Toltec (Castaneda)

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The term "Toltec" is used in the works of writer Carlos Castaneda to denote a person who has achieved a high state of awareness. Castaneda makes it clear that his use of the term "Toltec" is specialized and does not refer to the Toltec people in general.

Castaneda, via his primary teacher Don Juan Matus, maintained that although the peak of "civilization" in the accepted western sense, (which may be thought to include technological advances, science & logical progression in most fields) - is always occurring right now, that the ability to understand, manipulate & subjugate the processes of the "physical" mind and also the phenomena of magic, belief, shamanism & other states of Non-ordinary reality, peaked then waned with the toltecs & their eventual demise & have now almost entirely been lost. Don Juan insists that a man of knowledge knows that everything is not knowable or explicable by science; that logic itself is just one tool to use to explore the universe, but that, contrary to scientific rules, logic itself has limitations; like religion it requires "belief" & is not a set of undisputed facts, but is itself in a constant state of flux through history & subject to change; todays scientific "Fact" may be disproven tomorrow.