A review by jackiijackii
A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda

1.0

The main issue with this book is that I couldn't distinguish if it were fact or fiction. Possibly, it shouldn't matter, since it's a philosophy book, but I just couldn't get over the fact that, at different times, it sounded like Plato's Republic, The Celestine Prophecy, and Go Ask Alice. It never felt genuine. He does comment in the introduction about how each "lesson" ends on a dramatic note because that's just how don Juan did it, but it seemed more like a cheap literary device to me, along the lines of The Celestine Prophecy. Although the introduction did sound like an anthropologist, the following data wasn't presented in a manner consistent with a scientific research paper. I suppose he tried to make it palatable for a larger audience to sell the books, but he's an anthropologist and not a writer, so it just comes across as poorly written, which I interpreted as ringing false?

Nope, I'm not making any excuses. I've read plenty of philosophy; this one wasn't worth the time.