CONCEIVING THE SELF
Purporting to be a study of self as gleaned from the writings of Carlos Castaneda. Any conclusions herein drawn (indicated by parentheses) are of the author of this compilation and in reference to Castanedaââ?¬Ë?s own descriptive system. The ordering of the quotations is not meant to imply additional conclusions. Quotations are referenced so that the reader may pursue their own studies of this subject matter the better to draw their own conclusions should they feel the need to do so. Quotations given are not all-inclusive or exhaustive.

CONCEIVING THE SELF

“The idea of the personal self has no value whatsoever.” TPOS 219
“War, for a warrior, doesn’t mean acts of individual or collective stupidity or wanton violence. War, for a warrior, is the total struggle against that individual self that deprives man of his power.” TPOS 150

SELVES: THE CONGLOMERATE SELF

The self as the “me I know” VS. “a conglomerate of separate and independent feelings that had an unbending solidarity to one another. The unbending solidarity of my countless awarenesses, the allegiance that those parts had for one another was my life force.” TOP 268-69
“The idea of the abstract, the spirit, is the only residue that is important. The idea of the personal self has no value whatsoever. You still put yourself and your own feelings first. Every time I’ve had the chance, I have made you aware of the need to abstract. You have always thought that I meant to think abstractly. No. To abstract means to make yourself available to the spirit by being aware of it.” TPOS 219
(The “conglomerate self” is comprised of many elements; one of these elements is the sense of the “me I know’, this sense of “self-importance” takes predominance in consuming the energy of our awareness and is what we normally consider as the “self”.)
“In the case of the recapitulation, the secret option that only sorcerers take is to choose to enhance their true minds.
“The haunting memory of your recollections…could come only from your true mind. The other mind that we all have and share is, I would say, a cheap model: economy strength, one size fits all…which exists in you and in every other human being…their syntax.” TASOI 168
“we are not naturally petty and contradictory…Our pettiness and contradictions are, rather, the result of a transcendental conflict that afflicts every one of us, but of which only sorcerers are painfully and hopelessly aware: the conflict of our two minds…One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation.” TASOI 9
(The “mind we use daily” is our self-reflection, our sense of an individual self, this is not our true mind but rather, ââ?¬Å?a foreign installation;ââ?¬