Carlos Castaneda, a Peruvian-American writer trained as an anthropologist, gained fame starting in 1968 with a series of books detailing his alleged shamanistic training under a Yaqui elder named Don Juan Matus. While initially accepted by many, his accounts and the character of Don Juan are now widely regarded as fabricated and disconnected from actual Yaqui culture. His early works, including "The Teachings of Don Juan," "A Separate Reality," and "Journey to Ixtlan," were bestsellers and significantly influenced the New Age movement and neoshamanism.

Castaneda's academic career at UCLA was built upon these books, from which he received his degrees. He was known for his reclusive nature, withdrawing from public life in the 1970s. Later works shifted focus to religious themes. He also developed a practice called Tensegrity in the 1990s, presented as a modernized version of ancient shamanic movements. Despite controversies regarding the veracity of his claims and his personal life, Castaneda's books sold millions of copies worldwide.

Carlos Castaneda authored a series of popular books beginning in 1968, which purported to document his apprenticeship in shamanism under a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. His initial works, such as "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," "A Separate Reality," and "Journey to Ixtlan," were written while he was an anthropology student at UCLA. These books were foundational to his academic degrees, which he earned from UCLA based on the content presented within them. The early books achieved significant commercial success, becoming bestsellers and profoundly impacting the development of neoshamanism and the broader New Age movement. Despite their popularity, scholarly consensus generally regards the narratives and the figure of Don Juan as fictional, bearing little resemblance to authentic Yaqui cultural practices.

Following his initial success, Castaneda continued to publish, with later works like "Tales of Power" chronicling the supposed conclusion of his apprenticeship. These subsequent books maintained his popularity with the public, even as questions about their authenticity persisted. Castaneda's writings evolved to incorporate more pronounced religious themes, and he increasingly adopted the role of a spiritual leader. He was known for his extreme reclusiveness, rarely appearing in public forums. In the 1990s, he re-emerged to promote Tensegrity, a practice he described as a modernized form of ancient shamanic movements from pre-Hispanic Mexico, developed and marketed through his organization Cleargreen Incorporated.

Castaneda's personal life was marked by secrecy and conflicting accounts. While official records indicate his birth in Peru in 1925, he frequently fabricated details about his background, claiming noble lineage and prestigious education. He moved to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen. His academic degrees were awarded based on his controversial books. In the 1970s, as doubts about his work grew, he withdrew from public life, cultivating a following of female devotees referred to as "witches" or "chacmools." These followers were reportedly instructed to sever ties with their families, adopt new names, and become sexually subservient to him. The veracity of his accounts, particularly concerning Don Juan Matus, has been widely questioned, with critics like Richard de Mille providing evidence suggesting fabrication. Following Castaneda's death in 1998, five of his closest female devotees went missing, with the remains of one later found.

“To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics ... is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all.”