Little consensus has been reached about Carlos Castaneda, whose books detailing his apprenticeship to the Yaqui Indian shaman Don Juan Matus have sold over eight million copies in 17 languages and contributed to defining the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s as well as the New Age movement. Castaneda's anthropological and ethnographic credibility together with his intellectual biography and personal life have been a constant source of puzzlement for critics and colleagues. Castaneda himself contributed to complicate the mystery surrounding his identity by supplying false data about his birth and childhood and by refusing to be photographed, tape recorded, and, until a few years before his death (which was kept secret for more than two months), even interviewed. In spite of (or perhaps thanks to) Castaneda's obsession with anonymity and several blunt critical attacks on his works by anthropologists his international fame has been long-lasting.

Born...