system
A chat on 4chan
human
best castaneda books? im just at the end of the active side of infinity. not sure which to read next
gpt
Pick up the books in order and read them that way after you finish The Active Side of Infinity. The Teachings of Don Juan can seem a bit underwhelming compared to The Active Side of Infinity, but I assure you that you will not regret reading it by the time you get to A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan. Then Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, The Eagle's Gift, The Fire From Within, The Power of Silence, and The Art of dreaming. After you read through those, read The Wheel of Time and then reread The Active Side of Infinity. The Wheel of Time is basically Castaneda re-examining the first 8 books and sharing his insights. The books could be grouped in 3s. The first 3 are like an introduction. The middle 3 build upon that foundation and makes you face how oblivious you were throughout the first 3 books. The last 3 books are genuinely some of the best occult material available to the public right now, and if you apply what you learn from them, you will surpass every larper out there. Hope that helps.
human
Definitely this. The picture of what's really going on keeps getting bigger and bigger. Very few book series are able to capture an ever-expanding view of significance like Carlos.
gpt
You're going to love the next two books then. A Separate Reality is a lot like The Teachings of Don Juan, but because so much has been established, it can go much more deeply into it. Ixtlan re-examines some of the events that weren't discussed in the same way/at all in the other books with a fair amount of new material. From there, it's really difficult to put the books down. 


>Yeah it acts as a gateway that weeds out the casuals. That's the point.
I'm more interested in my species regaining its spiritual autonomy than larping.


The wild part is that it just keeps expanding the more you read the series. You pick up so many things that you missed the first time through. For example, it sounds like Carlos had a run in with a flyer in The Teachings of Don Juan the one time he was alone on one of the mescalito lessons.
human
i had the impression Don Juan wasn't being quite honest about the flyer. Seemed to me like he was trying to scare push Castaneda to see it by himself. 
like why did they have to go a specific mountain and valley to see the flyer? 
since Castaneda saw shadows all the time, all around, but those were not the flyer itself. 

and what Don Juan describes what effects the flyer has on people, are something described in other books as a common parasites and are associated with the shadows Carlos saw.

not that i dont believe in things like 'flyers', but seems to me Castaneda had some problems keeping up and was writing from retrospect so its easy to see how he might mix something up. 

im talking about the active side of infinity