http://www.wallowacountychieftain.info/ … leID=12218

but, a lot of his techniques are just too simple and innocent to be considered a untruthful(like finding your hands in your dreams, or sungazing, which i see a few posters refer too a lot)

A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan provoked a real sense of awe.
After all, here was a real live "sorcerer" telling some secrets.  Never
mind that there wasn't a real Don Juan.  The subject matter was so
interesting that one could allow a little artistic license in order to relate
the stories and principles he was trying to convey.  No one had ever
attempted to explain sorcery from the Yaqui-Indian-Toltec traditions.
I am certain that Castaneda talked with every person he could find who
knew anything about magic and sorcery in Mexico.  Many of the stories
he related could have been true.  But as far as giving the reader a clear
path to enlightenment, no.  He wasn't able to do that.  He did, however
provide the reader with a fair warning about the dangers of embarking
on that path, with the assertion that becoming a "warrior" was the
first step on the path of becoming "a man of knowledge," and without
that one was destined to fail.

Plus every book has some really quotable quotes like:

Man's greatest enemies:  1. FEAR  2. CLARITY  3. POWER  4. OLD AGE

"Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and
extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had
been heavily guarded by our words."

So, one can read Castaneda's books and be entertained and find
some very useful insights into the world.  Ideas and concepts
which could never really be imparted in some other context.

I always believed that Don Juan was a real person and that Casteneda experienced what he said he did. Reading the books gave me a bad feeling, though; some of the "experiences" appeared to be from hypnotic effects I was very familiar with. I was also familiar with the half-truths pushed by Scientology and knew how appealing they were. So I didn't follow his path.

The article at the link says he was a fraud. He made it all up.

I know many of the folks on this forum are trying to follow Casteneda's teachings so I'll ask; have any of you succeded? Do his books contain enough truth to be useful?