Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda was a Peruvian-American writer trained as an anthropologist, best known for a series of books beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968. The books, including A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan, narrate his supposed apprenticeship in shamanism under a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. Many readers first accepted them as factual, but critics now generally regard the teachings as fabricated. Castaneda died in 1998.