Summary
In THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN, Carlos Castaneda, an anthropologist with an interest in peyote and psychedelics, introduces Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui Indian shaman who became Castaneda's teacher and passed on to him the wisdom of a long line of sorcerers. Under the tutelage of Don Juan, the author embarked on a quest to transcend the boundaries of self and identity through drugs, magic, and dream analysis. The accounts of Castaneda’s visionary drug experiences in Mexico can be viewed as either "field notes" or fiction, but there is no doubt that the book, published in 1968, struck a chord with an audience who identified with the author's need to break the bonds of convention and assert his individuality. THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN and Castaneda's many sequels continue to be popular with readers interested in mysticism, parapsychology, and alternate realities.
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Media Reviews
"Despite the last 50 pages of jargon-loaded 'structural analysis,' this is a work of art rather than of scholarship, and it is as a diary of unusual personal experience that the book deserves attention. Assessed on this basis, the book is not of superlative quality, perhaps, but very good indeed." -- Edmund Leach
-- New York Review of Books
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: California Academy of Sciences
Published date: 1998
Size: 6.25 x 9.5 inches
Weight: 1.25 pounds
Pages: 210
Publisher's Notes
In a series of fascinating dialogues, Castaneda sets forth his partial initiation with don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian shaman from Sonora, Mexico. He describes don Juan's perception and mastery of the "non-ordinary reality" and how peyote along with other plants sacred to the Mexican Indians were used as gateways to the mysteries of "dread", "clarity", and "power".
Other Editions
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