Deep in the desert southwest, before Carlos Castaneda met the Shaman-sorcerer that became famous in his series of Don Juan books, Castaneda had a chance encounter with a somewhat mysterious hallucinogenic bio-searcher and mushroom hunter from the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico area. It has been chronicled that the bio-searcher, known only as the informant in various Castaneda writings, some written by Castaneda himself, some by others, and some even written by those not always sympathetic toward Castaneda, agree for the most part --- unsympathetic or not --- that the informant was the actual person that FIRST introduced Castaneda to the rituals and use of medicinal plants.
Shortly after that encounter with the mysterious informant, for the first time ever, Castaneda reportedly crossed paths with the nearly white-haired Yaqui Indian called Don Juan Matus in a Greyhound bus station in Nogales, Arizona.(see) Castaneda, who had been taken to the bus station by a onetime pothunter turned reputable archeaologist that Castaneda sometimes refers to as Bill in his writings and sometimes leaves unnamed, told Castaneda that the "old man" sitting across the room was an expert on medicinal plants and such, not unlike the informant. Unbeknownst to Castaneda at the time, Don Juan was also a powerful Shaman-sorcerer who had learned his art from a Diablero, a sorcerer with evil powers said to have the ability to shape shift.
Only a few weeks or possibly even just days earlier than the bus station encounter, the informant, cloaked by shimmering desert heat waves, simply seemed to evaporate into the rocks and sagebrush without a trace, leaving Castaneda without a source. To continue what he was searching for he was thankful for the old man in the bus station. After several meetings along isolated sections of the desert border, Don Juan revealed to Castaneda that he was indeed a sorcerer. The following year, according to Castaneda, he became Don Juan's apprentice, an arrangement that continued from 1961 to the Autumn of 1965. During those years, under the direct tutelage of Don Juan, Castaneda used various amounts and types of hallucinogenic herbs and medicinal plants to enlarge his vision of reality. His experiences were the basis of his first book, THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, published by the University of California Press (1968).
However, again, regardless of what may or may not have blossomed between Castaneda and the person he calls Don Juan Matus following the meeting in the bus station, as stated above, initially it was the mysterious bio-searcher dubbed the informant that FIRST introduced Castaneda to the actual use and rituals of medicinal plants.
Now, if you have read anything at all about Castaneda, it basically goes without saying that there is a significant amount of controversy surrounding the question as to whether Don Juan Matus was an actual person or not and/or if Castaneda's works are fiction or not --- in whole or in part --- but such controversy remains neither here nor there for our discussion here. Even the staunchest critic against Don Juan existing, that is, if he was real or not, would not go as far to say that Castaneda wasn't. Thus said it is fairly clear in all that has been written about him that during the Spring semester of 1960, and only a scant six months prior to the time stated for that first Karma and Omen infested meeting with Don Juan in the bus station, Castaneda, as an undergraduate student at UCLA enrolled in a class called "Methods in Field Archaeology." The class was taught by Professor Clement Meighan, and was, interestingly enough, one of Castaneda's first major forays into the exploration of Shamanism.
The professor told the class if any individual student interviewed a Native American as part of a mandatory paper he assigned, they would automatically receive an "A" in the course. As a result of that offer many have reported that Castaneda traveled several hours east of Los Angeles to interview tribal spiritual elders of the Cahuilla Band of Indians on the Morongo Reservation near Banning and the Agua Caliente reservation down the road near Palm Springs. It is also said he went to the Colorado River area, possibly venturing toward the Yuma, to interview Native Americans there.[1] A few years before, in the Fall of 1957, while attending classes at Los Angeles Community College, Castaneda had written a term paper on Aldous Huxley for an English class, developing in the process a strong interest in things occult after reading Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and its account on the use of mescaline. During research and interviews for Dr. Meighan's spring semester of 1960 UCLA class he somehow began putting together bits and pieces of information from both endeavors after his curiosity was piqued from inferences that the Cahuilla and others had, albeit obscured to outsiders, of which he was one, a historical background in the use of certain native-to-the-desert, hallucinogenic plants. That led him to start making trips farther and farther into remote sections of the southwest to study the use of medicinal plants by Native Americans.
On one of those excursions deep into the desert Castaneda had an encounter with a man who was also bio-searching similar plants and it was he who related the information about the plant Datura to Castaneda. The man was a somewhat mysterious bio-searcher that had several plant species named after him and who, as described below, came to be refered to in various Castaneda related writings only as the "informant." It was information garnered from those encounters with the informant that served as the major grounding point for Castaneda's 1960s Paper on Datura he eventually turned in for his 1960 spring semester field archaeology class.[2]
In the book A Magical Journey by Castaneda's now deceased ex-wife Margaret Runyan (1921-2011), she, writing of his 1960 paper, states Professor Meighan recalled: "His informant knew a great deal about Datura, which was a drug used in initiating ceremonies by some California groups, but had presumed by me and I think most other anthropologists to have passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago. So he found an informant who still actually knew something about this and still had used it." Castaneda's paper, of which he handed in at the END of the spring semester 1960 for a grade and to meet the class requirement, included fairly academic references to the plant’s four heads, their various purposes, the roots and their significance, as well as the method of preparation, cooking and rituals involved --- all information that he supposedly learns over one full year later from Don Juan between August 23 and September 10, 1961 and describes in The Teachings of Don Juan. (A Magical Journey pp. 83-85 and 91.)[3]
It may well be true that Castaneda interviewed Native Americans for parts of his paper as claimed, but his primary informant on Datura and other hallucinogenic plants was NOT one of them. As mentioned above, Castaneda was an outsider and those he interviewed were not always so forthright in what they revealed. Castaneda's information, although written as though from a field interview, and presented in 1968 in The Teachings of Don Juan almost word for word, but much more casually and not credited, was way too structured in his 1960 paper anyway --- as if the information had been obtained from a formally educated academic or field research expert, which it was, rather than simply a native user or naturalist (again, please refer to Footnote [2]). True, his paper was being written for his field archaeology class, and may have been presented in a more formal format to reflect that. However, Castaneda's, as stated by the students turning papers in, was one of only three involving actual interviews of Native Americans by members of the class --- and, although an excellent paper, there was no convincing hint of actual field interviews or contact with native users at the level one would expect. Because of such, that is, not knowing the full circumstances surrounding how Castaneda garnered his information, his professor, although accepting Castaneda's word on what he said it was, still remained somewhat hesitant and slightly perplexed, saying, as stated previously, he and "most other anthropologists thought the use of Datura had passed out of the picture 40 or 50 years ago." Apparently by inference, assuming from extrapolation that the informant and/or informants were ALL not other than Native American, he thought it most interesting Castaneda had "found an informant who still actually knew something about this and still had used it."
The UCLA spring classes Castaneda enrolled in ran roughly from sometime mid-January to around the middle of June, 1960. His paper was due to be turned in at least by the end of that period, that is, not much later than two or three weeks into June at the most, perhaps somewhat earlier. That would mean his interviews and study of medicinal plants would need to be completed no later than the end of May, 1960. Datura is a night blooming plant. Often times for ritual or strength purposes the plants are picked or dealt with during the full moon phase. In May of that year the full moon occurred during the first third of the month, on Wednesday, May 11th and in June it was Thursday the 9th. There is a good chance Castaneda's informant was probably bio-searching around that same time in order to maximize the plant and take advantage of the moonlight. For the most part the month of May and sometimes early June are almost a perfect time in the southwestern desert, especially at night and during the early morning hours. The cold of winter has pretty much dissipated and spring is in its final throes of unflolding prior to the oncoming intense summer heat.(see) It is my contention that on a very important fact finding Road Trip, set into motion by a colleague during that period, that Castaneda and his informant met. The interesting part is the coincidence at the end of that special Road Trip of the so-called "chance" meeting between CASTANEDA and Don Juan at the Nogales Bus Station sometime in the late summer of 1960 --- which happened at the most only a few short weeks AFTER Castaneda met with his informant in the desert for the very first time.
When the summer of 1960 finally rolled to an end and finding himself in a much better mood psychologically AFTER his lessons during the spring and early summer in the desert regarding the use and rituals of Datura from the informant, followed by a brief meeting with the old man in the bus station, Castaneda formally returned to the Fall of 1960 classes at UCLA. In the process of his return he wrote a paper on halluncinogenic plants for a class taught by Dr. William A. Lessa. Although Castaneda was still an undergraduate, Lessa was so favorably impressed with what Castaneda presented in his paper he requested that Castaneda give a report on his findings to his graduate-level seminar titled "Myth and Ritual." C. Scott Littleton, a now retired professor of anthropology at Occidental College, who was a graduate student of Lessa's at the time, was asked by Lessa to sit in on the seminar --- telling Littleton "he had this Peruvian guy in his class who'd collected the best information from a shaman he'd ever seen, bar none." Afterwards, taking advantage of the scheduled UCLA winter break at the completion of his Fall of 1960 classes, Castaneda left California for Arizona and Mexico searching for Don Juan, hoping for a meeting. On December 17, 1960, he eventually caught up with him at his home, their FIRST face-to-face meeting since their initial bus station encounter.(see) Sometime thereafter Don Juan revealed he was a Shaman-sorcerer who learned his art from a diablero. Six months later, on June 23, 1961, at the end of his spring classes of that year --- and one full year after he and Don Juan first met --- Castaneda formally began his training as a man of knowledge. It was not until August 6, 1961 that Castaneda had his first experience with any sort of psychotropic plants under Don Juan and not until September 7, 1961, before he experienced a brew concocted from Datura. What is being said here of course, is that it is quite easy to extrapolate from the dates presented and documented by Castaneda himself in his own works --- and not by an outsider or by a person with an ax to grind --- that BOTH of the papers he wrote, the one for Meighan and the one for Lessa were written and turned in PRIOR to any indepth interaction or indoctrination with or by Don Juan --- and all of the information presented and said to be "the best information from a shaman ever seen, bar none" by his academic superiors came NOT from Don Juan, but from none other than the informant.
So how does all this play together, especially when in the above I present:
Both of the papers he wrote, the one for Meighan and the one for Lessa were written and turned in prior to any indepth interaction or indoctrination with or by Don Juan --- and all of the information presented and said to be "the best information from a shaman ever seen, bar none" by his academic superiors came not from Don Juan, but from none other than the informant.
While the statement is backed by facts and information that are seemingly reeking with dates and times that chafe against future events as Castaneda describes them, in the end the answer is summed up in his last published book, The Active Side of Infinity (1998) when Castaneda asks his colleague if the old man in the bus station is the Cloud Shaman and the colleague tells Castaneda:
"No. But I think he is a companion or a teacher of the Cloud Shaman. I saw both of them together in the distance various times, many years ago."
Castaneda and his anthropologist colleague Bill, after traveling weeks on end throughout Arizona and New Mexico including having met the informant along the way, ended up at the bus station in Nogales, either through a carefully concocted minipulation of known or upcoming events or simple predestination, vis-a'-vis with those forces. The colleague, upon seeing the old man sitting on the bench by the corner in the bus station, suddenly remembers seeing the old man --- whether it is Don Juan Matus or not --- and the Cloud Shaman in the distance various times many years ago, and instantly realizes that the Cloud Shaman he saw with the old man AND the bio-searcher (that is, the informant) are one and the same person.
What has been presented by Castaneda all along the way in his many books and interviews stemming from his ever important and crucial first Introduction Scene in the bus station between he and Don Juan, a meeting that lasted no more than only a very few minutes at the most, was simply based on Castaneda NOT interpreting correctly (for the readers) what he saw in the first place. What he thought he saw and took as the truth was inaccurate and he compounded the whole thing to his readers throughout his writings because of that misinterpretation. While the conversation regarding the Cloud Shaman no doubt occurred in the bus station initially, and the Cloud Shaman was actually a MAJOR player in the scheme of things, Castaneda simply left it out of his first book not bothering to bring it up until his last book. Why? Because the Cloud Shaman undermines Don Juan Matus as he is written. While it is accurate to say that the Cloud Shaman and the old man are companions or friends (i.e., "No. But I think he is a companion or a teacher of the Cloud Shaman...") in reality he (the old man) is in NO WAY a teacher of the Cloud Shaman. If anything, at the very most, both the old man (if you take the old man to be Don Juan Matus or not) and the Cloud Shaman have the SAME teacher --- or to be even more accurate, and the secret to all of Castaneda's writings --- Don Juan's own unknown, unheralded, diablero real life teacher and the Cloud Shaman, that is, the informant, were actually peers or equals. What Castaneda learned from the informant was the SAME as having learned it directly from Don Juan's teacher, the same original grounding source Don Juan would have learned it from --- and why he wrote it the way he did --- albeit giving credit to Don Juan.
If you remember correctly, at the time of the bus station encounter Don Juan wasn't even really Don Juan --- and why I have overly emphasized the if in "IF you take him (the old man) to BE Don Juan Matus," above. Reading Castaneda's works it is easy to see it is a given Bill did not seem to think so, and at the time of the bus station encounter, neither did Castaneda. So the question is, why should anybody else? In A Separate Reality (1971) Castaneda writes:
Bill said convincingly that he had encountered people like him before, people who gave the impression of knowing a great deal. In his judgment, he said, such people were not worth the trouble, because sooner or later one could obtain the same information from someone else who did not play hard to get. He said that he had neither patience nor time for old fogies, and that it was possible that the old man was only presenting himself as being knowledgeable about herbs, when in reality he knew as little as the next man.
It should be said here, in a quick side note regarding Don Juan, the old man in the bus station, et al, although the possibility exists otherwise, and even though I hint above that the whole bus station meeting could have possibly been orchestrated by a series of carefully concocted minipulation of known or upcoming events, there is nothing in what I know personally or on a first hand basis about the informant that would indicate he knew, met, set the meeting, ever heard of Don Juan --- or knew if he was an actual person or not.[4]
Taking a cue from such hints as presented previously, anthropologist Jay Courtney Fikes in his book Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties (1993) suggests that rather than being one individual, the chance exists that Don Juan was actually a composite of two or possibly even three authentic Indian shamans, of which one was the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina, with another being the venerated Cahuilla Shaman, Salvador Lopez, albeit not mentioned by Fikes in his book, but by others.[5]
The informant knew Maria Sabina and knew her quite well. I think that during the informant's discussion of plants and herbs sitting around in the middle of the night in some shabby motel, isolated shack, or rock-ring campfire in the desert someplace, Maria Sabina's name came up and may have had an impact on Castaneda. Again, if Don Juan was an actual person, a composite of several people, a total fabrication or a figment of Castaneda's imagination, the events leading up to meeting Don Juan and the various interactions with people, places, and things don't necessarily have to be discarded. Then again, if the informant was used as a model by Castaneda for Don Juan, or if aspects of his manners or abilities seeped into the characterization of Don Juan, I can't really say as he was neither Yaqui, Native American, Mexican-Indian nor Mesoamerican or Hispanic. Except for a possible hint in the closing paragraph of Cloud Shaman, relating to the fact cited above where the informant "cloaked by shimmering desert heat waves, simply seemed to evaporate into the rocks and sagebrush without a trace," it was never made clear to me specifically if he himself was a Shaman.[6] In later years I may of had my suspicions, but in his own actions he always ensured that nothing fell into an area or realm that might frighten or compromise any belief a person held in the natural order of things. He was simply a person in search of the truth and tried honorably to convey that truth once discovered.
Even though Bill told Castaneda convincingly that the old man in the bus station "knew as little as the next man" Castaneda NEEDED someone that would stand up to a closer scrutiny of what a shaman should be than what the informant was, i.e., he was neither Yaqui, Native American, Mexican-Indian, nor Mesoamerican or Hispanic. What better than an old man who was apparently a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico. In his third book of the series, Journey to Ixtlan (1972), Castaneda writes:
I prepared myself for six months, after that first meeting, reading up on the uses of peyote among the American Indians, especially about the peyote cult of the Indians of the Plains. I became acquainted with every work available, and when I felt I was ready I went back to Arizona.(see)
The "after that first meeting" in the above refers to Castaneda and the old man in the bus station and their very first encounter some say was sometime in early June of 1960 but actually unfolded more toward the end of the summer of 1960 --- a meeting, by the way, that lasted no more than 15 minutes at the very most.[7] Then, still in his third book, citing the date Saturday, December 17, 1960, after allowing nearly six months to lapse without ever seeing or talking with Don Juan, refering to their second meeting, Castaneda writes:
I found his house after making long and taxing inquiries among the local Indians. It was early afternoon when I arrived and parked in front of it. I saw him sitting on a wooden milk crate. He seemed to recognize me and greeted me as I got out of my car.
The six month period that Castaneda prepared himself was of course, the Fall semester of 1960, during of which he wrote, completed, and turned in the paper to Lessa as well as presented in Lessa's graduate level seminar --- garnering the comment in the process that what Castaneda had was "the best information from a shaman he (Lessa) had ever seen, bar none." During the semester PRIOR, to Lessa's, that is, the Spring semester of 1960 and BEFORE he ever met Don Juan Matus those couple of minutes in the bus station, or, as found in Footnote [1] ANY Cahuilla Shaman on any Morongo Indian Reservation, Castaneda had already turned in his paper to Meighan on Sacred Datura --- a paper that was filled with all the same information about the plant and various rituals that he supposedly learns later from Don Juan between August 23 and September 10, 1961 --- all of which in both cases he had learned previously from the informant while on the Road Trip.[8]
