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Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory
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- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Richard de Mille
12 books3 followersRichard de Mille was born in Monrovia, California, to William C. de Mille and the Scottish author and screenwriter Lorna Moon. His uncle, Cecil B. DeMille, adopted and raised Richard, not telling him of his true parentage until the death of his birth father when Richard was 33 years old.
In 1955, he completed his B.A. degree at Pepperdine University and married Margaret Belgrano. He went on to get a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 1961. He remained with that institution as a research psychologist until 1962, when he became a lecturer in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1965, he left that position, becoming editorial director of the Brooks Foundation the following year. He stayed there until 1967, becoming a research psychologist at the General Research Corp. in 1968, where he remained until 1973.
De Mille wrote Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory (1976), a book describing the detective work which led him to claim that Carlos Castaneda was a hoaxer and plagiarist and that don Juan is fictional. He edited a second book on the same subject, The Don Juan Papers (1980), when he found that his exposé did not lead Casteneda's most ardent followers to fall away. This book contains documents representing views of Castaneda across the spectrum. He also wrote a biography of his birth mother, screenwriter Lorna Moon, entitled My Secret Mother: Lorna Moon.
In 1955, he completed his B.A. degree at Pepperdine University and married Margaret Belgrano. He went on to get a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 1961. He remained with that institution as a research psychologist until 1962, when he became a lecturer in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1965, he left that position, becoming editorial director of the Brooks Foundation the following year. He stayed there until 1967, becoming a research psychologist at the General Research Corp. in 1968, where he remained until 1973.
De Mille wrote Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory (1976), a book describing the detective work which led him to claim that Carlos Castaneda was a hoaxer and plagiarist and that don Juan is fictional. He edited a second book on the same subject, The Don Juan Papers (1980), when he found that his exposé did not lead Casteneda's most ardent followers to fall away. This book contains documents representing views of Castaneda across the spectrum. He also wrote a biography of his birth mother, screenwriter Lorna Moon, entitled My Secret Mother: Lorna Moon.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 25, 2018
An entertaining and thorough debunking of the Casdenada books, which sold millions and became part of the New Age movement based on the lie that they were genuine field reports. The fact that the Yaqui people don’t use peyote was Castenada's biggest goof but there are hundreds more detailed here, many of them internal inconsistencies. In 1976, when this book was published, Castenada was still around but had become a recluse, refusing to confirm or deny anything. De Mille was not the first to see that the emperor had no clothes but his drubbing is so detailed that it's like stabbing a man to death and then shooting the corpse, and then kicking it.
March 26, 2025
THE BOOK THAT ‘CALLED OUT’ THE AUTHOR OF THE ‘DON JUAN’ BOOKS
Author Richard de Mille wrote in the Second Edition (1978) of this 1976 book, “This book tells the story of a rank newcomer to the field of anthropology gradually discovering how a brilliant pretender named Carlos Castaneda had brought off the greatest science hoax since the Piltdown man… During the two years between editions popular critics flatly proclaimed the don Juan books a hoax---a belated illumination provided chiefly by the outrageous extremes their generally dense credulity or timid skepticism had driven Castaneda to in ‘The Second Ring of Power,’ published in 1977. Like many another hoaxer, Castaneda had worked hard to give himself away, only to be frustrated volume after volume by man’s capacity for self-deception and media’s enslavement to fads. The same interval saw the anthropological profession openly acknowledging the hoax at last, and I think it would be fair to say [this book] was the main source of this newfound readiness to announce in public what most anthropologists had been saying in private since ‘A Separate Reality’ appeared in 1971.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He continues, “Stephen Romo said [my] exposé had merely changed the question from ‘Did it happen?’… to ‘How could it have happened?’ ("IT" being the academic ratification of Castaneda’s fantasies, particularly UCLA’s covert acceptance of a retitled published novel as a dissertation in scientific anthropology). The puzzle persisted. Ralph L. Beals, one of Castaneda’s early professors, complained at length … about his former student’s evasiveness, improbable trips to Sonora, and invisible fieldnotes… the Castaneda plot remains largely intact. Don Juan still appeals to new-age consciousness as a fountain of wisdom and a model for personal growth… Of the hoaxer’s personal history meager details have been restored, while the depths of character from which the hoax arose go mostly unplumbed.” (Pg. viii)
He goes on, “Castaneda, of course, can still [confess], but frank confession would be quite out of character for him. His flagrant fourth and outlandish fifth books constitute a sort of implicit confession… In ‘Second Ring of Power’ Castaneda soared to his fifth level of incredibility, thus disillusioning a legion of don Juan’s disciples… a small cadre determined to exonerate UCLA have seized upon Castaneda’s wild fourth and fifth books not as an implicit confession but as an abandonment of factual reporting…. My considered judgment is that anyone carefully and skeptically reading the EARLY books would also conclude he was a fraud. Castaneda’s first book published by the University of California Press with faculty approval, and his third book accepted as a dissertation, cannot both be factual accounts, because they contradict each other…” (Pg. x-xi)
He explains, “During the first two years of Carlos’s storied apprenticeship (narrative 1961-1962) don Juan speaks standard English one day, in the ‘Teachings,’ slang the next, in ‘Journey to Ixtlan’… The ‘Teachings’ tells a gloomier, somber tale, in which excitement tends toward fear or wonder, seldom toward joy or amusement. When in narrative-1968, the legendary Carlos talks of the second part of his apprenticeship (recounted in ‘A Separate Reality’), he finds ‘the total mood of don Juan’s teaching… more relaxed. He laughed and also made me laugh a great deal. There seemed to be a deliberate attempt to minimize seriousness in general. He clowned during the truly crucial moments of the second cycle.’… when we get to ‘Ixtlan’… don Juan is a regular cut-up, a walking koan, a Zen buffoon, notwithstanding that ‘Ixtlan’ is set back in the early period, of the somber ‘Teachings.' So we are asked to believe that ‘the total mood of don Juan’s teaching’ changed from day to day during 1961-1962.” (Pg. xii)
He reports, “Castaneda entered UCLA as an undergraduate in 1959 and received a B.A. in anthropology September 1962. He was enrolled on and off as a graduate student until 1971, receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology March 1973. His scholarly publications are limited to his dissertation and one paper read at an anthropological meeting in 1968. Students at the Irvine campus… empowered to select and hire 2 percent of the faculty appointed Castaneda to lecture during the spring quarter of 1972. His graduate seminar, ‘The Phenomenology of Shamanism,’ drew over 50 persons, some of whom were faculty visitors… His undergraduate class in primitive religions was packed to the rafters… Occasionally he lectured at other institutions… Such engagements were prompted by his growing celebrity as a popular writer… His first book… had been published by the University of California Press in 1968, then commercially marketed by Ballantine Books in 1969. [His 2nd and 3rd books] followed from Simon and Schuster in 1971 and 1972. Sales were climbing rapidly, and media scribes were bestirring themselves to interview the new star… The first thing they found out about him was that he didn’t’ like to have his picture taken.” (Pg. 27)
He continues Castaneda’s story: “Luckily was an outstanding note taker, a speedwriter ‘capable of writing down of what [don Juan] said in the beginning… and everything that was said… after.’ … Carlos admitted he paid no attention to the scribbling, which seemed to him a separate activity he had nothing to do with… Years of this writing produced volumes of notes… but Castaneda assured us his editing was only selecting, not rewriting.” (Pg. 47)
He asks, “Why has no ethnologist contrasted it normatively with more familiar rites? Why has no ethnographer tried to penetrate its indigenous meaning? Why, in short, has no scholar criticized what happened at UCLA or asked what the professors thought they were doing when they ratified Castaneda’s fantasies?” (Pg. 65)
De Mille recounts a conversation with anthropologist Paul Riesman, who told him, “I am no longer convinced Castaneda had done the best he could to show others exactly how he came by his knowledge… If I were writing my review today, I would omit the word ‘science,’ because …. I do not think his goal in writing was to be scientific… I doubt he has done any harm [to anthropology]… Even if it should be proven that his books are ‘pure fiction,’ that would make some anthropologists like me look foolish but I don’t see [any harm to] anthropology.’” (Pg, 68-69)
He notes, “Responses from UCLA were less frank… one member of Castaneda’s doctoral committee [said]: ‘I refer all questions about Carlos Castaneda to Carlos Castaneda’… When I pressed a non-committee member to confirm or deny his statement… that he still did not know whether Castaneda had actually done the fieldwork, he complained about ‘intellectual blackmail.’… Asked about UCLA awarding Castaneda a Ph.D., a non-committee member told him, “One could argue his degree was awarded in recognition of the impact all his work … had made on anthropology and the reading public. Though the dissertation contained little conventional analysis, ‘The Teachings of Don Juan’ had contained such an analysis, for which no academic recognition had been given.” (Pg.70-71)
He proposes his own theory: “Certain schismatic culturologists at UCLA… feeling oppressed by the academic majority, feeling at the same time the surging rebellion of the 1960s… could simply not resist the temptation to pull a fast one on their opponents… they felt it would be a well-deserved kick in the pants… On this view, University publication … as ethnography was a private joke… The University Press had bigger ideas. ‘Teachings’ would appeal to youth, especially in the drug culture… University Press editions generally run pretty small… In three years ‘The Teachings’ sold 300,000 copies… the elders realized they have let loose a monster… They could repudiate ‘The Teachings,’ claiming Castaneda had deceived them, which would make them look like fools… Or they could stonewall, thumbing a collective nose at critics.” (Pg. 78-79)
He asks, “Why has no anthropologist complained in public about what happened at UCLA?... Like other professionals, the anthropologists prefer to do their laundry in private… Last but not least, Castaneda’s books had swelled the rolls of undergraduate anthropology at a time when the academic market is failing, and prudent instructors prefer to correct their students’… misconceptions diplomatically, without biting the Coyote that feeds anthropologists.” (Pg. 83-84)
This book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone studying Castaneda and his books.
Author Richard de Mille wrote in the Second Edition (1978) of this 1976 book, “This book tells the story of a rank newcomer to the field of anthropology gradually discovering how a brilliant pretender named Carlos Castaneda had brought off the greatest science hoax since the Piltdown man… During the two years between editions popular critics flatly proclaimed the don Juan books a hoax---a belated illumination provided chiefly by the outrageous extremes their generally dense credulity or timid skepticism had driven Castaneda to in ‘The Second Ring of Power,’ published in 1977. Like many another hoaxer, Castaneda had worked hard to give himself away, only to be frustrated volume after volume by man’s capacity for self-deception and media’s enslavement to fads. The same interval saw the anthropological profession openly acknowledging the hoax at last, and I think it would be fair to say [this book] was the main source of this newfound readiness to announce in public what most anthropologists had been saying in private since ‘A Separate Reality’ appeared in 1971.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He continues, “Stephen Romo said [my] exposé had merely changed the question from ‘Did it happen?’… to ‘How could it have happened?’ ("IT" being the academic ratification of Castaneda’s fantasies, particularly UCLA’s covert acceptance of a retitled published novel as a dissertation in scientific anthropology). The puzzle persisted. Ralph L. Beals, one of Castaneda’s early professors, complained at length … about his former student’s evasiveness, improbable trips to Sonora, and invisible fieldnotes… the Castaneda plot remains largely intact. Don Juan still appeals to new-age consciousness as a fountain of wisdom and a model for personal growth… Of the hoaxer’s personal history meager details have been restored, while the depths of character from which the hoax arose go mostly unplumbed.” (Pg. viii)
He goes on, “Castaneda, of course, can still [confess], but frank confession would be quite out of character for him. His flagrant fourth and outlandish fifth books constitute a sort of implicit confession… In ‘Second Ring of Power’ Castaneda soared to his fifth level of incredibility, thus disillusioning a legion of don Juan’s disciples… a small cadre determined to exonerate UCLA have seized upon Castaneda’s wild fourth and fifth books not as an implicit confession but as an abandonment of factual reporting…. My considered judgment is that anyone carefully and skeptically reading the EARLY books would also conclude he was a fraud. Castaneda’s first book published by the University of California Press with faculty approval, and his third book accepted as a dissertation, cannot both be factual accounts, because they contradict each other…” (Pg. x-xi)
He explains, “During the first two years of Carlos’s storied apprenticeship (narrative 1961-1962) don Juan speaks standard English one day, in the ‘Teachings,’ slang the next, in ‘Journey to Ixtlan’… The ‘Teachings’ tells a gloomier, somber tale, in which excitement tends toward fear or wonder, seldom toward joy or amusement. When in narrative-1968, the legendary Carlos talks of the second part of his apprenticeship (recounted in ‘A Separate Reality’), he finds ‘the total mood of don Juan’s teaching… more relaxed. He laughed and also made me laugh a great deal. There seemed to be a deliberate attempt to minimize seriousness in general. He clowned during the truly crucial moments of the second cycle.’… when we get to ‘Ixtlan’… don Juan is a regular cut-up, a walking koan, a Zen buffoon, notwithstanding that ‘Ixtlan’ is set back in the early period, of the somber ‘Teachings.' So we are asked to believe that ‘the total mood of don Juan’s teaching’ changed from day to day during 1961-1962.” (Pg. xii)
He reports, “Castaneda entered UCLA as an undergraduate in 1959 and received a B.A. in anthropology September 1962. He was enrolled on and off as a graduate student until 1971, receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology March 1973. His scholarly publications are limited to his dissertation and one paper read at an anthropological meeting in 1968. Students at the Irvine campus… empowered to select and hire 2 percent of the faculty appointed Castaneda to lecture during the spring quarter of 1972. His graduate seminar, ‘The Phenomenology of Shamanism,’ drew over 50 persons, some of whom were faculty visitors… His undergraduate class in primitive religions was packed to the rafters… Occasionally he lectured at other institutions… Such engagements were prompted by his growing celebrity as a popular writer… His first book… had been published by the University of California Press in 1968, then commercially marketed by Ballantine Books in 1969. [His 2nd and 3rd books] followed from Simon and Schuster in 1971 and 1972. Sales were climbing rapidly, and media scribes were bestirring themselves to interview the new star… The first thing they found out about him was that he didn’t’ like to have his picture taken.” (Pg. 27)
He continues Castaneda’s story: “Luckily was an outstanding note taker, a speedwriter ‘capable of writing down of what [don Juan] said in the beginning… and everything that was said… after.’ … Carlos admitted he paid no attention to the scribbling, which seemed to him a separate activity he had nothing to do with… Years of this writing produced volumes of notes… but Castaneda assured us his editing was only selecting, not rewriting.” (Pg. 47)
He asks, “Why has no ethnologist contrasted it normatively with more familiar rites? Why has no ethnographer tried to penetrate its indigenous meaning? Why, in short, has no scholar criticized what happened at UCLA or asked what the professors thought they were doing when they ratified Castaneda’s fantasies?” (Pg. 65)
De Mille recounts a conversation with anthropologist Paul Riesman, who told him, “I am no longer convinced Castaneda had done the best he could to show others exactly how he came by his knowledge… If I were writing my review today, I would omit the word ‘science,’ because …. I do not think his goal in writing was to be scientific… I doubt he has done any harm [to anthropology]… Even if it should be proven that his books are ‘pure fiction,’ that would make some anthropologists like me look foolish but I don’t see [any harm to] anthropology.’” (Pg, 68-69)
He notes, “Responses from UCLA were less frank… one member of Castaneda’s doctoral committee [said]: ‘I refer all questions about Carlos Castaneda to Carlos Castaneda’… When I pressed a non-committee member to confirm or deny his statement… that he still did not know whether Castaneda had actually done the fieldwork, he complained about ‘intellectual blackmail.’… Asked about UCLA awarding Castaneda a Ph.D., a non-committee member told him, “One could argue his degree was awarded in recognition of the impact all his work … had made on anthropology and the reading public. Though the dissertation contained little conventional analysis, ‘The Teachings of Don Juan’ had contained such an analysis, for which no academic recognition had been given.” (Pg.70-71)
He proposes his own theory: “Certain schismatic culturologists at UCLA… feeling oppressed by the academic majority, feeling at the same time the surging rebellion of the 1960s… could simply not resist the temptation to pull a fast one on their opponents… they felt it would be a well-deserved kick in the pants… On this view, University publication … as ethnography was a private joke… The University Press had bigger ideas. ‘Teachings’ would appeal to youth, especially in the drug culture… University Press editions generally run pretty small… In three years ‘The Teachings’ sold 300,000 copies… the elders realized they have let loose a monster… They could repudiate ‘The Teachings,’ claiming Castaneda had deceived them, which would make them look like fools… Or they could stonewall, thumbing a collective nose at critics.” (Pg. 78-79)
He asks, “Why has no anthropologist complained in public about what happened at UCLA?... Like other professionals, the anthropologists prefer to do their laundry in private… Last but not least, Castaneda’s books had swelled the rolls of undergraduate anthropology at a time when the academic market is failing, and prudent instructors prefer to correct their students’… misconceptions diplomatically, without biting the Coyote that feeds anthropologists.” (Pg. 83-84)
This book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone studying Castaneda and his books.
November 26, 2019
This book of Richard de Mille's exposed Carlos Castaneda as the toxic liar he was. De Mille dismantled the pretense that Castaneda had done serious anthropological work with real Yaqui people and showed effectively that the UCLA committee that signed off on Castaneda's "dissertation" were either unforgivably stupid--and unworthy of their scholarly positions--or cynically interested in conferring legitimacy on this charlatan's work.
Also of interest is de Mille's writing style. As not all the details of Castaneda's disgusting relational style, particularly in relation to women, had been revealed, de Mille is both magnanimously generous to Castaneda, while also being about as harsh as I've ever seen in academic writing--without straight up calling him a liar.
Also of interest is de Mille's writing style. As not all the details of Castaneda's disgusting relational style, particularly in relation to women, had been revealed, de Mille is both magnanimously generous to Castaneda, while also being about as harsh as I've ever seen in academic writing--without straight up calling him a liar.
March 20, 2016
This book was much better than I anticipated. Not at all a dry exposition on how "magic doesn't exist", it instead provides a explanation why Castaneda's writings were accepted as an academic thesis: they fit right into the paradigm adhered to by the Anthropology department at UCLA. He also provides a very plausible psychological analysis of Castaneda as a lonely, confused man unable to deal with normal relationships. His description of Castaneda's attitudes towards women was validated by later accounts (Amy Wallace) of dysfunctional and abusive relationships with several women, resulting in at least 4 suicides after his death.
June 12, 2012
Excellent expose of the Castenada legacy. But you have to admit, Castenada was a good fiction writer. But essentially dishonest to make money by claiming a story is true. Same with Whitney Schriber and Amityville Horror and things like that. Sorry I ever believed these things.
July 23, 2019
Picked this up and got about 50 pages into it before I had to put it down. This has been one of the most disjointed books I have ever attempted to read.
I was never into Carlos Castaneda or Don Juan Matus, but I know of people who swear by his books.
This was a momentary curiosity that did not pan out. The author seemed to take way too much psychedelics before he put pen to paper. Glad I only spent 10 cents for the book.
I was never into Carlos Castaneda or Don Juan Matus, but I know of people who swear by his books.
This was a momentary curiosity that did not pan out. The author seemed to take way too much psychedelics before he put pen to paper. Glad I only spent 10 cents for the book.
January 2, 2019
I grabbed this book to find answers to the questions presented there, concerning the veracity of Carlos Castaneda's accounts of his time with the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. I didn't like the book; it is not entirely factual but rants, exclaims and protests; it doesn't go deep enough to prove its claims; it doesn't present its evidence coherently and logically; it leaves many things open and hanging in the air; and it concentrates more in obfuscating the issue with sarcasm and unnecessary (and unscientific) name-calling and antagonism. They are quite uncalled for, since his intent had been (or so the book claims) to logically prove Castaneda a hoax. De Mille failed in his achieving his goal, and despite bringing up a few interesting points about other people's literature, instead produced a pile of mocking sentences and angry opinions with hardly any verifiable evidence to support his accusations. Most of all, I expected logical scientific writing, which this book really isn't. Not a total waste of time, because I was interested in the subject, and because this book could be used as an example of a science project gone wrong. Still.. one of the worse literary experiences.
July 31, 2011
De Mille has deconstructed the statements of Castaneda. The first of two volumes of such critique.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews