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Don Juan Matus is a major character in the series of books by Carlos Castaneda. ("Don" is a common, polite, term of deference for males in Spanish). In Castaneda's books, Don Juan Matus was a Yaqui Indian whom he met during anthropological field work around the U.S.-Mexico border beginning in the early 1960s. On subsequent visits, Don Juan revealed himself to Castaneda as a brujo (Spanish for warlock), which is a sort of healer, sorcerer, or shaman who had inherited (through a lineage of teachers) an ancient Central American practice for refining one's awareness of the universe. Don Juan was an expert in the cultivation and use of various hallucinogenic plants (specifically, psychedelic mushrooms, Datura, and Peyote) that can be found in the Mexican deserts, which are used as aids to reach states of non-ordinary reality in the philosophy he conveyed to Castaneda. Don Juan's personality is at once fierce and demanding, and by turns amusing and amused at the world. He is unmarried, and presented as an old man of indigenous ancestry, with great strength and agility. In some ways, he bears some semblance to the persona of the broader fictional Don Juan character(s). But the irony lies in the ignominious nature of the latter, born to nobility, contrasted with the "nobility of heart" (Spanish, "de corazón") of Don Juan Matus, who rose from simpler, Native American roots. Castaneda writes that he spoke in excellent Spanish, although he had never been to college and had lived his entire life in poor conditions. Don Juan's philosophy, which has been enormously influential, might be summed up in a passage from Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge:
For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart.
There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there I travel—looking, looking, breathlessly.
The actual existence of Don Juan is a matter of some dispute between Castaneda's supporters and critics. ([1] Author Robert Marshall claims that Castaneda got the idea for Matus’ name from the popular brand of Portuguese rosé wine, “Mateus.”) If Don Juan were a real person, his real name was apparently changed to maintain his anonymity. Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau – associates of Castaneda – also wrote about the same Don Juan Matus, although he went by different pseudonyms in their books such as Mariano Aureliano. In all of these books, Don Juan Matus was a nagual who was leader of a group of practitioners of tradition of perceptual enhancement.
Castaneda's books describing Don Juan Matus
- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968) ISBN 0-520-21757-8
- A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971) ISBN 0-671-73249-8
- Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972) ISBN 0-671-73246-3
- Tales of Power (1974) ISBN 0-671-73252-8
- The Second Ring of Power (1977) ISBN 0-671-73247-1
- The Eagle's Gift (1981) ISBN 0-671-73251-X
- The Fire from Within (1984) ISBN 0-671-73250-1
- The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan (1987) ISBN 0-671-73248-X
- The Art of Dreaming (1993) ISBN 0-06-092554-X
- The Active side of Infinity
