Thank you Esclarmonde. Some of my favorite topics have been discussed in this thread and I couldn't resist after seeing religion, abortion, and Casteneda all together.

Just about everyone I know believes in God or a god or whatever they wish to call him/her, but after a lifelong study, if I had to personalize him I would call him me. If I had to describe him I would say he is a creative energy with self-awareness. If you believe God is all-knowing, all-seeing, present in all things, then this creative energy is also within us. If that is so then we have the same abilities to use this creative energy as does God. So, why can't we walk on water or feed the multitudes? The answer lies within the biblical story of the grain of mustard seed and boils down to faith.

The problem is that we have been taught that faith is something it is not, and have to go back to the greek version to discover the truth. We have been taught that we must have faith. But faith is not a thing we can "have", that would imply that faith is a noun....person, place, or thing. In the greek version the word is pestes (translated to faith), and that word is a verb, it shows "action".

In the story of the mustard seed, Jesus says if we have the faith of a grain of mustard seed we can say to a mountain...get up and move, and it will. What he means is to "act as if" we can move it. Using the creative energy we plant our outcome firmly in our mind. Voicing our thoughts puts the energy in motion to create our desires. Acting as if, or faithing, or using our conviction to "convince ourselves" it is real makes it manifest.

Instead of learning to trust our inner self, we have learned to doubt. One day some of the disciples were in a boat when they observed Jesus walking on the water. Peter said Lord if that is you then bid me to come to you. Jesus said come. Peter walked on the water toward him, until he realized what he was doing, and began to sink, calling out for help. Jesus said, why did you doubt?

The biggest obsticle between Casteneda and Don Juan was his doubt; thats why the peyote and mescaline were used in the beginning, to break down the hold that Casteneda's logic had on him.

I won't go into my thoughts on abortion other than to say a fetus is not viable until it has it's "own" soul (or creative energy), and just as a fetus relies on its mother for nourishment, so it does for a soul until the cord is cut.
But that is my opinion.

In 25 years, you are the only person I've seen mention the name Casteneda.