Rating: 
Summary: The Fire Rekindled: "unquenching curiosity and guts galore"
Review: "One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in all of us."--Don Juan . . . The best book of a masterful author. In the fiction/nonfiction controversy, I lean toward fiction, but with the caution that these fictional stories are being used to demonstrate great truths. If anything, seeing the books as fiction makes Castaneda seem greater. Who else has written this many books, without plots of murder, war, or romance, that grip the reader the way these do? Not only are we gripped, but our minds are being changed. We can almost feel the chemical soup in our braincases being altered as we experience these tales. The device of the bone-headed Carlos is ingenious, putting us on the side of the seemingly rational, but actually post-rational Juan. The most amazing thing to me has been the way the lessons in this book have become my companions, helping me to live my life more fully and with greater awareness. It provides a new way to look at the feelings and impressions we all struggle with, reminding us that we and our lives are unique and powerful, that sobriety and self-containment are paradoxically the path to the mystery and the magic. This book is full of laughs, creepy stories, new concepts, and terms that you may not grasp until one day months or years later when something happens, and you realize "This is what he meant!" Everytime I reread part of it, I feel that fire within me rise and flicker.
Rating:
Summary: The Fire Rekindled: "unquenching curiosity and guts galore"
Review: "One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in all of us."--Don Juan . . . The best book of a masterful author. In the fiction/nonfiction controversy, I lean toward fiction, but with the caution that these fictional stories are being used to demonstrate great truths. If anything, seeing the books as fiction makes Castaneda seem greater. Who else has written this many books, without plots of murder, war, or romance, that grip the reader the way these do? Not only are we gripped, but our minds are being changed. We can almost feel the chemical soup in our braincases being altered as we experience these tales. The device of the bone-headed Carlos is ingenious, putting us on the side of the seemingly rational, but actually post-rational Juan. The most amazing thing to me has been the way the lessons in this book have become my companions, helping me to live my life more fully and with greater awareness. It provides a new way to look at the feelings and impressions we all struggle with, reminding us that we and our lives are unique and powerful, that sobriety and self-containment are paradoxically the path to the mystery and the magic. This book is full of laughs, creepy stories, new concepts, and terms that you may not grasp until one day months or years later when something happens, and you realize "This is what he meant!" Everytime I reread part of it, I feel that fire within me rise and flicker.
Rating:
Summary: The Fire Rekindled: "unquenching curiosity and guts galore"
Review: "One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in all of us."--Don Juan . . . The best book of a masterful author. In the fiction/nonfiction controversy, I lean toward fiction, but with the caution that these fictional stories are being used to demonstrate great truths. If anything, seeing the books as fiction makes Castaneda seem greater. Who else has written this many books, without plots of murder, war, or romance, that grip the reader the way these do? Not only are we gripped, but our minds are being changed. We can almost feel the chemical soup in our braincases being altered as we experience these tales. The device of the bone-headed Carlos is ingenious, putting us on the side of the seemingly rational, but actually post-rational Juan. The most amazing thing to me has been the way the lessons in this book have become my companions, helping me to live my life more fully and with greater awareness. It provides a new way to look at the feelings and impressions we all struggle with, reminding us that we and our lives are unique and powerful, that sobriety and self-containment are paradoxically the path to the mystery and the magic. This book is full of laughs, creepy stories, new concepts, and terms that you may not grasp until one day months or years later when something happens, and you realize "This is what he meant!" Everytime I reread part of it, I feel that fire within me rise and flicker.
Rating:
Summary: Another level of the onion
Review: Carlos Castaneda continues a new round of explicating and evoking his apprenticeship with Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian who has attained the highest possible level of development possible to man by becoming a man of knowledge or a seer. He continues to present his transcendent vision to Carlos who continues to pit his puny rationality with less and less conviction as he is overwhelmed by one experience after the other of a separate reality and to the inescapable fact that the human socialized idea of the world is just that, an idea, which we live in and which comforts us but also imprisons our awareness and bores us to death, when it's not making us miserable. As the I Ching says (another transcendent book), "Prisons must not become dwelling places."
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, Please
Review: For those who might still suppose that Castaneda was actually recording his experiences with a Yaqui man of knowledge, read this one. If you still think so, I have a bridge I'd like to offer for your consideration. The original (The Teachings of Don Juan) was, at very least, a masterful ruse, and perhaps exactly what it purported to be. By The Fire From Within, the cagey old Yaqui speaks like a college-educated gentleman who's read too many Don Juan books. Every chapter starts out with a sentence or two to set the scene before going into an impossibly detailed, word-for-word description of numbingly intricate theories of how to manipulate "emanations" and "assemblage points," punctuated by the obligatory belly-laughs from Don Genaro and Don Juan at poor Carlos's expense, and the bizarre hallucinatory stuff -- you kow the formula. It's a caricature. I truly wonder if even Castaneda wrote it, rather than some ghost-writer.That's not to say that such a work can't contain wisdom; it makes little difference whether the voice is Castaneda's, Don Juan's, or some hack's. And there's some stuff in there, if you want to wring it out. But why bother? It's not nearly as entertaining a work of fiction as countless other books, and if you really want practical guidance, there's precious little of it here. Stay awake, and stop looking for shortcuts.
Rating:
Summary: Thanks for showing us the way, Carlos!
Review: I have always felt that there is something more to life (and death). I'm sure that there are beings capable of cheating death. However, the only thing that you can take with you is your awareness. Most of us don't have a clue about the possibilities of man. I have turned my life around with these beliefs. I probably won't be much of a snack for the Eagle. But I will enjoy a better life than most. Thanks agian, Carlos, for giving up your normal life so that you could help a few of us see the light! You had to stay behind to document a very important way of life. Fiction? I think NOT!
Rating:
Summary: A SYNTHESIS OF THE TEACHINGS TOUCHED UPON IN PREVIOUS WORKS
Review: I have read all of Castaneda's books and this is the one that I would recommend for those who wish to get a broad and clear overview of the Warrior's Way. In this book, Castaneda has finally come to terms with his often bizarre and terrifying experiences. We hear the voice of a more mature and sober Castaneda, unencumbered by doubts and the preconceptions characteristic of Western culture. Castaneda's earlier books were filled with these doubts and preconceptions and it was a relief for me to have the teachings of Don Juan presented without them. This book synthesizes all of the teachings touched upon in earlier works and adds to them, a breath taking energetic description of the Universe. One major reason for the huge difference in the tone of this book is that it contains the teachings revealed to Castaneda while he was in a state of heigthened awareness as opposed to what was described in his earlier books. The earlier books describe what he was taught while in the awareness of everyday life. Because one is more capable of absorbing higher truths while in heightened awareness, the teachings described in this book are clearer, more direct, more complete and more profound that those described in the earlier books. In order for Castaneda to retrieve these teachings, he had to evolve energetically and learn to induce a state of heightened awareness on his own, without Don Juan's help. This major difference in tone has lead Castaneda's critics to believe that Castaneda was a fraud. It is a misconception due to the fact that these critics for the most part have no knowledge or experience of states of heightened awareness and do not acknowledge that such states are possible. I highly recommend this book- read, enjoy, open your mind!! Also recommended 1) The Active Side of Infinity- Carlos Castaneda, 2) The Path- Esmeralda Arana.
Rating:
Summary: A classic text on awareness
Review: I have read this book at least 15 times, finding it to be a classic of spirituality, both ancient and modern. Unlike Castaneda's earlier works, FFW is the first in which the structure of Don Juan's teaching methods becomes clear. Hence FFW reads like a textbook of stories about advanced spiritual practice.
It is a curious hallmark of Castaneda's work that, as with a sitcom, the reader often feels he knows more, and might have made better judgements, than the lead character. But the tasks are transformations of essence, not of mind or feeling, so Carlos' lack of comprehension is irrelevant. What counts is his ability to handle the excercises of transcendance.
Many important questions remain unresolved, such as whether the quest for immortality (freedom) is merely another form of materialism, or just how different Don Juan's brand of transcendance is from other paths to spiritual development.
IMHO, the scene in which Carlos and Don Juan visit the tomb of the ancient sorcerers, ghouls who have remained alive for 2000 years, and then laugh it off, is one of the finest moments in all of Western Literature.
Rating: 
Summary: ok
Review: not as good as others
Rating:
Summary: By far Castaneda's best
Review: The fire from within gives a structured view of the machinations of the universe and the force that gives and takes away awareness...the "eagle" Rich in concepts; thought provoking...
Comparitive Ranking of CC's books I have read
(1=best) 1 Fire from within
2 Power of silence
3 Art of dreaming
4 Tales of power
5 The teachings of don juan
6 journey to ixtlan
7 The eagles gift
8 The second ring of power
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