A SEPARATE REALITY: Further Conversations with Don Juan

by Carlos Castaneda ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1971

Mr. Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of Don Juan (1968), created quite a critical stir as it had everything to do with -- and yet nothing to do with -- the blossoming interest in drugs at that point. And it ended with a bad trip when he was literally afraid to carry on with his studies under Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian ""sorcerer."" But, fortunately for those who became enmeshed in Mr. Castaneda's account, he did return. These are his notes, meticulously, painfully transcribed. And it is another weird venture into metaphysics, into a separate reality so strange, so complex, and so vivid that it leaves the reader both perplexed and devastated. The book is really a philosopher's touchstone. A key lies somewhere in the chapter where Mr. Castaneda confronts Don Juan with The Tibetan Book of the Dead. And its purported reality. Vs. that of the Yaqui. Does each support its own separate reality? Nevertheless, the author's experiences, while under the influence of peyote and the guidance of Don Juan, seem both concrete and extraordinary as the sorcerer tries to teach him to ""see"" rather than to ""look"" at existence and its various planes. Startling and disquieting.

Pub Date: May 1, 1971

ISBN: 0671732498

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION