This text draws together a series of quotes, chosen by Castaneda, from the eight books he wrote about his classical training as a Shaman initate under the guidance of Don Juan Matus.
Carlos Castaneda Book order







- 2000
- 1999
"Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet extremely personal. My teacher, don Juan Matus, said this is guiding me as his apprentice to collect what I considered to be the memorable events of my life…. Don Juan described the total goal of the shamanistic knowledge that he handled as the preparation for facing the definitive journey: the journey that every human being has to take at the end of his life. He said that what modern man referred to vaguely as life after death was, for those shamans, a concrete region filled to capacity with practical affairs of a different order than the practical affairs of daily life, yet bearing a similar functional practicality. Don Juan considered that to collect the memorable in their lives was, for shamans, the preparation for their entrance into that concrete region, which they called the active side of infinity."In this book written immediately before his death, anthropologist and shaman Carlos Castaneda gives us his most autobiographical and intimately revealing work ever, the fruit of a lifetime of experience and perhaps the most moving volume in his oeuvre.
- 1998
Magical Passes
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
For us to perceive any of the worlds that exist beside our own, not only do we have to covet them but we need to have sufficient energy to seize them. In this revolutionary book, Carlos Castaneda offers readers the key to this energetic conditioning for the first time, revealing a series of body positions and physical movements that enabled various sorcerers, and their apprentices, to navigate their own sorceric journeys. By sharing this centuries-old wisdom, Carlos Castaneda makes it possible for readers to travel to some of these other realms, which are as real, unique, absolute, and engulfing as our own world. Castaneda offers both a philosophical history of magical passes and an innovative, easy-to-understand instructional format, complete with more than 450 computer-generated illustrations. Written with humor, clarity, and authority, Magical Passes further illuminates the true meaning of sorcery and magic.
- 1998
A practical guide to Castaneda's techniques as taught to him by the shamans of Ancient Mexico. For the first time he brings us the profound and practical applications of the wisdom of Don Juan Matus.
- 1994
After six years of study and meditation, the author presents a book which takes the reader on a journey of the soul via the teachings of the great sorcerer, Don Juan. Like layers of an onion, the author reveals that there are worlds existing within our own that can be visited through dreams.
- 1988
Power of Silence
- 265 pages
- 10 hours of reading
Carlos Castaneda takes the reader into the very heart of sorcery, challenging both imagination and reason, shaking the very foundations of our belief in what is "natural" and "logical."The Power of Silence is Castaneda's most astonishing book to date—a brilliant flash of knowledge that illuminates the far reaches of the human mind. Through don Juan's mesmerizing stories, the true meaning of sorcery and magic is finally revealed. Honed in the desert of Sonora, the visions of don Juan give us the vital secrets of belief and self-realization that are transcendental and valid for us all. It is Castaneda's unique genius to show us that all wisdom, strength, and power lie within ourselves—unleashed with marvelous energy and imaginative force in the teachings of don Juan—and in the writings of his famous pupil, Carlos Castaneda
- 1984
The Fire from Within
- 300 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Each of Carlos Castaneda's books is a tantalizing burst of illumination into the depths of our deepest mysteries, like a sudden flash of light, like a burst of lightning over the desert at night, which shows us a world that is both alien & totally familiar--the landscape of our dreams. Fire from Within is the author's most brilliant thought-provoking & unusual book, one in which Castaneda, under the tutelage of don Juan & his disciples, at last constructs, from the teachings of don Juan & his own experiences, a stunning portrait of the "sorcerer's world" that is crystal-clear & dizzying in its implications.
- 1982
The sixth book in the Castaneda series in which he continues to educate the reader in shamanistic mysticism.
- 1979
The Second Ring of Power
- 328 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Transformed by Don Juan from a bent, gray-haired old woman into a sensual sorceress whose mission is to test Castaneda, Dona Soledad turns her mysterious and awesome powers against Castaneda in a struggle that nearly consumes him.