Topic: another perspective

[TIOTIT]

The godfather of the New Age led a secretive group of devoted followers in the
last decade of his life. His closest "witches" remain missing, and former
insiders, offering new details, believe the women took their own lives.
By Robert Marshall

Currently, we have Richard Gere starring as Clifford Irving in "The Hoax," a
film about the '70s novelist who penned a faux autobiography of Howard Hughes.
We've had the unmasking of James Frey, JT LeRoy/Laura Albert and Harvard's
Kaavya Viswanathan, who plagiarized large chunks of her debut novel, forcing her
publisher, Little, Brown and Co., to recall the book. Much has been written
about the slippery boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, the publishing
industry's responsibility for distinguishing between the two, and the potential
damage to readers. There's been, however, hardly a mention of the 20th century's
most successful literary trickster: Carlos Castaneda.
If this name draws a blank for readers under 30, all they have to do is ask
their parents. Deemed by Time magazine the "Godfather of the New Age," Castaneda
was the literary embodiment of the Woodstock era. His 12 books, supposedly based
on meetings with a mysterious Indian shaman, don Juan, made the author, a
graduate student in anthropology, a worldwide celebrity. Admirers included John
Lennon, William Burroughs, Federico Fellini and Jim Morrison.
Under don Juan's tutelage, Castaneda took peyote, talked to coyotes, turned into
a crow, and learned how to fly. All this took place in what don Juan called "a
separate reality." Castaneda, who died in 1998, was, from 1971 to 1982, one of
the best-selling nonfiction authors in the country. During his lifetime, his
books sold at least 10 million copies.
 Castaneda was viewed by many as a compelling writer, and his early books
received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Time called them "beautifully lucid"
and remarked on a "narrative power unmatched in other anthropological studies."
They were widely accepted as factual, and this contributed to their success.
Richard Jennings, an attorney who became closely involved with Castaneda in the
'90s, was studying at Stanford in the early '70s when he read the first two don
Juan books. "I was a searcher," he recently told Salon. "I was looking for a
real path to other worlds. I wasn't looking for metaphors."
The books' status as serious anthropology went almost unchallenged for five
years. Skepticism increased in 1972 after Joyce Carol Oates, in a letter to the
New York Times, expressed bewilderment that a reviewer had accepted Castaneda's
books as nonfiction. The next year, Time published a cover story revealing that
Castaneda had lied extensively about his past. Over the next decade, several
researchers, most prominently Richard de Mille, son of the legendary director,
worked tirelessly to demonstrate that Castaneda's work was a hoax.
In spite of this exhaustive debunking, the don Juan books still sell well. The
University of California Press, which published Castaneda's first book, "The
Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," in 1968, steadily sells 7,500
copies a year. BookScan, a Nielsen company that tracks book sales, reports that
three of Castaneda's most popular titles, "A Separate Reality," "Journey to
Ixtlan" and "Tales of Power," sold a total of 10,000 copies in 2006. None of
Castaneda's titles have ever gone out of print -- an impressive achievement for
any author.
Today, Simon and Schuster, Castaneda's main publisher, still classifies his
books as nonfiction. It could be argued that this label doesn't matter since
everyone now knows don Juan was a fictional creation. But everyone doesn't, and
the trust that some readers have invested in these books leads to a darker story
that has received almost no coverage in the mainstream press.
Castaneda, who disappeared from the public view in 1973, began in the last
decade of his life to organize a secretive group of devoted followers. His tools
were his books and Tensegrity, a movement technique he claimed had been passed
down by 25 generations of Toltec shamans. A corporation, Cleargreen, was set up
to promote Tensegrity; it held workshops attended by thousands. Novelist and
director Bruce Wagner, a member of Castaneda's inner circle, helped produce a
series of instructional videos. Cleargreen continues to operate to this day,
promoting Tensegrity and Castaneda's teachings through workshops in Southern
California, Europe and Latin America.
At the heart of Castaneda's movement was a group of intensely devoted women, all
of whom were or had been his lovers. They were known as the witches, and two of
them, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, vanished the day after Castaneda's
death, along with Cleargreen president Amalia Marquez and Tensegrity instructor
Kylie Lundahl. A few weeks later, Patricia Partin, Castaneda's adopted daughter
as well as his lover, also disappeared. In February 2006, a skeleton found in
Death Valley, Calif., was identified through DNA analysis as Partin's.
Some former Castaneda associates suspect the missing women committed suicide.
They cite remarks the women made shortly before vanishing, and point to
Castaneda's frequent discussion of suicide in private group meetings. Achieving
transcendence through a death nobly chosen, they maintain, had long been central
to his teachings.

 

[TIOTIT]

 Castaneda was born in 1925 and came to the United States in 1951 from Peru.
He'd studied sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Lima and hoped to make it
as an artist in the United States. He worked a series of odd jobs and took
classes at Los Angeles Community College in philosophy, literature and creative
writing. Most who knew him then recall a brilliant, hilarious storyteller with
mesmerizing brown eyes. He was short (some say 5-foot-2; others 5-foot-5) and
self-conscious about having his picture taken. Along with his then wife Margaret
Runyan (whose memoir, "A Magical Journey With Carlos Castaneda," he would later
try to suppress) he became fascinated by the occult.
According to Runyan, she and Castaneda would hold long bull sessions, drinking
wine with other students. One night a friend remarked that neither the Buddha
nor Jesus ever wrote anything down. Their teachings had been recorded by
disciples, who could have changed things or made them up. "Carlos nodded, as if
thinking carefully," wrote Runyan. Together, she and Castaneda conducted
unsuccessful ESP experiments. Runyan worked for the phone company, and
Castaneda's first attempt at a book was an uncompleted nonfiction manuscript
titled "Dial Operator."
In 1959, Castaneda enrolled at UCLA, where he signed up for California
ethnography with archaeology professor Clement Meighan. One of the assignments
was to interview an Indian. He got an "A" for his paper, in which he spoke to an
unnamed Native American about the ceremonial use of jimson weed. But Castaneda
was broke and soon dropped out. He worked in a liquor store and drove a taxi. He
began to disappear for days at a time, telling Runyan he was going to the
desert. The couple separated, but soon afterward Castaneda adopted C.J., the son
Runyan had had with another man. And, for seven years, he worked on the
manuscript that was to become "The Teachings of Don Juan."
"The Teachings" begins with a young man named Carlos being introduced at an
Arizona bus stop to don Juan, an old Yaqui Indian whom he's told "is very
learned about plants." Carlos tries to persuade the reluctant don Juan to teach
him about peyote. Eventually he relents, allowing Carlos to ingest the sacred
cactus buds. Carlos sees a transparent black dog, which, don Juan later tells
him, is Mescalito, a powerful supernatural being. His appearance is a sign that
Carlos is "the chosen one" who's been picked to receive "the teachings."
"The Teachings" is largely a dialogue between don Juan, the master, and Carlos,
the student, punctuated by the ingestion of carefully prepared mixtures of herbs
and mushrooms. Carlos has strange experiences that, in spite of don Juan's
admonitions, he continues to think of as hallucinations. In one instance, Carlos
turns into a crow and flies. Afterward, an argument ensues: Is there such a
thing as objective reality? Or is reality just perceptions and different,
equally valid ways of describing them? Toward the book's end, Carlos again
encounters Mescalito, whom he now accepts as real, not a hallucination.
In "The Teachings," Castaneda tried to follow the conventions of anthropology by
appending a 50-page "structural analysis." According to Runyan, his goal was to
become a psychedelic scholar along the lines of Aldous Huxley. He'd become
disillusioned with another hero, Timothy Leary, who supposedly mocked Castaneda
when they met at a party, earning his lifelong enmity. In 1967, he took his
manuscript to professor Meighan. Castaneda was disappointed when Meighan told
him it would work better as a trade book than as a scholarly monograph. But
following Meighan's instructions, Castaneda took his manuscript to the
University of California Press' office in Powell Library, where he showed it to
Jim Quebec. The editor was impressed but had doubts about its authenticity.
Inundated by good reports from the UCLA anthropology department, according to
Runyan, Quebec was convinced and "The Teachings" was published in the spring of
1968.
Runyan wrote that "the University of California Press, fully cognizant that a
nation of drug-infatuated students was out there, moved it into California
bookstores with a vengeance." Sales exceeded all expectations, and Quebec soon
introduced Castaneda to Ned Brown, an agent whose clients included Jackie
Collins. Brown then put Castaneda in touch with Michael Korda, Simon and
Schuster's new editor in chief.
 In his memoir, "Another Life," Korda recounts their first meeting. Korda was
told to wait in a hotel parking lot. "A neat Volvo pulled up in front of me, and
the driver waved me in," Korda writes. "He was a robust, broad-chested, muscular
man, with a swarthy complexion, dark eyes, black curly hair cut short, and a
grin as merry as Friar Tuck's ... I had seldom, if ever, liked anybody so much
so quickly ... It wasn't so much what Castaneda had to say as his presence -- a
kind of charm that was partly subtle intelligence, partly a real affection for
people, and partly a kind of innocence, not of the naive kind but of the kind
one likes to suppose saints, holy men, prophets and gurus have." The next
morning, Korda set about buying the rights to "The Teachings." Under his new
editor's guidance, Castaneda published his next three books in quick succession.
In "A Separate Reality," published in 1971, Carlos returns to Mexico to give don
Juan a copy of his new book. Don Juan declines the gift, suggesting he'd use it
as toilet paper. A new cycle of apprenticeship begins, in which don Juan tries
to teach Carlos how to "see."
New characters appear, most importantly don Juan's friend and fellow sorcerer
don Genaro. In "A Separate Reality" and the two books that follow, "Journey to
Ixtlan" and "Tales of Power," numerous new concepts are introduced, including
"becoming inaccessible," "erasing personal history" and "stopping the world."
There are also displays of magic. Don Genaro is at one moment standing next to
Carlos; at the next, he's on top of a mountain. Don Juan uses unseen powers to
help Carlos start his stalled car. And he tries to show him how to be a warrior
-- a being who, like an enlightened Buddhist, has eliminated the ego, but who,
in a more Nietzschean vein, knows he's superior to regular humans, who lead
wasted, pointless lives. Don Juan also tries to teach Carlos how to enter the
world of dreams, the "separate reality," also referred to as the "nagual," a
Spanish word taken from the Aztecs. (Later, Castaneda would shift the word's
meaning, making it stand not only for the separate reality but also for a
shaman, like don Juan and, eventually, Castaneda himself.)
In "Journey to Ixtlan," Carlos starts a new round of apprenticeship. Don Juan
tells him they'll no longer use drugs. These were only necessary when Carlos was
a beginner. Many consider "Ixtlan," which served as Castaneda's Ph.D. thesis at
UCLA, his most beautiful book. It also made him a millionaire. At the book's
conclusion, Carlos talks to a luminous coyote. But he isn't yet ready to enter
the nagual. Finally, at the end of "Tales of Power," don Juan and don Genaro
take Carlos to the edge of a cliff. If he has the courage to leap, he'll at last
be a full-fledged sorcerer. This time Carlos doesn't turn back. He jumps into
the abyss.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
All four books were lavishly praised. Michael Murphy, a founder of Esalen,
remarked that the "essential lessons don Juan has to teach are the timeless ones
that have been taught by the great sages of India." There were raves in the New
York Times, Harper's and the Saturday Review. "Castaneda's meeting with Don
Juan," wrote Time's Robert Hughes, "now seems one of the most fortunate literary
encounters since Boswell was introduced to Dr. Johnson."
In 1972, anthropologist Paul Riesman reviewed Castaneda's first three books in
the New York Times Book Review, writing that "Castaneda makes it clear that the
teachings of don Juan do tell us something of how the world really is."
Riesman's article ran in place of a review the Times had initially commissioned
from Weston La Barre, one of the foremost authorities on Native American peyote
ceremonies. In his unpublished article, La Barre denounced Castaneda's writing
as "pseudo-profound deeply vulgar pseudo-ethnography."
Contacted recently, Roger Jellinek, the editor who commissioned both reviews,
explained his decision. "The Weston La Barre review, as I recall, was not so
much a review as a furious ad hominem diatribe intended to suppress, not debate,
the book," he wrote via e-mail. "By then I knew enough about Castaneda, from
discussions with Edmund Carpenter, the anthropologist who first put me on to
Castaneda, and from my reading of renowned shamanism scholar Mircea Eliade in
support of my own review of Castaneda in the daily New York Times, to feel
strongly that 'The Teachings of Don Juan' deserved more than a personal
put-down. Hence the second commission to Paul Riesman, son of Harvard
sociologist David Riesman, and a brilliant rising anthropologist. Incidentally,
in all my eight years at the NYTBR, that's the only occasion I can recall of a
review being commissioned twice."
 Riesman's glowing review was soon followed by Oates' letter to the editor, in
which she argued that the books were obvious works of fiction. Then, in 1973,
Time correspondent Sandra Burton found that Castaneda had lied about his
military service, his father's occupation, his age and his nation of birth (Peru
not Brazil).
No one contributed more to Castaneda's debunking than Richard de Mille. De
Mille, who held a Ph.D. in psychology from USC, was something of a freelance
intellectual. In a recent interview, he remarked that because he wasn't
associated with a university, he could tell the story straight. "People in the
academy wouldn't do it," he remarked. "They'd be embarrassing the
establishment." Specifically the UCLA professors who, according to de Mille,
knew it was a hoax from the start. But a hoax that, he said, supported their
theories, which de Mille summed up succinctly: "Reality doesn't exist. It's all
what people say to each other."
In de Mille's first exposé, "Castaneda's Journey," which appeared in 1976, he
pointed to numerous internal contradictions in Castaneda's field reports and the
absence of convincing details. "During nine years of collecting plants and
hunting animals with don Juan, Carlos learns not one Indian name for any plant
or animal," De Mille wrote. The books were also filled with implausible details.
For example, while "incessantly sauntering across the sands in seasons when ...
harsh conditions keep prudent persons away, Carlos and don Juan go quite
unmolested by pests that normally torment desert hikers."
De Mille also uncovered numerous instances of plagiarism. "When don Juan opens
his mouth," he wrote, "the words of particular writers come out." His 1980
compilation, "The Don Juan Papers," includes a 47-page glossary of quotations
from don Juan and their sources, ranging from Wittgenstein and C.S. Lewis to
papers in obscure anthropology journals.
In one example, de Mille first quotes a passage by a mystic, Yogi Ramacharaka:
"The Human Aura is seen by the psychic observer as a luminous cloud, egg-shaped,
streaked by fine lines like stiff bristles standing out in all directions." In
"A Separate Reality," a "man looks like a human egg of circulating fibers. And
his arms and legs are like luminous bristles bursting out in all directions."
The accumulation of such instances leads de Mille to conclude that "Carlos's
adventures originated not in the Sonoran desert but in the library at UCLA." De
Mille convinced many previously sympathetic readers that don Juan did not exist.
Perhaps the most glaring evidence was that the Yaqui don't use peyote, and don
Juan was supposedly a Yaqui shaman teaching a "Yaqui way of knowledge." Even the
New York Times came around, declaring that de Mille's research "should satisfy
anyone still in doubt."
Some anthropologists have disagreed with de Mille on certain points. J.T. Fikes,
author of "Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties,"
believes Castaneda did have some contact with Native Americans. But he's an even
fiercer critic than de Mille, condemning Castaneda for the effect his stories
have had on Native peoples. Following the publication of "The Teachings,"
thousands of pilgrims descended on Yaqui territory. When they discovered that
the Yaqui don't use peyote, but that the Huichol people do, they headed to the
Huichol homeland in Southern Mexico, where, according to Fikes, they caused
serious disruption. Fikes recounts with outrage the story of one Huichol elder
being murdered by a stoned gringo.
Among anthropologists, there's no longer a debate. Professor William W. Kelly,
chairman of Yale's anthropology department, told me, "I doubt you'll find an
anthropologist of my generation who regards Castaneda as anything but a clever
con man. It was a hoax, and surely don Juan never existed as anything like the
figure of his books. Perhaps to many it is an amusing footnote to the
gullibility of naive scholars, although to me it remains a disturbing and
unforgivable breach of ethics."

[erik]

Quite a compendium there!
Good posts, reading these arguments and that logic it all seems so firm, clear. For example, The fact that CC never learned a single native name of a plant ought to be lethal to CC's reputation!

I have once met with an anthropologist who worked up North with Saami people. He said that there is no word for 'war' in Saami language and they have never fought one as we know it. They have always defended themselves by evading enemy in endless tundra. For that purpose every creek, hill, little forest had simultaneously 3-4 different names and Saamis guided invaders willingly until they got lost and returned. The full list of names for the most important features of the landscape remained secret even in the end of the 1990s. Saami elders would not reveal it under any circumstances.

By analogy it might have been the case with CC. Maybe they simply didn't tell him or something else stopped him from using Indian names.

Anyhow, it is interesting to read stories reflecting critical perspective.

[TIOTIT]

 After 1973, the year of the Time exposé, Castaneda never again responded
publicly to criticism. Instead, he went into seclusion, at least as far as the
press was concerned (he still went to Hollywood parties). Claiming he was
complying with don Juan's instruction to become "inaccessible," he no longer
allowed himself to be photographed, and (in the same year the existence of the
Nixon tapes was made public) he decided that recordings of any sort were
forbidden. He also severed ties to his past; after attending C.J.'s junior high
graduation and promising to take him to Europe, he soon banished his ex-wife and
son.
And he made don Juan disappear. When "The Second Ring of Power" was published in
1977, readers learned that sometime between the leap into the abyss at the end
of "Tales of Power" and the start of the new book, don Juan had vanished,
evanescing into a ball of light and entering the nagual. His seclusion also
helped Castaneda, now in his late 40s, conceal the alternative family he was
starting to form. The key members were three young women: Regine Thal, Maryann
Simko and Kathleen "Chickie" Pohlman, whom Castaneda had met while he was still
active at UCLA. Simko was pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology and was known around
campus as Castaneda's girlfriend. Through her, Castaneda met Thal, another
anthropology Ph.D. candidate and Simko's friend from karate class. How Pohlman
entered the picture remains unclear.
In 1973, Castaneda purchased a compound on the aptly named Pandora Avenue in
Westwood. The women, soon to be known both in his group and in his books as "the
witches," moved in. They eventually came to sport identical short, dyed blond
haircuts similar to those later worn by the Heaven's Gate cult. They also said
they'd studied with don Juan.
In keeping with the philosophy of "erasing personal history," they changed their
names: Simko became Taisha Abelar; Thal, Florinda Donner-Grau. Donner-Grau is
remembered by many as Castaneda's equal in intelligence and charisma. Nicknamed
"the hummingbird" because of her ceaseless energy, she was born in Venezuela to
German parents and claimed to have done research on the Yanomami Indians.
Pohlman was given a somewhat less glamorous alias: Carol Tiggs. Donner-Grau and
Abelar eventually published their own books on sorcery.
The witches, along with Castaneda, maintained a tight veil of secrecy. They used
numerous aliases and didn't allow themselves to be photographed. Followers were
told constantly changing stories about their backgrounds. Only after Castaneda's
death did the real facts about their lives begin to emerge. This is largely due
to the work of three of his ex-followers.
In the early '90s, Richard Jennings, a Columbia Law graduate, was living in Los
Angeles. He was the executive director of Hollywood Supports, a nonprofit group
organized to fight discrimination against people with HIV. He'd previously been
the executive director of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation. After reading an article in Details magazine by Bruce Wagner about a
meeting with Castaneda, he became intrigued. By looking on the Internet, he
found his way to one of the semi-secret workshops being held around Los Angeles.
He was soon invited to participate in Castaneda's Sunday sessions, exclusive
classes for select followers, where Jennings kept copious notes. From 1995 to
1998 he was deeply involved in the group, sometimes advising on legal matters.
After Castaneda's death, he started a Web site, Sustained Action, for which he
compiled meticulously researched chronologies, dating from 1947 to 1999, of the
lives of Patricia Partin and the witches.
Another former insider is Amy Wallace, author of 13 books of fiction and
nonfiction, including the best-selling "Book of Lists," which she co-authored
with her brother David Wallechinksy and their father, novelist Irving Wallace,
also a client of Korda's. She first met
Castaneda in 1973, while she was still in high school. Her parents took her to a
dinner party held by agent Ned Brown. Castaneda was there with Abelar, who then
went under the name Anna-Marie Carter. They talked with Wallace about her
boarding school. Many years later, Wallace became one of Castaneda's numerous
lovers, an experience recounted in her memoir, "Sorcerer's Apprentice." Wallace
now lives in East Los Angeles, where she's working on a novel about punk rock.
 Gaby Geuter, an author and former travel agent, had been a workshop attendee
who hoped to join the inner circle. In 1996 she realized she was being shut out.
In an effort to find out the truth about the guru who'd rejected her, she, along
with her husband, Greg Mamishian, began to shadow Castaneda. In her book
"Filming Castaneda," she recounts how, from a car parked near his compound, they
secretly videotaped the group's comings and goings. Were it not for Geuter
there'd be no post-1973 photographic record of Castaneda, who, as he aged,
seemed to have retained his impish charm as well as a full head of silver hair.
They also went through his trash, discovering a treasure trove of documents,
including marriage certificates, letters and credit card receipts that would
later provide clues to the group's history and its behavior during Castaneda's
final days.
During the late '70s and early '80s, Jennings believes the group probably
numbered no more than two dozen. Members, mostly women, came and went. At the
time, a pivotal event was the defection of Carol Tiggs, who was, according to
Wallace, always the most ambivalent witch. Soon after joining, she tried to
break away. She attended California Acupuncture College, married a fellow
student and lived in Pacific Palisades. Eventually, Wallace says, Castaneda
lured her back.
Castaneda had a different version. In his 1981 bestseller, "The Eagle's Gift,"
he described how Tiggs vanished into the "second attention," one of his terms
for infinity. Eventually she reappeared through a space time portal in New
Mexico. She then made her way to L.A., where they were joyously reunited when he
found her on Santa Monica Boulevard. In homage to her 10 years in another
dimension, she was now known as the "nagual woman."
Wallace believes this was an incentive to get Tiggs to rejoin. According to
Wallace and Jennings, one of the witches' tasks was to recruit new members.
Melissa Ward, a Los Angles area caterer, was involved in the group from 1993 to
1994. "Frequently they recruited at lectures," she told me. Among the goals, she
said, was to find "women with a combination of brains and beauty and
vulnerability." Initiation into the inner family often involved sleeping with
Castaneda, who, the witches claimed in public appearances, was celibate.
In "Sorcerer's Apprentice," Wallace provides a detailed picture of her own
seduction. Because of her father's friendship with Castaneda, her case was
unusual. Over the years, he'd stop by the Wallace home. When Irving died in
1990, Amy was living in Berkeley, Calif. Soon after, Castaneda called and told
her that her father had appeared to him in a dream and said he was trapped in
the Wallace's house, and needed Amy and Carlos to free him.
Wallace, suitably skeptical, came down to L.A. and the seduction began in
earnest. She recounts how she soon found herself in bed with Castaneda. He told
her he hadn't had sex for 20 years. When Wallace later worried she might have
gotten pregnant (they'd used no birth control), Castaneda leapt from the bed,
shouting, "Me make you pregnant? Impossible! The nagual's sperm isn't human ...
Don't let any of the nagual's sperm out, nena. It will burn away your
humanness." He didn't mention the vasectomy he'd had years before.
The courtship continued for several weeks. Castaneda told her they were
"energetically married." One afternoon, he took her to the sorcerer's compound.
As they were leaving, Wallace looked at a street sign so she could remember the
location. Castaneda furiously berated her: A warrior wouldn't have looked. He
ordered her to return to Berkeley. She did. When she called, he refused to speak
to her.
The witches, however, did, instructing Wallace on the sorceric steps necessary
to return. She had to let go of her attachments. Wallace got rid of her cats.
This didn't cut it. Castaneda, she wrote, got on the phone and called her an
egotistical, spoiled Jew. He ordered her to get a job at McDonald's. Instead,
Wallace waitressed at a bed and breakfast. Six months later she was allowed
back.
Aspiring warriors, say Jennings, Wallace and Ward, were urged to cut off all
contact with their past lives, as don Juan had instructed Carlos to do, and as
Castaneda had done by cutting off his wife and adopted son. "He was telling us
how to get out of family obligations," Jennings told me. "Being in one-on-one
relationships would hold you back from the path. Castaneda was telling us how to
get out of commitments with family, down to small points like how to avoid
hugging your parents directly." Jennings estimates that during his four years
with the group, between 75 and 100 people were told to cut off their families.
He doesn't know how many did.
 For some initiates, the separation was brutal and final. According to Wallace,
acolytes were told to tell their families, "I send you to hell." Both Wallace
and Jennings tell of one young woman who, in the group's early years, had been
ordered by Castaneda to hit her mother, a Holocaust survivor. Many years later,
Wallace told me, the woman "cried about it. She'd done it because she thought he
was so psychic he could tell if she didn't." Wallace also describes how, when
one young man's parents died soon after being cut off, Castaneda singled him out
for praise, remarking, "When you really do it, don Juan told me, they die
instantly, as if you were squashing a flea -- and that's all they are, fleas."
Before entering the innermost circle, at least some followers were led into a
position of emotional and financial dependence. Ward remembers a woman named
Peggy who was instructed to quit her job. She was told she'd then be given cash
to get a phone-less apartment, where she would wait to hear from Castaneda or
the witches. Peggy fled before this happened. But Ward said this was a common
practice with women about to be brought into the family's core.
Valerie Kadium, a librarian, who from 1995 to 1996 took part in the Sunday
sessions, recalls one participant who, after several meetings, decided to commit
himself fully to the group. He went to Vermont to shut down his business, but on
returning to L.A., he was told he could no longer participate; he was "too
late." He'd failed to grasp the "cubic centimeter of chance" that, said Kadium,
Castaneda often spoke of. Jennings had to quit his job with Hollywood Supports;
his work required him to interact with the media, but this was impossible:
Sorcerers couldn't have their pictures taken.
But there were rewards. "I was totally affected by these people," Jennings told
me. "I felt like I'd found a family. I felt like I'd found a path." Kadium
recalls the first time she saw Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundahl onstage --
she saw an aura around her, an apricot glow. Remembering her early days with the
group, she remarked, "There was such a sweetness about it. I had such high
hopes. I wanted to feel the world more deeply -- and I did."
Although she was later devastated when Castaneda banished her from the Sunday
sessions, telling her "the spirits spit you out," she eventually recovered, and
now remembers this as the most exciting time of her life. According to all who
knew him, Castaneda wasn't only mesmerizing, he also had a great sense of humor.
"One of the reasons I was involved was the idea that I was in this fascinating,
on the edge, avant garde, extraordinary group of beings," Wallace said. "Life
was always exciting. We were free from the tedium of the world."
And because, as Jennings puts it, Castaneda was a "control freak," followers
were often freed from the anxiety of decision-making. Some had more
independence, but even Wallace and Bruce Wagner, both of whom were given a
certain leeway, were sometimes, according to Wallace, required to have their
writing vetted by Donner-Grau. Jennings and Wallace also report that Castaneda
directed the inner circle's sex lives in great detail.
The most difficult part, Wallace believes, was that you never knew where you
stood. "He'd pick someone, crown them, and was as capable of kicking them out in
48 hours as keeping them 10 years. You never knew. So there was always
trepidation, a lot of jealousy." Sometimes initiates were banished for obscure
spiritual offenses, such as drinking cappuccino (which Castaneda himself guzzled
in great quantities). They'd no longer be invited to the compound. Phone calls
wouldn't be returned. Having been allowed for a time into a secret, magical
family, they'd be abruptly cut off. For some, Wallace believes, this pattern was
highly traumatic. "In a weird way," she said, "the worst thing that can happen
is when you're loved and loved and then abused and abused, and there are no
rules, and the rules keep changing, and you can never do right, but then all of
a sudden they're kissing you. That's the most crazy-making behavioral
modification there is. And that's what Carlos specialized in; he was not
stupid."

[nichi]

and there are no
rules, and the rules keep changing, and you can never do right, but then all of a sudden they're kissing you. That's the most crazy-making behavioral modification there is. And that's what Carlos specialized in; he was not stupid

Interesting stuff! I've often thought about how many of his precepts could be (mis)used in the rankest sorts of group manipulation.

The thing is, though ... whatever Don Juan really was -- a Yaqui brujo, a real informant to CC's "fieldwork", a figment of CC's imagination and alleged fraud, an ingenious literary device, or even, as some speculate, CC's double -- there was a real and palatable Voice there, which speaks into my 'ear'... It took on real life, at some point, and that process is very interesting to me. It's so real to me that the answer to that mystery almost doesn't matter.

I read an article not too long ago about finding the remains of PP in Death Valley - she really did have a "Heaven's Gate" ambience to her. It was through that photo of her that I can believe what you (or your author) are saying.

I'm glad I never met him, but ..... does all of this invalidate the wisdom in the first 5 or so books?  I submit the question honestly.  A schmuck of a human he obviously became,  perhaps drunk with power, but even with that darkness, could he have legitimately channeled this being he called don juan? My senses say yes, even if my mind says "no". Perhaps it's a case of classic cognitive dissonance. Or Stockholm Syndrome, heheh.

Don Juan is very real to me.

The best functioning groups probably span across the globe and universe, not in an isolated compound, eh? The more powerful the individuals in them, the greater the geographical distance between them had better be, I sometimes speculate.

[/rambling thoughts]

[TIOTIT]

I don't make any assumptions to the validity of Castaneda's teachings or techniques....
Truth is Truth no matter what convoluted path it takes...many untruths are necessarily
explored on the journey....although ultimately all is Truth,it's a rare being that truly lives
with a functional and applied knowledge of Truth...every individual has their own slant on
the Truth,it eases them gradually to the moment of complete Truth...Tio


 Whether disciples were allowed to stay or forced to leave seems often to have
depended on the whims of a woman known as the Blue Scout. Trying to describe her
power, Ward recalled a "Twilight Zone" episode in which a little boy could look
at people and make them die. "So everyone treated him with kid gloves," she
said, "and that's how it was with the Blue Scout." She was born Patricia Partin
and grew up in LaVerne, Calif., where, according to Jennings, her father had
been in an accident that left him with permanent brain damage. Partin dropped
out of Bonita High her junior year. She became a waitress, and, at 19, married
an aspiring filmmaker, Mark Silliphant, who introduced her to Castaneda in 1978.
Within weeks of their marriage she left Silliphant and went to live with
Castaneda. She paid one last visit to her mother; in keeping with the nagual's
instructions, she refused to be in a family photograph. For the rest of her
life, she never spoke to her mother again.
Castaneda renamed Partin Nury Alexander. She was also "Claude" as well as the
Blue Scout. She soon emerged as one of his favorites (Castaneda officially
adopted her in 1995.) Followers were told he'd conceived her with Tiggs in the
nagual. He said she had a very rare energy; she was "barely human" -- high
praise from Castaneda. Partin, a perpetual student at UCLA and an inveterate
shopper at Neiman Marcus, was infantilized. In later years, new followers would
be assigned the task of playing dolls with her.
In the late '80s, perhaps because book sales had slowed, or perhaps because he
no longer feared media scrutiny, Castaneda sought to expand. Jennings believes
he may have been driven by a desire to please Partin. Geuter confirms that
Castaneda told followers that the Blue Scout had talked him into starting
Cleargreen. But she also suggests another motivation. "He was thinking about
what he wanted for the rest of his life," Geuter told me. "He always talked
about 'going for the golden clasp.' He wanted to finish with something
spectacular."
Castaneda investigated the possibility of incorporating as a religion, as L. Ron
Hubbard had done with Scientology. Instead, he chose to develop Tensegrity,
which, Jennings believes, was to be the means through which the new faith would
spread. Tensegrity is a movement technique that seems to combine elements of a
rigid version of tai chi and modern dance. In all likelihood the inspiration
came from karate devotees Donner-Grau and Abelar, and from his years of lessons
with martial arts instructor Howard Lee. Documents found by Geuter show him
discussing a project called "Kung Fu Sorcery" with Lee as early as 1988. The
more elegant "Tensegrity" was lifted from Buckminster Fuller, for whom it
referred to a structural synergy between tension and compression. Castaneda
seems to have just liked the sound of it.
A major player in promoting Tensegrity was Wagner, whose fifth novel, "The
Chrysanthemum Palace," was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner prize (his sixth,
"Memorial," was recently released by Simon and Schuster). Wagner hadn't yet
published his first novel when he approached Castaneda in 1988 with the hope of
filming the don Juan books. Within a few years, according to Jennings and
Wallace, he became part of the inner circle. He was given the sorceric name
Lorenzo Drake -- Enzo for short. As the group began to emerge from the shadows,
holding seminars in high school auditoriums and on college campuses, Wagner,
tall, bald and usually dressed in black, would, according to Geuter and Wallace,
act as a sort of bouncer, removing those who asked unwanted questions. (Wagner
declined requests for an interview.) In 1995 Wagner, who'd previously been wed
to Rebecca De Mornay, married Tiggs. That same year his novel "I'm Losing You"
was chosen by the New York Times as a notable book of the year. John Updike, in
the New Yorker, proclaimed that Wagner "writes like a wizard."
In the early '90s, to promote Tensegrity, Castaneda set up Cleargreen, which
operated out of the offices of "Rugrats" producer and Castaneda agent (and
part-time sorcerer) Tracy Kramer, a friend of Wagner's from Beverly Hills High.
Although Castaneda wasn't a shareholder, according to Geuter, "he determined
every detail of the operation." Jennings and Wallace confirm that Castaneda had
complete control of Cleargreen. (Cleargreen did not respond to numerous
inquiries from Salon.) The company's official president was Amalia Marquez
(sorceric name Talia Bey), a young businesswoman who, after reading Castaneda's
books, had moved from Puerto Rico to Los Angeles in order to follow him.
At Tensegrity seminars, women dressed in black, the "chacmools," demonstrated
moves for the audience. Castaneda and the witches would speak and answer
questions. Seminars cost up to $1,200, and as many as 800 would attend.
Participants could buy T-shirts that read "Self Importance Kills -- Do
Tensegrity." The movements were meant to promote health as well as help
practitioners progress as warriors. Illness was seen as a sign of weakness.
Wallace recalls the case of Tycho, the Orange Scout (supposedly the Blue Scout's
sister). "She had ulcerative colitis," Wallace told me. "She was trying to keep
it a secret because if Carlos knew you were sick he'd punish you. If you went
for medical care, he'd kick you out." Once Tycho's illness was discovered,
Wallace said, Tycho was expelled from the group.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
If Castaneda's early books drew on Buddhism and phenomenology, his later work
seemed more indebted to science fiction. But throughout, there was a
preoccupation with meeting death like a warrior. In the '90s, Castaneda told his
followers that, like don Juan, he wouldn't die -- he'd burn from within, turn
into a ball of light, and ascend to the heavens.
In the summer of 1997, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Because sorcerers
weren't supposed to get sick, his illness remained a tightly guarded secret.
While the witches desperately pursued traditional and alternative treatments,
the workshops continued as if nothing was wrong (although Castaneda often wasn't
there). One of the witches, Abelar, flew to Florida to inspect yachts. Geuter,
in notes taken at the time, wondered, "Why are they buying a boat? ... Maybe
Carlos wants to leave with his group, and disappear unnoticed in the wide-open
oceans."
 No boats were purchased. Castaneda continued to decline. He became increasingly
frail, his eyes yellow and jaundiced. He rarely left the compound. According to
Wallace, Tiggs told her the witches had purchased guns. While the nagual lay
bedridden with a morphine drip, watching war videos, the inner circle burned his
papers. A grieving Abelar had begun to drink. "I'm not in any danger of becoming
an alcoholic now," she told Wallace. "Because I'm leaving, so -- it's too late."
Wallace writes: "She was telling me, in her way, that she planned to die."
Wallace also recalls a conversation with Lundahl, the star of the Tensegrity
videos and one of the women who disappeared: "If I don't go with him, I'll do
what I have to do," Wallace says Lundahl told her. "It's too late for you and me
to remain in the world -- I think you know exactly what I mean."
In April 1998, Geuter filmed the inner circle packing up the house. The next
week, at age 72, Castaneda died. He was cremated at the Culver City mortuary. No
one knows what became of his ashes. Within days, Donner-Grau, Abelar, Partin,
Lundahl and Marquez had their phones disconnected and vanished. A few weeks
later, Partin's red Ford Escort was found abandoned in Death Valley's Panamint
Dunes.
Even within the inner circle, few knew that Castaneda was dead. Rumors spread.
Many were in despair: The nagual hadn't "burned from within." Jennings didn't
learn until two weeks later, when Tiggs called to tell him Castaneda was "gone."
The witches, she said, were "elsewhere."
In a proposal for a biography of Castaneda, a project Jennings eventually chose
not to pursue, he writes that Tiggs "also told me she was supposed to have 'gone
with them,' but 'a non-decision decision' kept me here." Meanwhile, the
workshops continued. "Carol also banned mourning within Cleargreen," Jennings
writes, "so its members hid their grief, often drowning it in alcohol or drugs."
Wallace, too, recalls a lot of drug use: "I don't know if they tried to OD so
much as to 'get there.' Get to Carlos." Jennings himself drove to the desert and
thought about committing suicide.
The media didn't learn of Castaneda's death for two months. When the news became
public, Cleargreen members stopped answering their phones. They soon placed a
statement, which Jennings says was written by Wagner, on their Web site: "For
don Juan, the warrior was a being ... who embarks, when the time comes, on a
definitive journey of awareness, 'crossing over to total freedom' ... warriors
can keep their awareness, which is ordinarily relinquished, at the moment of
dying. At the moment of crossing, the body in its entirety is kindled with
knowledge ... Carlos Castaneda left the world the same way that his teacher, don
Juan Matus did: with full awareness."
Many obituaries had a curious tone; the writers seemed uncertain whether to call
Castaneda a fraud. Some expressed a kind of nostalgia for an author whose work
had meant so much to so many in their youth. Korda refused comment. De Mille, in
an interview with filmmaker Ralph Torjan, expressed a certain admiration. "He
was the perfect hoaxer," he told Torjan, "because he never admitted anything."
Jennings, Wallace and Geuter believe the missing women likely committed suicide.
Wallace told me about a phone call to Donner-Grau's parents not long after the
women disappeared. Donner-Grau had been one of the few allowed to maintain
contact with her family. "They were weeping," Wallace said, "because there was
no goodbye. They didn't know what had happened. This was after decades of being
in touch with them."
Castaneda's will, executed three days before his death, leaves everything to an
entity known as the Eagle's Trust. According to Jennings, who obtained a copy of
the trust agreement, the missing women have a considerable amount of money due
to them. Deborah Drooz, the executor of Castaneda's estate, said she has had no
contact with the women. She added that she believes they are still alive.
Jennings believes Castaneda knew they were planning to kill themselves. "He used
to talk about suicide all the time, even for minor things," Jennings told me. He
added that Partin was once sent to identify abandoned mines in the desert, which
could be used as potential suicide sites. (There's an abandoned mine not far
from where her remains were found.) "He regularly told us he was our only hope,"
Jennings said. "We were all supposed to go together, 'make the leap,' whatever
that meant." What did Jennings think it meant? "I didn't know fully," he said.
"He'd describe it in different ways. So would the witches. It seemed to be what
they were living for, something we were being promised."
The promise may have been based on the final scene in "Tales of Power," in which
Carlos leaps from a cliff into the nagual. The scene is later retold in varying
versions. In his 1984 book, "The Fire From Within," Castaneda wrote: "I didn't
die at the bottom of that gorge -- and neither did the other apprentices who had
jumped at an earlier time -- because we never reached it; all of us, under the
impact of such a tremendous and incomprehensible act as jumping to our deaths,
moved our assemblage points and assembled other worlds."
Did Castaneda really believe this? Wallace thinks so. "He became more and more
hypnotized by his own reveries," she told me. "I firmly believe Carlos
brainwashed himself." Did the witches? Geuter put it this way: "Florinda, Taisha
and the Blue Scout knew it was a fantasy structure. But when you have thousands
of eyes looking back at you, you begin to believe in the fantasy. These women
never had to answer to the real world. Carlos had snatched them when they were
very young."
 Wallace isn't sure what the women believed. Because open discussion of
Castaneda's teachings was forbidden, it was impossible to know what anyone
really thought. However, she told me, after living so long with Castaneda, the
women may have felt they had no choice. "You've cut off all your ties," she
said. "Now you're going to go back after all these decades? Who are you going to
go be with? And you feel that you're not one of the common herd anymore. That's
why they killed themselves."
On its Web site, Cleargreen maintains that the women didn't "depart." However,
"for the moment they are not going to appear personally at the workshops because
they want this dream to take wings."
Remarkably, there seems to have been no investigation into at least three of the
disappearances. Except for Donner-Grau, they'd all been estranged from their
families for years. For months after they vanished, none of the other families
knew what had happened. And so, according to Geuter, no one reported them
missing. Salon attempted to locate the three missing women, relying on public
records and phone calls to their previous residences, but discovered no current
trace of them. The Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI confirm that
there's been no official inquiry into the disappearances of Donner-Grau, Abelar
and Lundahl.
There is, however, a file open in the Marquez case. This is due to the tireless
efforts of Luis Marquez, who told Salon that he first tried to report his sister
missing in 1999. But the LAPD, he said, repeatedly ignored him. A year later, he
and his sister Carmen wrote a letter to the missing-persons unit; again, no
response. According to Marquez, it wasn't until Partin's remains were identified
that the LAPD opened a file on Amalia. "To this day," he told me, "they still
refuse to ask any questions or visit Cleargreen." His own attempts to get
information from Cleargreen have been fruitless. According to Marquez, all he's
been told is that the women are "traveling." Detective Lydia Dillard, assigned
to the Marquez case, said that because this is an open investigation, she
couldn't confirm whether anyone from Cleargreen had been interviewed.
In 2002, a Taos, N. M., woman, Janice Emery, a Castaneda follower and workshop
attendee, jumped to her death in the Rio Grande gorge. According to the Santa Fe
New Mexican, Emery had a head injury brought on by cancer. One of Emery's
friends told the newspaper that Emery "wanted to be with Castaneda's people."
Said another: "I think she was really thinking she could fly off." A year later,
a skeleton was discovered near the site of Partin's abandoned Ford. The Inyo
County sheriff's department suspected it was hers. But, due to its desiccated
condition, a positive identification couldn't be made until February 2006, when
new DNA technology became available.
Wallace recalls how Castaneda had told Partin that "if you ever need to rise to
infinity, take your little red car and drive it as fast as you can into the
desert and you will ascend." And, Wallace believes, "that's exactly what she
did: She took her little red car, drove it into the desert, didn't ascend, got
out, wandered around and fainted from dehydration."
Partin's death and the disappearance of the other women isn't Castaneda's entire
legacy. He's been acknowledged as an important influence by figures ranging from
Deepak Chopra to George Lucas. Without a doubt, Castaneda opened the doors of
perception for numerous readers, and many workshop attendees found the
experience deeply meaningful. There are those who testify to the benefits of
Tensegrity. And even some of those who are critical of Castaneda find his
teachings useful. "He was a conduit. I wanted answers to the big questions. He
helped me," Geuter said. But for five of his closest companions, his teachings
-- and his insistence on their literal truth -- may have cost them their lives.
Long after Castaneda had been discredited in academia, Korda continued to insist
on his authenticity. In 2000, he wrote: "I have never doubted for a moment the
truth of his stories about don Juan." Castaneda's books have been profitable for
Simon and Schuster, and according to Korda, were for many years one of the props
on which the publisher rested. Castaneda might have achieved some level of
success if his books had been presented, as James Redfield's "Celestine
Prophecy" is, as allegorical fiction. But Castaneda always insisted he'd made
nothing up. "If he hadn't presented his stories as fact," Wallace told me, "it's
unlikely the cult would exist. As nonfiction, it became impossibly more
dangerous."
To this day, Simon and Schuster stands by Korda's position. When asked whether,
in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the publisher still
regarded Castaneda's books as nonfiction, Adam Rothenberg, the vice president
for corporate communication, replied that Simon and Schuster "will continue to
publish Castaneda as we always have." Tensegrity classes are still held around
the world. Workshops were recently conducted in Mexico City and Hanover,
Germany. Wagner's videos are still available from Cleargreen. According to the
terms of Castaneda's will, book royalties still help support a core group of
acolytes. On Simon and Schuster's Web site, Castaneda is still described as an
anthropologist. No mention is made of his fiction.

[Jahn]

Fiction?

Where does these insults leads. I've read the whole book of Richard De Mille, and I read it in the 1980's. The problem is that a couple of critics cannot see beyond form.

Carlos Castaneda had a mission that he did complete. He was a good storyteller and got many interested in the Toltec Path. However the Toltec Path is always in a change and the time of Castanedas and Don Juans teachings is on its way into the history books. If you read DeMille you will find that he draws a line between fiction and validity. Castanedas books have maximum validity but less of reality (form).

If you want to know more I suggest that you read "I Was Carlos Castaneda -The Afterlife Dialogues" by Martin Goodman

[Jahn]

"People asked if my teacher Don Juan really existed. Of course he did. How could I have woken up without him? A sprinkling of Datura, a dash of Peyote, a swill of water, and traces of the jungle were back in my system. The sap rose with me again.

Others said that my books are filled with invention. The dunderheads. They are blind to their own civilization and they dare to question mine? I move my life to their arid deserts so that my imagination has space to work, to recapture the essence of a truer life in words that entertain them, then they dare to use imagination as a dirty word? I spit on them. What are all the books filled with that they revere so much? Imagination?

How can I go in front of people as a writer, a personality, a personage, when I know that this body they want to pay homage to is just an empty shell?

I have ten books out in the world. They appear in many languages, in many million of copies. Do you imagine it needs ten books to say all that I have to say? Do you think it cannot all be said in the conversations between ourselves? Of course it can. Each book repeats itself, and then each book repeats the other. People thrive on repetition. They are so swamped with meaningless drivel that books are like amusement parks. There is nothing to take in but they come along for the ride. I figure if I keep writing they will take the ride for longer. Who knows, if I keep their attention for long enough they might catch sight of the reality behind all those words. What is that reality? I call it a Separate Reality, but that of course is another of my lies. Reality is reality, and it's our book-reading society that is separate from it.

Then I am dying, and I realize I am a fool. I have kept myself out of the public eye, but I forgot about the public imagination. Millions on millions of people know my name, and each have an impression of me. For some I am like god, for others a charlatan, it makes no difference. There is this gargantuan figure out there, a being called Carlos Castaneda, who is far from imaginary. He finds his source in my life and work, and is fed by the energy of hordes.

My life was passing and I screamed and cursed. People said it was the pain of cancer, but they are fools. I saw the terror of my life force tethered forever to this puffed-up pain-filled ghost. I die but the distorted Castaneda of people's imaginations will live on and drag me with it. To live in the public imagination, Martin, believe me that is damnation. It is fire and brimstones. Of course I screamed and cursed.

And so I have come back. How I did so, I agree, we will leave till later. Why is very simple. I have two tasks. One to reclaim the boy Carlos as part of myself and so be free to leave his world behind. The other, to somehow deflate the public image of me and replace it with something I can bring myself to live with. Or die with.

He chuckles, sniffs the whisky one more time, then downs it in one gulp. His eyes shine as he holds out the glass for more.

From: I was Carlos Castaneda - The Afterlife dialogues
by Martin Goodman

So now you have the masters voice in print, what is your comment about more truths?

[Jahn]

"Much has been said as to wether this is real antrophology or wether the pseudonym, don Juan, hides any one real person, or where precisely the elements of fiction and truth are found. The purpose of this article /The Authencity of Castaneda/ is to consider whether the latest campus cult deserves serious attention from antrophologists. The answer is obviously yes. In itself the philosophy of ascetic mysticism, so gradually put together, is enough evidence of truth in the tale. It would be flippant to dismiss it. "(RdeM, pp. 25. ).

[Jahn]

"“Learning and the love of learning were the bonds between us,“ Margaret wrote. “We are married spiritually and always will be.“ The spiritual marriage has taken some rather hard knocks. After four years of friendship they were married in Tijuana on 27 January 1960. Six months later Castaneda moved out of Margarets‘s apartment. The explanation was that Carlos had met Don Juan and must spend weeks at time studying with him“. The separation lasted for 13 years; Margaret filed for divorce in 1973. /De Mille continues/

Castaneda spent a lot of time with Margaret‘s son, whom he eventually insisted on adop¬ting./.../ Though Margaret always supported herself, Castanedas literary success resulted in his putting money into her telephone answering service and furnishing sporadic child support. /.../ When he wanted to, he helped. The trouble was, one never knew when he would want to. The only thing you could count on was that you couldn‘t count on anything. If he said he would come, he stayed away. When you didn‘t expect him, he could arrive. When you got used to his being around, he would vanish./.../ Don Juan call this sort of thing disrupting the routines of life and recommends it as a mystical technique, but ordinary people call it heedlesss irresponsibility and condemn it as antisocial. The sorcerers world and the social world have very different rules. (RdeM, pp 367)

[Jahn]

"RdeM: Did you ever visit Carlos where he lived?
Barbara M: Yes. During the time when my father was dying. Carlos was living about two blocks from the hospital, and I would frequently stop off there on my way back. He brewed me a special tea, form an herb called angelita, and we would exhort one another to courage. I felt he was very supportive, in a genuine, simple way.
RdeM: You found him always to have this gentle, healing quality?
Barbara M: When you could pin him down. Or when he came around. But if you had Expectation One, forget it. He was not someone you could count on to be there when you needed him. (R deMille, The Don Juan Papers, pp 348.)

[Jahn]

The one and only perspective:

“Everything that I’ve let you go through” he went on ”every separate thing that I’ve showed you had only the purpose to convince you that there is more inside of us that only can been seen with the bare eye. We don’t need anyone that teach us sorcery because there is actually nothing to learn. What we need is a teacher that can convince us that there is a unbelievable power in reach for us /…/

“Is it that what you are doing Don Juan – trying to convince me?”
“Exactly! I try to convince you that you can get in reach for that power. I have gone through it all myself. And I was as hard as you to convince.”
(The Power of Silence pp 9).

[Jahn]

"We don’t need anyone that teach us sorcery because there is actually nothing to learn. What we need is a teacher that can convince us that there is a unbelievable power in reach for us "

Our Unlimited Potential: which is Our Nagual manifesting in Tonal. Only we can do that, noone will manifest oour potential instead of us, of course not. So do not rely on God, Spirit, our friends, our partner our boss or who ever in that matter.

[nichi]

I can understand how traumatic it must have been for CC, to have his works criticized as "fraud" so early into his publishing career. I understand why he went into hiding. I would have done the same, no doubt. The thing is, though ... all of his works are still in print, and readers are still buying his books, which is quite the feat in the literary world, 30+ years later from their original printing. So these allegations of fraud didn't really hurt the flow of his works getting to the readers. ~A decided victory for him. There's a saying in the US, that he is "crying all the way to the bank."

These accusations have been going on for a long time, and it's rather fascinating watching the zeal with which the folks associated with Sustained Action debunk and naysay him.  It only validates how much power his works had, to have so many trying to tear them down. In the end, you can't reinvent or destroy the zeitgeist of a former generation -- what was, was. Those who lived it know it.

And what was transcendent and brilliant in the works still lives on. And that is true, despite Chapter Two, when he nurtured this cult-style group of people. That part is distressing, and so tragically human. 

But still, Don Juan is very real to me ... and will always be.

[erik]

Oh well, Castaneda has been criticised and disagreed with by other Toltecs as well.

For example, Theun Mares has said that Castaneda was able to recall only a part of the Rule of Nagual and provided thereby a distorted picture of what it is about. Interestingly, Mares says that nagual woman does not have to leave his nagual. They actually ought to live and travel together.

As far as I understand, Miguel Ruiz disagrees with Castaneda in teaching methods.

Yet it all only testifies to how immensely hard it is to walk the sharp end of the razor blade.