Castaneda wrote that, as a UCLA graduate anthropology student, he met Don Juan at a Greyhound bus station in Nogales, Ariz., in the summer of 1960 while researching medicinal plants used by Indians of the Southwest. Admirers then and now see his work as a compelling spiritual quest. And now the skeptics are clucking again as a multimillion-dollar estate hearing over Castaneda's will begin Thursday in Los Angeles. Castaneda's corporation vs. the legally adopted son of his old love. Castaneda always denied being married.
Records prove differently.
In a telephone interview, Margaret said the truth about Castaneda and his books is like reality itself, an amalgam of elements with varying degrees of resolution. As an anthropology student, Margaret said Castaneda did spend years in Arizona and Mexico doing fieldwork on aboriginal people. But she believes the bulk of material for his books came from his childhood in South America. Margaret said Castaneda grew up in the small Peruvian village of Cajamarca, not the more cosmopolitan country of Brazil as he claimed. She believes she may have inspired the creation of Don Juan through a conversation with Castaneda about Plato and his Socratic dialogues.