А был ли мальчик? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Carlos_CastanedaCastaneda's accounts began to be widely doubted during his career. The author Joyce Carol Oates wrote the New York Times, expressing bewilderment that a reviewer had accepted Castaneda's narrative as fact. Richard de MilleWikipedia's W.svg, a former Scientologist and psychologist, published Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory[2] A further debunking appears in Jay Courtney Fikes' Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties.[3]
The chronology of Castaneda's alleged adventures in Sonora with Don Juan was internally inconsistent. They contain no reference to the usual dangers, discomforts, and precautions needed for people wandering the Sonoran desert. No reference to actual contemporary Yaqui beliefs and culture appear in Castaneda's accounts: neither their deep Roman Catholic piety, nor their extensive use of flowers, nor their traditional suspicion of the Mexican government. Don Juan does not resemble a Yaqui or inhabit a Yaqui culture in any identifiable way.[4] Castaneda apparently went through his training in shamanism without learning any Yaqui words for animals or plants he allegedly encountered. Don Juan's philosophical platitudes were cribbed from a number of identifiable sources, including Ludwig Wittgenstein and C. S. Lewis.
The YaquisWikipedia's W.svg actually don't use peyote. Another native tribe of Mexico, the HuicholsWikipedia's W.svg, do. Castaneda's books persuaded American stoners to visit Mexico. First, they invaded the Yaqui, whose sober culture disappointed them. Then they turned to the peyote-using Huichol, where they caused substantial disruption, and a tribal elder was murdered by a stoned gringo.[5]
Castaneda is no longer regarded as anything other than a fraud by contemporary anthropologists. Dr. William W. Kelley, chairman of Yale's anthropology department, has said that "I doubt you’ll find an anthropologist of my generation who regards Castaneda as anything but a clever con man. It was a hoax, and surely Don Juan never existed as anything like the figure of his books."[5] Castaneda disappeared from the public eye in 1973, but continued to publish books containing the alleged teachings of Don Juan until his death. He promoted a philosophy called "Tensegrity"[6] supposedly based on Don Juan's teachings, and established a foundation called "Cleargreen" to promote it. His books remain in print, and are widely assigned in university classrooms.