On June 22 The Los Angeles Times reported that Carlos Castaneda the best-selling author of 10 books on shamanism and Toltec sorcery died of liver cancer on April 27, 1998.
Castaneda's body was reportedly cremated and his remains were spirited away to Mexico. A spokesperson representing Castaneda's literary agent said the author had "evanescenced," dissappearing like mist in the same way as his teacher Don Juan did in 1973.
Cleargreen, a marketing company Castaneda set up released a statement emphasizing the inability of "everyday life" to provide a description of "crossing over to total freedom."
"Much of the Castaneda mystique is based on the fact that even his closes friends aren't sure who he is," wrote his ex-wife Margret Runyan Castaneda in a 1997 memoir. Castaneda's death certificate listed him as "never married." Other oddities include controversy over the exact date and location of Castaneda's birth and his refusal to be photographed or recorded.
"Since I'm a moron I'm sure I'll die," he was quoted once. In another interview in 1997 he said, "There is nothing to Carlos Castaneda. Personality is a pretense. Fame? Success? Who gives a (expletive)."
Castaneda met Don Juan in an Arizona Greyhound station in 1961 while doing fieldwork for a Ph.D. in anthropology at UCLA. His first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge was based on his apprenticeship with Don Juan and was released in 1968.
However his novels were widely believed to be fiction. Author Joyce Carol Oates said in 1972: "There are beautifully constructed. The dialogue is faultless. The character of Don Juan is unforgettable. There is novelistic momentum." Such criticisms have discredited Castaneda in academia. Castaneda himself declared, "I invented nothing. I'm not insane, you know. Well maybe a little insane."
another episode of: node your old homework