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I've been dipping in and out of his books for years and he really had some powerfull insights even if the progression of his books seems rather disjointed. I've looked into background info on him for a while and there is a good chance that the character "Don Juan" was entirely fictional, if this is indeed the case it remains that there is still great knowledge to be gleaned from his books. In otherwords he may be a total fraud but he definitely got great insights form somewhere, i think the message is sound i.e. reality is not what it appears to be. Personaly I got alot out of "The Art of Dreaming", some great methods for lucid dreaming there if you pick them out of it.

I watched a film called "Peacefull Warrior" last night (The movie is based of books by Dan Millman), haven't read any of his books so won't comment on those. The simularities of the character Socrates to Don Juan are striking as is Millmans path of understanding simular to Castanedas. Socrates even uses a very simular trick to Don Juan to temporarily expand Millmans awareness by grabing his shoulder (Socrates) or slapping his between his shoulder blades (Don Juan).

The most striking line in the movie when Socrates tells Dan "Service to others there is no higher purpose" which is for me at least is key. Dan even faces his shadow self (Max mentions this all the time obviously)!

Information, knowledge and wisdom crisscross the world in the most curoius ways, the question remains, are you paying attention? I'm interested to hear from people here if they have come accross info that parallels what these two characters are saying?

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I don't really believe anything but I have my suspicions.
~ R.A. Wilson

I haven't watched peaceful warrior, perhaps i should get onto it!

But i have read the first 3 Castaneda books and found them very powerful.

It wasn't untill i was half way through the second book that i read online a few things about his books perhaps being fraudulent, and there are some claims that he apparently pleaded guilty in court to plagiarizing details from some psychics channellings. It was a bit sad to have this realization hit home, for me it was a bit romantic to imagine becoming the apprentice to such a shaman/sorcerer and everything that followed. I had began to suspect something, because Castaneda stays so resistant to don juan for so long, that i thought he must be using his own character as a means to keep the skeptical mind that some readers would no doubt possess.

That said... Even after becoming aware of this possibility, i still greatly respected the books and the effort Castaneda must have gone through to fill them with such deep wisdom from the ages.

Reading these books had a very transformative effect on me, particularly because i was going through another one of those big sweeping changes that seems to flow through my life and change every aspect of my experience, and also had recently had the realization that i needed to cultivate a great deal of personal strength and start respecting myself and my own wisdom more. These books came to me at the perfect time and helped me gain the strength i was in need of. I do want to continue reading them, but for now i have moved on to other things.

Going to download Peaceful Warrior asap

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It's already within your reach, you just need to know it's yours

I went the other way, and read parts of both sets of books a few years ago, and earmarked a project to compare the two. I haven't yet seen the Peaceful Warrior movie yet. If anything, Dan Millman's character of Socrates is just as unclear as don Juan, for the same reasons. It feels like Dan Millman studied Castaneda and reworked the best parts while avoiding the "temporal trap" of the 60's drug culture that pervaded the first two don Juan books. (It's significant that Castaneda significantly backtracks on that theme as he realized that the hippie years were over for good.)

I have no particular plans to finish it out to the fine details, I just began a simple outline of the similar lessons in both books about being a warrior, wanting to see if the match is as close as my rough instinct from way back.

I have read the book "The Art Of Dreaming" by Castenada and I find it to be very creative.For me the first methods of lucid dreaming work aldough as I stopped practicing it my reflexes of becoming aware in the dream have faded.It's quite fun when you start exploring your own dreams and are very aware of what's happening.

Certainly one thing I've gained from exploring my dreams is I've managed to realize my own power over my dreams. I've had good success in turning nightmares into less intimidating scenes. One thing that has become much stronger is the ability to see how some of my dreams directly relate to events going on in my waking life.

I've found it difficult enough to get good knowledge on the art of lucid dreaming, one of the best being castaneda. I would avoid many of the sources that tie a particular thing to certain dreams as through my experience it stops you from digging deeper.

So I see you noticed the crossover too TaoPheonix, I feel your quite right that Millman must have studied or at least read castaneda. Any insights on how one lives as a warrior is a good thing in my book, even if in the end everyone has to find their own path, certainly one of the biggest things being to work on ones awareness and being concious of all ones actions.

Hey Live Free did you get around to watching peacefull warrior?

Good luck with your explorations my fellow adventurers!

_________________
I don't really believe anything but I have my suspicions.
~ R.A. Wilson