Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castañeda (December 25, 1925 In the article, Castaneda was cited as saying that he had adopted the surname "Castaneda" later in life and that he had been born in São Paulo, Brazil. He also reported his date of birth as December 25, 1935. In other accounts he gave his date of birth as December 25, 1931. A 1981 article in ''The New York Times'' stated that Castaneda "was born Carlos Arana in a Peruvian mountain town 66 years ago", indicating a 1915 birth. Most sources tend to favor the Peruvian birth and 1925 date.}} – April 27, 1998) was an American writer. Starting in 1968, Castaneda published a series of books that describe a training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. While Castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the training he described is now generally considered to be fictional..}}

The first three books—''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 the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Castaneda was awarded his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles based on the work he described in these books.

At the time of his death in 1998, Castaneda's books had sold more than eight million copies and had been published in 17 languages. Provided by Wikipedia