The book "Learning of Don Juan - knowledge of the Yaki Indians", a mysterious American writer Carlos Castaneda, a Brazilian by birth, and according to some Peruvian - in his case, the unknowns begin already around the place of birth - is the story of Don Juan, an Indian connoisseur of medicinal plants and healer of many diseases. She translated this once extremely popular book from English Nada Ćurčija Prodanović.
The story of Don Juan will be an introduction to the fashion that marked a time - it is difficult to imagine today how and in what ways Castaneda was popular in the seventies and eighties of the last century. Millions of copies and media controversies followed the phenomenon of Castaneda, and the author himself seemed to try to clarify as little ambiguity as possible...
"Legend" says that Carlos Castaneda was a student of anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles when he began to find material for this book, which is why he often traveled to the surrounding areas and sought out experts on the herbs that were used for healing purposes by the Indians of the area. During one such trip, at a bus stop in Arizona, he quite by chance met an elderly Indian who his friend, who was also his guide during such research, told him that this man knew many medicinal herbs well. It was Don Juan and Castaneda entered into a conversation with him, but soon a bus arrived that took the white-haired Indian in a different direction from the one in which Castaneda was supposed to travel. His friend explained to him that this Indian was not from Arizona but from the northwestern part of Mexico, more precisely, from the Mexican federal state of Sonora. Carlos knew that it would not be easy to talk about it with Don Juan because there was still distrust between the Indians and the whites, which was almost entirely the fault of the Indians. Even the name of that people was invented by the first white people who landed on American soil, thinking they had come to India, so they called the natives there Indians. However, Castaneda did not pay attention to that, so he repeatedly went to Don Juan's house in Mexico alone without his companion because he had a strong desire to talk to Don Juan in private. At the same time, he listened carefully and recorded all his wisdom that he heard, trying not to miss anything. In this way, he learned a lot about medicinal plants and their use in saving sick people. He learned that three hallucinogenic herbs, peyote... tatula... and a mushroom, probably Mexican Psilocybe. At that time, Don Juan was famously successful brujo which in Spanish meant: a successful physician, a seer, a sorcerer, a sorcerer, actually shaman. People around him believed that in addition to these learned healing skills, he also possessed some "secret knowledge", a supernatural power with which he was born. Don Juan used these herbs, separately and in various doses depending on the purpose for which he was using them, in fact, what he wanted to achieve with them. In addition to treating the sick, he also used them to achieve moderate satisfaction and mood, sometimes supernatural rapture and a feeling of infinite happiness. However, once those plants also served him for magic. Their application led man to a special perception through which the organism directly learns the essential properties of various phenomena and objects in reality. In this way, a person includes the connection of sense data with earlier experience. It enables him to correctly reason and categorize the data that has arrived in his consciousness. That's exactly what Don Juan attached special importance to, because he considered that this very state was the only way of rational progress and learning, the only way to really gain power in achieving real success. Carlos Castaneda called that state "a state of unusual reality".
Only after a full year of acquaintance and some form of cooperation with Don Juan, Castaneda says that this rather unusual Indian slowly began to open up to him and even confide in him. One day he confided in him that he possessed certain knowledge that he had received from his teacher, who was instructing him in a kind of shamanistic apprenticeship. Don Juan was infinitely grateful to that man, the benefactor as he often called him because of that, so he wanted to take Carlos Castaneda as his apprentice. Then Carlos learned a lot about that man, Don Juan's teacher, whom he called: diablero, because the Sonoran Indians called evil people that way. People who, with the help of black magic, which the Sonoran Indians often used, as they believed, could turn a person into any animal, coyote, dog, bird...
Based on what Carlos heard from Don Juan that day, he understood that the teaching of that strange old man should be understood in the way he understood and adopted it, and that only in this way can Don Juan's teaching become clearer, more convincing and have real and full meaning. In addition to all that, Castaneda finally concluded again, for the umpteenth time, that Don Juan gave the greatest importance to the use of hallucinogenic herbs. However, this wise Indian was not willing to talk too much about this type of herbs and their uses, but turned the conversation to certain objects that were imbued with some strange energy, claiming that they had become so thanks to powerful people and benevolent spirits. These objects are tools, but not ordinary tools, but, as Don Juan considered it: tools of death. According to him, the subjects he spoke about do not have the power to transmit knowledge. In fact, he did not consider these objects to be real objects in the material sense, but called various types of power tools because it is a special form of war weapon intended to be thrown at the enemy in battle, to kill. Don Juan confided in Castaneda that there are dozens and dozens of these kinds of powers and that a person can acquire them. That the power of an object depends on its owner, on what kind of power its owner has. He said that this energy of the object is with the weaker one witch-a, very small, while it is more powerful witch-a significantly larger, because strong brujo it bestows its power on its object. Don Juan said that there were limits to those kinds of powers, but he didn't want to talk much about them either. Instead he said what powerful items he had. He mentioned first Pinto often, crystals and feathers. He explained that he was often actually a small grain of corn that has a red stripe in the middle and that's good brujo there are forty-eight of those grains. He said that any one of those grains could kill a man if it entered his body. That when that grain enters a man's body, it settles in his chest or intestines. That man soon fell ill and died within three months. Only he can save him brujo which heals him provided it is stronger than that witch-a who bewitched him. And the one who heals him would have to suck out the grain that is in the sick man. At the same time, Don Juan remarked that it was little witch who would dare to do so, for if he is not strong enough to repel it from himself, the grain will enter him and kill him instead of that infected man. At the same time, Don Juan said that grain magic is one of the strongest magics. That one of them consists in placing one grain in a fresh bud of a yellow flower. The flower is placed in a place where the victim is most likely to come into contact with it. And when that happens, the magic is done. All the power of the grain passes into man and performs its magical power. It is interesting that no bird, if it happens to see that magical grain of corn, will not want to eat it. Don Juan later explained to Castaneda the process of obtaining those grains, which is essentially very complex. At the same time, he explained that knowledge is power, but real power depends on the type of knowledge a person has, because what sense can knowledge have about something that is of no use to him.
Don Juan reminded Castaneda that he often only a means, an instrument, not an ally. That he must learn to distinguish between the two. He added that crystals and feathers (often), real toys compared to the ally.
According to Don Juan's teachings, gaining allies would mean exploiting the state of unusual reality induced by hallucinogenic herbs.
Thanks to authentic annotations, Carlos Castaneda reveals Don Juan's belief system in this book. The author admits that in any case it was difficult to fully understand his way of working and knowledge.
This book is written in two parts. In the second part, the author presented a structural analysis of the extracted data recorded in the first part of the book, and in his opinion, it supports, among other things, the claims that Don Juan presented his teaching as a system of logical thought, and that this system makes sense only if it is observed in the light of its basic structure.
In this part of the book, Castaneda records various sessions during which Don Juan taught him the skills of using certain herbs, and the author was particularly interested in the use of peyote.
With the book "The Learning of Don Juan", Castaneda caused great interest among millions of readers across the country, but also controversy, especially in the scientific world. Given the nature of the material that forms the core of this book, many have disputed its validity in its entirety. However, there were still many more who saw in "Teaching of Don Juan" a stunning story about an unusual spiritual journey using a comprehensive way of realizing the truly valuable powers of man, especially perceptive ones. This book was especially interested in searchers who were dissatisfied with the possibilities of knowing life and the world in the domain that Western civilization made possible for them. In any case, this book is a successful product of the author's unbridled imagination that leaves a strong impression on the reader's psyche.
Carlos Castaneda was born, as the "majority" believes, in Peru, but there is also information that Brazil is his native country, while there is no dispute about the year - it is 1925, and he died in 1998 in Los Angeles.
He published fifteen books that sold more than twenty-eight million copies and were printed in seventeen languages. A significant part of critics consider Castaneda's books primarily literary fiction, but there are not a few who consider his work authentic philosophy, or some kind of theoretical basis of modern shamanism...
His work helped to define the entire decade of the sixties while at the same time foreshadowing it New Age movement.
He received his doctorate in 1973 at the University of Los Angeles, in the Anthropology group. He wrote his dissertation precisely on the basis of the experience and knowledge he gained during the research and writing of his first three books - "Learning of Don Juan", "Separate Reality" and "The Journey to Istlan". Castaneda withdrew from the public shortly thereafter to continue working on his own inner development.
He lived in a huge house in Los Angeles, together with three women whom he called "companions on the path to Enlightenment". They severed all ties with families, friends and gave up their names to join his movement.
He is the founder Cleargreen-a, an organization that promoted Tensegrita - a term Castaneda used to describe the traditional Toltec rules of spiritual exercises for the acquisition of certain powers that were passed down to him by his teacher don Juan Matus.
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