custodian,
If you are polite and don't abuse other posters, no one will censor you. But abusing other posters doesn't go over well here. By abuse I distenctly mean name calling and flaming and other trollish behavior. Threatening people is not ok either. Calling someone on their BS is fine. Correcting a misconception is fine. Stating your opinion is fine. Of course, others may poke holes in your opinion. Or disagree with it.;)
Let me tell you something about this guy Custodian:I described one of the patrons as "an internet whore".
He asked me to remove him from my memberlist after I deleted a post of his in which he called another member of my board an internet wh... Fill in the blancs. he was banned for the same from SR, and assumed he could continue his harassment on my board.
If you trust this guy, well.....good luck.
And beware.
Oh, the way you describe the ex members, they're not rednecks. They just believe in reason, using your brain, and thinking for yourself.You have not read what I wrote, accurately. I described the new owners and admins as 'rednecks'. These are not ex-members. All ex-members have left.
Greetings EI, et al..
I'm Richard Rogers, AKA GD the current owner of SR, which has was established to be, and is manitained as, a clearing house for information about CC in the spirit of debunking him.
My position is that his teachings are glittery mind candy, told with absurd myth.... or "lies" as we tend to call them.
SA/SR exists to argue that Carlos and his ilk are frauds.
Shintok 03/06/07 11:49 amHe did not receive public replies so far. According to where the forum is situated, this entry might cause problems, as it is in part an ad for help with mental problems, and therefore illegal under German law, one reason being that apparently the person's only qualification mentioned is that he is a shame-on.
"I am a practicing shaman and teacher. I am familiar with CC, although I had a teacher who had nothing to do with shamanism. I would like to offer help in which ways I can, and will also be available as a contact in mental issues and problems. Don't be shy, drop me a line."
My first encounter with CC's books
miraculix 3/26/07 3:58 am
"... I see it as an aim to do a re-orientation of D.J.s teachings.
I am not sure whether the ultimate goal is to burn from within, whether it is a desirable goal for us.
A re-orientation has to be done in any case, as there is no successor to CC.
And IMO there are a few mistakes in CC's system.
What happens when too many members of a group of warriors die, what happens when the Nagual doesn't make it (e.g. early death)...."
pro & contraI don't see much in the way of inviting criticism or debunking in this reply of one of the regular posters.
keinerfreiis 4/21/06 6:18 am
"I found this forum looking for arguments pro & contra Castaneda's literature. I am interested in gathering contributions which speak for or against a possible fiction of Don Juan Matus...."
Ianfran 4/22/06 12:24 am
"... If the true/wrong issue is the only request you got in this forum, you're dealing with irrelavancies. It would be more interesting if you described which personal experience you gathered regarding the teachings, what you understood well, or which aspects are not clear to you..."
LiQiDHeaD 2/20/06 2:08 amThis is followed by a few oooohs and aaahhhhs of 'Gee, he's met the celebs', while one poster debates that the thread starter ever met TA and FDG.
"I have been working with CC's literature for 23 years....
By the mid-90ies, I did a Tensegrity Workshop in Berlin, at which I had the priviledge to speak to Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau, and the personal tips I received frm both were very valuable! I lived according to the rules of a warrior for 12 years..."
GDSR: In what is maybe a misguided sense of outreach, SR entertains what we lovingly call "naguals".... as that's what most of them call themselves. I mean folks who claim to practice the magical mysticism of St. Juan.I'd agree these persons might not compete for the sharpest knife in the kitchen, but on the German language part of SR, I have noticed only one poster whose contributions are critical of CC, and he seems to be getting flak quite heavily. When reading the English part, I also had the impression that you were not the most popular person there, and I suspect for the very same reason then?
Some of these folks might be one string short on their banjo, if you know what I mean.
So at any given moment... yes... I am afraid these folks are... sadly, representative of many of the denizens of SR.... and the essential mental hygeine of the place might not be apparent to a casual reading.Errm, what's the point of SR then? If any criticism and debunking becomes invisible for all the nagual BS piled up and SR comes across as a kindergarten and playground for the worshippers, the theory sounds quite nice but apparently gets overruled.
It's a rough neighborhood... a virtual anarchy compared to your forum... ad hominem and off topic responses are allowed... there's very little moderating... but a lot of impassioned participation. Somehow it works.You mean a virtual chaos. And it doesn't seem to work out all that well from what I saw.
I hope you enjoy our naguals as they come. Please feel free to distract them from SR, we have plenty, thanks.You fed 'em, you deal with 'em.
We're also discussing your forum. Post back if you get the urge.Well, I noticed at least one of your participants could do with a few hours of coaching re his knowledge of the German language. Anyways, there's no discussion about NAFPS, but some persons spewing verbal injuries and wild assumptions. Errm, what urge were you talking about?
Regardless, I am a strong advocate of fair play and honesty. I am also a passionate advocate for lawful abidance while maintaining vigorous debate.Custodian
I wish to open this post by stating that I am completely anti-censorship, except when censoring unlawful material.I basicly agree with you , and i trust the power of simply telling the truth . However , this forum has to contend with a constant influx of new posters who have absolutely no intrest in telling the truth or in having the truth told about them .
Custodian,
You are not being honest here. You ask our opinion. My opinion is and always has been that Castaneda is as phoney as it gets. You did not ask people to join in research. You asked what we thought.
As for me, I read his first book and gagged. I thought it ws the phoniest thing I ever read. Apparently UCLA agreed with me since they yanked his PHD because they belive it was all a fabrication.
.... just in explanation... I did wonder what that German fellow was going on about... Thanks for the interp. It's rough not speaking all those languages... The German forum tends to get cobwebs.You're welcome re the translation.
SR is discussing you guys... some feel you're a tad presumptuous to be judging anybody as a fraud... some think you should all be Native types... some support you entirely.. and of course, one guy thinks you're a fire engine.Does the veil of 'non-ndns shouldn't judge ndns' get dropped now?
SR is discussing you guys...I'd like to repeat, the threads at SR are no discussion, as this would imply an exchange of points of view based on facts and in a somewhat civilized way, not on assumptions garnished with verbal attacks, name calling, and a generous helping of racism thrown in for good measurement. It is also quite revealing that some of your participants apparently fail to see (or pretend not to see) that their assumptions of Euro members of NAFPS of course 'guiding' the ndn members reflects a world view in which the indigenous would of course need and seek guidance from white persons, while white persons could not and would not accept any different role than that. What term does best describe this attitude?
It'd be tedious to defend every possible criticism of SR... and I may not have a lot of energy for it...That's a bit short in the way of giving it even as much as a try.
But if you disagree with me there, you can go onto SR and argue your point. You can say "GD, you idiot, you're closed minded and rigid. If you just take death as your advisor (or Jesus as your savior) you will surely gain magic powers like St. Juan."Far be it from me to try and flatter you, but as far as I read threads at SR, there seem to be worse idiots there, and in no small numbers.
Now you guys are involved with religious fraud in a different way than SR is. You're more about commercialism and "cultural appropriation".Why put the term cultural appropriation in "", as if it doesn't happen?
On SR, I wondered aloud if you did any theological verifications... Like what if you got a guy who is native, and genuine that way... but he's into UFO stuff too. Does he lose points?If you mean theological verification as in criticizing a fraud for interchanging the verses of a particular song they use in comparison to the way it is done in the ndn nation this fraud claims to belong to or to have learned from: no. NAFPS does not intend to become a forum of reference where frauds will find information about the religions they exploit. There are also aspects of religions which may not be discussed in a public forum which we respect.
SA/SR is a debunking site. That's all.... and for all its chaos and unseemliness, it is not ill considered.Including the forum? What debunking is done there? (The attempts at 'debunking' the work of NAFPS won't count, since so far almost everything said about what NAFPS was is pure fiction and assumptions.)
.... except that German guy... I had no idea he was there.Alright, we'll see what is going to happen about this one entry. That does not do anything about a few more who come across as having been written by afficionados of each and every idea published by Castaneda, and it won't change that critics will continue to get bashed there.
Some of your good chiefs have proposed to send some of their good people among us to change our habits, to make us work and live like the white people.
I will not tell a lie ~ I am going to tell the truth ... It is too soon to send those good men among us. We are not starving yet ~ we wish you to permit us to enjoy the chase until the game of our country is exhausted ~ until the wild animals become extinct.
Let us exhaust our present resources before you make us toil and interrupt our happiness ~ let me continue to live as I have done, and after I have passed to the good or evil spirit from off the wilderness of my present life, the subsistence of my children may become so precarious as to need and embrace the assistance of those good people.
There was a time when we did not know the whites ~ our wants were fewer then than they are now. They were always within our control ~ we had then seen nothing which we could not get. Before our intercourse with the whites (who have caused such destruction in our game), we could lie down and sleep, and when we awoke we would find the buffalo feeding around our camp ~ but now we are killing them for their skins, and feeding the wolves with their flesh, to make our children cry over their bones.
Maybe it would be good for a while to try not mentioning Indians and Europeans but to refer to walkers (who arrived in your beautiful continent by land) and sailors (who arrived by sea)Like in this old joke about kids in the school bus raising hell and fighting about the white kids sitting at the front and the black kids at the back, so eventually the bus driver gets p.o.ed and tells them to stop fighting and suggests a game: 'Today, we won't be black and white, today we're all green." The kids are excited and want to play, and the bus driver says: 'Okay, so all of you go to your seats - the light green kids at the front, and the dark green kids at the back'.
Some people say that the walkers have much to teach the sailors about stewardship of the earthAnd other people say that the image of ndns being the stewards of the continent or the earth is a concept not basing on facts. It is not true that the ndns kept the continent untouched for thousands of years, leaving no trace of human inhabitance whatsoever, but they formed their environment to meet their needs. The image of a race of 'stewards' not interfering with their environment serves as an excuse for taking the land as 'the ndns didn't make any use of it'.
Some people say but the walkers way has met with challenges which it cannot overcome, it is time to changeAnd some people would be racist with this argument: all human cultures change and develop, and ndn cultures have been very flexible and easily took up new assets after contact.
In the following speech, there is an indication of both of these points of viewAs an aside, there were two Petalasharos. (You also seem to return to chiefs, ndns, and Euros, don't you?)
Petalsharo was a great chief and a brave man known for his daring rescues (of girls from imminent sacrifice, if some accounts are to be believed)
He was also a great speaker, and in 1822 he addressed a conference in Washington at which President Monroe was present. President Monroe had urged the chief and his people to accept the friendship of missionaries. Petalsharo replied as follows [...]
Your intent ... is not clear. What is it you hope to accomplish?
A dialog between SR and NAFPS?
showing your own lack of knowledge of Native peoples.
Castaneda and Cleargreen [surely are] crass racist abusive exploitative frauds
Jamake Highwater, Lynn Andrews and Castaneda are all of the same genre. Their writing is interesting but it has nothing to do with Indians. It’s about what what white people think Indians should be.
"I would say between Weheli and Kaioatey for now, and my intention is to suggest a more abstract basis for discussion, less about each other and more about whatever the issues may be that underlie the rift."
"as far as I've been able to find out, the argument that Castaneda and/or Cleargreen are racist has not been clearly presented anywhere;"