Product Description

The definitive and revealing overview of Carlos Castaneda's experiences with don Juan. This book is an astounding overview of Castaneda's work of the last 30 years. He goes back through the most memorable events in his life, having been told that he should this by don Juan Matus, a Yacqui Indian Shaman who became his teacher for 13 years. He has learned that these events, when collected together, form a device that powerfully stirs energy inside the self that has lain dormant. Our daily lives push these cachets of energy outside our reach. This method shows us how to redeploy our unused energy. The aim is to put together the sum total of one's emotions and realizations. For the Shaman's of ancient Mexico this energy is preparation for facing the definitive journey, after death. Don Juan taught that through this training, Shamans were capable of retaining their individual awareness and purpose after death, which they needed to undertake the affairs of daily life that occur in a region that don Juan called 'The Active Side of Infinity'. This book is a fascinating collection of Castaneda's key experiences organised in a very accessible way. They provide a unique insight into this tradition and elucidate ideas that occur in Castaneda's previous books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190185 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Depending on whom you talk to, Carlos Castaneda is either one of the very greatest thinkers of the last century, or one of its most accomplished charlatans. Ever since The Teachings Of Don Juan, the author's "true story" of his encounter with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer who led him on a mesmerising, magical and highly disturbing journey into another world, Castenada has fascinated readers with his extraordinary narratives. Hovering tantalisingly between anthropology and fiction, they offer visions of spiritual universes, worlds within our own that are accessible to anyone bold enough to undertake the psychic and spiritual challenges necessary to reach them.

Now, in his last book before he died, Castaneda offers this "collection of the memorable events in my life", at the suggestion, he says, of the shamanic teacher who started it all. This is no random memoir, says Castaneda, but itself a shamanic ritual--the "putting together [of] the sum total of one's emotions and realizations, without sparing anything", in preparation for "the definitive journey" into life after death, or what shamans call "the active side of infinity".

What we get is a kind of Castaneda reader or primer, a posthumous overview of the episodes that first brought him to our attention. As always both riveting and bewildering, Castaneda offers a behind-the-scenes gloss on the extraordinary events that inform his best-known books. It will surely have the effect of turning readers back to those first mind-bending volumes. --Dan Fielder

New York Times
"We are incredibly fortunate to have Carlos Castaneda's books. One can't exaggerate the significance of what he has done."

Deepak Chopra
"Carlos Castaneda was one of the most profound thinkers of this century. We are all indebted to him."

Customer Reviews

Our own predator's Mind
What a great book!. My heart started thumping in horror when it came to the point of predator and flyers. Castaneda's book has his own class of unimaginable spiritual adventures , but this goes beyond all of that. No Real adventure movies can surpass the spiritual adventures.

Beyond belief
I had read all of Castaneda's other work and was an avid fan when I came across this belatedly, but even I had not expected something like this. It surpassed my wildest dreams and was simply beyond imagination or expectation. Awesome, stupendous yet elegant & beautifully written. Cannot be compared to anything that I can think of.

An Introduction or a summary to his series of books
This book has the unique quality of being a great introduction to Carlos's series of books or as a summary for those that have read them. The book is very well written and has a certain clarity which is rare. For anyone exploring a 'warriors' way of life a 'must' read, you just need to find your own Don Juan!