Seeing Castañeda: Reactions to the "Don Juan" Writings of Carlos Castañeda

by Daniel C. Noel

Noel, Daniel C., Ed., Seeing Reactions To The "Don Juan" Writings Of Carlos Casteneda

Genres: Nonfiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Marisa Duarte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book as the legacy of Carlos Castañeda's unscrupulous ethnography of the pseudonymous Yaqui man Don Juan continues to bedevil Yaqui communities, usually in the form of more unscrupulous and self-centered ethnographers. While many agreed that Castañeda fabricated the persona of Don Juan as a kind of hoax, a subset nevertheless found Castañeda's mystical treatises fascinating. This collection assembles the contributions of many thinkers who in the psychedelic Sixties found some value in the books. Very few, if any, of the writers here address the major flaw in their agreement to seriously consider the falsified writing of Castañeda: that he did so while evincing and occluding the obvious injustices against American Indian and Mexican Indian people at the time, especially Yaqui people. None of the writers here seriously consider the organizing principles of Indigenous religions, myth-histories, or literature in their analyses of "Juanism," with the exception of Spicer who finds nothing recognizably Yaqui in Castañeda's writings. This collection serves as evidence of the arrogance of the Western mindset, and can be relied on for a snapshot into the cultural mentalities of the US 1960s literati.

[Todd R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad anthology of critiques on Castaneda's dubious legacy. The consensus here is that Carlos' work, whether fact or fiction, was beneficial in exploring anthropological research instruments and possibly so to the philosophical reader/seeker.

[Juan Patara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recopilación rara, sí, pero jugosa

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

Odd collection of pro and con writings in response to Castaneda.