Carlos Castaneda was an author whose unorthodox path of study and growth was the source of his writing. His apprenticeship with a Mexican shaman, don Juan Matus, informed his life and his writing. He produced a dozen books and has been translated into at least 17 languages.
A desire to keep personal details a mystery result in limited information about much of Castaneda’s life. He was born in Peru on Christmas Day of 1925 and moved to the U.S. in 1951, gaining citizenship six years later. It is clear that he used his mother’s surname, and that he received a Doctorate in Anthropology from UCLA. He married Margaret Runyon and, despite their separating by 1960, adopted her son from a previous relationship.
It was during the early 1960s that Castaneda, according to his writing, went to Mexico and began his life-changing apprenticeship with the Yaqui (“Man of Knowledge”), don Juan Matus. His first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, was published in 1971. This book served not only as his introduction to a wide-eyed audience, but also as his doctoral thesis. Following this, further accounts in A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan made him the focus of seekers worldwide.
Despite the fact that Carlos Castaneda withdrew from the public eye by 1973, his readership remained. His mysterious life grew even more so. It is known he purchased a large home in southern California and lived there with a small group of women who took on the role of followers. For the next 25 years, Castaneda lived a life that was secretive to outsiders. The only break occurred during the 1990s when he promoted a form of exercises handed down by the Toltec shamans, which he called “Tensegrity.” Even news of Castaneda’s death, in April of 1998, was kept from the public for nearly two months.
Although his books told of using natural hallucinogens, despite the fact that many disputed the factual accuracy of the bulk of his writing, and even though his later life was clouded by the fact that several women who lived with him disappeared after his death, Carlos Castaneda is held in esteem by many as a modern pioneer in returning to the importance of the spiritual journey in one’s life.
Castaneda attracted a large readership from both counter-culture and anthropology enthusiasts. It is not even known to what extent his books are fact or fiction. A rarity among authors, all of his books have remained in print.