Analysis
Like Aldous Huxley’s psychedelic literature, Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan attempts to examine rationally what escapes the limits of logic. Unlike other works of the genre, however, which generally describe and discuss drug-altered experiences, this book identifies a structure to which hallucinatory experiences conform and teaches a coherent way of experiencing the world that is utterly foreign to Western consciousness. For this reason, the work intrigued an entire generation interested in both hallucinogens and altered states of consciousness and is considered a classic addition to the literature which chronicles the psychology of drug-altered perception.
Used separately and on different occasions, the hallucinogenic substances mescalito, yerba del diablo, and humito—peyote, Jimson weed, and mushrooms— play a significant role in Castaneda’s introduction to the system don Juan attempts to elucidate. The bulk of his teachings, in fact, involve the preparation and use of these hallucinogenic plants. Each plant possesses different perceptual properties. In explaining the use of the “allies,” as don Juan calls the entities present in these plants, the brujo warns Castaneda that they are powerful but dangerous teachers which can accept or reject the recipient. The capacity of these plants to produce a peculiar state of perception is an essential element in the learning process, guiding the initiate to a level of conceptualization that allows him to comprehend nonordinary phenomena. Castaneda learns further that the realm of nonordinary reality is not illusory but real, with its own inherent properties and, moreover, that it can be utilized in such a way as to draw points of reference which have value in ordinary reality. That this nonordinary reality has a form, structure, and logic of its own and that one can actually move around in it is undoubtedly one of the author’s most startling and controversial revelations.
The interrelation of mind and matter, the processes of perception and knowing— these are some of the themes of don Juan’s lessons. Again and again he forces his student to question the validity of his assumptions; nothing can be taken for granted. Don Juan’s epistemology is as exacting and subtle as that of any contemporary theory, requiring the precise performance of sophisticated and complex techniques. Because these procedures collapse the facade of illusions on which most people depend, learning them demands the courage and discipline of a warrior. “A man goes to knowledge,” don Juan tells his student, “as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.”
“Going to knowledge” also brings with it an ongoing reevaluation of the normal, everyday world and one’s role in it. What constitutes worthwhile goals and what constitutes the highest knowledge must be reformulated to synthesize with the insights acquired in the learning process. Castaneda discovers, for example, that for the man of knowledge there are no regrets in the struggle for understanding, even though he is acutely aware that if he does achieve his goal, it will be only for a fleeting moment, and death will claim the final victory. Thus, for the man of knowledge—as for all enlightened individuals—it is the journey itself which must provide the meaning and the rewards.
The epistemology and ethics of the system don Juan teaches is founded on metaphysical presuppositions which differ radically from Western conceptions of reality. In fact, the prevailing notion of reality in the West is merely a facet of the more fundamental and holistic world to which don Juan is privy. The Cartesian duality of mind...
(This entire section contains 1115 words.)
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and matter, a supposition of Western metaphysics, is ignored. Mind and matter are categories which have a diminished role in the Indian’s ontological paradigm, where physical and cognitive being are considerably more diverse than traditionally conceived by Westerners.
The companion world Castaneda is shown is not transcendental in the sense that it lies beyond the sensorium; rather, it is apprehended by utilizing and understanding sensorial data in a different way, guided by the insights provided with psychedelics. Mastering the brujo’s more sophisticated level of perception allows the apprentice to see the world’s complexity more completely. Even something as innocuous as the light of day has deeper significance. The evening twilight, for example, is seen as an avenue to a separate reality, “the crack between the worlds.”
Given the nature of don Juan’s world, the man who has mastered the principles of the brujo’s system can see the future, leave his physical body, be in two places simultaneously, and he is capable of transforming himself into a bird, dog, coyote, or any other creature. Such acts conflict with the description of reality most Westerners understand, and Castaneda himself is skeptical that such possibilities exist. His own experiences, however, seem to corroborate the claims of his benefactor. After having smoked the hallucinogenic mixture humito, for example, he recounts his apparent transformation into a crow and his subsequent sensation of soaring above the mountains with other birds. Returning to ordinary reality, he finds himself naked in the open desert.
After such strange experiences, Castaneda is at times ecstatic, but more often exhausted and confused. The uncertainty about what he has actually experienced is apparent at every step of his apprenticeship, particularly when he begins to shift in and out of ordinary and nonordinary states without hallucinogenic mixtures. He describes these phenomena as they occurred—subjectively. Only afterward, during dialogues with his teacher (which are interpretative debriefings as well), does Castaneda attempt to understand what he has experienced. Rather than applying the methodology of modern scientific investigation, however, he and his teacher conduct these discussions using terms of the Indian’s world. Although Castaneda’s questions of his teacher are at times fumbling and redundant, they are a concerted effort to comprehend don Juan’s order of conceptualization.
Castaneda’s unique approach to his subject, as well as his considerable talents as a writer, results in a vivid and compelling exploration of an experiential paradigm previously undocumented. By describing the events of his apprenticeship with the same terror, ecstasy, wonder, and bewilderment he experienced as they occurred, he has made don Juan’s amazing world tangible. The book is a story of discovery and revelation delineating a mysterious and fully elaborated worldview, a view which differs radically from Western cosmology but provides as much, if not more, cosmological satisfaction. As a story of discovery, it incorporates a familiar archetypical theme, Hesse-like in its presentation, of a young man’s initiation into another way through the kind but emphatic tutelage of a wise old man.
