“Castaneda’s most beautiful trick was based on the popular belief in the existence of fiction and nonfiction. This belief takes it for granted that there is a qualitative difference between two books if the first one tells a success story that never happened to a fictitious character, and the second one tells a success story that will never happen to you. In a way, this difference does exist. But it is not a difference between two books, it is a difference between two settings of the reader’s mind”
“The samizdat incarnation of a Castaneda book was a photocopy of the typewritten translation. That was the reason why your access to a Xerox machine could drastically improve your position in the esoteric hierarchy.”
“And, as history shows, when there’s an army prepared for a battle, it is only a matter of time when this battle starts.”
“Talking about Castaneda’s books with a Buddhist monk in a Korean monastery once, I said, “There’s a concept I can’t digest. A place where Castaneda says that awareness is a bluish glow that surrounds the Eagle’s emanations.” “Absolutely,” said the monk. “If this is so, who’s aware of this bluish glow then?””
“But it gives you a little side effect that suddenly makes the side center and the center side. With all his tricks and failures, he shines high above the blurred crowd of many a “distinctive voice of his/her own” on the steep road from obscurity to oblivion.”