Redirected from Carlos Castaneda
In 1960, he met the Yaqui shaman Don Juan Matus[?], and learning from him, Castañeda wrote the partly autobiographical works for which he is known.
Notable works include:
Although they started out with the premise of anthropology, his works became a mixture of story, religion and philosophy.
Castañeda's works contain descriptions of paranormal experiences, several psychological techniques (such as neurolinguistic programming), Toltec magic rituals, shamanism and experiences with psychoactive drugs (e.g. peyote).
As Castañeda was very elusive, and because his works were taken up by young people at a time when mystical and shamanic traditions were in fashion, many professionals cast doubt on the authenticity of contents of his works. When he followed up The Teachings of Don Juan with a series of equally popular books, including A Separate Reality (1971) and Tales of Power (1975), even more questions were raised as to how much of his work was true anthropology and how much was his own creation.
Another way to read the books is as a sort of game, almost like a detective novel[?]. Some of the material is likely to be true, some is likely to be fictional, and some of the events described probably appeared to be real at the time, but were actually hallucinations; it is up to the reader to decide which is which.
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