Why is the popularizer of the spiritual practices of the Indians of Latin America so close to the Russian reader? Moreover, from the position of an American ethnographer, Castaneda is far from the rules of modern science; he undoubtedly modernizes the knowledge he received in some way, bringing it closer to the worldview of Western man. And yet there is something elusive and hidden in his books; Maybe this is a sign of true initiation into the science of Indian magicians? Perhaps this science is so ancient that in the fabulously distant past its origins are connected with the secret knowledge of the immemorial ancestors of the Slavic Magi? Sign of information production 12+