Introduction
(READ THIS FIRST TO HAVE AN OVERVIEW ON THIS TOPICS)
Article: To Learn from Castaneda in despite of Castaneda
First letter from Victor Sanchez to Castaneda
Last letter from Victor Sanchez to Castaneda
Letter to Sustained Action regarding the lawsuit Castaneda vs Bear and Company and Victor Sanchez
Extracts from the lawsuit CC vs B&Co and VS (Pending to be placed)
Books and links related to the controversy
Introduction
Because of the love and respect that we have about a large part of the works of Carlos Castaneda and because of the immense benefits we have received from some of his books, for years we didn't want to participate publicly in the polemics regarding Castaneda and especially regarding the strange turn of his public work in the last stage of his life.
Even though in the last five years we have been under the attack of Castaneda lawyers and associates, we have always chosen not to make public all the controversial issues we knew about them, just because we wanted to avoid, as best we could, addressing our attention (and therefore, our energy) to negativity.
Now Carlos Castaneda is dead. He made a huge contribution to the exploration of the hidden realms of human awareness. He lived trying to play the myth created by himself, but nevertheless, like everybody else, died like a man, which wouldn't have been such a big deal if it was not because part of the myth was about facing death in the bizarre way of burning from within and keeping the awareness to travel to another world.
So many of the hidden human problems involved in his life and the organizations he created came to the light after his death and many of his former fans have become critics who felt completely disappointed at discovering that behind the myth, there was always a human being with virtues and flaws.
It seems to me that the less than intelligent decision of some of his associates to try to hide the fact that he died like a sick man, rather than the superb nagual in total control, and to pretend he left this world "like don Juan," made a big contribution to the general disappointment, not so much about Castaneda's work but about his private persona and about the corporations and enterprises for workshops he founded and/or promoted in his last years.
Discovering the negative side, in the middle of the so-loved fantasy of the perfect master, is always painful. It is painful because there was love. But some pain could be a fair price to pay when we have enjoyed the magic of love. This case is no different.
Discovering the mundane side in the
personal world of a living myth wouldn't be the big deal if it were not because
that unveils the weakness of our own fantasies. What were we expecting? Perfect
beings flying all the time and never touching the dirt of the mundane life? Only
everything good and nothing bad...? Well, this is the moment when we can
remember that books and life, imaginations and facts, words and reality are
usually very different. It is a good moment, I think. A moment to re-gain our
responsibility and accept that life should be learned from living and not from
escaping to a perfect but imaginary world where perfect masters do perfect
things in the pages of a book.
Maybe the time has arrived to close the book, look at the world and learn from life, nature, action, and interaction. Learn from the world where we are mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. Where we are mortals, where there is an entire world waiting for us to awaken and participate in the thousand valuable tasks which need to be done for the world and for life to keep growing and moving.
The controversy and all its details has been studied, documented and discussed in many books and internet web sites. The books from Fikes, Runyan, and De Mille (and more recently the one from Amy Wallace) provided meaningful pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The research of Corey Donovan and others published in the Sustained Action web site have brought to light not only the secret side of the life of Castaneda and his associates behind the curtains, but also the amazement, confusion and need to find the sense to their own story of those who were close followers of the one who chose to be called "The Nagual" in the last years of his life.
Now, in the moment when we finally decide to speak openly to answer those questions which we are hearing again and again in our seminars and workshops and in the letters we receive, we have two main reasons to make a public response:
The first and main reason is that we have this message: Discovering the not-nice mundane sides of the world of Castaneda and the corporations founded by him and his associates shouldn't take us to discard all the good fruits we have received from our inner proximity with his books. As I have proposed from the beginning, let's avoid the fanatic way of those who insist in believing that only perfection and "impeccability" was present in the life and doings of Castaneda.
It is not wrong to accept that he was a man of great achievements whose genius in creative spirit-inspired writing called the attention and contributed to the dreams, quests, and hopes of millions, but was not free of human weaknesses. Pain, fear, greed, ego-mania, and worries about sex or money or illness were part of the challenges he had to deal with. Just like we human beings do. Some battles he won, some others he lost.
We should have the maturity to accept the simple truth, even when it challenges our beloved dreams. But we should also keep a place of respect, love and gratefulness about the amazing and beautiful experiences we all have had as a consequence of reading the books of Carlos Castaneda and using them for doing better things for our life. We should always hold respect and love for that work which changed our life, because that means keeping a place of respect for our own heart which was so present in the challenges and adventures we undertook inspired by the stories of Carlos and don Juan.
In this sense, the dream is still alive and will not die.
The second reason for this open talk about these matters has to do with the fact that, in the mind of the readers, the connection between my work and the works of Castaneda is something that will remain present for a long time, regardless of whether I like it or not, because my first book had the title of “The Teachings of don Carlos” and because many of Castaneda's readers found in my work a way to better take advantage of having read his books and to bring "down to the earth" the appealing but sometimes bizarre proposals contained in his work.
This will be the case, even despite the fact that the influence of Castaneda's work is not the strongest in my current work, which I am stating again and again in my books and public presentations. The strongest root and connection that is behind most of my work and my life is the one I have from the warriors of bare feet. Teachers who teach nothing, but whose life is an outstanding example of what all us human beings would be able to achieve if we would respect our heart, nature and the connection between both. I am talking about the indigenous people who I call the surviving Toltecs who live in the mountains of North-East Mexico.
I have written this piece in order to provide an answer for my readers and for those who have given me their confidence by participating in my workshops. I want to make clear how my relation with Castaneda the author and Castaneda the individual has been and what the real story is about lawsuits and mundane wars for business in which my name got involved with the name of Castaneda in a peculiar adventure, so different from the ones we both have written in our books.
(From the documents included in this section I personally recommend my first and last letters to Carlos Castaneda in order to have a simple and direct view of how these things happened according to what I lived. The article "To Learn from Castaneda in Spite of Castaneda" is like principles definition, making clear what parts of Castaneda's work and endeavors we agree and in what others we disagree. The other documents could be seen as more technical).
VS