Blog 7

I have found chapters 5-8 to be really interesting. The journey, if you will, that Castaneda is on is pretty crazy but yet offers a lot of meaning behind his situations. Since he (Castaneda) is so eager to learning through don Jaun's teachings, his journey is taking much more time and weaving in and out through many different paths because his patiences has grown to be slim over a couple days. Although he is willing to learn, by him pushing things to go faster, it's throwing him a curve ball, sorta. The whole lizards things gave me goosebumpbs. One, I'm not to fond of the little creatures and the fact of rubbing them against his temples made me cringe. Two, the whole sewing of one's mouth and the other's eye was definitely weird. I would have liked to learn more about the reasoning behind making them the way they are. Anyway, I'm not sure how much of the teachings I believe. I guess I'm being very skeptical but it just sounds absolutely crazy to me that by rubbing a lizard on your temples, could answer a question that you ask it. I sort of felt bad for the lizards, because they were being used as 'experiments' on a daily basis. In a way.. it sort of reminded me of the movie Field of Dreams and how they say "If you build it, they will come." In a way, I guess it's kind of a like that.. if you believe in the teachings enough, you will experience things that not too many people have before. But if you don't believe in the teachings, you won't receive anything out of it.

The whole out of body experience was a little too out there for me, as well. I understand that drugs make people hallucinate and what not but the whole flying thing just didn't intrigue me at all. I also wasn't sure as to why Castaneda had to be completely naked in order to complete this task of the Devil's weed. Would it have made a difference if he had clothes on but still spread the paste on the skin that was open? To me, I saw the whole flying thing as an effect the smoke had given to him, he was in an altered state of consciousness and was experiencing more hallucinations. I sort of felt like Castaneda in a way while reading these chapters because I wanted to know more from don Juan and I would get really mad when he wouldn't elaborate more on his thoughts or on what he knew. I also felt this way when we watched the movie last class. I wanted a better understanding as to what was going on and wanted to know more about their demonstrations. Like Becky had said, I feel as if some of this stuff (not all) can be BS. Back to the whole mind thing.. one can be absolutely fine once second and then make themselves believe that they have a fever the next and drum roll please.. they have a self induced fever. If someone believes something will happen enough, it just might happen. So the whole healing process of the shamans, I don't really fall into believing their certain rituals can heal certain things.