magazine_interviews/veja_1975
CC Interview- Veja Magazine No. 356 - 1975
Source: Veja Magazine nº356-1975
Note : A little after the malicious publication of the article in Time magazine - which denied Castaneda at a time when it was becoming notorious and reached the center of debates claiming, based on obscure documents raised, to be the Peruvian author of Cajamarca, and not Brazilian , Castaneda granted this interview to Veja Magazine. The sine qua nonfor this reason, the interview should come out first in Brazil. The guy who did the free-lancer for Veja, a kind of Brazilian TIME, could then attest that Castaneda spoke perfectly Portuguese, with a regional accent. Castaneda provided the magazine with negatives (photos) he made during his trips to Mexico - documentary evidence of his anthropological work and field research. Unfortunately, Veja chose not to polemic, and put in the subtitle not that Castaneda was Brazilian, but that he was a "lonely man without a country". After this interview, Castaneda spent about 10 years without talking to the press.
The witch, man alone and without a country
After fifteen years of lessons, the Brazilian, perhaps Peruvian or American, learned not to have a biography or roots.
Since he began to recount in books his encounters with Don Juan, which date back to 1960, Carlos César Arana Castaneda has transformed himself into the most invisible and impalpable literary personality of our time. Incomplete fragments of his biography appeared in the only two publications he gave an interview to, the magazines Time and Psychology Today, he has not been photographed for the past ten years and has not bothered to clarify some crucial doubts. Thus, he would have been born in the interior of São Paulo, on Christmas Day 1935, as he told Time. But, according to the magazine, he was born ten years earlier in a city in Peru.
Communicated of this discovery, Castaneda responded impeccably to a sorcerer's apprentice who aspires to erase his personal identity: "These statistics mean nothing. What we are is important, not what we were." So, with that uncertain nationality and with an age that would move towards 40 or 50, although it certainly looked younger, the only signs of Castaneda's earthly existence were a Volkswagen and two houses he owned in California. Early last year, Brazilian student Luiz André Kossobudzki, then an education fellow at the University of California (UCLA), met him at a benefit dinner alongside "normal" literary personalities such as Irving Stone and Irving Wallace. Fifteen months later, at the end of last March, received from Castaneda the negatives of the photos that the author had taken in Mexico, and which VEJA publishes along with this exclusive interview, on which the interviewee imposed the condition that it should be published in Brazil before any other country. Kossobudzki recalls their encounters:
"I, my wife and four other couples of foreign scholarship recipients were perhaps the only guests at the dinner whose names were not engraved on an honor plaque. We tried, without success, for a place at Castaneda's table, but after dinner he came himself to us. I told him straight away that I didn't believe he was Brazilian. We started to speak in English, but soon after he came to us with Portuguese fluency (including an accent) and claimed to have been born in the interior of the state of São Paulo, in a city in the Vale do Paraíba, and who spent part of his childhood in Juqueri *We then agreed to meet again for a feijoada, but Castaneda disappeared for several months. A call from his literary agent informed him that he was still interested in seeing me. Finally, we spoke three times, once at my house and twice on the UCLA campus, where he works fourteen to eighteen hours a day, on his research on ethno-hermeneutics (studies of the perceptual interpretation of different ethnic groups). Castaneda appears to be 35 years old, 1.70 meters tall and about 70 kilos. Physically, I would pass as a caboclo from Mato Grosso or even from the Northeast".
*There is no municipality in São Paulo with this name. Juqueri, however, is the name of an establishment for the mentally ill in the municipality of Franco da Rocha, in Greater São Paulo, which is often confused with the name of the hospital. Juquiri is the old name of the municipality of Mairiporã, also in Greater São Paulo.
Learning to live with witchcraft
VEJA - When one reads about Don Juan, one gets the impression that he is a poor man with a vast knowledge of life. Could you talk about your surprise to find him in a suit in "Door to Infinity"?
CASTANEDA - I shivered in fear, as I was used to seeing him only in field clothes. This took place in the final phase of the teachings and had a reason for being. Don Juan revealed to me that he owned several shares on the Stock Exchange, and I'm pretty sure if he were a typically Western man he would be living in a penthouse apartment in downtown New York. I finally learned that the two realities could be divided into what don Juan called tonal (conscious) and nagual (not spoken). In the reality of social consensus, the sorcerer, the man of knowledge, is a perfect "tonal" - a man of his time, today, who uses the world in the best way possible. We use history as a way to recapture the past world and plan for the future. For the sorcerer, the past is the past and there is no personal or collective history.
VEJA - The main thing about your meeting with Don Juan is written in the book "The Teachings of Don Juan" (in the Brazilian version, the Devil's Herb"), but nowhere is there any mention of exactly where they were. site?
CASTANEDA - on the border between the states of California (United States) and Sonora (Mexico) there is a town called Nogales Starting from Nogales, the main highway passing through the city of Hermosillo, capital of Sonora, the city of Guayamas and finally. it crosses Estacion de Vicam. To the west of Vicam Station, towards the Pacific, is the city of Vicam, inhabited mostly by Yaqui Indians. Vicam is the place where I first met Don Juan. the teachings.
VEJA - In order not to take Don Juan's freedom, until today you had not revealed this place. How now do you feel free to describe it accurately?
CASTANEDA - Because now no one would be able to find Don Juan; he is no longer there, and Don Genaro has also disappeared from the mountains of Central Mexico (Sierra Madre Ocidental). There is no way to find them. Don Juan showed me and taught me everything he could and so there is no need for him to remain at my disposal. Likewise, you know that if you want to find me, just go to UCLA, leave a message, or look for me in the research library. But if I stop coming to UCLA, you'll have no idea where to find me. Like Don Juan, I try to live as a sorcerer.
VEJA - Many people, myself included, find it difficult to accept factually the descriptions of Don Juan's teachings. Are you concerned about people reacting that way?
CASTANEDA - No, because I don't emphasize the importance of my person. this is a crucial point in the teachings I received from don Juan. I rarely talk to anyone, and when I do, it's face-to-face. No tape recorders or photographs, which would bring weight to me. In addition to hurting one of the basic premises of sorcery and witchcraft, I would be hampering my own freedom. When I emphasize my person, I'm tackling myself, I'm putting a weight on my back that goes beyond my ability to carry it. Putting such a weight on my back is giving enormous importance to my own person. During the teachings, don Juan made sketches in the desert sand with his big toe and filled the circles with verbosity. He said that "cargose a uno mismo" leads a person to a sense of "personal importance" that combined do not allow "acciones" by the person. The more weight people accumulate, the more important they feel, and the fewer actions they take.
VEJA - Why then did you publish your books?
CASTANEDA - Because this was my task. The witcher performs tasks that are put in place of the weight on himself and personal importance. My work is not made up of scholarship, but a recollection of the life that don Juan put into his teachings. The sorcerer fulfills the tasks that give him satisfaction. He fulfills them without waiting for recognition from society or anything like that, which would be the "carrying himself" exercised by the scholar, with the aim of obtaining personal importance, which is not my case. For example, if this interview is taken as an act of witchcraft, it becomes a task to be done.
VEJA - This interview, your work, your work, and even the fact that we exchange ideas for several hours, has an effect that seems to me to go beyond the simple fulfillment of tasks. They bring you satisfaction, otherwise you wouldn't. Furthermore, you hope that your message, the teachings of Don Juan, will have an impact on the audience. Wouldn't this be the case of fulfilling tasks and waiting for society's recognition?
CASTANEDA - I go about my tasks so fluidly that they don't affect me in terms of self-importance but rather in terms of how I live my life. I know dozens of "teachers" who stand in an ivory tower of knowledge: they know everything, and run the show for the galleries; the more acclaimed, or the more recognition they receive, the more self-important they feel, but this same self-importance becomes the weight, the cross to be carried, and they as persons are nothing. Work affects them in terms of self-importance but not in terms of their personal lives. Work affects me in terms of my personal life, but not in terms of self-importance. Don Juan warned and advised me never to become a peacock, "royal peacock", which is the result of the emphasis on personal importance. The less a person thinks and "pseudo-acts" in terms of self-importance it becomes more complete. And the more self-important you feel, the more incomplete you become. The incomplete being is born of the incessant search for social recognition.
SEE - But if the person acts, wouldn't he be automatically looking for self-recognition?
CASTANEDA - No, if you're acting like a wizard. The wizard lives life for himself and for himself and not for the galleries. He is not influenced by the reactions of social consensus, as he does not act in terms of self-importance. He knows how to "stop the world", or rather he has the ability to "not do".
The "still world", by magic ..
SEE - and that means "do" do "and" stop the world "?
CASTANEDA - it is necessary to explain the meaning of "doing". "Do" is the consensus that makes the world existing. The world of our reality is reality because we are involved in "making" that reality. People are born with a halo of strength, power, which develops and intertwines with the dominant consensus. People look at the world as they were dictated to, with the eyes of the dominant consensus. On the other hand, "not doing" is possible when an extra halo of power develops to form the existence of another world's reality. The pirate-warrior does not escape the "doing" of the world, but fights within this reality, the reality of the dominant consensus. which assists you in creating the extra halo of power. The act of "not doing" leads to "stop the world", which is the first step to "see". The world of ordinary, everyday reality seems to us the way it is because of social consensus. "Stopping the world" means to interrupt the common current of interpretation of the world, of the dominant consensus, or in other words, to stop the consensus is to see the world as a wizard, in a non-ordinary reality. "Stopping the world" is living in a magical time-space, while living in consensus reality is living in an ordinary time-space.
SEE - A witch is a pragmatist, and you label yourself that way. What would be the practical application of "doing", "not doing" and "stop the world"?
CASTANEDA - You smoke profusely, like a desperate person. I smoked like you, and I smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, until don Juan suggested that I use my compulsion to quit smoking. I should get involved in the "don'ts" of smoking. For that I would have to observe the making of smoking. So I began to observe the "do" of getting up in the morning and immediately looking for my cigarettes, the "do" of putting them in my pocket, the "do" of patting my shirt pocket with my left hand to make sure the cigarettes were there. The place of the cigarette, the smoking of two of them on the way to university, and so on, constituted my "do" of smoking. Like me, you can observe what constitutes your "doing" of smoking. A systematic measure of doing leads the person not to carry out the details of the act of smoking. To "stop the world" from smoking, one has to learn to compulsively say no to the "do" of smoking. 1 This example is grossly an application of the teachings, as I stopped smoking early on in my first contacts with Don Juan, but only managed to "stop the world" of ordinary reality after ten years. From this point on, Don Juan stopped using hallucinogenic plants as part of the teachings.
Guides to Ending Common Sense
SEE - You don't smoke, don't drink and even avoid coffee. How then do you see drug use as part of Don Juan's teachings?
CASTANEDA - Don Juan used psychotropics and hallucinogenic plants as an aid to his teachings. Once the goal was reached, these vehicles became unnecessary. Drugs are harmful to the body, and have no defect other than a certain quality that the sorcerer needs. VEJA - In what way did drugs serve as an auxiliary instrument for Don Juan's teachings?
CASTANEDA - the direction of common sense or common sense of non-ordinary reality (the reality of witchcraft). Common sense and common sense are directly linked to our body. With the use of drugs, there is an interruption of common sense and an opening to a new direction, and this new direction can only be found with a guide (witcher), otherwise the use of such drugs is worthless. Man generally has the idea of enjoying life through addictions. An addict is a professional child. Interrupting the chain of glosses, stopping the world, with the use of drugs just for the pleasure of interrupting, can only cause harm, besides being a joke whose price is expensive. Once the body has learned to interrupt the current, there is no longer any need for assistance to do so. The person interrupts of his own free will. Common sense and common sense are directly linked to our body. With the use of drugs, there is an interruption of common sense and an opening to a new direction, and this new direction can only be found with a guide (witcher), otherwise the use of such drugs is worthless.
A strange psychotherapy: feeling dead
VEJA - Do you think that the process of voluntary interruption of the current of "common sense" would be effective if applied to psychotherapy?
CASTANEDA - Don Juan's success as a psychotherapist is impressive. He made me aware that I was a professional child, that I was putting a lot of weight on myself, emphasizing my personal importance, and not acting out my fantasies. He taught me to live for the now, to face my death as an inevitable and existing fact in my life. The concept of death must be seen as a reality. Don Juan taught me that if I considered myself dead, none of my actions would matter personally, and with that I could change, or changes could be made and tasks accomplished. The inevitable fact of death is very morbid for Western man, and as a result the West seeks social interaction with the aim of adjusting to "common sense".
VEJA - Would it be correct to say that the person, in our reality labeled psychotic, for Don Juan would be just the person who accidentally interrupted the current of "common sense" and was not able to make this current?
CASTANEDA - Right. The wizard breaks the chain of common sense of his own free will. it's not an accidental thing. In early experiences I am almost certain that without a guide I would have lost touch with the reality of consensus; in other words, I wouldn't be able to find my way back to that reality. The guide guides the learner out of the reality of consensus and into the strange reality of witchcraft, as well as out of that strange reality and back to the reality of consensus. This exercise is repeated until the learner has mastered his own will. For the psychotic, the exercise in the direction of a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist boils down to returning to the reality of consensus, and remaining conformed. The sorcerer, in addition to being a guide, is the model of the "man of knowledge". For Don Juan, any change is only possible if the person practices his own teachings. Again the "I do what I say" philosophy prevails.
(VEJA) - "Gateway to Infinity" mentions the use of dreams as an exercise in mastering and controlling one's will. Is this control of the same nature as the control of the will to which you have just referred?
CASTANEDA -I mention in this book the various exercises for controlling dreams, that is, so that a person can put dreams at their service and dream productively. These dreams require the same mastery of will that is needed to step out and return to ordinary reality. Dreams for a wizard are not symbolic, but the result of the control he acquires through the teachings. He sleeps dreaming productive dreams, as a continuation of everyday life, instead of dreaming ordinary, uncontrolled dreams. Gradually, a person manages to discipline himself, to the point that, dreaming, he is able to see his own image sleeping and dreaming. The extreme case of this control can be exemplified by what Don Genaro claims to be capable of - materializing a duplicate of his own person. With the control of dreams, a person can increase their capacity for action.
VEJA - Do you think that we explore and only partially use our potential for reasons inherent to our formal education?
CASTANEDA - Western man's formal and informal education does not give rise to anything strange or different from the social consensus. What is outside the norm of our common sense is considered abnormality. There is also a lack of emphasis on the notion of responsibility to oneself: we do not talk enough about responsibility for our children, and for this reason few stop being children, and live life as child-professionals. To put it better: the professional child is the person who needs affection and is rewarded through the attention paid to his person. She is self-important, an eternal infant terible. I wanted to stop being a child once and for all, but I was dear to myself, and I always had an excuse to keep feeding my self-importance. I did nothing, produced nothing, actions were drowned out by my plans and decisions, and my sense of personal importance. Until I learned from Don Juan to stop being a professional child and become a pirate warrior. Sitting around, waiting to be given everything, or daydreaming about the glory of my self-importance, brought me nothing. I had to go look for courage and discipline.
From professional child to pirate warrior
VEJA - You live like a witch, that is, a life of anonymity, while your work is public and very successful. What is the personal satisfaction that results from this apparent antagonism between author and person?
CASTANEDA -My satisfaction comes from writing impeccably and presenting myself in the light of truth. I really don't see antagonism, as my personal life is a reflection of my work. Again I say that I do what I say, I practice what I preach. And since I'm honest with myself, I don't care what and how the gallery thinks or reacts. In this way I am free from the ups and downs. Take the example of Tinothy Leary, the lysergic acid guru. He is a typical example of an excess of self-importance. Eventually the weight became too much and he had to pay the extreme price. Many are the writers who preach but do not follow their own preaching, many are the people who promote a strong body and a healthy mind, but end up gradually destroying their own body and mind.
VEJA - You mentioned the Don Juan model, but you were also exposed to another model: the social consensus. How do you combine these models in your life?
CASTANEDA - Don Juan's model gave me the parameters of a reality different from that of social consensus. Another model led me to the eternal enfant terrible. Throughout the teachings, I abandoned the latter. One role model led me to the professional child, the other to the true pirate warrior. When a person takes the sense of self-importance, the sense of self-importance out of his way and becomes aware that the man who pulls the string and weaves the chopsticks is as human as you or me, he can achieve whatever he wants. A person can be ultra-intelligent and resourceful, but if he just waits for things to come his way, when he is not taken care of by the world, he falls into a state of hatred, remorse and fear. The pirate warrior is not afraid, he does not expect things to come to him. He acts, fulfills his tasks, and at the same time doesn't worry about the consequences.
Grades
- In a more recent interview with Carmina Fort, Castaneda reports that Don Juan, to make him stop smoking, once took him to the desert, telling him that they were going to spend several days there. Castaneda stocked up on cigarettes, with several wrapped boxes. While they slept, the cigarettes were gone. Castaneda, desperate, looked for an explanation. Don Juan said that maybe it was the coyotes. They rounded the nearby rooms but found nothing for Castaneda to smoke. This event was decisive for him to quit the bad habit (editor's note)
*source (original Spanish text) - http://www.consciencia.org/castaneda/casvista.html*
*backup #1 - https://web.archive.org/web/20010418054705/http://www.consciencia.org/castaneda/casvista.html*
*backup #2 - https://archive.is/pIFH*