## Carlos Castaneda Interviews and Articles

### Los Angeles Times - Page: E-4 - Dec 1995

Tuesday, December 26, 1995
Home Edition
Section: Life & Style
Page: E-4
By: Benjamin Epstein
Q & A: A Rare Conversation With the Magical Mystery Man
When Benjamin Epstein caught up with Carlos Castaneda in Anaheim to ask if he would agree to an interview, Castaneda unexpectedly invited him to join his party for lunch. In a conversation over a this-worldly melted cheese sandwich, side of bacon and fries, Castaneda was personable and spontaneous.
Here's some of what he had to say:
Question:
Why don't you allow yourself to be photographed or tape recorded?
Answer:
A recording is a way of fixing you in time. The only thing a sorcerer will not do is be stagnant. The stagnant word, the stagnant picture, those are the antithesis of the sorcerer.
Q:
Is Tensegrity the Toltec t'ai chi? Mexican martial arts?
A:
Tensegrity is outside political boundaries. Mexico is a nation. To claim origins is absurd. To compare Tensegrity with yoga or t'ai chi is not possible. It has a different origin and different purpose. The origin is shamanic, the purpose is shamanic.
Q:
Where would Jesus fit into all this? Where would Buddha fit in?
A:
They are idealities. They are too big, too gigantic to be real. They are deities. One is the prince of Buddhism, the other is the son of God. Idealities cannot be used in a pragmatic movement.
The difference between religion and shamanic tradition is that the things shamans deal with are extremely practical. Magical passes [movements] are just one aspect of that.
Q:
Is that what you've been doing all this time, magical passes?
A:
Nooooo... I was very chubby. Don Juan [Matus] recommended an obsessive use of magical passes to keep my body at an optimum. So in terms of physical activity, yes, this is what we do. The movements force the awareness of man to focus on the idea that we are spheres of luminosity, a conglomerate of energy fields held together by special glue.
Q:
Where do you live?
A:
I don't live here. I'm not here at all. I use the euphemism, "I've been in Mexico." All of us divide our time between being here and being pulled by something that is not describable, but that makes us visitors into another realm. But you start talking about that and you start sounding like total nincompoops.
Q:
According to your book "The Eagle's Gift," Don Juan Matus didn't die, he left, he "burned from within." Will you leave, or will you die?
A:
Since I'm a moron, I'm sure I'll die. I wish I would have the integrity to leave the way he did, but there is no assurance. I have this terrible fear that I won't. But I wish. I work my head off-- both of my heads-- toward that.
Q:
I recall an article, at least a decade ago, calling you the "Godfather of the New Age."
A:
It was "grandfather!" And I thought, please call me the uncle, or cousin, not grandfather! Uncle Charlie will do. I feel like hell, being the grandfather of anything. I'm fighting age, senility and old age like you couldn't believe.
I've fought for 35 years. The three people I worked with have been at it for 35 years. They look like fabulous kids. They continually take this energy on and on and on in order to remain fluid. Without fluidity, there's no way to journey anywhere.
Q:
Matus taught you to see. When you look at me now, what do you see?
A:
I have to be in a special mood to see. It is very difficult for me to see. I've got to get very somber, very heavy. If I'm lighthearted and I look at you I see nothing. Then I turn around and I see her, and what do I see? "I joined the Navy to see the world, and what do I see? I see the sea!"
I know more than I want to know. It's hell, true hell. If you see too much, you become unbearable.
Q:
Talia Bey, seminar organizer and president of Clearwater Inc., seems to stick pretty close to you. Are you two a couple?
A:
We are ascetic beings. No relationships of a sexual order. This is very difficult, a difficult maneuver for us. Don Juan recommended that I had to be a conserver of energy, because I don't have much energy. I myself was not created under conditions of great sexual passion. Most people are not... [Talia] was born with enough energy that she can do what she wants.
Q:
Can married people do what they want?
A:
That question has come up a lot, and it's a question of energy. If you know you were not conceived in a state of real excitation, then no. On one level, it hasn't mattered if people are married. But with the launching of Tensegrity, we don't really know what is going to happen.
Q:
You don't know what is going to happen?
A:
How can you know? This is an implication of our syntaxical system. Our syntax requires a beginning, development and end. I was, I am, I will be. We are caught in that. How can we know... what you are going to be capable of if you have sufficient energy? That is the question.
The answer is, you are going to be capable of stupendous things, much more exciting than we can do now, with no energy at all... [Don] Juan Matus recommended me to be careful with energy, because he was grooming me for something. But I didn't know for what...
Q:
You talk about Matus' line of sorcerers. Are you aware of others?
A:
I ran across one marvelous Indian from the Southwest and that was a memorable event. It was the only time I met a sorcerer outside of Don Juan's lineage, a young man deeply involved in the type of activity in which Don Juan was involved. We talked for two days, [after which] for some reason he felt he owed me something.
One day, I was driving a VW in a sandstorm and it was just about to turn my car over. It had already ruined my windshield, the paint on one side was totally gone. A big rig came and stood between the wind and my car. I heard a voice call down from the cabin, "Hide alongside my rig." I did. We drove for miles along Highway 8. When the wind died down, I realized I was off the paved road. The guy stopped and it was that Indian.
He said, "I have paid my indebtedness. You are somewhere else. We are even now. Back up to the paved road." He went back, I went back. Once out on the main road, I went back and forth trying to find the dirt road but I could not. He took us into another realm. What power, what discipline, exquisite! I could hardly contain myself.
He had taken my VW, everything, there. I could barely take myself somewhere else at that time. I looked for any deviation in the road, but could never find it. Zippo. It was an entrance of sorts. He never talked to me again, ever.
Q:
Some of your biggest fans will say you've contributed great literature, even great anthropology, but would never call it nonfiction. Others would say you're laughing all the way to the bank.
A:
I invented nothing. Somebody once told me, "I know Carlos Castaneda..."
I said, "You met Carlos?"
He said, "No, but I saw him in the distance all the time. You know he admitted he made up all that in an interview."
I said, "Really? What interview, you remember?"
He said, "I read it, I read it..."
Q:
Why do you say you are the last sorcerer in Matus' line?
A:
For me to continue Don Juan's line, I would have to have a special energetic disposition I don't have. I'm not a patient man. My ways of moving are too sharp, too disturbing. For us, Don Juan was there, available always. He didn't disappear. He measured his appearances and disappearances to suit our needs. How can I do that?
Copyright 1995 Times Mirror Company