De Mille, Richard
De Mille, Richard – De Mille became suspicious that elements of Carlos Castanedaâs Yaqui âethnography,â and indeed the shamaninformant Don Juan himself, were inauthenticâan elaborate fiction. He wrote a lengthy volume entitled Castanedaâs Journey: The Power and the Allegory (1976) assessing the veracity of Castanedaâs work in meticulous detail, with the follow-up work, The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies (1980) presenting arguments from both camps. De Mille pointed to the unavailability of Castanedaâs field notes due to their mysterious accidental loss or destruction, as well as to inconsistencies in dates, locations, and so on. In one specific example of plagiarism, the âwaterfall jumpingâ of Don Juanâs fellow sorcerer Don Genaro replicates Barbara Myerhoffâs experience of watching the Huichol shaman RamĂłn Medina Silva perform this feat. Supporters of Castaneda point to the âvalidityâ of the Don Juan mythos in speaking âtruthsâ that stand outside ethnographic fact, whether the original ethnography was invented or not. Nonetheless, de Mille, Daniel Noel, and Yaqui representatives have conclusively debunked Castaneda.
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007