Философская книга.

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Castaneda, the  ideal Castaneda, with all  the benefits that
go  with the  position. But  time passes,  and I'm still the
Castaneda  that  I  am,  not  very  well  suited to play the
Hollywood version. Nor is don Juan.

Speaking   of   confessions:   Did   you   ever  contemplate
downplaying the eccentricity of  your teacher and presenting
him as a  more conventional character, to make  him a better
vehicle for his teachings?

I never considered  such an approach.  Smoothing rough edges
to advance an agreeable plot  is the luxury of the novelist.
I'm  not unfamiliar  with the  spoken and  unspoken canon of
science: "Be  objective." Sometimes don Juan  spoke in goofy
slang -- the equivalent of  "By golly!" and "Don't lose your
marbles!" are  two of his  favorites. On other  occasions he
showed a  superb command of  Spanish, which permitted  me to
obtain  detailed explanations  of the  intricate meanings of
his  system   of  beliefs  and  its   underlying  logic.  To
deliberately alter don  Juan in my books so  he would appear
consistent  and  meet  the  expectations  of  this  or  that
audience  would bring  "subjectivity"  to  my work,  a demon
that,  according  to  my  best  critics,  has  no  place  in
ethnographic writing.

Skeptics have challenged you to exorcise that demon once and
for all, by presenting for public inspection the field notes
based  on  your  encounters  with  don  Juan.  Wouldn't that
alleviate  doubts about  whether your  writings are  genuine
ethnography or disguised fiction?

Whose doubts?

Fellow anthropologists, for starters.

The Senate Watergate Committee. Geraldo Rivera . . .

There was a time when requests  to see my field notes seemed
unencumbered  by  hidden   ideological  agendas.  After  The
Teachings  of  Don  Juan  appeared  I  received a thoughtful

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