IV. TALES OF POWER
First English edition 1974
1974 Carlos Castaneda
This is, perhaps, one of the most important books, it contains beauty beyond the literary, in which the ancient Toltecs teachers philosophy is felt, sharply, with profound perennial proposals of universal value, that reach the essence of the human.
From our point of view, one of the most important elements that the Castaneda work provides the Western culture, is to see "the other", the indigenous, from another perspective. As heirs of an ancient wisdom that allows, under rigorous techniques, not only perceiving the world and reality in different ways, but fundamentally, solving the third ontological approach to being. In fact, the "where will I go" after this life or the pursuit of spiritual existence transcendence. The Toltecs with the Toltecáyotl, developed over thousands of years an answer, and now, Castaneda presents it through the teaching of one of the many knowledge lineages that have survived, not only the European conquest, but basically, the civilization collapse that suffered the Anahuac[1], more than five centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The wisdom emanating from the Toltecáyotl achieves a subtle clarity, but revealing in this work. The literary beauty and dramatic force contained in "Tales of power" makes the reader participate along with the apprentice, almost existentially, a growing exaltation feeling up to exploding his rationality in the jump from a cliff by Castaneda.
As it has already been noted, the work Castaneda can be divided into two parts: what he writes while physically receiving the Don Juan teachings and what is written since his absence, and performed from "memories" and experiences with colleagues from his "litter" of witches, where Castaneda took the nagual place.
At the end of this book, Don Juan and Don Genaro say goodbye to Castaneda. They have fulfilled their mission and cycle; they leave this world and also those who must continue with the tradition and lineage. Don Juan tells Castaneda that will again become road dust and that perhaps in the future will again come into his eyes.
This book may be the vertex where all teaching converge. In the first part, from "The don Juan teachings" all the way to "Tales of power", the book has a structural unity that gradually adds knowledge until it reaches the "great Castaneda leap". All teachings gravitate, in a higher percentage in the "right side", "tonal", "reason", first ring of power or everyday world.
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- ↑ Approximately in the year 850 CE., from Zacatecas to Nicaragua, the knowledge centers, today called archaeological sites, were completely destroyed, its ruins covered and the people who inhabited them literally disappeared. It is thus far not known, why they did it, how did they do it and where did they go. Quetzalcoatl left the Anahuac promising he would return in year “Uno caña”, it was 1519 CE.
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