Active Side of Infinity: The Definitive and Revealing Overview of Carlos Castaneda's Experiences with Don Juan - Softcover

Carlos Castaneda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0722539371 ISBN 13: 9780722539378

Publisher: Thorsons, 2000

Synopsis

Subtitle: The Definitive and Revealing Overview of Carlos Castaneda's Experiences with Don Juan
Depending on whom you talk to, Carlos Castaneda is either one of the very greatest thinkers of the last century, or one of its most accomplished charlatans. Ever since The Teachings Of Don Juan, the author's "true story" of his encounter with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer who led him on a mesmerising, magical and highly disturbing journey into another world, Castenada has fascinated readers with his extraordinary narratives. Hovering tantalisingly between anthropology and fiction, they offer visions of spiritual universes, worlds within our own that are accessible to anyone bold enough to undertake the psychic and spiritual challenges necessary to reach them.

Now, in his last book before he died, Castaneda offers this "collection of the memorable events in my life", at the suggestion, he says, of the shamanic teacher who started it all. This is no random memoir, says Castaneda, but itself a shamanic ritual--the "putting together [of] the sum total of one's emotions and realizations, without sparing anything", in preparation for "the definitive journey" into life after death, or what shamans call "the active side of infinity".

What we get is a kind of Castaneda reader or primer, a posthumous overview of the episodes that first brought him to our attention. As always both riveting and bewildering, Castaneda offers a behind-the-scenes gloss on the extraordinary events that inform his best-known books. It will surely have the effect of turning readers back to those first mind-bending volumes. --Dan Fielder

About this title

About the Author

Carlos Castaneda was the author of the bestselling books, including the acknowledged classic The Teaching of Don Juan and most recently The Art of Dreaming and Magical Passes. He departed on his definitive journey in 1998.

From Kirkus Reviews

Dense, narcissistic musings on death and the shaman's life. Onetime anthropologist Castaneda has built a three-decade career out of relaying the teachings of his Yaqui Indian mentor, Juan Matus, in works ranging from The Teachings of Don Juan (196 8) to 1993's The Art of Dreaming. Apparently, Castaneda feels that he has yet more wisdom to impart. Still, this vague assortment of personal vignettes offers little in the way of spiritual guidance. Paradoxically, although Don Juan often tells Castaneda that a sorcerer must be emptied of self to accept infinity (annoyingly, this latter word is always italicized in the text), the book seems self-absorbed from the start. In preparation for accepting infinity, true, Castaneda must revisit some of the most p ivotal events in his life. A few of the stories are hopelessly sad (and one relentlessly misogynist). One of the most touching occurs when Don Juan urges Castaneda to track down the two women who helped him when he was a very young man. Castaneda is instr ucted to reward themwhile rendering himself pennilesswith an extravagant gift. And one of the women, now a homemaker with three kids, is indeed overjoyed to receive a top-of-the-line station wagon. Yet it's hard to find a larger meaning in the stories. We wind up learning something more of Castaneda but not much at all about the active side of infinity, which is mystically translated as ``intent.'' It appears that we ought to live with intent, never forgetting that we will die, regardless. Death (and the knowledge of it) should thus inform all of our actions and relationships, providing a perspective and enforcing our humility. This is hardly an original idea, and it cant justify wading through Castanedas welter of self-indulgence, which might translate b etter to a bumper-sticker adage. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thorsons
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0722539371
• ISBN 13: 9780722539378
• Binding: Paperback