---
title: "The relationship with Carlos Castaneda – Marco Baston"
url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/the-relationship-with-carlos-castaneda-marco-baston/
date: 2024-12-10
modified: 2026-07-03
lang: en
author: "Perseus Arcane Academy"
description: "Introduction This is post number four of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His..."
categories:
  - "Interviews"
  - "Shamanism"
tags:
  - "Energy"
  - "Marco Baston"
  - "Meditation"
image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Carlos-Castaneda.jpg
word_count: 5651
---

# The relationship with Carlos Castaneda – Marco Baston

## Introduction

This is post number four of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His [website](https://www.nagualism.org/) is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

[To start from the beginning of this series please see post one here.](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/the-nagual-and-its-principles-with-marco-baston/)

---

![Carlos Castaneda 1962 - Image Credit Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Carlos-Castaneda.jpg)[Carlos Castaneda 1962 (Image credit Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda)

**PAA: How did you first encounter the works of Carlos Castaneda and what impact did they have on your spiritual path?**

Castaneda's books were introduced to me by a friend when I was very young, perhaps not yet 18 years old, and they immediately grabbed me. For me it was an encounter that changed my existence, and I believe this has happened to many other people. I believe that many others in the world share this same experience with me. 

Consider that in those days not all of Castaneda's books had come out yet. We are talking about quite a few years ago and so every time they were about to come out there was a very interesting anticipation; a beautiful tension, also because the developments were always totally unpredictable. However, from the very beginning, as soon as I started reading them I never had the slightest doubt, the idea that what was in those books was not true did not even occur to me. They responded exactly to what I had been feeling probably all my existence, or they responded to what I was looking for. 

I actually wasn't exactly on a spiritual or knowledge path. Back then then, everything was very different. Now there is a proliferation of possibilities in that sense, maybe even too many from a certain point of view, but still I was not exactly on a definite path of knowledge. I was instinctively looking for a passage, an undefined direction, though. 

It was clear to me that there is something that has been taken away from us or that we are missing, and that we absolutely must recover. This I could say was the initial impulse. It was also clear to me that it was not only that something fundamental to our wholeness was missing, but that this lack did not even allow us to experience existence In a fulfilled way; not only in terms of ourselves, but also and perhaps especially in terms of the relationship between us and what is around us. In short, it was clear to me that we human beings, in our normal, ordinary condition, are as if cut off from something that is just outside of us, that is almost within reach but that we never reach. 

When I encountered Castaneda's books I also encountered this access, this possibility, the opening to what was just a little bit beyond me. In fact, I couldn't even define what it was exactly. I didn't have a description or a moment where I could say, "This is exactly what Castaneda is talking about in this passage of the book. Here is what I'm looking for, what I need, what brings me in short to fully experience existence." It was not so defined, it was something else. 

A basic feeling or perception, something that permeates Castaneda's entire oeuvre; that lies beneath, beyond the words and reaches us despite the meaning of the words themselves. It is not the syntax, it is not what is described, told, but it is something that oozes from the very pages of the books, an essence with which they are imbued. 

Years later I would then understand what it is all about, what is really inside these books, when I was then able to get the right state of attention to read them, indeed to reread them fully, with the necessary tools to understand them in the totality of myself, so not to understand them, but to let what those books contain could come to integrate with my substance and thus make itself real. 

This of course then was one of the results of my whole journey that also led me to the possibility of seeing beyond the syntax in Castaneda's books, however, the presence of this substance, this intensity behind the words was already evident from the beginning. 

**PAA: Can you discuss the similarities and differences between Castaneda's teachings and your interpretation of Nagualism?**

First of all, I would like to make it clear that what I practice is not my own interpretation of Nagualism, but what I learned from my teachers. Clearly each warrior, when he reaches a certain point of autonomy, capacity and real, pragmatic understanding of the knowledge system, makes contributions of his own. However, this does not mean interpreting the knowledge system, but rather inserting refinements within the whole set of what is already working. 

It works because it has been fine-tuned, as we have already said, over thousands of years of experience. So you make improvements, you go and smooth out the existing, or you also add something more substantial, but it has to work together with the rest. If it comes into conflict in any way it means that we are just trying to impose ourselves, our beliefs. 

For example, I included in the sequence for the predominance of the energy body aspects of the "Right Way to Move," which is a practice, a set of activities that I discovered, I would say I put together during my explorations in the second attention. 

I tell this whole story in one of my books, which at this time is not yet translated into English, but we plan to translate in the near future. Even in that case, however, I actually basically gathered together a range of information and possibilities that had already been activated and opened up by ancient seers, by groups of Toltecs, groups of warriors who came before us. Certainly I put together and related these information and possibilities to each other in a way, in a modern, new vision, not conceived before, adapting them to our times. However, not because I wanted to do it from the beginning, I didn't start out by saying "now I'll find something and then I'll adapt it to my world"; this adaptation came about by following the spirit of the times. 

It becomes inevitable that we adapt some aspects of the practice, some aspects of nagualism to what is happening now, to the present time of the world. So we don't decide to do some things differently, with certain modifications because we decide to do it; we simply are men of our time and so we use these possibilities in the mode of the time that is proper to us. 

Having said that, I can say that the differences between my lineage and Castaneda's are not profound. In the sense that the basic connotations, what constitutes the corpus of Nagualism as it is known in the lineages that have gone through the ages before and after the conquest, up to modern times, well, this basic information, this basic knowledge is the same. 

However, there are certainly differences in the methodologies that are applied to achieve mastery of this fundamental knowledge. Particularly in my lineage a great deal of "parallel movement" of the assemblage point is used, something that I have not encountered in Castaneda's lineage, of Don Juan, at least as far as what Castaneda reports in the books. Or rather, there are episodes that he relates in which obviously parallel movement is inevitably used, however, it is not an explicit mode, nor used, we might say, on a large scale, or as one of the main systems of teaching. 

In my lineage also, practices that use elements external to us, powers, external forces, to achieve the movement of the assemblage point have been absolutely and definitely abandoned. Using external elements is a very old and traditional teaching method, which, for example, is made explicit in the use of power plants, in that of allies rather than in the famous Nagual blow, which Castaneda talks about extensively in his books. 

In all these cases, as well as in others, basically a type of energy is used that comes from outside the apprentice. The external element may be an external force, such as precisely the power contained in a power plant, rather than an ally or the teacher himself, who provides an energetic push that, as it were, forces the apprentice's assembly point to move and reach another position. 

These methods have been abandoned almost entirely within my lineage, and there is a preference to obtain the movement of the assembly point from within, learning how to change one's attitude and thus the position of the assembly point by an operation that we perform ourselves. 

Different ways are used to do this. Clearly forms of help for the apprentice exist in my lineage as well, forms of help that use something that is external to the apprentice, however, they are never methods that force the assembly point to move by forcing it. We prefer to bring the apprentice to an understanding of how convenient it is for him to move the assembly point of his own volition. 

This is also because over time it became very clear that even using methods that force the assemblage point to move, work still had to be done afterwards to bring the learner to the understanding that it is necessary to learn how to voluntarily move the assemblage point. It is inevitable to come to the understanding of how convenient this ability, this skill, is, of how vital, how fundamental to our existence as beings made of attention, it is to learn the maneuverability of the assemblage point. This learning is eventually either done of the learner's own volition, as a conscious choice, or it does not work. 

We can use all possible methods to force the apprentice's position, but in the end he must still be the one to choose, to decide to enact this ability, to claim the maneuverability of the assembly point. This claim must be made of his own free will otherwise it is worthless. If it remains a forced choice, if it is not conscious, if it is not free, it does not lead in the direction of freedom. 

In fact, coercive ones were practices much used by ancient seers, who were very dedicated to power, even over other people. That of forcing movement is a method much used by men of power, but much less used by men of knowledge. Because a man of knowledge knows very well that, in the end, only the person can make the choice, himself, no one else. 

So in our lineage we start from the beginning, first of all, the work of bringing the apprentice to understanding. The movement from within is very much based on understanding what is convenient, what is necessary to the living being, to the conscious being. It is true that we also use elements of the world, which are external to the practitioner, but the movement of the assemblage point is never forced. 

Parallel movement, for example, consists of the apprentice following the teacher who makes a certain movement of the assembly point, moving in a certain direction, reaching a certain position. The apprentice, however, follows the teacher by yielding, using surrender, stopping resisting and thus deciding himself to follow the teacher. 

Similarly, we use coincidence places (places of power) as another system for movement In parallel. Instead of the teacher in that case there is a certain place that has certain characteristics. And these characteristics could lead the assemblage point to move in a certain direction, to reach that certain position, if the person, if the learner is willing to let himself move, to follow the direction induced by the place. 

In any case as long as you resist there is no way. One may force, but then one always comes back. Most of the time we also forget the experience we had when we are forced, or what we bring back is a big mess that doesn't do much good. 

If, on the other hand, we get there by our own choice and with whole awareness, then the whole experience we have in the new position remains intact. We bring it back in its entirety to our world, which will not be the same as before at that point. 

Recapitulation works on this a lot. It does a great deal of assembly point maneuverability training in a soft, gentle way, using kindness, cunning, patience and timing. 

So I could say that this is the main, substantial difference between my lineage and the one that Castaneda met. Then there are others, but this one is very important because it involves a whole series of changes, different ways of approaching knowledge. Initially it may seem like a longer process, you don't get those results as immediately as when you are forced into another position. However, what we achieve is immediately in our hands. We become the ones who lead the game.

**PAA: What aspects of Castaneda's work do you think are most relevant to your teachings today and from which do you differ?**

In the meantime, I want to indicate which is for me the book of Castaneda that I find most powerful, most cohesive with nagualism. Clearly this is a completely personal consideration of mine, however I like to point it out, also because, in this case, it is closely related to the sense of the question that was asked. 

I believe that such a book is The Power of Silence. It is the book that most of all touches on the question of intent. The most abstract, the one that tried to bring people as close as possible to the abstract. At the very least it gives pointers, suggestions, useful in grasping what warriors mean when they talk about abstract and intent. This is why I consider it the fullest, most complete and most powerful book. Everything in Nagualism revolves around the abstract. If there is no connection to the abstract everything else also falls apart. 

But now I come to the core of the question, although already from this you can perhaps see what the most relevant cores are from my point of view in Castaneda's teaching. Obviously there is a lot in his work, there is a tremendous amount of information brought by Castaneda that is indispensable for those who approach nagualism. So to make some kind of list would be very cumbersome and also useless in the end. 

However, if I had to indicate, based on my experience, which aspects are the most relevant, I would say that it is all those parts of his teaching that deal with the way of the warrior. That is, the moments when he emphasizes the need to reconcile our human condition, even ordinary human condition, with the abstract. As Don Juan would say the ability to balance the wonder of being human with the terror of being human. 

Based on this premise, one could make a long list of practices, starting with the recapitulation, but I would say that the most significant parts from my point of view and also based on what has then been my personal experience through my teachers, certainly are all the parts that deal with achieving sobriety. 

Sobriety as understood by the Toltecs of course. Which, to be very succinct, consists of the ability to remain serene in the face of circumstances beyond our control. Such a condition presupposes the development of an internal discipline and order that are of a different nature than what we normally mean by discipline and order. The discipline of which the Toltecs speak is something elastic, capable of adapting to the moving world. It is not at all something rigid. 

The internal order that warriors develop is of the same nature. It is orderly because it balances the extended emanations, because it reflects the order of the world, the natural harmony of the world. 

Central here again is the question of the sense of personal importance, of concentration on oneself and how this distances us precisely from the ability to be together with the world, thus to achieve discipline, sobriety, inner strength (which then also coincides with the humility of the warrior and thus the fact of being on the same level as anything else that exists). 

I would say then that I also consider relevant all the teachings, all the narratives of happenings in Castaneda's books, in which he addresses the question of the sense of personal importance. This still has to do with the way of the warrior and achieving the state of sobriety. Sobriety is not a state of mind or an attitude; for the Toltecs, sobriety is a mode of time, an assemblage point position, a very special state of awareness in which we have heightened awareness without losing coherence. 

Sobriety is therefore also coincidence, correspondence with the world around us, where we are at that moment, whether it is the world we know or other worlds we visit. Without this sobriety, without this flawlessness, it is just not possible to survive on the path of knowledge. Saying that it is not possible to survive means so many things, you can succumb in so many ways. Not simply losing one's life. 

You can lose your freedom, you can lose your consciousness, you can succumb in many different ways to the forces around you. The way of the warrior is the only way to move with the world in an appropriate way. 

In addition to this I consider absolutely relevant all the parts of Castaneda's teaching that deal with the art of ambush. I will not go into the art of ambush here because the subject matter is so great that it is just not possible to go into the art of ambush now, we certainly do not have the space available to do so. 

Instead I diverge from some of the things that are contained in the early books, actually especially the power plants, which for modern seers are basically useless, when not misleading (but on the other hand Castaneda himself had then also diverged sharply from them). I am not saying that they are to be ruled out absolutely. Certainly, however, they cannot be used lightly as is too often done. 

In general, we have no idea what power plants really do to our energy set-up. If we did know, we would be much more cautious in our use. We would do it only under special conditions, with due caution and having the experience that allows us to relate to the power to which we are led by these by these plants. 

After the use of power plants, our arrangement is greatly compromised (this becomes clear to the energetic vision) and it takes a long time to regain a state of energetic integrity that will rightly no longer be the original state. 

The change in the resulting arrangement can also result in an advantage, however, only if we know how to lead it, how to manage the relationship with the power to which we are led by power plants. 

If one really decides to use them, I would advise using them toward the end of our apprenticeship journey, so when we already have the knowledge available to make use of every last bit of the energy we are given. If we do it without this knowledge, not only can it prove harmful, but we really waste a chance. We throw away the energy that is provided to us by the power plant. 

We really waste it, mainly in matters that relate, again, to our focus on ourselves, which can present itself with a disruptive effect while under the influence of these plants. 

There are so many other reasons why the use of plants has been abandoned, the main one perhaps being that, throughout all this time, the Toltecs have developed so many other systems to achieve, not just the same things, but so much more. Practices like contemplation or reiteration are capable of taking us much, much further than power plants, not only taking us much further, but taking us to places that we can choose, to places that are appropriate for us, that are harmonious with our deepest predilections because they are our choice. Whereas, on the other hand, when we take power plants like this, without experience, we are basically dragged and then yanked to one side and then to the other, to places that don't really have all that much value for us from the point of view of intensity of awareness. We are taken to where the interests of other forces are towards us. 

This is another aspect that plays a key role as to why my lineage has abandoned power plants. These plants have agreements with the worlds of inorganic beings. And this therefore already must put us very much on the fence as to how to use them. When we step out of our ordinary enclosure we do not go for a walk in a garden or a public park, we end up in a wild place where forces totally unknown to us are there waiting for us. 

The same applies to dreaming. In fact, another difference between my lineage and Castaneda's, another point perhaps that I can highlight, is the way one approaches dreaming. In my lineage one approaches the art of dreaming having already obtained the basic tools that one obtains through the art of ambush and recapitulation. Then dreaming becomes a safe place, much easier to handle, much broader, even where we can reach much greater distances. 

Again, we are much more capable of choosing ourselves in what direction to go, what places to reach. Because even dreaming, which is the domain of the second attention, has to be approached with all caution. That, too, is a place where we are out of our enclosure, in wild and unexplored territory. If we have the proper equipment and perhaps some maps to guide us, we will deal with it much better.

> It is necessary to always keep in mind that what we read in books is Castaneda's case, his own personal. We certainly get information from it that is valid for any human being, but that was his experience. Any other person who had been in his place would have had a very different experience. Of that I am sure. 
>
> Marco Baston

**PAA: How should we interpret Castaneda's relationship with his mentor Don Juan and its implications for modern practitioners?**

We have to consider that we do not know what Castaneda's relationship with Don Juan really was. What he reported in his books is only a part, a fragment of this relationship, and in my opinion, the salient elements to really understand exactly what kind of relationship they had, what the social implications were for Castaneda and how this relationship really evolved are not even reported there. 

There are hints here and there, for example, of a considerable amount of information that Don Juan gave Castaneda about how to conduct his existence, his personal life. This information, however, is not then fully reported within his books, in a form that would make clear what that relationship really entailed. Based on my experience with my teachers and through the application of intensified attention on reading Castaneda's books I can reach certain insights regarding what Castaneda's real relationship with Don Juan was, I can get a broader picture of it. 

As I said before, to us their personal relationship appears only in the way Castaneda himself wanted to present it. That is, basically, I think Castaneda chose to highlight certain aspects not only of his own path, but also of his relationship with Don Juan. This also affects all the other people who were part of Don Juan's group. We have to consider, as it then turns out from the books following the first ones published, that there was quite a large group that supported Don Juan in his task of preparing new apprentices. And so we cannot speak only of the relationship between Castaneda and Don Juan, but of a more complex set of relationships as a result of the intertwining of interactions between the group of teachers and the group of apprentices, which was also the large group. 

So I think in the meantime, if you want to have a complete picture, you cannot isolate or reduce the relationship of Castaneda and Don Juan to just the two of them, but it has to be considered within this more articulated network of relationships. 

Reading the whole of Castaneda's work, it becomes clear that the overall result of Castaneda's experience does not simply flow from his relationship with Don Juan, but is the product of this whole more complex network of relationships that affected the whole group, not only the teachers but also the apprentices. Those, too, played a role in the whole and so, as always, things are more articulated, deeper than what appears at first glance. 

I can speculate some things by perhaps drawing parallels between what happened to Castaneda and what was my experience with my teachers. But even that would ultimately be a rather clumsy and misplaced attempt, because in any case the conditions were not the same, the experience was different, and the cultural substratum from which Castaneda came and from which I came differed. There are definitely a lot of differences also regarding procedures and the personal relationship between teachers and trainees. 

So really, for current practitioners, it follows that the implications of this relationship, I would say at this point between Castaneda and Don Juan's group of seers, are simply those that can be extrapolated from the books, but they remain something that obviously, under current conditions is not repeatable. Not exactly, at least. 

It is necessary to always keep in mind that what we read in books is Castaneda's case, his own personal. We certainly get information from it that is valid for any human being, but that was his experience. Any other person who had been in his place would have had a very different experience. Of that I am sure. 

The operation one should do as a reader of Castaneda should be to be able to extract the information that is useful for everyone, all the universal information that is valid for every human being. If you get stuck on Castaneda's case, you end up trying to repeat or imitate something that has nothing to do with us. 

Each of us is completely different. Everyone has a different history and path, and so it can be just misleading and futile to somehow try to reproduce the same experiences or conditions. Such an operation ends up taking time and energy unnecessarily. In short, trying to somehow repeat the same experience as Castaneda, although obviously a very appealing thing to do, cannot be done. 

Moreover, it is not certain that the spirit of man does not have in store for us perhaps a life, a path, even more interesting than his. Certainly more suitable for us. 

From his work one can derive all the information and knowledge that is useful for us personally and then for all mankind. But his personal experience was his own. 

He was very good because of the way he presented his experiences, because he did exactly that: he simply presented his experiences by refining them to make them as accessible as possible. 

This already should put us on notice that this is precisely about the way he was initiated and embarked on and walked this path, and that therefore, as much as there may be a lot of things that we can repeat as experiences, then these must necessarily be adapted to our personal conditions.

> In our ordinary state of attention we have a very limited and superficial perception of what is around us, of what we call "world." The world for the Toltecs is what we perceive around us. And what we perceive depends on how deep, trained, sharpened, our perception and attention are. 
>
> Mardo Baston

**PAA: In what ways do you think Castaneda's teachings have been misunderstood or misrepresented in popular culture?**

The blunders in how what Castaneda has made available is perceived depend substantially on the tightness of our personal beliefs and our shallowness in looking at the world, in perceiving the world. 

In our ordinary state of attention we have a very limited and superficial perception of what is around us, of what we call "world." The world for the Toltecs is what we perceive around us. And what we perceive depends on how deep, trained, sharpened, our perception and attention are. 

In general, they are very crude, primitive, partial, they are like mutilated. As a result we are able to look at the surface; everything that goes deep in the world around us escapes us. This also relates to reading Castaneda's books. So rather than misunderstandings I would really talk about the impossibility of accessing the depth, what lies behind what is apparently written. 

Added to this is the fact that because we are unable to get rid of our personal history and personal beliefs, everything we come into contact with we pass under the deforming lens of ourselves. This deforming lens, consisting precisely of a mixture of our focus on ourselves, our set of beliefs, personal history and other forces at play, leads us to emphasize only some aspects and miss a huge amount of others. 

We then come to have a picture that is somehow a reflection of ourselves, of what we already know or think we already know. It is as if we look at ourselves in a mirror and there we see again what we think we already have available to us. In short, we see the whole of ourselves again. Clearly, it is not all like that. Castaneda's reading, in fact, is enlightening for millions of people. I am not saying that absolutely nothing passes, or that his works do not lead to profound changes. 

It comes a lot anyway, however, if we consider the massification of culture, let's call it "alternative," trend lines are formed, like some kind of commands or shared structures that lead to recognizing only certain aspects while leaving out substantial elements. 

Much more emphasis is placed on certain all-too-superficial, highly visible aspects, thus missing indications that would lead us to make radical changes in our existence. In fact, I believe that the catalyzing of attention on the more "folkloric" aspects or in line with the alternative mainstrem depends precisely on our resistance to change. The tendency to try to recapture what we already know is an almost irresistible impulse and often we do not even recognize it.

It's normal for this to happen. Initially actually, if you read Castaneda and then you read it again, then you read it again, this phenomenon happens to everybody whereby it feels like you are reading another book. Or rather, we read things that we felt like we hadn't read at all, that weren't present in the first reading. Yet it is still the same book. 

It is a signal that we change something. So individually, we were saying, you can also get to a greater level of depth, but in what we might call popular culture there are really guidelines, let's call it that way, that give definite directions, boundaries and definitions within which to put the content of Castaneda's books.

Certainly one of the biggest misconceptions is that power plants represent something central to Toltec teaching. This is not the case at all; in fact they are extremely marginal to everything else. 

But then not only that. There's a lot of focus generally on the more striking or more magical aspects, the special effects, let's call them that, but there's more behind that, and in the books it's very clear what's really behind it, the kind of careful, precise work that warriors do to get certain results. 

By focusing on the more visible, more striking aspects, we end up losing sight of where the real work lies, and this prevents us from even getting those special effects that are so popular in general, or those phenomenal experiences that are present in Castaneda's books, but which are not accessible if we remain nailed down to only this superficial aspect. 

So I would say that certainly one reading of Castaneda meanwhile is not enough. Or a partial reading. Worse still. Because Castaneda's work makes sense only taken in its entirety and complexity and above all by experiencing it, if not they remain only words that end up only, precisely, reflecting the set of our beliefs, already ingrained and stable, while instead Castaneda's work should, first of all, eradicate those beliefs so as to make room for new worlds.

---

## Further Information

##### See all Posts from Marco Baston

##### See Marcos Website

##### See Marcos Books

##### See Marcos YouTube Channel

##### See Marcos Facebook Page

##### See Marcos Online Course