CARLOS CASTANEDA, CHAMPION OF NEW AGE, DRUG-INDUCED MYSTICISM, DIES

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Best-selling author Carlos Castaneda, whose books about
a sorcerer and drug-induced mysticism attracted millions of New Age
followers, has died of liver cancer. He was believed to be at least 66.

Castaneda died April 27 at his Westwood home, attorney Deborah Drooz said
today. No funeral was held and his cremated remains were taken to Mexico.

For more than three decades, Castaneda claimed to have been the apprentice
of a Yaqui Indian sorcerer named Don Juan Matus. His first book, ``The
Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,'' described peyote-fueled
journeys with the sorcerer who could bend time and space.

Castaneda argued that reality is a shared way of looking at the universe
that can be transcended through discipline, ritual and concentration. The
sorcerer, he said, can see and use the energy that comprises everything --
but the path to that knowledge is hard and dangerous.

While his 10 books sold millions of copies worldwide -- and continue to sell
in 17 languages -- critics doubted that Don Juan existed.

Castaneda always maintained that his experiences were real.

``This is not a work of fiction,'' Castaneda said in the prologue to his
1981 book, ``The Eagle's Gift.'' ``What I am describing is alien to us;
therefore, it seems unreal.''

Castaneda was obscure on such matters as his birth. Immigration records
indicated he was born Dec. 25, 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru, while various
resource books place his birth exactly six years later, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

``He didn't like attention,'' Drooz told the Los Angeles Times. ``He always
made sure people did not take his picture or record his voice. He didn't
like the spotlight.''

Castaneda, who held a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of
California, Los Angeles, said he met Don Juan in Arizona in the early 1960s
while researching medicinal plants. He followed when the shaman moved to
Sonora, Mexico.

His first book was a best seller when it appeared in 1968, as were several
sequels that purported to track Castaneda's 12-year apprenticeship.

The books were critically praised -- author Joyce Carol Oates called them
``remarkable works of art'' -- and even debunkers liked his heady visions of
mysticism. ``It is a con touched by genius,'' one critic wrote in the
Saturday Review.

In recent years, Castaneda's disciples offered seminars and books on
``Tensegrity,'' a discipline composed of martial arts-like movements that
Castaneda once said allowed ancient Mexican shamans to ``perform
indescribable feats of perception.''

He claimed that Don Juan recommended it as a way for him to lose weight.

``The movements force the awareness of man to focus on the idea that we are
spheres of luminosity, a conglomerate of energy fields held together by a
special glue,'' he told the Times in a 1995 interview.

Castaneda himself rarely made appearances and never allowed himself to be
photographed or tape-recorded.

``A recording is a way of fixing you in time,'' he once said. ``The only
thing a sorcerer will not do is be stagnant.''

While Castaneda contended that Don Juan did not die but rather ``burned from
within,'' he had no doubt about his own mortality.

``Since I'm a moron, I'm sure I'll die,'' he told the Times. ``I wish I
would have the integrity to leave the way he did, but there is no assurance.''

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett