Crazy. Castenda does little to convince the reader (or himself) that Juan's hallucination-induced shamanism involves actual magic or influence by diety, but still fleshes out an ancient and very in-depth belief system that can make the shallowest person understand and believe that our universe consists entirely of how we perceive it.
I was suprised at how many of my friends admitted familiarity with this book, and how many people coyly admitted having read it. I also had a hard time tracking it down at the local library system and reading it before another library patron demanded it. Clearly the merging of the Yaqui mystical use of natural hallucinegens with the growing awareness of youth culture in the late sixties in drug experimentation touched a nerve that still is a little raw and exposed today.
Anyone who has experienced a fraction of Castenda's visions for themselves will know that Don Juan's rituals are more than a primitive way to explain the universe, even if only an insight on the human brain's functionality.
Although shaman magic and spiritual drug use can both play a major role in some of the fiction I read, I'm not aware of any direct crossover appearances of Don Juan in literature. I've certainly met a few dudes who espoused the benefits of taking peyote in the desert, and one or two who claim to have done so, and I would go as far as saying I wouldn't be totally opposed to trying something like that myself. But I think that the drug-induced transformations into a crow and visitations with a higher power are best left to the mists of mythology, religion and Jim Morrison.
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