Definitely insightful but not as mind-blowing as I expected

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	• Journey to Ixtlan Carlos Castaneda Bodley Head Limited, 1973 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 48 reviews
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highly recommended

Definitely insightful but not as mind-blowing as I expected

I recently struck up a conversation with a stranger at a local book store, and he handed me a copy of this book and told me it was life-changing and that I had to "trust him" and read it. Never the one to shy away from "fate" (or whatever you want to call it), especially when it comes to someone physically handing me a book that is considered "life-changing," I knew I had to read it and set out to do so the next day. And simply put, I thought it was insightful but I was somewhat disappointed and don't really get all the hype.

Perhaps I had extremely high expectations (as one would when the book recommender tells you it was life-changing); perhaps its a generational thing; or perhaps I read too quickly, as I read the book in one day. I am planning on re-reading it again more slowly. I have a feeling I might get more out of it the second or third time around, as other reviewers have suggested. However, it just wasn't as mind-blowing as I thought it would be and can't understand how others loved it so much, as to consider it life-changing?

I definitely have my share of underlined passages that I thought were very important and insightful, and will take away with me after reading this book, however I thought it was a little corny at times, for lack of a better word. I hated how don Juan kept testing him and while I understand it was so he could come to his own realizations, it just frustrated me as a reader. I felt there was just too much written about how he wanted answers to all his questions and was disappointed when they weren't forthcoming.

In addition, the book presupposes that attaining this type of power, "stopping the world," and becoming a sorcerer like don Juan is something one should want to attain, but why is that necessarily so? Without contact with others (except it seems his other sorcerer friend), and without any personal history, which he simply gave up, what exactly are the benefits that don Juan experiences? Why should anyone want to become a sorcerer like him?

I am sure those who love this book are going to consider my thoughts naieve and comment that I'm ingnorantly stuck in a world where things are what they seem, but I am truly happy in this world where I have a personal history, connections to others and a clear sense of my life and place in the world. Perhaps having a strong religious identity prevented me from buying into these assumptions as well? Or perhaps having read only one of Carlos Castenedas books, I am missing the complete picture that would make this more interesting or relatable?

Despite my somewhat-negative comments, I do recommend this book, as I found it thought-provoking and interesting. It would make an interesting book-club selection, because it provides wonderful fodder for discussions and opinions. However, I wouldn't recommend this book as "life-changing."

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Best guide for introducing Toltec wisdom.

Over the years, I've read all of Castaneda's books multiple times trying to extract the wisdom embedded within. Along the way, I have also supplemented my reading in other Toltec Lineages: Mares, Eagle Feather, and Ruiz, to name a few. Different lineages branch out in different directions covering diverse ground and the inevitable snipping across boarders of those who negatively critique Castaneda. While all the various traditions offer some insight, I find Castaneda to be the most compelling.

Like the previous commentator, this book contains a distillation of all of Castaneda's books with regards the concepts and exercises for transforming one's life from a common man into that of a warrior. I differ with the reviewer below in that allegory (in my view) is not a major component of Castaneda's book - at least this one! I say that based on my experience and mentorship with Tom Brown ("the Tracker") and living with other indigenous peoples all over the world.

The stories conveyed by Castaneda conducted in the wilderness, on hunting, tracking power, and so forth, ring true with the other teachings I've been exposed to by those indigenous peoples still living in their original ways. The insights and practices on the spirit-that-moves-through-all-things is a common element of all native teachings cross culturally. (And if one doubts that, I invite you to enter an original culture to corroborate the experience yourself!)

My advice is to read this book through a couple of times, and then again a third time, in an attempt to discern the propositions offered. The key is to live out the propositions. Make them your own. The deeper you can engage these concepts into praxis, the deeper the transformation will manifest in your life. Herein the rub: no small task by any means.

I recognize some people will need teachers to engage this system. And for those you have who do need that, an abundance of "teachers" in the Ruiz lineage hang their shingle out, and offer their services for huge fees. If you need that, that is certainly one option. But, you can also do it on your own. Victor Sanchez is another author who has used these propositions on his own and offers a good summary in his many books.

If you do not need someone holding your hand for you, then these insights can be learned directly from the books with a little dirt time. I would also recommend supplementing these books with Tom Browns books and if able to attend his workshops.

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Hmmm....

Probably the most significant book I have ever read. That doesn't say a lot but hey I never like the bible. For some its almost petty to the number of polished novels and books already on the market and waiting for you pocket book. I must say though, this is quite the exquisite example of whats possible in our world or reality to get metaphyiscal. Many of the writes or teachings of castaneda are just that but this book to some is a starting point from which to begin the journey. The not-doings and small samples are just a small example for what in it. I highly recommend this book for anybody. Maybe you'll get hooked maybe not. Either way, some may care to read it.

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To Carlos, with gratitude

Carlos Castaneda was one of the most controversial writers of the twentieth century. Some in academia branded him a fraud for claiming his stories were biographical rather than fiction, while lauding him as a great novelist for exposing a mass audience to otherwise inaccessible philosophical abstractions they claimed were largely plagiarized. Each of his works is a piece of a larger puzzle, which makes it impossible to critique any one book without addressing the larger context into which it fits.

His first two books, "Teachings of Don Juan" and "A Separate Reality" describe experiences induced by ingesting psychotropic hallucinogenics prepared by a Yaqui Indian shaman from Sonora, Mexico he called don Juan Matus, and accounted for his becoming a guru to a generation seeking short cuts to spiritual enlightenment, as well as his lifelong interest in the relationship between perception and reality, a theme now explored in many popular books on consciousness and quantum physics. Unfortunately, these books remain his best selling works, in spite of Castaneda refuting their importance in his later works. Readers would be best served to skip these and avoid the risk of being turned off to Castaneda and missing the more stimulating works that followed.

His third and fourth works were "Journey to Ixtlan" and "Tales of Power." In Ixtlan he admits to over-estimating the value of his drug experiences, which caused him to overlook the more profound teachings of don Juan which became the focus of future writings. What emerges is a spiritual discipline dating back to the Pre-Colombian Toltec sorcerers of Latin America, culminating with don Juan's departure from our world, effectively ending Castaneda's direct affiliation.

In his fifth and sixth works "Second Ring of Power" and "Eagles Gift" Castaneda suffers strange flashbacks of what seem to be memory fragments of events he is unable to fit into any logical time sequence. In his seventh and eighth works, "Fire From Within" and "Power of Silence," Castaneda succeeds in reconstructing his lost memories, which derive from teachings previously administered by don Juan while Castaneda was in a "heightened" state of awareness.

In books nine and ten, "Art of Dreaming" and "Active Side of Infinity," Castaneda focuses on what he describes as inorganic predators from another dimension, some having the power to imprison humanity in "ordinary reality" so they can feed on the dark emotional energies we produce when succumbing to the negative thoughts they insert into our minds.

In later years several seemingly substantiating works appeared by two of Castaneda's female apprentices, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau. In addition, two scathing exposés were also published by two of his ex-wives. The first, "Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda" by first wife, Margaret Runyon, offers little corroboration, since her marriage pre-dates the time when the bulk of Castaneda's adventures were claimed to have occurred. While steadfast that Castaneda was a sorcerer, she doubts the existence of don Juan, even claiming authorship of many of the concepts Castaneda ascribed to him.

The second, and more credible work, is "Sorcerer's Apprentice," by well-known writer Amy Wallace, daughter of the late best selling novelist Irving Wallace. Here again, we find little corroboration since the time of the events she describes is well after the period when Castaneda's relationship with don Juan is alleged to occur. What the book does provide is a troubling look inside Castaneda's final years, a picture of descent into what seems sexual addiction and possibly madness, leaving one to wonder if Castaneda was just one cup of cool-aid short of a Jonestown.

Many have asked why I put any stock whatsoever in Castaneda. A story from my autobiography, "The Vortex" may shed some light. A year before Castaneda published his first book I had an experience that would remain a mystery until Castaneda published "Power of Silence" twenty years later.

For a brief time, in my youth, I became a practicing Muslim, meticulously performing the complex prayer ritual five times a day. Then one night, sitting in my car, frustrated and complaining at not being able to find the address of my next sales appointment, something inside me snapped. It was as if some part of me had disconnected from my body and assumed control, lecturing me about my lack of discipline. A profound calm settled over me, rendering me simultaneously detached and engaged. For two days my sales figures soared. It was as if no one could say no to me. On the evening of the second day I decided to put my new state of being to the acid test by visiting my parents. Their behavior was so uncharacteristically supportive I hardly recognized them. It was enough to convince me that I was now living in an altered reality. But by the following morning I had returned to "normal." So distracting had this event been that I completely forgot to perform my Muslim prayers, and in fact, never did so again.

Twenty years later, in a chapter of "Power of Silence" entitled "Place of No Pity" Castaneda describes a very similar experience. In the aftermath of the event don Juan explains that humans are like televisions stuck on a channel called "self-preoccupation," lacking the energy to tune into any of the vast array of other channels available to us. To change channels, he explains, we first need to accumulate energy, by practicing rituals that are deliberate, precise and repetitious. Do this long enough and eventually our stored energy precipitates a shift to a channel where self-importance and self pity become impossible. Once this happens we connect with the force that controls the entire universe, a force don Juan called "intent," and everything can be bent to our will and even more channels can be opened, assuming we remember to keep practicing the rituals that save our energy.

This one realization alone was enough to inspire me to dedicate my autobiography "To Carlos, with gratitude."

Maxwell Austin van Lack, Author of The Vortex: A True Story of Passion and Karma

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

This volume shows the reader the means by which a "man of power" sees, as opposed to merely looking, and how by his concentrated "seeing" he can, indeed must, "stop the world." In it, Carlos Castaneda describes the lessons, the omens, the exercises of the will and body, the arduous trials and tests, the simple yet mysterious demonstrations, the extraordinary visions and experiences by which don Juan, his mentor and friend, prepares him for the task of perceiving things as they are, instead of describing them by the words, conventions and standards of conventional, a priori ideas and language. Here, in the high mountains and in the bright arid desert, Castaneda reaches for power in a series of startling encounters with the unknown--a confrontation with death and the past in the form of an albino falcon, with the twilight wind, with a flesh-and-blood mountain lion, with a mountain fog--and learns the techniques, the concentration, the compassion of the hunter, the man who is "without routines, free, fluid."

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