# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/carlos-castaneda
# Generated: 2026-09-02T06:56:28.572Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/carlos-castaneda"
name: "Carlos Castaneda"
slug: "carlos-castaneda"
description: "An anthropologist who turned invented shamanic encounters with a Yaqui sorcerer named Don Juan into bestselling books—then retreated into seclusion with a group of female followers he called his \"witches,\" five of whom vanished after his death."
tagline: "Peruvian-American author (1925-1998)"
image: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Cc1962.JPG"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Writers"
  slug: "writers"
profileType:
  name: "Writer / Author"
  slug: "writer"
birthDate: "1925-12-25"
deathDate: "1998-04-27"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           58.09
  momentum:             0.2644478844169247
  historical:           25.118712
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     70
  profileCompleteness:  80
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "writers"
  - name: "Academic"
    slug: "academic"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "Fiction"
    slug: "fiction"
  - name: "Poetry"
    slug: "poetry"
  - name: "United States"
    slug: "united-states"
  - name: "Americas"
    slug: "americas"
  - name: "20th Century"
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platforms:
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    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1563273/"
    handle:    "nm1563273"
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    url:       "https://www.carlos-castaneda.com/"
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    title: "Karlos Kastanyeda"
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    title: "Carlos Castaneda"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Carlos Castaneda"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda"
    title: "Carlos Castaneda"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Կարլոս Կաստանեդա"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
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    title: "Carlos Castañeda"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Carlos Castaneda was born in Peru on December 25, 1925, and trained as an anthropologist at UCLA, where he began publishing accounts of his apprenticeship under Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge." The first three books—The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, and Journey to Ixtlan—earned him both undergraduate and doctoral degrees and became bestsellers that shaped the New Age movement, though the figure of Don Juan is now widely regarded as fabricated. As questions about the veracity of his work mounted in the early 1970s, Castaneda withdrew from public life and surrounded himself with young women he demanded rename themselves, sever family ties, and submit to him sexually. By his death on April 27, 1998, his books had sold over eight million copies in 17 languages. Five of his closest devotees disappeared after he died; one, Patricia Partin, was later found as skeletal remains in Death Valley, while the other four have never been located.