Perspective

The Eagle's Gift is consistently written in the first person past tense as a study in revelation and clarification. It drops the pretext of being a work of scholarship that characterizes Carlos Castaneda's first work, The Teachings of Don Juan, in which he is indoctrinated into the drug culture of the Yaqui Indians through a shaman named Don Juan Matus. Carlos is still a rather uptight scholar but no longer records verbatim or analyzes his experiences in highfalutin terms. The expertise remains, but the continuing story becomes more personal, as it had already turned in The Second Ring of Power.

The book virtually presupposes a reading of Second Ring (but not necessarily Teachings), for the opening characters are brought forward with scant reintroduction and unfinished business demands attention: Carlos' apprentices do not think that he is fit to be their new Nagual. All are experiencing troubling moments of...