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
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Sender: James J. Lippard 
Date: 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