{"id":849,"date":"2007-04-06T16:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T16:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=849"},"modified":"2007-04-06T16:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T16:46:00","slug":"dionysus-jesus-castaneda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=849","title":{"rendered":"Dionysus, Jesus, Castaneda"},"content":{"rendered":"

After watching the BBC take on anthropologist – novelist – sorcerer Carlos Castaneda<\/a>, M. and I rented another documentary about him. Enigma of a Sorcerer<\/em><\/a> was released in 2002. It is available through Netflix<\/a>, but it is only for the hardcore student of neo-shamanism as phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Since it is only a collection of interviews (including the late Dan Noel<\/a>), someone had the bright idea to put pulsating “psychedelic” backgrounds behind each talking head. “I need Dramamine,” M. said, turning away from the screen.<\/p>\n

Amy Wallace, one of Castaneda’s inner circle of lovers-students in the 1990s and author of a memoir about that time<\/a>, was another of the persons interviewed.<\/p>\n

Watching both videos, however, you see how Castaneda was somehow possessed by Dionysus<\/a>–just like every other death-defying savior with a circle of women: Krishna, Jesus, Joe Smith<\/a>, Carl Jung (compare his “valkyries<\/a>” to Castaneda’s “witches.”) Gurdjieff<\/a> too, probably.<\/p>\n

Soteriology–the various doctrines of salvation–all suggest the story of the God of variousness whose salvific function is well known in the Orphic cult. His name is Dionysus.<\/em><\/p>\n

So writes David L. Miller<\/a> (not to be confused with this David Miller<\/a>) in The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses<\/em> (1974), a book a little ahead of its time.<\/p>\n

All promised the overcoming of death. Castaneda, according to the interviews, offered a non-ordinary death–to disappear “bodily into the Second Attention”–to his followers. After he expired from liver cancer in 1998, at least one of his lovers went alone to Death Valley, where her bones were later found<\/a>. Three of the “witches,” Florinda Donner Grau<\/a>, Taisha Abelar<\/a>, and Carol Tiggs<\/a>, also killed themselves, Wallace claims. But she offers no details as to when and how–she just thinks that they must have done so.<\/p>\n

Actually, had the BBC wanted to do real journalism, they could have found out who cashes the royalty checks from all of Castaneda’s books. I assume that they go to Cleargreen, Inc.<\/a>, the organization that he set up to incorporate his teaching methods.<\/p>\n

Castaneda even has his own “Saint Paul,” Victor Sanchez<\/a>, who fills the role of the person who never met the Teacher but who claims to be passing on his methods.<\/p>\n

Maybe the woman we call Mary Magdalene was either a composite figure or possibly only one of a group of her Dionysian teacher’s intimates. There could be a book there . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching the BBC take on anthropologist – novelist – sorcerer Carlos Castaneda, M. and I rented another documentary about him. Enigma of a Sorcerer was released in 2002. It is available through Netflix, but it is only for the hardcore student of neo-shamanism as phenomenon. Since it is only a collection of interviews (including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[30,40,12],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-anthropology","tag-polytheism","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-dH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":837,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=837","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":0},"title":"The most controversial anthropologist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"One episode of a BBC series called Tales from the Jungle on famous anthropologists examines the \"shamanthropologist\" Carlos Castaneda (d. 1998), appropriately described as the most controversial anthropologist ever.For those of us who can't watch the Beeb, it is available in segments from YouTube.There are also episodes on Bronislaw Malinowski\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":852,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=852","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":1},"title":"Sex in World Religions & Other Updates","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 First, here is a better version of the Pagan rosary story, \"'Hail Persephone:' Pagans Retool the Rosary,\" which has a photo and also some of the rosary invocations.Kimberly Winston's article was also mentioned at the GetReligion blog on religion and journalism.\u00b6 My recent post on Carlos Castaneda must have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Islam\"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=islam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=252","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":2},"title":"Another witchy movie Keeping up\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Another witchy movie Keeping up with the theme of small-p pagan books and movies (see entries here and here), M. and I have now watched I Married a Witch, released in 1942 and starring Veronica Lake in her prime--all long blonde hair and sleepy, scratchy voice. Robert Benchley, a well-known\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5236,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5236","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":3},"title":"The Hidden Folk of Iceland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Two nations live in this country \u2014 the Icelandic nation and this invisible nation.\" Hulduf\u00f3lk 102\u00a0is a wonderful 2006 documentary about Icelanders' relationship with the Hidden Folk (elves, fairies) in their landscape. You can watch it online here (74 min.) Here is the trailer. One of my favorite parts starts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"elves\"","block_context":{"text":"elves","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=elves"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ia.media-imdb.com\/images\/M\/MV5BMTIxNzcyOTk3Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjA4NzMzMQ%40%40._V1_SY300_CR118%2C0%2C214%2C300_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6434,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6434","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":4},"title":"After Decades, Legitimate LSD Therapy","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Long, long ago, in other words, the 1960s, some psychiatrists and others were interested in the therapeutic potential of LSD, after the Central Intelligence had pretty well decided that it was useless for making spies confess. There were two approaches to LSD back then. One was more cautious \u2014 it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":897,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=897","url_meta":{"origin":849,"position":5},"title":"A Wiccan Wedding & the Strangeness of Memory","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My wedding to M. was conducted by the HP and HPS of our coven at a Forest Service group campground near Colorado Springs. The campground reservation cost $10 or $15 back then, and the wedding finished with a potluck feast. I think we paid for some cheese and champagne. My\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}