Carlos Castaneda (December 25, 1925– April 27, 1998) was a Peruvian-American writer, trained as an anthropologist. Starting in 1968, Castaneda published a series of books that describe alleged training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. While Castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the character of Don Juan and the training he described is now generally considered to be fabricated and to have little relation to the actual cultural practices of the Yaqui. Castaneda's early writings featuring Don Juan were bestsellers with the general public, and are considered to be a significant influence on neoshamanism and the New Age movement more broadly.
The first three books—The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, and Journey to Ixtlan—were written while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, based on the work he described in these books. Castaneda's later works have a greater focus on religious themes. Always reclusive, and following increasing doubt about the veracity of his encounters with Don Juan, in the early 1970s, Castaneda withdrew from the public eye, and began cultivating a following of young female devotees whom he called his "witches" or "chacmools" who he demanded cut off contact with their families, change their names, and sexually submit to him.
At the time of his death in 1998, Castaneda's books had sold more than eight million copies and had been published in 17 languages. Following his death, five of his closest female devotees went missing. The car and skeletal remains of one of them, Patricia Partin, were later found in Death Valley, though the fate of the other four remains unknown.
According to his birth record, Carlos Castañeda was born Carlos César Salvador Arana on December 25, 1925, in Cajamarca, Peru, son of César Arana and Susana Castañeda. Castaneda repeatedly invented details about his background, claiming to be from a noble family, that his uncle was Brazilian diplomat Oswaldo Aranha, and he had gone to a prestigious Argentine boarding school. In reality Castaneda came from a poor background, the son of a watch repairman and goldsmith (rather than an academic as Castaneda claimed). Castaneda spent time as a child working on an extended family member's chicken farm in Brazil working on tasks such as cleaning coops. While he claimed to have spent time learning sculpture in an art school in Milan, Italy, he never did so, though he did spend time at an art school in Peru's capital, Lima. Immigration records confirm the birth record's date and place of birth. Castaneda moved to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen on June 21, 1957. Castaneda studied anthropology and was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Castaneda's first three books—The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, and Journey to Ixtlan—were written while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He wrote that these books were ethnographic accounts describing his apprenticeship with a traditional "Man of Knowledge" identified as Don Juan Matus, an Indigenous Yaqui from northern Mexico. The veracity of these books was doubted from their original publication, and they are considered to be fictional by many scholars. The Teachings of Don Juan gained widespread public attention outside of anthropological circles, launching his career as a writer, being transferred from the University of California Press in 1967 to the mainstream publisher Simon and Schuster in 1968. Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees based on the work described in these books.
In 1974, his fourth book, Tales of Power, chronicled the end of the story of his apprenticeship with Matus. Despite published questions and criticism, Castaneda continued to be popular with the reading public, and subsequent publications described further aspects of his training with Don Juan.
Castaneda wrote that Don Juan recognized him as the new nagual, or leader of a party of seers of his lineage. He said Matus also used the term nagual to signify that part of perception which is in the realm of the unknown yet still reachable by man, implying that, for his party of seers, Matus was a connection to that unknown. Castaneda often referred to this unknown realm as "non-ordinary reality".
While Castaneda was a well-known cultural figure, he rarely appeared in public forums. He was the subject of a cover article in the March 5, 1973, issue of Time, which described him as "an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla". There was controversy when it was revealed that Castaneda might have used a surrogate for his cover portrait. Correspondent Sandra Burton, apparently unaware of Castaneda's principle of freedom from personal history, confronted him about discrepancies in his account of his life. He responded: "To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics ... is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all." The royalties from the Don Juan books made Castaneda a wealthy man.
Castaneda's public reputation, especially among anthropologists, was severely damaged by the publication of the 1976 book Castaneda's Journey by Richard de Mille, which provided convincing evidence that Castaneda's journeys and account of Don Juan had likely been fabricated, following which the popularity of his books declined. By the mid-late 1970s, Castaneda completely retired from public view, until he returned to public speaking during the 1990s, by which time Castaneda's writings had taken on a more religious dimension and he had taken on the role of a spiritual leader to a following of devotees. Zuzana Marie Kostićová wrote in a 2022 journal article that "By the mid-80s, his transition from scholar to religious teacher, both as a writer and a leader, was complete."
In the 1990s, Castaneda once again began appearing in public to promote Tensegrity, described in promotional materials as "the modernized version of some movements called magical passes developed by Indigenous shamans who lived in Mexico in times before the Spanish conquest". It has been described as "a specific physical excersise [sic] designed to manipulate with energy in the human energetic body". Castaneda, with Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, created Cleargreen Incorporated in 1995, the stated purpose of which was "to sponsor Tensegrity workshops, classes and publications". Tensegrity seminars, books, and other merchandise were sold through Cleargreen.
Castaneda married Margaret Runyan in Mexico in 1960, according to Runyan's memoirs. He is listed as the father on the birth certificate of Runyan's son, C.J. Castaneda (who later took the name Adrian Vashon), even though the biological father was a different man. In an interview, Runyan said she and Castaneda were married from 1960 to 1973; however, Castaneda obscured whether the marriage occurred, and his death certificate stated he had never been married. Shortly prior to moving to America, Castaneda reportedly fathered a daughter with a partner in Lima (with some sources alleging he moved to the United States to evade responsibility for caring for her) though he had no later children and may have had a vasectomy.
Castaneda died on April 27, 1998 in Los Angeles at the age of 72, due to complications from hepatocellular cancer. There was no public service; he was cremated, and the ashes were sent to Mexico. His death was unknown to the outside world until nearly two months later, on June 19, 1998, when an obituary, "A Hushed Death for Mystic Author Carlos Castaneda" by staff writer J. R. Moehringer appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Castaneda had reportedly spent the last several months of his life watching VHS tapes of war movies, the last being Stalag 17, which he apparently had a very negative opinion of. Prior to his death, his documents and records had been systematically burned by his followers. In his will Castaneda's assets were divided among his closest devotees. Adrian Vashon, Castaneda's former stepson, the son of Castaneda's ex-wife Margaret Runyan, filed a legal claim, claiming that Castaneda's devotees had changed his will shortly prior to his death to exclude him from the estate. A judge later ruled against Vashon.