Tales of Power – Carlos Castaneda (1974)
The fourth book in Carlos Castaneda’s controversial Don Juan series, Tales of Power marks a turning point in the anthropologist’s spiritual apprenticeship under Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui sorcerer. Here, Castaneda’s journey shifts from learning discrete techniques of shamanic perception to confronting the existential culmination of his training: the “definitive journey” of a warrior.
The narrative oscillates between hallucinogenic encounters (including a surreal battle with an inorganic entity in a desert parking lot) and Don Juan’s cryptic teachings about the “art of stalking” and “the tonal and nagual”—the dual aspects of reality that structure human experience. Key moments include Castaneda’s initiation into “dreaming attention,” his fraught relationship with fellow apprentice La Gorda, and the dramatic climax at the “gateway of the nagual,” where Don Juan and his cohort Don Genaro vanish into the unknown, leaving Castaneda to integrate their lessons.
Critics debate whether the work is anthropology, fiction, or spiritual allegory, but its impact on New Age thought and shamanic tourism is undeniable.
“A psychedelic bildungsroman where the self dissolves—and what remains is either madness or mastery.”
