Right relationship with drugs

[paul]

I have noticed in various shamanic writings the proposition that the various natural intoxicants exist within the energy fields of entities and that it is important to establish good relationships with such entities before using the particular intoxicants.

Anyway I was sitting on the train and a woman sat next to me, smelling of tobacco and the above thought occurred.

So I wondered about tobacco and easily I saw an energy field (body of an entity) related to tobacco that anchored in her lungs. I looked some more and saw a dark energy flow within that energy that belonged to a dark entity that was using the tobacco entity as an entry.

And I did a experiment or two in relating to the tobacco entity. When I engaged positively with it, the dark entity within the tobacco entity withdrew. That suggests that the more destructive aspects of tobacco addiction can be avoided through right relationship.

Then I recalled a deceased friend who was a genuine 3rd degree initiate who smoked cigars. When I looked at him back then, there was no dark entity within the tobacco entity connecting to him.

Perhaps there are lessons for users of prescribed drugs.

[LorrB]

I have wondered about the shamans and the results they obtain by using various biological aides. Where does that fit with what Freemasonry says about refraining from seeking the secrets of higher degrees (before they naturally occur by right practice and effort?)

[paul]

Don Juan got Castaneda to spend long periods breathing the smoke of fires while out in the wilderness. This was apparently to purify his body and energy system. There were also other exercises.

I might deduce that Don Juan required a degree of righteousness on various levels before exposing Castaneda to these entities.

More generally, if the entity is antagonistic and the human does not have control of the energy of the relevant planes of existence, then the human is food for the entity.

[tamrin]

Sept 8, 2011 14:53:09 GMT 9.5 paul said:

Don Juan got Castaneda to spend long periods breathing the smoke of fires while out in the wilderness. This was apparently to purify his body and energy system. There were also other exercises.

I might deduce that Don Juan required a degree of righteousness on various levels before exposing Castaneda to these entities.

More generally, if the entity is antagonistic and the human does not have control of the energy of the relevant planes of existence, then the human is food for the entity.

The difficulty with this argument is that Castaneda was a fraud who plagiarized, fictionalized and bastardized the works of genuine researchers:

Carlos Castaneda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Excerpt)

His writings have been criticized by a number of academics, and have been seen by some as highly suspect in terms of anthropological fieldwork, particularly in relation to the extent to which he expropriates the research of Barbara Myerhoff without attribution, fictionalizing on the basis of her field research. Various critics have tried to reconcile Castaneda’s accounts with his own personal history and those of his fellow apprentices, with no success. Some hold that this is proof that the stories are fictitious but others believe that Castaneda made a strenuous personal effort to erase his own personal history, in accordance with the precepts he learned from the old nagual, don Juan Matus, who had embarked on a similar procedure earlier.

One conflicting aspect of his work is the description of the use of psychotropic plants as a means to induce altered states of awareness. In Castaneda's first two books, he describes the "Yaqui way of knowledge" using for assistance the use of powerful indigenous plants, such as peyote and datura. In his third book, Journey to Ixtlan, he makes clear that the use of psychotropic plants ("power plants") or substances was not necessary to achieve heightened awareness, although his teacher advised their use was beneficial in helping to free the stubborn mind of some persons. He says that don Juan used them on him to demonstrate that experiences outside those known in day-to-day life are real and tangible.

In Journey to Ixtlan, the third book in the series, he wrote:

My perception of the world through the effects of those psychotropics had been so bizarre and impressive that I was forced to assume that such states were the only avenue to communicating and learning what don Juan was attempting to teach me.

That assumption was erroneous.

According to Robert J. Wallis, in his 2003 book Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Contested Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies, and Contemporary Pagans:

At first, and with the backing of academic qualifications and the UCLA anthropological department, Castaneda’s work was critically acclaimed. Notable old-school American anthropologists like Edward Spicer (1969) and Edmund Leach (1969) praised Castaneda, alongside more alternative and young anthropologists such as Peter Furst, Barbara Myerhoff and Michael Harner. The authenticity of don Juan was accepted for six years, until Richard de Mille and Daniel Noel both published their critical exposés of the don Juan books in 1976 (De Mille produced a further edited volume in 1980). Most anthropologists had been convinced of Castaneda’s authenticity until then — indeed, they had had little reason to question it — but De Mille’s meticulous analysis, in particular, disproved the veracity of Castaneda’s work.

Beneath the veneer of anthropological fact stood huge discrepancies in the data: the books ‘contradict one another in details of time, location, sequence, and description of events’ (Schultz in Clifton 1989:45). There are possible published sources for almost everything Carlos wrote (see especially Beals 1978), and at least one encounter is ethnographic plagiarism: Ramon Medina, a Huichol shaman-informant to Myerhoff (1974), displayed superhuman acrobatic feats at a waterfall and, according to Myerhoff, in the presence of Castaneda (Fikes 1993). Then, in A Separate Reality, don Juan’s friend don Genaro makes a similar leap over a waterfall with the aid of supernatural power. In addition to these inconsistencies, various authors suggest aspects of the Sonoran desert Carlos describes are environmentally implausible, and, the ‘Yaqui shamanism’ he divulges is not Yaqui at all but a synthesis of shamanisms from elsewhere (e.g. Beals 1978).

As early as 1973 a Time Magazine article had questioned

"... the more worldly claim to importance of Castaneda's books: to wit, that they are anthropology, a specific and truthful account of an aspect of Mexican Indian culture as shown by the speech and actions of one person, a shaman named Juan Matus. That proof hinges on the credibility of don Juan as a being and Carlos Castaneda as a witness. Yet there is no corroboration beyond Castaneda's writings that don Juan did what he is said to have done, and very little that he exists at all."

Serious analytical criticism of Castaneda's books did not emerge until 1976 when Richard de Mille published Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory, in which he argues, "Logical or chronological errors in the narrative constitute the best evidence that Castaneda's books are works of fiction. If no one has discovered these errors before, the reason must be that no one has listed the events of the first three books in sequence. Once that has been done, the errors are unmistakable."

The most damning instance of this, according to de Mille, is Castaneda's relations with a witch named 'la Catalina.'

"In October 1965 Carlos-One went through an ordeal so unexpected and disturbing that he sadly withdrew from his apprenticeship and avoided don Juan for more than two years. The ordeal was a night-long confrontation with a powerful enemy who had assumed don Juan's bodily form though not his accustomed gait or speech....

Curiously, when Carlos-One begged don Juan to explain what had happened during the "special" event, 'the conversation began with speculations about the identity of a female person' (Castaneda's emphasis) who had snatched Carlos's soul and borrowed don Juan's form. The lady was not named, and the reader was left to wonder whether the galvanizing impersonatress was in fact a certain 'fiendish witch' called "la Catalina," who had been mentioned briefly on 23 November 1961, four years earlier. At that time don Juan had said he was harboring certain plans for finishing her off, about which he would tell Carlos-One 'someday.' Poor Carlos-One had to wait ten years to learn about those plans in Tales of Power, but Table 2 reveals that Carlos-Two, traveling a parallel time track, carried out those plans with moderate success in the fall of 1962, when he met the magic lady six times in a row, once as a marauding but indistinct blackbird, once as a sailing silhouette, and four times face to face "in all her magnificent evil splendor" as a beautiful but terrifying young woman. Reacting to those encounters, he felt his ears bursting, his throat choking, his hands frozen, his body chilled, and his arms and legs rigid. The hair on his body literally stood on end. He shrieked and fell down to the ground. He was paralyzed. He began to run. And he lost his power of speech.

Here we are asked to believe that a flesh-and-blood anthropologist who enjoyed this tumultuous supernatural affair with a glorious witch in 1962 did not recall her name in 1965, did not make the connection between the last meeting and the previous six when sorting through his field notes in the safety of his apartment, did not put it all together when naming her in his first book, but found the memory "as vivid as if it had just happened" on 22 May 1968, a few pages into his second book. Even if we could credit this uncharacteristic amnesia, we would still have to account for don Juan's equal failure to name 'la Catalina' in 1965. The puzzle is easily solved by switching from the factual to the fictive model. The abrupt, unsatisfying ending to The Teachings is not a symptom of ethnographic battle fatigue, for our campaigner has already survived six such battles with colors flying. It is only a serialist's preparation for the next episode, a cliffhanger that makes us hungry for another book.

On these showings, one thing is certain. "The Teachings of Don Juan" and "Journey to Ixtlan" cannot both be factual reports.

In the The Power and the Allegory, De Mille compared The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui way of Knowledge with Castenada's library stack requests at the University of California. The stack requests documented that he was sitting in the library when his journal said he was squatting in don Juan's hut. One of the most memorable discoveries the De Mille made in his examination of the stack requests was that when Castaneda said he was participating in the traditional peyote ceremony -- the least fantastic episode of drug use -- he was not only sitting in the library, but he was reading someone else's description of their experience of the peyote ceremony.

The question remains as to why Castaneda has not been stripped of his academic standing and, to address that question, I turn to the following from the movie Educating Rita:

Rita: Will they sack you?
Dr. Frank Bryant: Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for dismissal it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar.

I guess the same insight can be applied to the question, recently discussed on this forum, as to why John Mack was not stripped of his academic standing.

[paul]

Fortunately I have a friend who attended Castaneda's Tensegrity workshops for quite some years. She said that he was a bit erratic but at times was clearly a nagual. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensegrity

And of course several other of Don Juan's students mentioned by Castaneda have come forward with their own books.

Still that is just a distraction from the proposition of the thread that is that right relationship with the entities that inform the drugs is a necessary (but perhaps not sufficient condition) to avoid adverse spiritual impacts.

Does this apply to manufactured pharmaceuticals?

[tamrin]

What assessment did your friend use in arriving at her judgement?

[paul]

She had many years of practical inner work. I thought her quite competent at what she did.

And of course she knew Castaneda well from many sessions with him.

For myself, I found new practical material in Castaneda that I have not seen elsewhere since.


Still this is rather a distraction from the topic of the thread.

[tamrin]

Sept 9, 2011 9:16:06 GMT 9.5 paul said:

For myself, I found new practical material in Castaneda that I have not seen elsewhere since.

Are you familiar with the works identified as being plagiarised by Castaneda?

[paul]

Personally I am more interested in the effectiveness of techniques than in humans that claim prior documentation - as if any real knowledge is original to humans.

[Henka]

Sept 9, 2011 11:07:29 GMT 9.5 paul said:

...as if any real knowledge is original to humans.

Where, then, does it come from?

[paul]

That rather depends on whether there is a Oneness of All. If there is then human consciousness uses substance that is shared with many kingdoms.

For example, I have spoken to several washing machine and auto mechanics who tell me that they diagnose and repair machines by asking the machine what is wrong and how to dismantle and repair it.

[LorrB]

So they get a response in their head? If so they might just be tapping into the Mind.

[paul]

Sept 9, 2011 15:26:05 GMT 9.5 LorrB said:

So they get a response in their head? ...

Or perhaps a response in their ear. Sometimes the machines intelligences have distinctly metallic voices.

And of course the machine entities may not operate on the mental plane. Many machine entities are emotional more than mental

"Volvo will build emotional cars in the future... new CEO Stefan Jacoby said.
www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100818/ANE/308189964/1257

[tamrin]

Sept 9, 2011 11:07:29 GMT 9.5 paul said:

Personally I am more interested in the effectiveness of techniques than in humans that claim prior documentation - as if any real knowledge is original to humans.

Well you were the one attributing the documentation to Castaneda!?

I'm not impressed by this further attempt of yours to discredit human capabilities and achievements. What happened to your advocacy of intellectual bootstrapping? What do you consider to be the original source of the knowledge we have?

[paul]

Sept 9, 2011 18:38:30 GMT 9.5 @tamrin said:

What do you consider to be the original source of the knowledge we have?

Given that we all agree on the Oneness of All, that is indeed the source of the knowings. What other source could there be?

As humans enter into right relationship with other kingdoms the qualities, properties and cooperation of those kingdoms become available.

All else is vanity.

[tamrin]

Sept 9, 2011 13:21:19 GMT 9.5 paul said:

That rather depends on whether there is a Oneness of All. If there is then human consciousness uses substance that is shared with many kingdoms.

For example, I have spoken to several washing machine and auto mechanics who tell me that they diagnose and repair machines by asking the machine what is wrong and how to dismantle and repair it.

Robert M. Pirsig made this intellectual bailiwick his own in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: The key is thorough immersion in a subject, mastering it in cognitive depth, experiencing it through trial and error with all one's senses, until one can relax conscious deliberation and subconsciously allow the unfolding of connections and nuances that are not immediately apparent. Talking as if to a machine might aid in the meditative process but, if it talks back, you're in trouble.

[tamrin]

Sept 9, 2011 18:51:17 GMT 9.5 paul said:

Sept 9, 2011 18:38:30 GMT 9.5 @tamrin said:

What do you consider to be the original source of the knowledge we have?

Given that we all agree on the Oneness of All, that is indeed the source of the knowings. What other source could there be?

That's a relief. I was afraid you were about to attribute all human knowledge to alien intervention!?

Never-the-less, inspiration first requires openness, judgment and intellectual foundations. Some knowledge is a prerequisite to further knowledge in the boot-strap process of thesis (or hypothesis), antithesis and synthesis. Hegel suggested that no thesis will be perfect which doesn't comprehend the whole, (which, as he observed, is beyond our human capacity).

[paul]

we rather seem to have lost the original thread. Perhaps it is not such an interesting topic as I thought.