CARLOS CASTANEDA
Asked to say something on don Juan’s end and on the work of his apprentices after don Juan’s departure, Castaneda said: “After he was consumed by the fire from within, don Juan went to another plane in 1974. For the leader of our group he left a woman-warrior, Florinda. She is an unheard-of tyrant, torturing and humiliating us and thus destroying the remnants of our self-importance. For this purpose she assigned for me two exercises. The first, to enter the office of an important businessman, Smith, and answer a telephone call for him. Until that moment my moral beliefs would not have allowed me to do this, but having been forced to commit such an act, I have destroyed the false image of myself as a good, honest and decent man. The other test was even harder. Thinking that the name Carlos Castaneda has become too well-known and important, Florinda sent me to work as waiter in an inn in a USA town bordering with Mexico, in the area where Mexicans are hated very much. I worked there under the name of Perez, one of the commonest Mexican surnames. I was doubly devalued by this new name: first, this Mexican surname made me to be detested by the Americans; and second, by having a surname possessed by every other Mexican, I fell into anonymity. I was working hard for about a year, preparing food and serving the customers, who even threw fried eggs into my face. When I complained to Florinda that people were throwing plates at me, she said quietly and curtly: “Well, then duck your head, so that they may miss you!” “When I started this second test, Florinda told me that she didn’t know how long it was going to take, one year, maybe two or even ten years. After a year and a half, she suddenly appeared, told me that the work was finished and that we were going back immediately. »I can’t leave just like that, I said to her. I have to take leave of my friends, to give notice to my boss and to settle accounts with him.« »Nobody will notice that you are not there, she retorted. Do you think that you are so important that they can’t do without you?«
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