Don Juan Matus Shaman from the Yaqui Indian tribe, mainly known from the works of Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar Country: USA

Biography of Don Juan Matus

Don Juan Matus was a shaman from the Yaqui Indian tribe, primarily known through the works of Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau, and Taisha Abelar. Castaneda claimed to have met Don Juan in 1960, after which he was taught a special form of magic based on the traditions of the ancient Mexican Indians, known as the "Warrior's Path." Some authors speculate that Don Juan Matus is a fictional character. According to Richard de Mille, the prototype for Don Juan was the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina and Don Aurelio from the village of Huautla de Jimenez in Oaxaca. Another prototype for Don Juan is believed to be Tezcatlipoca Cachora, whom Castaneda was familiar with according to Cachora himself. In Castaneda's books, Don Juan is portrayed as a wise shaman whose image does not coincide with the stereotype of an Indian sorcerer, and Don Juan's teachings do not align with the academic understanding of indigenous shamanic culture. Castaneda believed that Don Juan described a type of cognitive system that was unfamiliar to Europeans, who typically rely on something "a priori" or pre-existing (their own preconceived notions of how the world should be, rigidly formed under the pressure of socialization).

When adapting Don Juan's knowledge, Castaneda incorporated many terms and the latest advancements in Western philosophical thought. Thus, the metaphorical, allegorical, and, most importantly, practical system of knowledge of the ancient Mexican shamans can be relatively understandable to European readers. In particular, Castaneda's books reflect many ideas from Edmund Husserl's phenomenology that proved suitable for describing the system he was portraying.