Carlos Castaneda's 1968 book The Teachings of Don Juan recounted his apprenticeship to a peyote-dosing Yaqui shaman named don Juan. The University of California Press published it as anthropology; it became an international bestseller and drew fans from John Lennon and Joni Mitchell to George Lucas and Octavio Paz. Then a 1973 Time exposé revealed that don Juan was invented and Castaneda wasn't who he claimed to be.
Ru Marshall's new biography, American Trickster, calls it "one of the greatest literary hoaxes in modern history," and follows Castaneda as he "turned inward, building a secretive cultic group that blurred the line between fiction and reality."
Diagnosed with liver cancer, he told his disciples he would "not die, but burn from within and ascend to another realm," and invited them along. After his death in 1998, five of his closest female followers vanished, "widely believed to have taken their own lives."
Previously:
