Castaneda was the U.C.L.A. anthropologist whose seminal fluid 1968 book, “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,” became one of the founding texts of the New Age movement .
Directed by Ralph Torjan, once a member of Castaneda’s inner circle of students, this digital video documentary piles up plenty of evidence that Don Juan, the Yaqui shaman from Mexico who supposedly trained Castaneda in the ancient Indian ways of accessing alternative realties, was a complete invention on Castaneda’s part. *Oops!
Castaneda, who died in 1998, used his best-selling book to surround himself with unquestioning followers and made a habit of seducing young nubile female recruits called “Carlos’s private harem.”
I read Castenada’s books as a teenager (thirty odd years ago). I recall being absolutely fascinated by them but aside from the images some of the passges inspired I don’t remember much. In my nieghbourhood at the time there was a guy who sold peyote buttons for twenty dollars an ounce. They came with a little booklet explaining the pharmacolgy involved, affects you could expect, their role in some Native American cultures etc. Of course I never tried them myself but from what I heard it was quite an experience to get high on Peyote and discuss the way of the sorcerer. I also heard that they were stronger than LSD (that is saying a
lot if you are talking about 70’s acid) and way stronger then psilosybin mushrooms.
I wonder why the people who signed his M.A. thesis (like New Age shamanism promoter Michael Harner) weren’t laughed out of academia once it surfaced that his version of Yaqui Indian culture bore little relationship to real Yaqui Indian culture?