biography
pronunciation:
[kastanayda]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1931– )
|
| biography:
| Cultural anthropologist and writer, born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (1962 BA; 1970 PhD), and in 1968 published The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, which he claimed was based on his five-year apprenticeship with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer. (The Yaqui live in NW Mexico and bordering US states.) Because he was so elusive, and because the book was taken up by young people at a time when many such mystical traditions were in fashion, many professionals cast doubt on the authenticity of the book's contents. A series of equally popular books followed, including A Separate Reality (1971) and Tales of Power (1975), which fuelled more debate as to how much of his work was true anthropology and how much was his own creation. |
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