by BJW Nashe
Carlos Castaneda’s journey from anthropology student to famous author to New Age cult leader makes for a strange tale that is far more disturbing than anything found in his bestselling books.
At the peak of his career, Castaneda crossed over an invisible line. He turned his back on the clear light of humane, rational thought, and stepped into a shadowy realm of manipulation, secrecy, and lies. It’s tempting to compare this to the metaphorical leap into the abyss that figures so heavily in his writings. Yet Castaneda’s real-life leap had consequences that were quite different from the magical escapades depicted in his writing. Once he became rich and famous and began facing scrutiny, Castaneda shunned the limelight and spent the next two-and-a-half decades pursuing a bizarre alternative lifestyle largely hidden from the public. He proclaimed himself a shaman and a sorcerer and assumed the role of a mysterious guru surrounded by a group of close followers.
When Castaneda passed away in 1998, several of his disciples simply disappeared. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. Since then, others from Castaneda’s inner circle have spoken out about their experiences with “the Nagual.” A highly complex, sinister, and sleazy portrait of the man has now emerged. The most detailed source of information is a memoir published by Amy Wallace (daughter of novelist Irving Wallace) in 2003 called Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda. Robert Marshall’s discussion of Castaneda’s dark legacy in a 2007 article for Salon.com is also very informative, drawing on both Wallace’s book and interviews with other insiders who knew Castaneda well. We are ultimately left with a lasting image of Castaneda as a creepy cult leader who manipulated and controlled his closest female followers — known as “the witches” — to such an extent that they may have been led to end their own lives.
Stopping the World
What we know of Carlos Castaneda’s life prior to his meteoric rise to fame is fairly unremarkable. He was born on December 25, 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. In January 1960, he married Margaret Runyan. On August 12, 1961, Margaret gave birth to a son named Carlton Jeremy (“C.J.”) Castaneda. Carlos supposedly divorced Margaret in 1973, although records indicate they remained legally married throughout Castaneda’s life.
As a young man, Castaneda enrolled in UCLA to study ethnography. He may have dropped out for a while — there are conflicting reports on his education — but records show that he graduated with a B.A. in anthropology in 1962. He went on to pursue a doctorate degree at UCLA, continuing his anthropology studies. Post-graduate education in California in the 1960s could be pretty free-wheeling. Castaneda was able to take advantage of this by reading widely in various esoteric disciplines and making frequent trips to the desert to conduct research. It was during his grad student years that Castaneda decided to start writing about his “apprenticeship” with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer named Don Juan Matus, whom he claimed to have met while immersing himself in the rich lore surrounding psychoactive plants in the Sonora Desert. Castaneda aspired to be a “psychedelic scholar” loosely modeled after Aldous Huxley, whose book The Doors of Perception was very influential at the time.
Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, was published in 1968 by the UC Press, which led to a book deal with Simon and Schuster. Castaneda followed his debut with two further texts, A Separate Reality (1971) and Journey to Ixtlan (1973). All three books were recognized as anthropological field studies, and marketed as popular non-fiction. Journey to Ixtlan was submitted as a doctoral thesis, for which Castaneda received a Ph.D. in 1973. The UCLA faculty were not the only ones impressed with Carlos’s writing. The books found a large audience with counter-culture types — which was a thriving market back in the early 1970s. Scores of long-haired college students, hippie travelers, metaphysical seekers, and dabblers in the occult found Castaneda’s books to be irresistible — a kind of intellectual catnip. These books seemed to be tailor-made to fit their various preoccupations.
The popularity of Castaneda’s early work is not difficult to understand. A talented storyteller blessed with natural wit and charisma, Carlos also had just enough erudition to be dangerous. His first-person accounts of traveling to the Sonora to become initiated into the magical world of Don Juan and his fellow sorcerers make for compelling reading. The desert setting is rendered in vivid detail, the prose is crisp and clear, and the characters are alternately fascinating, eccentric, and menacing. Most important, the subject matter is mind-blowing — a philosophical walk on the wild side, in which the narrator is taught to “stop the world” by breaking free from his habitual ways of thinking and perceiving. Stopping the world allows him to enter another dimension of reality — the “nagual” — that is filled with supernatural intensity. Becoming a “warrior” in this psychic zone involves various outlandish activities such as ingesting powerful hallucinogens, learning to control dreams, talking to luminous coyotes and dogs, and turning into a crow and flying through the desert sky.
The star of the show is Don Juan Matus, who comes across as a psychedelic Native American zen master with a sharp occult edge. The world of sorcery is fraught with peril, often a life-and-death struggle against powerful dark forces. Yet Don Juan’s teachings contain a strong current of anarchic humor. The second book (A Separate Reality) opens with the narrator “Carlos” paying a visit to Don Juan in order to present him with a copy of the first book, which he is immensely proud to have authored. Don Juan declines the gift, suggesting that it be used as toilet paper instead. Then a new cycle of grueling apprenticeship begins, even more intense than the last time. Once again, Carlos’s mind must be blown to smithereens in order to obtain true visionary power.
Becoming Inaccessible
Castaneda’s books would go on to sell more than ten million copies during his lifetime (and they are still selling today). He received glowing reviews from the literary establishment. Notable anthropologists from the nation’s top universities praised his work. With fame and success came heightened scrutiny, however. In 1973, Time Magazine ran an article by Sandra Burton that raised serious questions about the details of Castaneda’s biography and the credibility of his apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus. Richard De Mille (son of film director Cecil B. De Mille) thoroughly investigated Castaneda and published a book called Castaneda’s Journey: The Power and the Allegory that declared the Don Juan books to be fraudulent — little more than a clever hoax. De Mille reviewed library records at UCLA to demonstrate that Castaneda imported the content of Don Juan’s teachings from a slew of historical and metaphysical texts. Castaneda’s true adventure, claimed De Mille, occurred not in the Sonora desert, but among the stacks of the university library. De Mille also argued that Castaneda’s details regarding the Yaqui Indians of Northern Mexico were insufficient or inaccurate. Most damaging, in the eyes of many, is De Mille’s assertion that Yaqui Indians do not use peyote in magical rituals as depicted by Castaneda.
In hindsight, it is hard to believe that anyone — including the faculty at UCLA — considered Castaneda’s writing to be literally true. The books might be based in part on field research and interviews with Native Americans. They may contain a certain level of poetic or spiritual “truth.” So does Paradise Lost, yet few of us today would claim that Milton’s masterpiece is a “true story.” These days, hardly anyone considers Castaneda’s stories about Don Juan Matus to be pure non-fiction — no matter where they are shelved in bookstores. Yet Castaneda’s books remain popular works of metaphysical literature that sit comfortably alongside Gurdjieff, Crowley, Huxley, and Ouspensky.
As criticism of his work intensified, Castaneda stopped talking to the press. He did not retreat from public life altogether; there were still parties to go to, and people to meet. After the Time article in 1973, however, Carlos gave no more interviews, refused to be photographed or filmed, and would not allow his voice to be recorded. He also forbade those close to him from speaking to the press or discussing him in any way without his approval. In a telling move, Castaneda also severed all ties with his estranged wife Margaret Runyan and their son C.J.
Castaneda had no interest in defending his writing as literature. He has been described as a trickster who pulled off the perfect hoax, because he never admitted to any fault whatsoever. In fact, he remained committed to the illusion of truth perpetuated by the hoax. He wanted people to think he had been initiated into a world of secret knowledge. He wanted to be recognized as an actual sorcerer. And he craved followers who believed in his magic. Since he was a famous figure, there were plenty of fans willing to sit at the feet of the master. Castaneda began referring to himself as “the Nagual” — as if he were a supernatural being with all-knowing powers. He was such a compelling fabulist that he apparently brainwashed himself into believing his own BS.
Erasing Personal History
Castaneda continued publishing books throughout the 1970s and 80s. He also began organizing his followers and channeling their activities in certain strategic directions. Along with the philosophy presented in his writings, he also began promoting a spiritual practice called “Tensegrity,” which is best described as a movement technique somewhat similar to Tai chi. Carlos claimed the technique had been passed down through 25 generations of Toltec shamans. Castaneda established a Los Angeles-based corporation called Cleargreen, which promoted Tensegrity through workshops, seminars, and instructional videos. People paid up to $1200 to attend sessions where Castaneda and his disciples would speak and answer questions, while Tensegrity demonstrations were performed by black-clad acolytes called “chacmools.” Books and videos were on sale, along with T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “Self Importance Kills — Do Tensegrity.” The workshops were quite successful, often selling out. Castaneda was a marketable brand. (It should be noted that Cleargreen’s outreach continues to this day, with locations in Southern California, Europe, and Latin America.)
Behind the scenes, life at Castaneda’s compound on Pandora Avenue in Westwood was growing increasingly strange. At the core of the Nagual’s inner circle — which numbered up to two dozen people at any given time — was a group of intensely devoted young women who were all at one time or another romantically linked to Castaneda. They were referred to as “the witches.” Once they were lured into Castaneda’s orbit, he instructed them to change their names and cease all contact with their former friends and families. Then they were subjected to various methods of control: hypnosis, verbal and emotional abuse, mind games, bizarre rituals, dubious teachings, and sexual domineering. The women were forbidden from exhibiting any signs of illness, should they ever become sick. They began dressing in a similar style of black clothes and sporting the same short, dyed blonde haircuts. They each claimed to have been instructed by Don Juan Matus in the desert. Two of them were directed by Carlos to write their own books about these “apprenticeships.” The primary task of the witches, however, was recruiting new female members for the Nagual to share his unique magic with.
Within the group, three women were particularly close to Castaneda: Taisha Abelar, Florinda Donner-Grau, and Carol Tiggs. Tiggs at one point defected from the cult, but was eventually lured back by Carlos. Amalia Marquez, who served as president of Cleargreen Corporation, and Kylie Lundahl, a Tensegrity instructor, were also key figures in the Nagual’s inner circle. The individual with the strangest role of all in Castaneda’s inner circle was Patricia Partin, also known as “the Blue Scout.”
Patricia Partin grew up in LaVerne, California. After dropping out of Bonita High School during her junior year, she worked as a waitress for a while, and then at 19 got married to an aspiring filmmaker named Mark Silliphant. At some point during their courtship, Silliphant introduced Partin to Castaneda in 1977. Just 19 days into their marriage, Partin left her new husband and went to live with Carlos. She paid one last visit to her mother, during which she refused to pose for a family photograph. She never spoke to her mother again.
Castaneda renamed her Partin Nury Alexander. He also referred to her as “Claude,” or the Blue Scout. Young and attractive, she soon enjoyed a privileged status as one of his favorite disciples. Carlos claimed she possessed a rare energy that was “barely human.” In an exceedingly odd move, Castaneda officially adopted her in 1995, then explained to the other witches that he had “conceived her with Carol Tiggs in the nagual.” Carlos evidently enjoyed the conceptual incest involved in the adoption arrangement. Within the group, Partin was frequently infantilized. New cult members would be assigned the task of playing dolls with her. Castaneda at times deferred to her judgment regarding serious spiritual matters. He told the group that the Blue Scout had convinced him to start Cleargreen. He liked to use her special status as leverage in the mind games he played with the others.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Amy Wallace, who was closely associated with the group during the early 1990s, has provided us with the clearest picture of what life was like in Castaneda’s cult, with his harem of witches and his adopted daughter, the Blue Scout.
Castaneda first met Amy through her father, novelist Irving Wallace, who was friendly with the younger author. Carlos would often stop by the Wallace home in Los Angeles. Shortly after Irving’s death in 1990, Amy — who was then living in Berkeley — received a phone call from Castaneda in which he said that her father had visited him in a dream, saying that he was trapped inside the Wallace’s house, and needed Amy and Carlos to free him. (This pickup line probably only works if you are a famous New Age author.) Amy agreed to meet up with Castaneda in LA, and the seduction was underway. He told her he hadn’t had sex in the last 20 years (!), and soon persuaded her to join him in bed for a mystical experience. When she worried about possible pregnancy (the Nagual did not use birth control), Castaneda exclaimed, “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.” The vasectomy he’d undergone years earlier was never mentioned.
The courtship with Amy lasted for several weeks, and led directly into mind games and manipulation. At one point, Castaneda told her they were “energetically married.” However, when he noticed her checking the street signs around the compound — as if trying to get her bearings — he flew into a rage and banished her back to Berkeley. When she called on the phone, Carlos refused to speak to her. The witches instructed her to “let go of her attachments.” So she got rid of her pet cats. Then Carlos told her she was “an egotistical, spoiled Jew” who should “go get a job at McDonald’s.” After six months of this treatment, she was finally allowed to return.
Such expulsions were common within the cult, and could occur arbitrarily, without rhyme or reason. If the Blue Scout didn’t like you, obviously you were toast. As in most cult situations, random exercises of power were used to keep the Nagual’s followers fearful and subservient. The obvious question is, why would anyone, including Amy Wallace, ever want to return? Why would anyone stick around in the first place?
We can answer this question in four ways — personal, social, philosophical, and psychological. First, Castaneda could be a charming and charismatic leader, when it suited his purposes. His personal magnetism was augmented by an aura of genius and fame. Certain people were easily seduced by him. Second, group members enjoyed a sense of close family connection that may have been absent from their lives before. Being part of a group — even a dysfunctional, abusive group — is sometimes viewed as preferable to alienation. Third, for people who are seeking something deeper and more meaningful than a normal nine-to-five existence in the business world, the Nagual’s spiritual philosophy and sexual games provided a clear alternative. Fourth, people who join cults often experience — at least temporarily — a sense of joy in being liberated from the responsibilities of decision-making. Freedom can be a burden. When someone else — a charismatic leader — is calling all the shots, one can be carefree in one’s subservience.
So there were certain “benefits” gained from living in Castaneda’s cult. As far as cults go, the benefits of Cleargreen were notable. Still, most of us would soon find these benefits seriously overshadowed by the horrors involved. In a 2012 interview with the Examiner, Amy Wallace explained that her passionate love affair with Carlos was initially intoxicating, yet soon devolved into abuse and humiliation. He berated her in front of the others for being “fat,” even though she was a petite woman who wore a size zero. He blamed her for “killing” him. He flipped out when he discovered that she was taking Prozac. “He believed he was cursed forever because his penis had entered a Prozac-contaminated body.” She witnessed him expel members from the group for drinking, smoking pot, and for getting sick or injured. Meanwhile, Carlos was always on the prowl for nubile young women, sometimes engaging in activities that bordered on kidnapping. In hindsight, it’s surprising that criminal charges were never brought against him. In writing her memoir, Wallace recalled that at one point she felt so tormented that she considered suicide. “Just remembering how close I came still terrifies me. It was horrific to write about.”
Amy Wallace has published several other books on various topics, yet she received her highest praise from readers and reviewers alike for telling her story about life with Carlos Castaneda. She insightfully describes both the seductive qualities that lead people to follow cult leaders, and the nightmare that awaits them once they get caught up in the lifestyle. “My book is very much a warning,” she says.
A Leap into the Void
In 1997, Castaneda was diagnosed with liver cancer. The diagnosis was kept secret from everyone except the core group of witches, because illness was not supposed to be part of the sorcerer’s playbook. The seminars and workshops continued on as if nothing was wrong. Meanwhile the witches privately supervised traditional and alternative treatments for the Nagual.
With his health declining, Castaneda rarely left the compound. Many of the witches purchased guns, according to Carol Tiggs. This is not a good sign for any cult, since it could lead to random violence or a Branch Davidian-style Waco conflagration. Another bad sign is when the cult leader is bedridden with a morphine drip, gazing at the flickering images of war videos on the TV/VCR, while his closest followers are busy burning his papers. Taisha Abelar was drinking heavily, yet she told Amy Wallace it didn’t matter anymore. “I’m not in any danger of becoming an alcoholic now,” she said, “because I’m leaving. So, it’s too late.” Wallace figures that this was Abelar’s way of indicating that her own death was near.
An end-of-the-world vibe permeated the group. Wallace had another revealing conversation during this tense time period. Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundahl told her, “If I don’t go with him, I’ll do what I have to do… It’s too late for you and me to remain in the world — I think you know exactly what I mean.”
In April 1998, the witches and other members of the inner circle were packing up the Castaneda compound. A week later, the Nagual died at age 72. He was cremated at the Culver City mortuary. No one knows where his ashes ended up. Within a few days, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Patricia Partin, Kylie Lundahl, and Amalia Marquez had their phones disconnected. Then they all vanished, leaving no word with anyone as to their whereabouts (at least, not that we know of). A few weeks later, Partin’s red Ford Escort was found abandoned in Death Valley. Her sun-bleached skeleton would be discovered five years later in the desert.
Within the greater community of Cleargreen associates and followers, few knew that Castaneda was dead. Yet rumors quickly spread, leading to a sense of growing despair. Still, the workshops continued. Carol Tiggs assumed a leadership role within the corporation. She told one member of the inner circle that she was supposed to have “gone with them,” but “a non-decision decision” had kept her here to run the show. Tiggs banned all grieving and mourning within Cleargreen. Many reportedly took to drowning their sorrows in alcohol and drugs. Some contemplated suicide in order to “get close to Carlos.”
When news of Castaneda’s death was finally made public two months after the fact, Cleargreen members stopped answering their phones. A brief statement was soon posted on the web site claiming that “… Carlos Castaneda left the world the same way that his teacher, don Juan Matus did: with full awareness.”
Nobody knows for sure what happened to Partin, the Blue Scout, in Death Valley. Nobody knows the fate of other three women closest to Castaneda who disappeared shortly after his passing. Some Cleargreen people think they are still alive, and have started over in a new setting, with new identities. Most people familiar with the story think they committed suicide. Without the Nagual, they saw no point in going on. Perhaps they had formed a suicide pact. Maybe the Nagual knew all about it. Followers had frequently heard Castaneda and the witches talking about suicide — about “making the leap” together. The path of the Warrior included choosing one’s own death. Carlos reportedly once sent the Blue Scout out to the desert to locate possible suicide locations.
There is no record with the LAPD or FBI of any investigation into at least three of the disappearances — Donner-Grau, Abelar, and Lundahl. No one reported them missing, since they had been estranged from their families for years.
There is an open investigation into the Amalia Marquez case, due to the efforts of her brother Luis. He claims the LAPD ignored his requests for assistance until the skeletal remains of the fifth missing cult member — Patricia Partin — were discovered in Death Valley in 2003 and positively identified in 2006 using DNA testing. Still, Luis Marquez claims the LAPD has been reluctant to visit Cleargreen or question anyone there about possible foul play. When Luis contacts Cleargreen headquarters himself, he is told that the missing women are “traveling.”
In a related incident in 2002, a woman named Janice Emery from Taos, New Mexico, who was a Cleargreen follower and workshop attendee, jumped to her death in the Rio Grande gorge. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Emery was suffering from cancer. One of her friends told the newspaper that she ended her life because she “wanted to be with Castaneda’s people.” Another friend said: “I think she was really thinking she could fly off.”
A Different Sort of Leap
An astonishing fact to ponder: so many organizations devoted to spiritual well-being — from mega churches to fringe cults — seem to share a very disturbing characteristic: domination, control, and abuse of women. We see this feature in certain fundamentalist denominations of Christianity and Islam. We see it in the Church of Scientology. We know it was all-too apparent in the Manson Family, the People’s Temple at Jonestown, and the Branch Davidian compound at Waco. I’m sure there are other examples. In this sense, Castaneda’s cult is not exceptional or unique. It fits into a general pattern of misogyny and sexual subjugation seen in many other faith-based institutions and groups.
The domination and control of women is so prevalent in these organizations that one wonders whether it is more than just an ugly tendency or side-effect. Is it too much of a leap to argue that the domination of women just might be the primary goal or mission of the leaders of these groups? Are all of the mystical teachings and metaphysical doctrines just a smokescreen for the true objective? Is religion sometimes just a convenient way for men to control other people — in particular, women? It certainly starts to look that way, when we consider the case of Carlos Castaneda, AKA the Nagual.