The Active Side Of Infinity (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
This book had an immediate effect on me. After he describes the process of collecting memorable events, the recapitulation, and perhaps the part about assessing to whom you are indebted, I woke up one morning with an event from high school in my mind. It had only taken 19 years, but I finally understood how this event that I had interpreted in a negative way at the time was actually this act of love that had surely saved me from grave harm. I had not been thinking about this event at all, it just popped out of nowhere. So that led me to start taking the book more seriously--that maybe there was some value in doing the exercises he describes doing in the book. I think I am actually going to have to reach out to the individuals involved and thank them.Who is Carlos CastanedaI wanted to not break the spell and just try to experience this book without knowing who this seemingly well-known but mysterious author was, so I resisted learning anything more about him until I was about three-quarters of the way through and I broke down and looked on Wikipedia. I kind of wish I hadn't because I didn't like everything I read there. Eventually I was able to resolve my concerns by concluding that this guy had clearly had some kind of spiritual experiences and however he chose to convey them was fine. Maybe don Juan is totally fictional, but it's sort of like Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives--a blend of fact and fiction used as a way to convey a story/spiritual experiences.Parallels to teachings of Eckhart TollePart of what kept me reading even after learning that maybe there was nothing even remotely real about don Juan was that it didn't matter because so much of what he was saying was exactly the same as what other teachers say. I liked the fact that he was describing the same concepts in slightly different ways using slightly different terms.The most immediate parallels I drew were to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. "we are possessors of energy that has awareness that we are the means by which the universe becomes aware of itself." p. 229 [vaguely a spoiler alert] Energy body = inner body. Inner silence = presence. I think you could say the flyers' mind = ego ("The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now."p. 220) and the flyers = pain body ("the predators create flares of awareness that they proceed to consume in a ruthless, predatory fashion. They give us inane problems that force those flares of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudoconcerns." p. 223)I think the most striking difference between the two teachings, and the part that I found interesting, was thinking about these concepts of ego and pain body as coming from totally outside of ourselves, as predators that are preying on us. In a way, it makes it easier to be aware of these things as they arise rather than thinking that that these patterns are a part of you. Seeing them as something outside of yourself seems like it can make it easier to recognize them and not feed them. How the book came to meBeing under a certain age, I had never heard of Carlos Castaneda or The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. I was using the wander-through-the-shelves method to find a new book to read and came across some titles by him. I wanted to read more spirituality books by people of color, so this seemed like a good fit. I picked up The Active Side of Infinity first, and even though I could gather that, as the cover noted he was known for being the "Author or The Teachings of Don Juan," something made me stick with this choice instead of his earlier works. I definitely had a push/pull relationship with the book. I felt like I had to push myself to read it, but at the same time, I liked it when I read it. Not unlike the relationship he describes with don Juan, I suppose. I actually tried to take the book back to the library twice before I finished it. The first time the automatic book check in was broken and the second time it was working but would not accept the book because it is older and did not have the appropriate bar code sticker on it. After that I was resigned to the fact that I was supposed to read this book.
holy cow. i think castaneda had alzheimers when he wrote this, or maybe he had like a 9th-grader working as an intern for him and the 9th-grader wrote the dumbest, most ridiculous piece of insane crap he could, then tricked castaneda into signing it, then sent it off to the publisher, where the 9th-grader's stoner friend worked as an intern, and the stoner friend got it published by blackmailing his boss.or something. the only reason i read the whole thing was because i was curious whether the bizarre angry-teenage-boy tone could actually be maintained throughout. it was. he screams obscenities on almost every page. wow. really bad.
What do You think about The Active Side Of Infinity (1999)?
Another bright shiny new book that hasn't most likely been read by me.June 2011Another box of books has been reopened for cleaning, sorting, and reevaluation and lo and behold, many of the collected works of Carlos Castaneda are part of the contents.Many years have gone but I remember this author and his works vividly. [Now don't get any ideas as to an allusion I may or may not be making] At some point I stopped purchasing more in the series and put them away. There's a 'blur' factor as I recall that happens with these stories of the metaphysical and magical journeys of learning (spelling of your choice for majic). Thus I finally put them down after a time. There's a new series of works by authors/students in the same genre. These are a continuation of the anthropological journey that Castaneda undertook to learn of his heritage and a way of life that existed if only in a shadow of the original form.This generic commentary is going to be applied to all the writings of CC as a review until a rereading decision is made. I don't own all the books by Castaneda though I've read all his books through the mid 1980's. A couple more I have copies of in this collection but I bet I never read them.Each of these books will have this introduction bracketed and italicized when I add a more specific commentary regarding the individual entry.An early footnote. Much of the fascination with fantastical dragon imagery is rooted in the first two or three of these works. Just thought you should know.
—CD
I clicked to review this book from the choices of writings by Casteneda, but really I'm "reviewing" all his books, especially the several early ones I read with great fear and fascination when they first came out. I never really got into the debate over whether they were "real" or not. To me, they were real enough. That is, the stories were hair-raising and frightening for what they were--writing designed to have you question your entire cultural existence.I remember once when Carlos, the apprentice, noticed a turtle moving across a highway down in the Sonora Desert in Mexico, where much of these books took place, and he went to pick up the turtle to "save" him, and Don Juan de Matos, his guide and the guide in most of the books, suddenly admonished him: How do you know that that turtle hadn't spent the last hundreds of years of its existence just to reach this exact point in the crossroads, and here you are "saving" it when you really have no idea what you're doing!Yes, the characters in his books seem to defy and defeat death, are able to mysteriously and in the spirit world "stalk" various enemies, there are truly devilish characters and mind-defying feats of ledgerdomain that make you doubt the very words you're reading...but also, given one's own ignorance, there's every chance that it is your world that is the messed up, mixed up, false one, and this crazy mystical impossible-to-grasp world presented in these books...that is the real one.
—Ron Grunberg
From Library JournalCompleted shortly before anthropologist-shaman Castaneda's death in April 1998, this book serves as the fulfillment of a task his teacher, the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan Matus, gave him many years ago, when Castaneda was instructed to collect the significant events of his life. This was not, however, meant as a collection of major milestones in his physical existence but as a selective work describing the transcendent moments and meaningful insights that changed his life and brought him new understanding. Castaneda excels as a storyteller. Incidents both poignant and empowering form a solid thread through his shamanic development and ultimately total embrace of the world view of the Yaqui sorcerers. This basically autobiographical work is more personal than Castaneda's previous books, presenting a human portrait of a remote, mysterious figure. The supernatural occurrences defy explanation yet help to provide a fascinating look at a complex life.
—Nate
