Cleargreen July 2, 1999, Bulletin About ‘Personal History’ & a Response
Cleargreen, from their recent website statement [excerpts from Cleargreen bulletin appear below in italics]:
“Recently, we have received a number of reports and queries from practitioners of the magical passes concerning the emergence of a renewed interest in the personal history and data of Carlos Castaneda and his colleagues.”
But you have not received any such query from me, nor from many others like me, i.e. those who didn’t see the purpose in asking you.
“This type of interest arose the moment The Teachings of don Juan was published, and saw a resurgence anytime a new publication or a new aspect of don Juan’s teachings emerged.”
Of course it did. Would you honestly expect people to just believe something as wild as those books without any sort of actual evidence being provided.
Well, yes, I guess you would — and some did, but …It’s actually quite funny. I mean, Carlos Castaneda himself was downright skeptical all through his famous books. Carlos Castaneda maintained his skeptical attitude and his endless tendencies toward rational explanation and kept on asking his endless questions, allegedly while up against the onslaught of a veritable horde of magical beings who were continually performing truly bizarre feats which defied his understanding completely.
Now contrast this with most of us. We were never shown anything directly but a bunch of speeches and some unusual exercises. We saw the leader himself get sick and die. We uncovered genuine lies regarding some of the most significant myths being perpetrated. At the same time, no one ever jumped to mountaintops in front of our eyes. No one ever swung us by the legs off a cliff so we could disintegrate into infinity. But we did see the stockholder distributions and the factual data on the Blue Scout’s ordinary human birth, etc. And we’re not supposed to be skeptical? And we’re not supposed to ask questions??? Excuse me while I laugh in your face … That is utterly ridiculous!
Carlos Castaneda:
” I would like to point out that the interest in doing Tensegrity should have nothing to do with the human insistence on taxonomizing.”
And of course it doesn’t. Physical and energetic movements are beneficial in and of themselves, and anyone from Joe M.D. to Baba Yoga to Terry Tai Chi to Quai Chang Qi Gong can tell you that. But we are talking about something else altogether, like whether or not you made up don Juan, so knock off the smoke screen.
“One of man’s favorite methods of deviating his attention is to hold onto collecting minutiae about the subject of his interest.”
Ah, but I do understand why you want to “deviate our attention” from your personal history so bad, and why you want to “deviate our attention” from investigating in depth “minutiae” like whether or not there was a don Juan. You bet I do.
“The movements of Tensegrity are very old and have been tested perhaps over thousands of years. They are ready for use. Since the movements of the limbs, muscles and ligaments of the body are so mild, and so focused, their effect is astoundingly beneficial. The movements of Tensegrity do not cause strain or fatigue. The Mexican sorcerers of antiquity who discovered them stated that they bring life through oxygen and circulation to the most recondite parts of the body which are perhaps never moved under ordinary circumstances.”
Gee, now there’s a little bit about the “personal history” of Tensegrity. And it just wouldn’t be as cool, if you made up Tensegrity after studying internal kung fu and abstract movement under Howard Lee for a decade, because that “personal history” just isn’t as impressive. Personal history is great when it’s about your grand “lineage” or something, isn’t it? It’s fine to promote your next workshop by talking about the “old nagual woman” who supposedly originated the techniques. But when it comes down to showing that the “personal history” of that lineage is actually a bunch of lies then it is no longer of interest.
“Seers, the nagual told us, rather than trying to pigeonhole their fellow beings, prefer to dream them.”
IMO, the main purpose of your statement is to “pigeonhole” practitioners into two categories, those who:
1) ask the tough questions and “are no longer welcome around here”
2) keep their mouth shut and do what they are told
And strangely enough, I agree that it is time to do that, but you might want to reconsider which side you are on while there is still time left to live. 🙂
” They know that they have very little time in this organic form, and they want to spend it stuffing themselves with awareness, rather than with useless data. “
It is precisely because I have little time that I want to know exactly what the hell is the truth about the path I have chosen to follow. If it is riddled throughout with a bunch of made-up stories, and is therefore basically a crock of cheese whiz then would I not be wasting my precious time in this organic form to pursue it virtually to the exclusion of everything else life offers?
“Many times people would make great efforts to meet and talk with the nagual, only to ask: “Where do you live?” “How old are you?” “Are you married?” and the like. “
Many times you have tried to characterize the questions we ask as banal and senseless, standing up the “straw men”, and knocking them down, but this tactic is without substance. We know where he lived, we know how old he was, and we know he was married, so we certainly wouldn’t bother asking any of those questions. But questions like: “Why did you get married when in public you trashed marriage all the time?” Why did you say in public that you were a “bored fuck” who was “pure” and used all his energy to navigate, when in private you were having sex with numerous people?” And to followup there, what the heck did you mean when you said there is no difference between what you say and what you do?”
“‘These are not the real questions, he told us, though they seem to be. The real questions are the ones we should ask ourselves, such as: ‘What are you doing with your life? Are you following a path with heart?’ “
I am asking you that above, and that is what I’m trying to find out too. What were you really doing with your life? Were you following a path with heart?
But you know, you could easily answer both kinds of questions, even the stupid ones. Both kinds of questions are “real”. You could laugh and say “I live in a house in LA, I’m 72, and yes, I married some of these women but really now … lets speak of something of greater significance… ” and then you could spend a long time talking about the path with heart. That way no big deal would be made of it. You actually make a big deal out of such questions, by being evasive and secretive about them.
“If it is not a path with heart, he said, then we should have the courage to drop it, and find something that is, before our short time on earth runs out.”
That’s exactly right. And that is just exactly what is being determined here, whether you like it or not. I’ll add that seeing you attempt to use this “shape up or ship out” tactic here is kind of refreshing, for at least it implies that you are no longer impervious to what is really going on.
“The battle is not here. It’s out there,” he would say, “
No, the “battle” is everywhere (and in every moment). It’s right here, right now.
“the only thing that matters is their encounter with infinity. “
No, everything we do “matters.” How we live our lives matters. Your statement is the same kind of crap the Christians get fed: “the only thing that matters is your relationship with God, is going to heaven”.
“He told us he had brought us to that bridge, but that crossing it would be the voluntary decision of each of us individually.”
He did not cross “that bridge” himself. He died, just like other men die. It’s not so tough. Castaneda used to claim that Tiggs was “ready to go.” He used to claim it was really hard for her to even stay here. He used to claim the same thing of himself, he used to say that he was staying here just to teach us, but then when he got cancer he dropped out of sight and never taught us again. Again and again, he would say that the women were ready to go. So go already! And make it plain when you do. I’ll sit down in front of the Cleargreen office building and eat every post I ever made to Sustained Action if you do. I’ll spend every second of my life trying to follow you if you do.
But we all know that will never happen, now don’t we?
Where is “Kylie Lundahl”? Is that just another personal history question?? You know damned well it is not…
©️ 1999 by David Worrell, all rights reserved
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