The Active Side of Infinity Book

Depending on whom you talk to, Carlos Castaneda is either one of the very greatest thinkers of the last century, or one of its most accomplished charlatans. Ever since The Teachings Of Don Juan, the author's "true story" of his encounter with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer who led him on a mesmerising, magical and highly disturbing journey into another world, Castenada has fascinated readers with his extraordinary narratives. Hovering tantalisingly between anthropology and fiction, they offer visions of spiritual universes, worlds within our own that are accessible to anyone bold enough to undertake the psychic and spiritual challenges necessary to reach them.Now, in his last book before he died, Castaneda offers this "collection of the memorable events in my life", at the suggestion, he says, of the shamanic teacher who started it all. This is no random memoir, says Castaneda, but itself a shamanic ritual--the "putting together [of] the sum total of one's emotions and realizations, without sparing anything", in preparation for "the definitive journey" into life after death, or what shamans call "the active side of infinity".What we get is a kind of Castaneda reader or primer, a posthumous overview of the episodes that first brought him to our attention. As always both riveting and bewildering, Castaneda offers a behind-the-scenes gloss on the extraordinary events that inform his best-known books. It will surely have the effect of turning readers back to those first mind-bending volumes. --Dan FielderRead More