Books with title The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

For over 40 years, Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan has inspired audiences to expand their world view beyond traditional Western forms. Originally published as Castaneda's master's thesis in anthropology, Teachings documents Castaneda's supposed apprenticeship with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus. Dividing the work into two sections, Castaneda begins by describing don Juan's philosophies, then continues with his own reflections.

A Yaqui way of knowledge.The teachings of don Juan is the story of a remarkable journey: the first awesome steps on the road to becoming a "man of knowledge" -- the road that continues with A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan. "For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly." -- Don Juan

In 1968 University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan enthralled a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, it is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.

In 1968 University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan enthralled a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, it is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.

Published in 1968 when Carlos Castaneda was still a graduate student in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, The Teachings of Don Juan experienced extraordinary success and generated intense controversy. Read by over a million readers worldwide, the book introduced many to shamanic traditions and the use of hallucinogenic drugs. The authenticity of the text was questioned by scholars when Castaneda refused to reveal the identity of his teacher, Don Juan Matus. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, The Teachings of Don Juan remains an important document in late-twentieth-century American culture.The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda’s now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands.

Carlos Castaneda, under the tutelage of don Juan, takes us through that moment of twilight, through that crack in the universe between daylight and dark into a world not merely other than our own, but of an entirely different order of reality. Anthropology has taught us that the world is differently defined in different places. Don Juan has shown us glimpses of the world of a Yaqui sorcerer and Castaneda presents it in such a way that enables us to apprehend it with a reality that is utterly different from our own.This is the special virtue of this work. Castaneda asserts that this world has its own inner logic. He explains it from inside, as it were-from within his own rich and intensely personal experiences while under don Juan's tutelage-rather than to examine it in terms of our logic. Through this experience, Castaneda leads us to understand that our own world is a cultural construct and from the perception of other worlds, we see our own for what it is.

Don Juan was a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico, an old man in his seventies known to be a brujo - a "medicine man, curer, sorcerer." Carols Castaneda was a graduate student in anthropology at UCLA, gathering information on peyote and the medicinal herbs used by the Indians in that area. The Teachings of Don Juan is the story of the five years these two men spent together as master and pupil - years in which don Juan taught Castaneda the uses of peyote, jimson weed, and other hallucinogenic plants in opening the doors of perception, initiated him into the ways of achieving awareness and mastery of a world of "nonordinary reality" completely beyond the concepts of Western civilization, and started him on the strange and frightening spiritual journey a man must undertake in order to become "a man of knowledge."

Forty years ago the University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, it is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.