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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Not sure I agree here. I'm not talking about wannabes. I'm talking about people working together on the same ideas who are serious and dedicated.
I have a friend here and we have been doing that successfully for about 4 years now, and I have another friend who is fairly serious. But I had to wait for 20+ years to find them. Which could have meant that I just wasn't ready yet.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


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"Not sure I agree here. I'm not talking about wannabes. I'm talking about people working together on the same ideas who are serious and dedicated."
I do agree that working with a group of interested people on a spiritual goal can help....but the idea of trying to "copy" Castaneda would leave me unenthused. Having a support group or a club dedicated to this work would be interesting and a way to converse with spiritually minded people. It would be important to not maintain a cult like organization with a "great leader". In any case I call nagual first!
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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I wouldn't want to copy anybody although to be perfectly honest the group Castaneda discribes and the life he led with them sounds about as good as it gets. But most likely it was fiction.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
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The forward to the first book: "This book is both allegory and ethnography" It is pretty plain in noting this. I feel that these books are a coyote teaching.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Huehuecoyotl
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In any case we will be don Huehuecoyotl and don Icelander. We will "walk the Earth" and have adventures in which we use immpeccable martial arts skills to help the down trodden. Sounds like it would make a great TV series...
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
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don Icelander? I don't think so.
Besides I wouldn't know how to help the downtrodden. They don't want help really, now do they. 
I do have adventures with Veritas. But we'll save that for a different thread.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Fospher
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Registered: 02/09/05
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Quote:
Huehuecoyotl said: I posted a book on Naugaiism last week on this site which I have sent to you as well. It discusses Tonal and Naugal. They are traditional ideas.
There are some parts in the reading that go hand in hand with CC's books. The terms used, such as Seers, nagual, assignment of an animal to a seer to be the nagual, et cetera. However, the references for the study are mostly from the 16th century monks, and are filled with associations with the devil.
I wonder if that's what Don Juan means by the discernment of old seers and new seers. In The Fire From Within he talks about how he's not a sorceror, but a warrior that sees. Don Juan doesn't mention the devil, but I wonder if he's alluding his association to the old seers?
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Icelander
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Re: don Juan [Re: Fospher]
#5625830 - 05/13/06 07:32 PM (18 years, 1 month ago) |
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It seems to me that the old seers were concerned with power and control and the new with freedom and awareness.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Fospher
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Registered: 02/09/05
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Quote:
Icelander said: It seems to me that the old seers were concerned with power and control and the new with freedom and awareness.
Don Juan describes that the seers held too much self-importance, which led them to their doom, while the new overcame that with ego loss.
But that's not what I'm talking about. Read the reading passage that Huehuecoytl posted on Nagualism. It constantly talks about the devil taking advantage of the natives and appearing to them in different animal forms, the sorcerors or naualli sucking the blood of children at night, and other necromancy-type acts. Maybe that is true that the old seers were accomplices of the devil, and hence they perished while the new seers saw their folly and denied their old tradition, creating a new theology.
" But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
Revelation 21:8
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