I watched a documentary on him. One of the women who lived with him once said that he told her "You have a vagina just like my daughter's".

Nasty... crazy cult leader.
I read the first four books when I was 13-14 and Don Juan became my great hero, it triggered a life-long interest in psychedelics. But some years later I realized it was mostly fantasy and plagiate. Sure, there is some interesting stuff in there: 'seeing', inner silence, stalking, etc... but it's overshadowed by all the BS like smoking Ps. Mexicana.
I wonder how many people were inspired by Castaneda to OD on Datura and were harmed...

Do the books seem at all creepy to any of you guys? I've never read them personally, but I have had some friends who have, and they turned out to be particularly creepy people, and they often talked about the books in a particularly creepy way, almost forcefully. Anyhow, just wondering if anyone, after discovering he was a fraud, went back and read the books to see what else they picked up. I've got the first one on the shelf, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to read it.

Yes you could say that is most likely the truth. Im sure there were pleanty of datura ods as horrible as that is. I always try to gleem the bits of truth and laugh at the nonsense. I was reading lots about plants after seeing Shultz, Plants of the goods that book fasinated me. I regret to inform you at the risk of incriminating myself I stole it from the libary in high school(I think Mr Bookman is still on my trail I also snaged a copy of "Tpopic of Cancer"

I still havent tried datura I saw lots of teenage crownies who didnt read books go to the hospital. I was never present or I would have stoped them. The wonderful police picked up one guy making out with a brick wall of a convience store.
When they asked him what he was doing he told them to leave him alone he was with his girlfriend it could have been another scene out of mops diary.

Hate to revive a thread from the dead; but this has been a most informative read for me. And in some sense, a release from my own thoughts trying to convince me that Castaneda was really on to something. Like many of you have posted, I too have struggle with the truth/untruth of the series.

Recently I picked up the 4th book where I had left off, and I was really getting into again. But it's been about 2 years since I read the first 3 books. Since then, like Fractal Enchantment, my heart path and perspectives have changed dramatically. I now sense more BS and untruths within Castaneda's books. And even if it's not BS, I sense negative energy; very much unlike the healing, positive energy I've felt from awakening beings or teachings I've encountered since.

Like someone said, Castaneda had the last laugh. I think he even cleverly mocks the reader in the first or second book when Don Juan basically tells Carlos: you can't learn anything from books; I learned all my powers from my teachers and my own personal experience. And he and Don Genaro constantly mock Carlos while he furiously scribbles notes throughout their entire episodes.

I always felt like that was directed toward the reader, mocking us for trying to pull some great truths from a work of fiction.

Thanks to all for wise words and intelligent dissections.

I didnt see a link for this documentary on Carlos Casteneda, I found it quite informative.

Tales from the Jungle

im not at all a fan of Castaneda's books. even before i was informed they are total bolloks i suspected he was taking great liberties and in some places fabricating. to be honest i only read the first 2 books because i felt no need to read more. i got very little out of them.
maybe its because i read them later in life and was already aware of the subjects Castaneda was writing about, maybe because they were just surface shit banter. i feel the only person doing any mind expanding was Carlos and it was a fictional story.

don juan;s fictional character spoke in shallow riddles and not very good ones at that. meaning to me there wasnt a whole lot of quality content in the words and most of it was very obviuos anyways. id give those book's a C+.
i give Carlos Castaneda the finger and sing "liar liar pants on fire!!"

Fiction or not I find that he has some very good points to make for the reader. And I find it impossible to mock him even if he made all that up. If he did, he sure had an entertaining book with good things in it.

I must say, after watching the "Enigma of a Sorcerer" that someone had linked on the first page it really opened my eyes to what Castaneda was doing beyond writing. His plans within the Cleargreen compound, inner circle politics, brainwashed women with cult styled haircuts (all cut short, dyed blonde similar to Heaven's Gate)...these seem like the workings of someone desperately trying to build their ego, not erase it. He had his witches so convinced they had nothing to live for once he died that suicide became the only option.

While his books do have some words of wisdom packaged within the fictitious Don Juan character, you must realize they are completely taken from other sources: other anthropologist, Eastern religions etc. All of which were scouted out from the UCLA library while Castaneda was allegedly doing research with Don Juan. His peyote ceremony was even completely taken from another book; another man's experience.

And while I earnestly want to believe his intentions may have been pure in the beginning, I believe he succumbed to one of his own teachings: not being able to let go of power. As he said himself, through Don Juan: A man of knowledge will face three things along the path: fear, clarity and power. And Power is the hardest because once you taste it, it is human folly to want more. He turned into a walking contradiction preaching celibacy while he initiated his female witches by having sex with them, telling them his sperm would "burn their humanness away." Telling his members, that the books are bullshit and that they should focus on him. After all, he was the "nagual," the "chosen one." Anyone self-declaring themselves as a chosen one already hints towards major ego issues in my opinion.

But I digress. It's just crazy to me because I really thought this guy was onto something. I envied him for his work with Don Juan and wanted what he had, even though part of me knew there was more under the surface; something much darker. I just could not believe that his books inspired people to spend up to $1200 to join into his "inner circle" within Cleargreen.

Here's a great, in-depth article that sums up the man and his work during the 80's and 90's: http://www.salon.com/boo.../12/castaneda/index.html

Also worth checking out is Carlos and his witches chronological facts on: http://www.sustainedaction.org
That is if you're into that sort of thing. I just can't believe how crazy people get and how far the paper trail goes back to disprove them. They acted a lie, and once it got too big, with too many eyes watching. They had to continue the lie, feeding it with more and more negative energy.

It makes me kind of sad he's considered the Grandfather of the New Age movement

~peace and love my brothers and sisters

I have read 2 and a half Castaneda books before I decided to never look at them again.

The books seemed to have the power to absolutely fascinate me; Draw my attention in with incredible, obsessive force.
But as I read more and more I came to realise that, allthough his books contain many essential truths, his books were the products of an EXTREMELY unsound, disturbed mind.
Carlos as well as his teacher Don Juan Matus seem to live in a state of constant fear, shame and yearning.

I wanted to believe it too, but luckily the sinister nature of Carlos' worldview made me NOT want to believe it anymore and so made me opened up enough to see what madness his worldview is.
I have had countless Entheogenic experiences. Mostly with Mushrooms, also ALOT with LSD, Alot of DMT experiences, 3 Yopo experiences; once I even had a minor dose of Brugmansia Tea.
Each and every of these experiences ( except for the Brugmansia-experience which produced a state of dispear, fear and helplessness) I have felt the intense Joy of Pure Being; The glory and interconnectedness of Life in all it's forms.

Somehow this Joyfull, loving and enlightening realisation of one-ness with all life and empathy for all Being is COMPLETELY missing from his accounts of the use of these plants.
So while being halfway through the 3d book I read of him I quit... with a feeling of absolute dread, alienation, meaninglessness and isolation.


Never the less; The power with which his books could fascinate me( and countless people worldwide) is remarkable.
I guess it's because all along Castaneda writes as though his story is working towards a fascinating conclusion; A point where everything becomes clear and he rises above his own confusion, fear and agony of life..... The grand disappointment is: This never comes. His stories seem to try and make a point, but never gets there. And then you realise: there IS no point. I believe this is a point SO many Castaneda readers reach; When they found out they were trying to find a more clear, sane worldview by reading the "teachings" of someone who's worldview is infinitely more delusional and insane than your own. He presents himself as a spiritual teacher while he has epic ego-issues.


Still his books have inspired me to write a book on Enlightenment, Shamanism & Entheogenesis that has the same remarkable property of absolutely Fascinating the reader, except I will saturate the story with realisations and experiences of One-ness, The joy of pure Being and Inner Peace. I will defenitely adress and face the darkness; Our Ego and how it seeks to destroy everything we hold dear, but I hope to do so while balancing this darkness with plenty of Light/Blessings/Humor/Positivity.

Castaneda seems far too weighed down by negativity and his books, written from that perspective, seem to drag many readers down into that same negativity.

..i just accepted at face value that castaneda had been completely debunked, until i actually read de Mille's book..
..i have pasted here what i wrote recently on another thread...


..he may have been a dark, creepy guy for all i know, but it's my current understanding that the ' complete debunking' is as part-mythical as are his works...

for the real deal, read this..

http://www.amazon.ca/Wiz...Bruce-Lamb/dp/0938190806

Castaneda has NOTHING on this guy. Manuel Cardova is the real thing. His story was not fiction and better than anything castaneda wrote in my opinion. I lent the book to a friend who then lent it to someone else and I never got it back ..i need to get another copy and read it again. This was also way before castaneds time, and way before the beats even heard of LSD..

Thanks for the recommend Frac I will def be checking this out.


I got into Castaneda very early, I first encountered "The Teachings of Don Juan" when I was about 6 years old, far too young to understand anything about it. I've revisited these books many times over the years, from when I was in my early teens and spent three days in a delirium on datura based on the "teachings", to writing a final project on my assigned reading of "The Journey to Ixtlan" as part of my college career. All I can say for sure is that a lot of the messages in the teachings ring true with my own experience. I've dreamed "The Art of Dreaming" myself too many times to deny there is something going on in Castaneda's work. It does seem the man was pretty unsavory and a lot of the stuff in the books is equivalent to bovine excrement but there is a thread of something mixed in there that rings very true with my own experience.