Carlos Castaneda has [placed us inside the shaman's consciousness] and this is why his work is original and important….

In order to show us a world in which "non-ordinary" states of reality are given an equal valence with waking consciousness, Castaneda has devised a powerful literary strategy. He describes "non-ordinary" experiences as they occurred subjectively, often taking him overwhelmingly by surprise. Only afterwards does he give his attempts to understand them rationally—and always in the form of dialogues with his teacher, so that the terms of the discussion are those of Don Juan's world, not ours. Castaneda's narrative surface thus modulates from one state of consciousness to another without transition.

This has caused considerable bewilderment among the group of naive skeptics who say that such things don't occur. Castaneda deliberately leaves out the helpful signposts that might read "hallucinatory state" or "trance."…

There is a more knowledgeable form of skepticism which holds that Castaneda's experiences are almost too good to be true: Don Juan's teachings are strikingly similar to those of all of the world's great esoteric traditions (such as Sufism, the higher yogas or Tantric Buddhism) and the figure of Don Jaun himself has increasingly assumed the outline of paradigmatic spiritual teacher or guru. Why, for example, do Castaneda's shamans seem to possess a close analogue to the Hindu Chakra system when this has not been reported by others? At this point all we can say is that Castaneda's reported experiences closely resemble much cross cultural data—and this could well be explained by the fact that the "natural mind" everywhere perceives similarly. (p. 35)

"Tales of Power" starts out only a few months after "Journey to Ixtlan" left off (it is based on Castaneda's experiences in 1971 and '72) but we soon see that the pace is accelerated and the scale is grander….

This is a splendid book, for all that it may seem ungainly, at times ponderous, at others overwrought…. "Tales of Power" could well be read as a farcical picaresque epic of altered states of consciousness. Carlos adventures through many strange modes of perception and suffers many enchantments as well….

In all the great examples of the picaresque genre we meander through tales within tales until we feel we are in danger of getting lost. The central section of "Tales of Power" takes place largely in Mexico City where Don Juan shatters Carlos's romanticism and ours by appearing in a well-tailored suit, and there we do seem to get definitely lost: Suddenly, Carlos finds himself whirled away from an acquaintance who has been tailing him in the hopes of being led to the real Don Juan. Carlos lands a mile and a half away near some familiar market stalls which, as he discovers when he tries to confirm the event later, were not in fact open that day…. (p. 38)

Carlos has come a long way. Just as Casteneda's style has changed from the factual precision of the first book to the lunatic extravagance of this last, so too his persona Carlos's understanding of the states of "non-ordinary reality" has grown from book to book. His relationship with Don Juan has developed too, since that moment in "A Separate Reality" when Don Juan uncovered Carlos's forgotten childhood vow that he would fail—a striking example of how the shaman-guru may act as a psychotherapist as he deals with the interferences to his apprentice's "seeing." One of the finest things in "Tales of Power," however, stylized or fictional it may be, is the convincing portrait of a spiritual teacher working away at his student's tendency to "indulge" in self-dramatization and self-pity….

Over the last six years the figures of Carlos and Don Juan have assumed a peculiar status in the imagination of an entire generation. They loom as do the great characters of fiction, Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, say, who marked Western civilization's fall into materialism as Carlos and Don Juan signify the attempt to emerge from it. But we also remain aware that somewhere there is a real Carlos who apparently has painstakingly learned how to "stop the internal dialogue" which continually reconstitutes the egobound world. (p. 40)