Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda (previously Castañeda) was born in Peru on December 25, 1925 and died in Los Angeles on April 27, 1998. In the US, he wrote a controversial series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism.

Biography

He wrote that he was born in São Paulo, Brazil on Christmas Day in 1931, but immigration records show that he was born 6 years earlier in Cajamarca, Peru. He anglicized his name by changing the "ñ" (in Castañeda) into "n". He moved to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. He was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (B.A. 1962; Ph.D. 1970).

Related Topics:
São Paulo - Brazil - Christmas Day - 1931 - Cajamarca - ñ - N - United States - 1950s - Naturalized citizen - 1957 - University of California, Los Angeles - B.A. - 1962 - Ph.D. - 1970

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His first three books, ', A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan were written while Castaneda was an anthropology student at UCLA. Castaneda wrote these books as if they were his research log describing his studies under a traditional shaman he identified as Don Juan. Castaneda was granted his masters and doctoral degrees for the work described in these books.

Related Topics:
A Separate Reality - Journey to Ixtlan - Anthropology

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Castaneda's first two books were written during a time when the use of psychoactive drugs was popular, and was seen as a technological shortcut to the kinds of spiritual insights eastern mystics required decades of devoted work to achieve. In Castaneda's first two books he describes that the Yaqui way of knowledge also required the heavy use of powerful psychoactive drugs?natural ones, like peyote and datura. Many young people used the apparent authoritative endorsement of psychoactive drug use to justify their own use of psychoactive drugs.

Related Topics:
Mystics - Datura

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In his third book, Journey to Ixtlan, he essentially reverses this apparent endorsement of drug use. In this book he describes Don Juan telling him he only needed to use drugs with Carlos because Carlos was so dumb. In this book the way of knowledge that Don Juan describes was perceived by some as resembling the newly popular New Age movement. Castaneda, however, emphatically denied any real similarity between them in several lectures.

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Castaneda was a popular enough phenomenon for Time magazine to do a cover article on Castaneda on March 5 1973 (Vol. 101 No. 10) that was five or six pages long.

Related Topics:
Time - March 5 - 1973

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His fourth book, Tales of Power, ended with Castaneda preparing to leap off a cliff that would mark his graduation from disciple to full-fledged shaman. Since he recorded, in Journey to Ixtlan, that a man of knowledge did not write about the activities of shamanism, some writers thought this must necessarily mark the end of his series. They were very surprised to see he continued to produce more books. Despite an increasingly critical reception Castaneda continued to be very popular with the reading public. Castaneda went on to write fourteen books in all, three published posthumously.

Related Topics:
Tales of Power - Disciple

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In 1997 Castaneda launched a law suit against his ex-wife, Margaret Runyon Castaneda, over her book, A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda; but this was dropped when Castaneda died.

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Castaneda died on April 27 1998 from liver cancer. Little is known about his death. There was no public service, Castaneda was apparently cremated and the ashes were sent to Mexico.

Related Topics:
April 27 - 1998 - Liver - Cancer - Death - Mexico

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