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Cosmic_Monkey said:
I'm just curious if anyone on here has read much of his work and what thoughts you have about it.  I read a good few of his books years ago and thought it was pretty far-out shit.  I don't know if there's any truth to it but I found it to be a good fantasy anyway. 
I remember in one he was talking about being by a stream "smoking mushrooms" and he said that the particals of water in the mist grew and grew until he climbed inside one and floated off downstream.  He also said that if Don Jaun hadn't revived him from that it could have been fatal.  I have to admit I was a little dissapointed when I tried muhsrooms and that didn't happen. 
Not to long ago I was talking to someone and they told me that he never even went to Mexico and that he made it all up sitting in his house in New York.... 

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Then the critics must be truly irritated with Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, and Carol Tiggs, all of whom maintain that Don Juan was a real individual and their instructor, and that Castaneda's description of the world is real.

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Well, for one thing, all three of those women happened to be UCLA students of anthropology at the same time as Castaneda. Wouldn't it be strange that Don Juan also took these foreigners under his wing, when he stated that the only reason he taught Castaneda was because Mescalito specifically designated him in a very unusual way. What are the chances that Mescalito would also designate these women also in a very special and unusual way (making it not that unusual at all), and further that these women just so happened to (probably) know Castaneda personally before all this happened as anthro students at UCLA?

I loved his writing as much as you did, and think that there is definite wisdom in the practice of Nagualism, but I just can't accept the above as coincidence Still, I highly recommend!