SOURCE: "The Shaman of Ruthlessness," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 17, 1988, pp. 1, 8.

[In the following review of The Power of Silence, Chickering, executive editor for the Institute for Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, makes a connection between Castaneda's search for a new awareness and social problems of the 1980s.]

To someone who has never read Carlos Castaneda, the appearance of his new book, The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan, is likely to stir as much curiosity about the reasons for his popularity as about the contents of the book. His books about his spiritual apprenticeship with the Yaqui Indian shaman Don Juan have sold millions of copies all over the world. Castaneda has in the process become one of the godfathers of the New Age movement, which is influencing increasing numbers of people everywhere.

Castaneda's tales of the "warrior's" mystical search for mastery of...