I've never been able to find much discussion or posts on forums/subreddits about Goodman's book, and I've never understood why. Speaking as someone who was hooked into Castaneda's intent via the written word alone, Goodman's book is something of a New Testament gospel; since it is about Martin encountering Castaneda in the flesh, resurrected/recreated in the French Pyrenees, AFTER his death.
Goodman never met him, and wasn't even a reader of his books. He states he was so disturbed by his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, that he never read another. Yet he gets a very compelling minor detail about Carlos right.
He mentions that while Castaneda was with him in the French Pyrenees, they found some farm-fresh eggs. Carlos later cooks them up with a mastery that he found very remarkable.
I then recalled an obscure passage that may have been from someone's class or workshop notes (probably on the Sustained Action site when it was still active, or maybe a Nagualist Newsletter) that Carlos took a job as a short-order egg cook at a restaurant/diner for awhile, I think as a stalking exercise, but I may have remembered that last part wrong.
I was hoping there might be someone reading this subreddit that either attended some of Castaneda's classes or workshops who could confirm any of the unique mannerisms or personality quirks Goodman details in the book. The vibrant yellow shirt Castaneda wore stands out in my recall.
An excerpt:
"...You have many years ahead of you. Me, I have this short reprieve. Just a brief while longer to jump around in my own body. I share what I can with you (about death, amongst other things) before I go. And now I give you what makes my body still work as it does. I give you my name."
He holds out his hand. I take it in mine and we shake.
"Carlos," he says. "Carlos Castaneda."
???
There was a power in the handshake, like a whiteout that left my mind blank. I don't know how it worked. I can only say I felt more drained than charged as a result.
"The Carlos Castaneda?" I ask at last.
He grins, lifts his hands in the air, and spins around on his right foot before clicking his heels at a standstill again to present himself.
"But you can't be."
"Why not? I'm a writer. You're a writer. We both find ourselves in this ancient French village. It's natural that we should meet."
"But you're dead."
The smile goes from his face and he flashes into anger. "Who told you so?"
"It was reported. I read your obituary. Your body was burned and the ashes spread over the Arizona desert."
"Details," he says. "Mere details." He steps further into the room and slumps into one of the armchairs. He says nothing. Simply leans back his head, opens his mouth, and lets out a long sound. It's a moan first of all, then the vocal cords stop vibrating and the sound is different. It's a death rattle. I step closer to examine him. Saliva drools from a corner of his mouth and his pupils have rolled back behind his eyelids to leave only the whites of the eyes and the veins.
There is silence, then his tongue sticks out, pink rather than gray, and remarkably juicy. It starts at the corner of his mouth and licks all the way round his lips. As I watch the tongue I feel myself watched in return. The right eyeball has swiveled back into place. One eye fixed on me, the other still white, it's like a hideous wink.
Then both eyes shut tight, stay closed awhile, and snap open. He stares up at me, opens wide his mouth, and laughs. It's a honking laugh, which seems to stem from spasms in his chest, and I feel the gusts of stale breath against my face."
As to how it was possible that he even existed, embodied and talking normally to Goodman, he simply said "the cause before the effect."
Goodman certainly didn't make much money from it's publication, and it was completely out of step with the other books he's written. He was compelled to write it, and really doesn't seem to care if anyone believes in the encounter or not.
It's only $0.99 on Amazon/Kindle, I've never been able to find a free eBook url/torrent etc.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008K32ODA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Edit: I added a comment below with a link to rare and offline additional writings.
10 Comments
I asked a similar question a few weeks ago about another author. I read the book and some parts of it really helped me. So, I don't think it matters much if he is authentic or not. If this book helps you, then its a good read.
It doesn't matter if the Buddha or Jesus etc. were ever conclusively proved to have never existed (as if that was even possible) if "their" words inspire you to walk a "path with heart."
I remember Castaneda saying, in Goodman's book, that the natural process of dying was extremely sensual; too sensual for his liking. He was also able to modify the structure of his physical body, at will. Fascinating to think about!
Yes, definutely fascinating.
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>Carlos took a job as a short-order egg cook at a restaurant/diner for awhile, I think as a stalking exercise,
Yes he did! I'd forgotten that. I even saw him demonstrate his egg flipping skills. As I recall, one of the witches was also involved, or around, when he did that. But maybe not one of the known witches, that's the part I'm not certain about.
Carlos was all about stalking. I can see it now, but at the time it just seemed like he was kind of secretive and liked to pull subtle pranks.
What I see now is that he left resources for his students to use after he left, most of them assembled with his stalking skills.
>Saliva drools from a corner of his mouth
Yep, that was typical of Carlos. I don't mean in the common way. It was kind of a feature of him, possibly because of dentures.
I didn't mention it before because of the tendancy to fantasize that our gurus ought to be beyond things like dentures.
He also had a mesh patch implanted in his right side for a hernia. He made a point out of showing it to us one day.
> One eye fixed on me, the other still white, it's like a hideous wink.
Carlos had what seemed to be cataracts. One eye in particular was nearly opaque. It was the left eye, if you were facing him, which makes it his right eye.
If anyone is wondering why he didn't just get it fixed, it seems to be an advantage for seeing energy.
As for the honking and laughing, it wasn't typical of "alive" Carlos. His laughs were heartfelt, but kind of staged. And not out of line.
There was also another man who claimed to have met Carlos after he died. A Russian guy. But then he seemed to be trying to cash in on it, as another "me-too" nagual.
Hey, danl999, just a quick heads-up:
tendancy is actually spelled tendency. You can remember it by ends with -ency.
Have a nice day!
^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.
Hey /u/CommonMisspellingBot, just a quick heads up:
Your spelling hints are really shitty because they're all essentially "remember the fucking spelling of the fucking word".
And your fucking delete function doesn't work. You're useless.
Have a nice day!
^Save ^your ^breath, ^I'm ^a ^bot.
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the price for the amazon kindle version has gone up - currently it's $14.99. i bought it a while ago from a local online bookseller here in austria in the epub format with drm (thalia.at), but it's also available as epub with drm (for 15,74€ at the moment) at https://www.ebooks.com/en-at/book/341412/i-was-carlos-castaneda/martin-goodman/