Carlos Castaneda, don Juan Matus and the latest discoveries in physics (Lesson 110)

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Light has always been described as made up of photons that sometimes behave as particles and sometimes behave as waves. Recently, scientists have discovered that quarks, subatomic particles, the smallest granules that make up the protons and neutrons of an atom, the elemental building blocks of matter, exhibit the same behavior as photons. They exist as both particles and waves. This finding is very new to science.

Now let's flashback to the 1960s and a series of books written by Carlos Castaneda. These books describe his relationship with a Yaqui Native American who called himself don Juan Matus [1].

The actual existence of don Juan has long been disputed; his practices and beliefs are inconsistent with his alleged identification as a Yaqui shaman. The old man, in fact, never professes that to be his original name. He merely says that for Castaneda, at least, he is Juan Matus.

--Wikipedia reference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castenada)

The books were very popular and are still in print. What is remarkable about these books is they were written as autobiographical pieces. However, as there was a great deal of criticism of the book's contents. The stories seemed too fantastic, too surreal to have been true accounts. Many who read these accounts insisted they were psychotropic drug induced hallucinations, as the use and ingestion of psilocybin containing mushrooms was a common practice of both native North and Central American populations.

The amazing fact is that the account is experience the same as the experience of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Harvard University train neuroanatomist and professor at the University of Indiana school of medicine, is her account of her cerebral vascula accident, or stroke.

[1]. Carlos Castaneda's Chronicles begin in the 60s and then in the 70s. They are published in New York City by Simon &Schuster.






See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subatomic_particle
http://www.heretical.com/science/quantum1.html
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html