While a graduate student in anthropology at UCLA, Carlos Castaneda went to Mexico to learn about peyote and medicinal herbs used by the local Indians. There he met Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian brujo, or sorcerer, who took Castaneda as an apprentice and initiated him into the esoteric uses of hallucinogenic plants. Using peyote, jimson weed, and other natural hallucinogens, and receiving instruction from Don Juan, Castaneda worked for five years to become himself a 'Yaqui' or man of knowledge. In an age when experimentation with hallucinogenic substances was rampant, the so-called 'Don Juan' books seemed to give legitimacy to drug experimentation, and the books were widely read and discussed—paperback copies could be found in most dorm rooms, communes, and hippie dwellings.