Reflections on Re-reading Castaneda’s Works

A new piece by original Sustained Action contributor (and professional writer/poet) Sandy McIntosh, reflects on having re-read all of the works of Castaneda and his cohorts (Florinda Donner and Taisha Abelar) in recent years. The piece is entitled They Are What We Know.

A brief excerpt encapsulates what Sandy learns:

I reread the books and was disappointed. The heart-pounding adventures Castaneda relates were, of course, still there, but my heart no longer pounded while reading them. Of course, I knew how each book was going to end, but where was the wonderful adventure that transported my imagination on first reading? I think the answer is that what seemed, in 1970, to be extraordinary revelations of alternate realities has now become, as we continue deeper into the 21st century, a part of our present accepted reality—as myth, fantasy, or practical everyday knowledge. Even during his lifetime, his books had already begun to settle into the general collective consciousness. The poet T.S. Eliot pointed us in the right direction, I believe, when he wrote: “The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did. Precisely, and they are what we know.”

Related links:

• They Are What We Know
• 25th Anniversary Update
• Cleargreen Night Sessions, Part III
• Daniel C. Noel, Seeing Castaneda: Reactions to the “Don Juan” Writings of Carlos Castaneda. Perigee Books (1976).
• Metafiction? Castaneda maintained ‘I invented Nothing’