Journey to Ixtlan

Customer Reviews

• 5 out of 5
  
  
  by Lauren from The United States | Jul 2, 2008
  

  This is the first in a series of books which Castaneda wrote after he realized that his prior emphasis on psychotropic drugs was a misleading and "erroneous" means of conveying the lessons he gained from his apprenticeship with don Juan.
  
  I began reading with few expectations and progressed with delight at how engrossed I became. I felt and absorbed don Juan's teachings in a very heavy way. I also found myself laughing out loud at various times throughout this book. This for me is always a good sign!
  
  There are many spiritual guide type of books that just don't do it for me. . . "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle is a recent example. It seems to me that all the ideas in that book have been articulated a million times before, although in more individualized, artistic and passionate language. Don Juan encapsulates the entire message of Tolle's book in two sentences: ". . . . because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the not-doing of the self."
  
  The problem with books such as Tolle's is that they require you to feel without inducing that feeling within you and that is exactly what "Journey to Ixtlan" succeeds in doing.
  
  This book changed my life and I look forward to reading the rest that follow. :)
  
  
  

  
  
   2 people found this review helpful
  
  

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• 4 out of 5
  
  
  by Daniel from San Diego, CA | Jun 23, 2010
  

  This book moved me. Much rather, I should say, the very last chapter moved me and nearly had me expressing tears.
  
  This is my first book of the Don Juan series of philosophy and shaman ways, but I am told it is the most accessible, which I would agree with so far: the book was very engaging, and did not seem bogged down with philosophy.
  
  Although, I was, as I am sure many readers would be, torn as to how much of this story to believe actually happened. It is classified as a book of nonfiction, and it is written as a first person account as to what Carlos says he experienced. However…well, there's a lot of fantastic magic that takes place in front of this eye-witness.
  
  In spite of all of that, I feel as though I picked up a lot from reading it, and I felt as though much of what I go through in my own life has only been confirmed by Don Juan's teachings to Carlos. I liked that.
  
  But, the last chapter, the confession of knowing once you make this transformation, there's no turning back, and one is still human once conquering their "ally" and seeing the other worlds…and one cannot go back to the place they once called home in spite of taking the rest of their life to journey back. That was heartbreaking to me, and, it would seem, heartbreaking to Carlos as well.

  
  

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• 5 out of 5
  
  
  by Alexis from Athens, 35, Greece | Oct 12, 2009
  

  It's a fact that for more than five years of my life I've read nothing else but Castaneda's books. I've been to most of his seminars (and I don't live exactly nearby), I bought his t-shirts and pamphlets, I practiced Tensegrity, etc, etc.
  
  What did I get out of that experience? I most certainly not regret it. I think that the eternal question "Did Carlos really meet Don Juan?" is misguided. He probably didn't. "Don Juan" is most certainly not a single person but an amalgam of different stories about different people. So what? It doesn't matter. Just re-trace the man's (I mean CC's) grandiose path. He was a poor immigrant, he was always an outsider, he was never really accepted by blond women or academic cycles, but he did have a fertile imagination (as well as access to a good library). Other people too have fertile imaginations. They write a book or two and then go to the supermarket to buy milk. That's not good enough for Carlos. He dreamt up a myth, became in the process a celebrity and a millionaire and then, completely unexpectedly and unnecessarily, he proceeded to embody the myth he had created and live it.
  
  Call it egomania, call it what you will, I'm sure that sooner or later Carlos will be accepted for what he is: a genius, who dared to travel alone and by foot where other people pass by car or airplane.
  
  RIP Carlos

  
  

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• 3 out of 5
  
  
  by Erik from Chicago, IL | Apr 30, 2009
  

  This is the third volume of the trilogy including The Teachings of Don Juan and A Separate Reality. I read all three, one after the other, while working at the Chicago Womens' Athletic Club during the summer between college and seminary.
  
  Although it appears to be the case that Castaneda, the author, fabricated some of the material appearing in his accounts, including that of his doctoral dissertation which begins the series, it also appears to be the case that he knows a good deal about altered states of consciousness. While the books may misrepresent the Yaqui Nation and so be bad anthropology, they remain important and worth reading.
  
  I've classed the volumes as psychology because so much of their content has to do with what we conventionally call "altered states" and relegate to psychologists. What is interesting about Castaneda, however, is that, for him, it is not so much a drug-disordered state of mind creating hallucinations as an entry into other worlds. In other words, the other worlds are real--indeed, they are truer in the sense of being more meaningful than the quotidian routines of our normal lives.
  
  Phenomenologically, this is certainly the case to many, whether they experience non-ordinary realities through the use of drugs, spiritual exercise or because such things happen to them, either occasionally or regularly. Years of campfire tales about extraordinary experiences have led me to begin to intentionally ask people about such things and I've found it remarkable how ordinary non-ordinary states are. This raises questions about the typical approach of psychologists and philosophers to such matters--and as regards the kind of society which would put its members in such a Procrustean bed that they'd be disposed to discount their lived experience in order to fit in.
  
  I myself have experienced "other worlds" on a number of occasions. Of course, like everyone, I inhabit them nightly and remember them under the rubric of dreaming. Beyond that, however, I've had a couple of auditions (hearing voices which weren't coming from anyone another in the room would have heard), a rather unpleasant hallucinatory episode and at least two induced breakthroughs to domains radically different than this one I'm typing in--all of which felt realer-than-real. Beyond that, the usual psychedelic experience--and I've had scores--at least suggests these other worlds, worlds like those described by Castaneda, although one is not entirely thrust into them and out of this one.

  
  

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• 4 out of 5
  
  
  by Thorne from The United States | Mar 31, 2010
  

  These books are great. They demonstrate what a little character development can do as a pedagogical tool for making metaphysics accessible and light. Don Juan is compelling enough, as are the ideas peppered throughout the books, that it doesn't matter whether he was ever real or not. (Particularly given the primary theme of questioning reality and the "phantoms" that populate it.)
  
  Also, these books are not about peyote or other drugs. One of the most creative things about Castenada is his ability to identify "non ordinary reality", or insinuations of it, in otherwise mundane but overlooked aspects of daily life. (E.g., the colored spots you see when you close your eyes.) The drug bent to me seems just a way to lend his descriptions some plausibility for the reader until the reader gets far enough along to consider that altered states may indeed be achievable -- even unavoidable -- when stone cold sober.

  
  

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