Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!gatech!bloom-beacon!BCO-MULTICS.ARPA!Lippard From: Lippard@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA (James J. Lippard) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Carlos Castaneda Message-ID: <19880712045507.0.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 12 Jul 88 04:55:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 38 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu Sender: James J. LippardDate: Wed, 22 Jun 88 21:37 EDT From: James J. Lippard Subject: Carlos Castaneda Reply-To: Lippard@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU In a couple of recent issues of AI-List (vol. 7 nos. 28 and 42), Andy Ylikoski has recommended the works of Carlos Castaneda, stating that they "approach the concept of will from Yaqui Indian knowledge point of view" and that "The Yaqui have their own scientific tradition anthropologically studied by Castaneda." I would like to advise caution in reading these works, and recommend a few books which are highly skeptical of Castaneda. These works present evidence that Castaneda's "Don Juan" writings are neither autobiographical nor valid ethnography. E.N. Anderson, then associate professor of anthropology at UCLA (where Castaneda received his doctorate), wrote (in The Zetetic, Fall/Winter 1977, p. 122) that "de Mille exposed many inconsistencies that prove *either* that Castaneda was a brilliant fraud *or* that he was an incredibly careless and sloppy ethnographer in a disorganized department." (He believes the latter.) de Mille, Richard. _Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory_, Capra Press, 1976. ---, editor. _The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies_, Ross Erikson, 1980. Noel, Daniel, editor. _Seeing Castaneda: Reactions to the "Don Juan" Writings of Carlos Castaneda_, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1976. The Noel book contains some conjectures regarding Castaneda's works being bogus, but the de Mille books give the hard evidence (e.g., internal inconsistencies and contradictions, comparisons with other studies of Yaqui culture, interviews with people familiar with the author and subject matter, examination of Castaneda's background and influences, etc.) Jim Lippard Lippard at BCO-MULTICS.ARPA