Years ago, someone wrote an online artice describing how much he sought refuge in reading science fiction when he was an adolescent. Years later, he realized that reading science fiction had, for him, possessed mood altering properties.
Am sorry I cannot find that article. This person may not have been alone. And there may have been something about Castaneda's writing style and also his chosen material that had mood altering effects.
Castaneda wrote a varient of a Gnostic myth. There is something about this basic myth that has an enduring appeal because versions of it have been popular and profitable throughout history.
But thought it gives relief, mood alteration is not mind control.
Feeling good is not the same as being good. Otherwise taking a hit of speed or cocaine would turn us into saints.
Feeling powerful is not necessarily the same as benevolence. The First Nation practices were meant to benefit the entire community, not empower a lone individual.
For comparison, here from sustained action is a critique of Castaneda's philosophy. That philosophy was the creation of an urbanized alienated male child in an adult body, who needed to rationalize his inability to share himself with other persons and make a life as a hustler seem superior to those who could live in community. No clan or tribe living at subsistance level could have tolerated someone like this -- a person like Castaneda is as dangerous to others as a mouse with hantavirus, a squirrel ailing from plaugue or a coyote with rabies. e Castaneda was not cntent to suffer in private--he spread his misery to others to reasurre himself he was not alone. Thats the tragedy.
http://sustainedaction.org/Explorations/erasing_personal_integrity.htm
