Was Carlos castaneda a fake

Answer 1

yup.

Thanks for the non-answer.

Idiot.

I have been a student of peyote for more than fifteen years. I was fortunate not to have read any Castaneda, until several years into my journey. My girlfriend is an experimental anthropologist. She is also Mexican.

I would say that, in the world we live in, Carlos Castaneda is considered to have fabricated his accounts of his studies under the Yaqui shaman known as Don Juan.

Reasons for this are many, but here are a few.

Castaneda's accounts are too personal and contrived... he consistently writes himself into his Don Juan character. Extreme sexism, and Isolationism, are major themes in his works. These are not characteristics of a southwestern mystic.

He really screwed up by using the Yaqui Indians and not the correct Huichol Indians of Nyarit, Mexico. Though the Yaqui did use peyote, they had not been introduced to it, until the mid nineteenth century. It is doubtful a school of sorcery, or religion could have been formed in that time. The Huichol however, have laid claim on its use since the beginning of time and it (peyote) is their culture.

When allegations that his works were fictional, and large holes began emerging... Castaneda vanished.

What is not in doubt is this; Castaneda's work should not be completely looked at as fiction... It is after all non-fiction in disguise. He no doubt spent plenty of time in the Chihuahuan desert consuming peyote. In fact, this is most likely what led him to dream up such a scheme and pull it off very well, for many years. His use of un-learning as a protagonist to spiritual growth was, and still is genus.

Hope that's a better answer.