HOW DID THE NAGUAL DON JUAN MATUS DIE?

 

Carlos Castaneda explained that the sorcerers of Don Juan's lineage, if they are sufficiently impeccable, accumulate enough energy and power, do everything required to avoid being devoured by "The Eagle," and dedicate all their strength to achieving this; instead of dying as the rest of humanity does, they ignite their inner fire, transform into luminous balls, and merge with Infinity.

And Castaneda affirmed that his master, the Nagual Don Juan Matus, along with his fellow sorcerers, achieved it.

HOW DID THAT EVENT HAPPEN?

Castaneda stated that he was present when that event happened and at the end of his book 'The Eagle's Gift' (1981) he described it as follows:

« [First the men said goodbye to me]. Then the witches came to me. Each one of them hugged me and whispered a wish in my ear, a wish for fulfillment and achievement.

. . .

Don Juan made me jump [into an abyss] at the precise moment when he and all his warriors had ignited their consciences.

I had a dreamlike vision of a line of people staring at me. Afterward, I rationalized it as part of a series of visions or hallucinations I had after jumping. This was the meager interpretation of my right-side consciousness, overwhelmed by the sheer terror of the entire event.

On my left side, however, I realized that I had entered my other self, but without the help of my rationality.

Don Juan's warriors had seized me for an instant before vanishing into the full light, before the Eagle let them pass. I knew they were waiting for Don Juan and Don Genaro in a sphere of the Eagle's emanations, beyond my reach.

Then I saw Don Juan taking the lead, and after that there was only a line of exquisite lights rising into the sky. Something like a wind seemed to make the line contract and sway. At one end of the line of lights, where Don Juan stood, there was an immense brightness. That made me think of the feathered serpent of the Toltec legend. And then the lights vanished .

(End of chapter 15)

In his book 'The Active Side of Infinity' (1998) Castaneda commented again on this departure:

« Then I saw how Don Juan Matus, the nagual, led his fifteen fellow seers, his protégés, his delights, to disappear one by one into the mist of this plateau to the north.

I watched as each of them turned into a luminous balloon and together they ascended and floated above the mountaintop like ghost lights in the sky.

They circled the mountaintop just as Don Juan had said they would; their last view, the one meant only for their eyes; their last glimpse of this wondrous land. And then they vanished.

I knew what I had to do. My time was up. I sprinted towards the precipice and jumped into the abyss.

(At the end of the book)

INCONSISTENCIES

Castaneda contradicted himself every time he recounted this event because:

In 'The Eagle's Gift' he said that Don Juan was the one who made him jump into the abyss at the precise moment when Don Juan and his sorcerers had ignited their consciences; and while Castaneda was jumping, he saw Don Juan and his group transform into lights that ascended through the sky until they finally disappeared.

But in his book 'The Active Side of Infinity' Castaneda said that he first saw Don Juan and his sorcerers ignite their consciousness and become balls of light, and it was only after they disappeared that he decided to jump into the abyss.

And in his book ' Tales of Power'  Castaneda stated that Don Juan and Don Genaro, they made him jump into the abyss, and they continued with him the next day, and Don Juan and his group only left some time later.

This is yet another example of the numerous inconsistencies that Castaneda stated.

WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?

Incorrect statement

In 2001, the Spanish television channel TVE-2 broadcast an episode dedicated to Carlos Castaneda on the program "Negro sobre Blanco," featuring seven enthusiasts of that writer.

The presenter, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, commented that:

    "I was once told that at the very moment Don Juan died, the terrible earthquake that struck Mexico City was unleashed."

To which Concha Labarta, president of the Association of Castaneda's Followers in Spain, replied:

    "Well, the date Castaneda always gave for Don Juan's disappearance was 1985, which I believe was when the great earthquake happened in Mexico, so it would coincide."

(You can see that excerpt at this link.)

The earthquake that destroyed many buildings in Mexico City occurred on September 19, 1985, but so far I have not found that Castaneda said that Don Juan's departure happened in this year.

At the end of his book 'Tales of Power,' Castaneda claimed that he threw himself into an abyss after everything recounted in this book, and for the rest of his life Castaneda claimed that Don Juan left this world that same day.

For example, in the book 'The Eagle's Gift,' Castaneda specified that Don Juan made him jump into that abyss at the precise moment when Don Juan and all his warriors ignited their consciences (see the text above).

And since the book 'Tales of Power' was first published in 1974, that implies that the departure of Don Juan and his sorcerers could not have happened in 1985 and must have occurred before 1974.

Date given by Castaneda

David Worrell was a student of Castaneda and he stated that Castaneda claimed that this event occurred in June 1973 (but he did not provide any references as to where and when Castaneda allegedly made this claim).

Castaneda maintained this assertion.

Castaneda continued to assert for the rest of his life that Don Juan and his sorcerers departed in this manner.

When academic Graciela Corvalán interviewed him in 1982, Castaneda told her: 

"The goal is to leave the living world; to leave with everything one is but with nothing more than what one is. The point is to take nothing and leave nothing behind: Don Juan left the world whole and alive. Don Juan does not die because the Toltecs do not die."

When the writer Keith Thompson interviewed Castaneda in 1994, they had the following conversation about this matter:

Thompson: Where is Don Juan now?

Castaneda: He's gone, he's disappeared.

Thompson: Without a clue?

Castaneda: Don Juan told me he was going to fulfill the sorcerer's dream of leaving this world and entering into "unimaginable dimensions." He displaced his assemblage point from its fixation in the conventional human world. We would call it combusting from the inside. It's an alternative to dying. Either they bury you six feet deep in the poor flowers or you burn. Don Juan chose burning. I guess it's one way to erase personal history.

He had come to the end, deliberately. By intent. He wanted to expand, to join his physical body with his energy body. His adventure was there, where the tiny personal tide pool joins the great ocean. He called it the "definitive journey." Such vastness is incomprehensible to my mind, so I can only give up explaining. I've found that the explanatory principle will protect you from fear of the unknown, but I prefer the unknown.

CASTANEDA HIMSELF

Castaneda maintained throughout his life that he too would depart as Don Juan and his sorcerers did, but at the age of 72 he became seriously ill and died from liver cancer.

HOW TRUE IS THIS STORY?

Master Pastor explained that when a very high level of development is reached, humans can transform their physical body into a body of light, and that is what Jesus did after the crucifixion. 

Something similar is mentioned in Buddhism, since in this religion it is stated that the highest monks can transform their physical body into what they call "the rainbow body".

But I'm very skeptical that Don Juan and his sorcerers achieved this process. First, because it requires having reached a very high degree of spirituality, and although Don Juan and his companions were great shamans, they weren't spiritual at all; rather, they were individuals who were very skilled at astral travel, but they didn't know how to control their higher bodies, which made them incapable of carrying out this metamorphosis.

And secondly, because although almost nothing has been revealed about how this transformation takes place, the way Castaneda describes it sounds very fanciful.

He says he saw "a line of exquisite lights rising into the sky. Something like a wind seemed to make the line contract and sway. At one end of the line of lights, where Don Juan was, there was an immense brightness. That made me think of the feathered serpent of Toltec legend. And then the lights vanished."

But it makes no sense for humans who transform their physical bodies into luminous bodies to rise up into the sky, since the higher planes of existence are also found here on Earth, only in other dimensions.

That image corresponds more to the Christian belief where Paradise is visualized above and Hell is imagined below.

CONCLUSION

For all the reasons I have just explained, I believe that Castaneda's account of Don Juan and his companions leaving was most likely invented by this writer.