Carlos Castaneda, the great 1970s popularizer of
shamanic concepts in the West, is posthumously profiled in R.
Torjan's "Enigma of a Sorcerer." Though interviews here are
primarily with former camp followers and pic was made by one,
overall perspective is just critical enough to satisfy both New Age
types and curious skeptics. Low-budget effort leaves plenty of room
for a more definitive treatment; still, it should attract niche
interest from graying former heads, particularly as a home item.
While a graduate student studying anthropology at UCLA 1960-66,
Castaneda allegedly served a sort of spiritual apprenticeship under
the auspices of one Don Juan Matus aka Don Juan -- a "Yacqui
sorcerer" many later believed he simply made up. His series of books
detailing his personal odyssey (starting with "The Teachings of Don
Juan") proved a smash when they were published a few years later.
Detailing shamanistic lore, experiences with psychedelics, and
various "states of non-ordinary reality," the slim tomes were
perfectly in synch with the counterculture shift from '60s
communalism to the navel-gazing Me Decade -- some indeed consider
Castaneda progenitor of the New Age movement, for better or for
worse. In 1973, Castaneda's fame secured him a Time cover.
Castaneda's guru status made him the orchestrator -- or prisoner,
depending on who you talk to -- of his own mythology. Seldom
photographed or interviewed (a sole radio appearance is excerpted
here), he commanded a massive following while dealing directly with
only a small inner circle that included "a large harem" of women
with whom he was sexually involved.
"He believed his sperm changed our brains," attests author Amy
Wallace ("The Book of Lists"), the most levelheaded former intimate
on tap here.
Not unlike such controversial fellow literary/
philosophic/quasi-religious types as Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard,
Castaneda surrounded himself with acolytes, created anxiety among
them about who was most favored, kept them all in the dark to
different degrees, and left matters more confused than ever upon his
death in 1998. (As with Hubbard's, that death was kept secret for
weeks afterward.) Five high-ranking women called "the witches"
simply disappeared thereafter -- perhaps into Death Valley, scene of
many hallucinogenic Don Juan adventures.
Yet for all those who considered Castaneda a charlatan,
plagiarist or exploiter, there are others who still see him as a
trickster-shaman whose teachings transcend such dismissive terms.
Although Castaneda claimed Don Juan and the experiences in his books
were real, some loyalists (even subsequently questioning ones) feel
that even if they were fiction that doesn't detract from the
teachings in the least.
Discussion of his theories and methods is given equal weight with
more personal reminiscences from his followers, which include more
than one confession of suicidal thoughts they had while under the
charismatic leader's spell.
Presumably due to lack of budget, Torjan incorporates almost no
archival material -- which is unfortunate, since the subject's
pop-phenomenon relationship to a singular era (the late '60s-'70s)
is one of his most fascinating talking points. Instead, helmer
intersperses views of nature along with his primary devise of
setting talking heads against psychedelic computer graphics. Some
may find this approach rather lava-lamp kitschy, but it does provide
visual stimulus that's apt in a way, just as
indigenous/tribal/techno sounds on soundtrack rep the latest-edition
audio equivalent to the New Age world Castaneda helped set in
motion.
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