William Patrick Patterson
The Life & Teachings of Carlos Castaneda
The Life and Teachings of Carlos Castaneda demystifies what Castaneda sought to hide and delivers a detailed portrait of the forces and influences that drove him to become a Nagual, a man of knowledge and emptiness. Here, too, is a concept-to-concept comparison in which the primary source of Castaneda’s ideas is uncovered—Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way. Also explored are don Juan’s true identity, the meaning of Castaneda’s “jump into the abyss,” the life of the Nagual and the strange sexual power games he played with his “witches.” Included in full is the first reference to Nagualism, anthropologist Daniel Brinton’s essay “Nagualism: A Study in Native American Folklore and History,” written in 1894.