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Reasons, rules and the ring of experience: Reading our world into Carlos Castaneda's works

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Abstract

Don Juan said that my body was disappearing and only my head was going to remain, and in such a condition the only way to stay awake and move around was by becoming a crow ... He ordered me to straighten up my head and put it on my chin. He said that in the chin were the crow's legs. He commanded me to feel the legs and observe that they were coming out slowly. He then said ... that the tail would come out of my neck. He ordered me to extend the tail like a fan, and to feel how it swept the floor ...

I had no difficulty whatsoever eliciting the corresponding sensations to each one of his commands. I had the perception of growing bird's legs, which were weak and wobbly at first. I felt the tail coming out of the back of my neck and wings out of my cheekbones. ...

When don Juan directed me to grow a beak, I had an annoying sensation of lack of air. The something bulged out and created a block in front of me. But it was not until don Juan directed me to see laterally that my eyes actually were capable of having a full view to the side... (Castaneda, 1968, pp. 172–174)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brandeis University, USA

    Richard McDermott

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  1. Richard McDermott
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An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the International Society for the Sociology of Knowledge, New York, 1976. I am grateful to Kurt H. Wolff and Mary E. Rohman for their comments and continuing encouragement through several drafts of this paper.

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McDermott, R. Reasons, rules and the ring of experience: Reading our world into Carlos Castaneda's works. Hum Stud 2, 31–46 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02127214

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