?July 4, 1985 - La Gorda allegedly dies of a brain aneurysm at Castaneda and the Witches¡¯ compound in Westwood. [At a December 1995 Sunday session, Castaneda gave the date as July 4, at 4 PM. A recent review of all death certificates for females on that date in L.A. County failed to turn up any that matched the information given to date for la Gorda.] Castaneda, Taisha and Florinda are all on hand, and later sometimes attribute la Gorda¡¯s death to "egomania." [At the Rim Institute in 1993, they explained that la Gorda "got tired of waiting around for Carlos and tried to leap by herself. She died as a result and we buried her." A participant at another early workshop reported Florinda describing how la Gorda grabbed her by the arm, telling her they were going to leave together. Castaneda, at a Sunday session, said, "Taisha never lost her cool, and told la Gorda to ¡®change channels.¡¯ She even blew on her ear to try to move her to change channels, but la Gorda was too locked into her compulsion. Florinda and I ¡®went to pieces.¡¯" According to Castaneda, "another fatso," Cecilia, had to be admitted to a mental institution following la Gorda¡¯s death. Castaneda blamed himself for not seeing that la Gorda had an ego fixation. He subsequently traveled to Mexico City where, according to a lecture he gave in Mexico City in 1996, he encountered a former female associate of don Juan.
1985? - Florinda attends the wedding of Jacques Barzaghi [longtime aide to former Gov. Jerry Brown] and sees Celeste Fremon (who had written an interview with Castaneda for Seventeen Magazine under the name Gwyneth Cravens, and spent considerable time with him in 1972, whom Florinda had not seen since attending a Barzaghi party with Castaneda in 1982). Florinda confides to Celeste that "all of the apprentices are in a terrible emotional state," describing how "one of their sorcery teachers had turned old before their eyes. Like the picture of Dorian Gray. It was like something you¡¯d imagine seeing in a science-fiction movie, but we actually saw it happen," according to Florinda. She also said that Carlos was very ill and living in Arizona. "We don¡¯t know what to do," she said. "We are waiting for him to lead us. But he doesn¡¯t know what to do either, so we just have to wait." [From July 3, 1998, L.A. Weekly remembrance of Castaneda by Celeste Fremon.]
July 8, 1985 - Cecilia Evans, "aka Beverly Evans," nominates and appoints Anna Marie Carter as "the conservator of my person in the event the Court finds it necessary to appoint such a conservator in my behalf." This statement, filed as attachment 3c to petition for Appointment of Conservator, gives Cecilia¡¯s address as CPC Alhambra Hospital, 4619 Rosemead Blvd., Rosemead, CA. [Annamarie Carter¡¯s petition states that Cecilia has no known relatives, that "the conservatee voluntarily requests the appointment of a conservator having been voluntarily admitted as a patient in Alhambra Hospital following an apparent mental breakdown," and checks the box indicating that the conservatee would attend the hearing. Cecilia¡¯s permanent address is given as 1672 Pandora Ave., LA 90024. The petition is filed July 23, 1985. Regine Thal ("Florinda") signs as the process server. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 22, 1985. The hearing is apparently continued to Sept. 19, 1985. There are no further documents in the file. Case No. P 700369.]
[Note: Beverly Evans (formerly Beverly Madge Ames) had previously filed, on July 28, 1978, for change of name to Cecilia Evans. The petition stated that she was born in Glendale, CA, on Sept. 14, 1937, and resided at 1376 1/2 Midvale, Los Angeles ¨C the same address as Nuri Alexander gave on her name change application, filed the same day. Case No. WEC 54720.] [Further note: Although the conservatorship petition stated that Cecilia had "no known relatives," prior to her voluntary commitment, Cecilia had custody of her two sons, then aged 13 and 10, from her five-and-a-half year marriage to Frederick Guilford.]
October 3, 1985 - Castaneda executes an 11-page will in Beverly Hills leaving his estate in four equal shares to Mary Joan Barker, Regine Thal (aka Florinda Donner), Annamarie Carter and Nuri Alexander. Barry R. Wilk and Jerome A. Ward are named as co-executors (witnesses are E. Coventry Fatmore and Edward Friedman). In the will, Castaneda "expressly and intentionally omitted" Adrian Gerritsen, Jr., aka C.J. Castaneda, and Maria del Rosario ("Charo") Peters (apparently Castaneda¡¯s natural daughter, from his first marriage in Peru). [Note: Elizabeth Austin ¨C i.e., Carol ¨C is not a beneficiary.][Further note: Since Castaneda's Peruvian daughter, Maria del Rosario Peters, was not mentioned in his final will in 1998, and therefore not given notice of the probate, might she have standing to request that the probate proceedings be reopened?]
Late Fall [?] 1985 -- Carol is reunited with Castaneda at a lecture at Phoenix Bookstore in Santa Monica. [See description below from March 1994 Details Magazine piece. The individual later known as Renata Murez is reportedly seated beside Carol during this lecture.]
[October 11, 1986 - a Kathleen Pohlman marries a Victor C. Tripple in Las Vegas. (I haven¡¯t ordered the license yet on this one, so I don¡¯t know whether it is our Carol, and possibly Castaneda, or not.) Certificate B649635.]
1988? - Tracy Kramer and Bruce Wagner meet with Carol Tiggs at Bel Air Hotel [?] to pitch her on making movies of Castaneda¡¯s books. [Wagner purportedly first met Castaneda in 1988 per his declaration in Deborah Drooz¡¯s summary judgment motion in the probate proceedings in January 1999.]
April 5, 1988 - Elizabeth Austin files for change of name to Muni Alexander. She lists her place of birth as Hollywood, CA; residence as 1376 1/2 Midvale Ave.; mother¡¯s name as Harriet Witbeck Pohlman, at 1276 Rimmer Ave., Pacific Palisades, 90272; and father as Max Edward Pohlman, deceased. Name change was effective May 20, 1988. [L.A. Superior Court No. Central C682126.]
October 1992 - Florinda lectures a crowd of 200 at the Jewish Cultural Center in Berkeley, at a lecture sponsored by Gaia Bookstore. Carol is on hand, and Florinda introduces her to the audience as the Nagual woman. [Someone I know went up to her afterward and asked where she was for the 10 years. She reportedly got cagey and started to sweat, and didn¡¯t really answer the question.]
1993 - Castaneda¡¯s The Art of Dreaming published by HarperCollins. Castaneda begins by explaining that he had previously written about the first party that don Juan had found for him, but "I have never mentioned the second group of apprentices; don Juan did not permit me to do so." [Even though don Juan was gone by ¡®73, before Tales of Power was published?] "He argued that they were exclusively in my field and that the agreement I had with him was to write about his field, not mine. The second group of apprentices was extremely compact. It had only three members: a dreamer, Florinda Donner-Grau; a stalker, Taisha Abelar; and a nagual woman, Carol Tiggs." p. x. He further explained, "It took me fifteen years of uninterrupted work, from 1973 to 1988, to store enough energy to rearrange everything linearly in my mind. I remembered then sequences upon sequences of dreaming events, and I was able to fill in, at last, some seeming lapses of memory. . . . . Being in possession of most of the pieces of don Juan¡¯s lessons in the art of dreaming, I would like to explain, in a future work, the current position and interest of his last four students: Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Carol Tiggs, and myself." p. xi. Carol Tiggs takes the stage again when Castaneda revisits his rescue from the "foggy, yellowish world." This time he explains he was caught there by the inorganic beings, after voicing his intent to rescue the Blue Scout. When he comes to, don Juan explains to him that he had rounded up "everyone I could get hold of, especially Carol Tiggs," to go off to the inorganic beings¡¯ realm to save him. p. 138. In responding to his own party¡¯s questions as to what is to be done with the scout, don Juan explains, "It is a most serious problem, which the nagual here has to resolve. He and Carol Tiggs are the only ones who can free the scout." p. 140. Later the dreaming emissary gives Castaneda instructions on what "Carol Tiggs and I had to do to liberate the scout." p. 146.
In Chapter 10, Castaneda explains that, while he had met Taisha Abelar in the world of everyday life a few years before, he was now meeting Florinda Grau and Carol Tiggs in "the world of everyday life." In Mexico City, don Juan tells him that Carol Tiggs is arriving on a flight from Los Angeles "exclusively to fulfill the last dreaming task" of the third gate of dreaming with Castaneda. p. 187. Castaneda goes with Carol to her room in the St. Regis Hotel, where they supposedly get catapulted with all of their physicality by the inorganics into another world. Don Juan then recommends that he and Carol "see as little of each other as possible" to avoid being used and taken by the inorganics. p. 198. Castaneda is introduced to the death defier at the church in Tula, and "dreams her dream" -- i.e., fourth gate dreaming. He then wakes up in the churchyard, where Carol had found him naked and unconscious, with his head on Tiggs¡¯s lap. As he talks to her he is surprised that she has lost her lisp, and that she seems remarkably articulate, knowledgeable and philosophical compared to how he¡¯d remembered her. When Castaneda tells her about the death defier being a woman, Carol reveals that she too has been "dreaming" with the death defier, a "couple weeks" before, when "She made me see how she actually escaped her captors." p. 245. Carol then asks him how he likes the clothes she is wearing. Castaneda explains, "Carol was always exquisitely dressed. If there was anything certain about her, it was her impeccable taste in clothes. In fact, as long as I had known her, it had been a running joke between don Juan and the rest of us that her only virtue was her expertise at buying beautiful clothes and wearing them with grace and style." p. 247. Carol then explains that they are now "intending in the second attention," and that the death defier had made Castaneda fall asleep there, and Carol in Tucson. p. 249. They then go to the Hotel Catedral, where Castaneda tells Carol that he "absolutely adore[s]" her. Carol then explains that the death defier¡¯s gift to him "was the wings of intent. And with them, you and I are dreaming ourselves in another time. In a time yet to come." p. 253. When Castaneda awakes, he¡¯s alone, and the hotel desk manager tells him that the American woman who had rented the room just left a moment before. Castaneda then walks to don Juan¡¯s house, finding him and his companions in the "throes of agitation." After Castaneda explains about Carol having found him, as she had told him she had been sent by don Juan to do, don Juan explains "Carol Tiggs hasn¡¯t been with us at all. And you¡¯ve been gone for nine days." p. 255. When they return to the hotel, "[t]he same manager I had spoken to earlier obligingly listened to our description of Carol Tiggs, but he flatly denied ever having seen her or me before" The manager calls on the hotel maids for corroboration. p. 256. Castaneda also sees that he is no longer wearing Carol¡¯s clothes, with which she had rescued him, but his own. Don Juan then figures out that the death defier "made use of Carol Tiggs¡¯s energy body, in some obscure, ominous fashion . . . and created the Carol Tiggs of the hotel, a Carol Tiggs of sheer intent." p. 258. Don Juan then shares the following realization: "I believe there is no longer any Carol Tiggs. There isn¡¯t any woman in the church either; both have merged and flown away on the wings of intent, I believe, forward. The reason the Carol Tiggs of the hotel was so worried about her appearance was because she was the woman in the church, making you dream a Carol Tiggs of another kind; an infinitely more powerful Carol Tiggs." Id. Don Juan further surmises that the death defier¡¯s gift consisted of "endless dreaming possibilities. One of them was your dream of Carol Tiggs in another time, in another world; a more vast world, open-ended; a world where the impossible might even be feasible. The implication was not only that you will live those possibilities but that one day you will comprehend them." p. 259. Finally -- after Castaneda asks "What do you think happened to Carol Tiggs?" -- don Juan explains, "Carol Tiggs is gone. But someday you will find the new Carol Tiggs, the one in the dream hotel room." p. 260. When Castaneda again asks, "What do you mean she¡¯s gone?" don Juan responds, "She¡¯s gone from the world." Castaneda ends the book with don Juan reminding him, "This is dreaming. You should know by now that its transactions are final. Carol Tiggs is gone." Id.
Replica Watches Replica Watches
Mid-1993 - Carol Tiggs lectures at East West Bookstore in Menlo Park
July 23-25, 1993 - Florinda, Taisha, Carol and the Chacmools¡¯ first workshop, at the Rim Institute in Arizona. [Per Kylie at Omega in 1995, the workshops were first suggested by Michael Kraft of the Rim Institute, and they were "all surprised when Castaneda agreed."]
According to a letter in issue 4 of the Nagualist, Florinda stated during this workshop that don Juan and his party did not make their leap, and were stuck in the world of the inorganics. She indicated that the group was too heavy to extricate itself, and that Carlos and the Witches intended to join them and to supply the energy needed for them all to leave the world of the inorganics. An additional summary appears on page 14-15 of that issue of the Nagualist, where Carol is quoted as saying she was with Castaneda when he planted the power plants given to him by Vicente and the allies appeared and asked him for a ride. (This might help explain why a chapter read by Nury at the Feb. 1997 Long Beach Workshop detailing this appearance of the three allies was ultimately omitted from the publication version of The Active Side of Infinity.)
J.J. Stoecker remembers that Florinda described la Gorda¡¯s death by claiming that la Gorda had seen that, together with Taisha and Florinda, they had enough energy to join don Juan¡¯s party. She grabbed Taisha and Florinda by the arms to join together energetically, but Taisha and Florinda struggled and broke free just as they were "taking flight." La Gorda hadn¡¯t counted on their resistance, and purportedly continued her attempt, even though the struggle had weakened her. La Gorda then allegedly collapsed into a corpse of an old woman before their eyes. Florinda also blurted out that the Blue Scout was Carol Tiggs¡¯s daughter, and that her daughter was the Orange Scout. This gave rise to audience questions about sex and energetic holes. Florinda explained that a sorceress can simply cause one of her eggs to start dividing "by an act of will," but that normally no warrior would want this because it would cause a huge "energetic hole." In the case of the scouts, asserted that they had their own energy, but no body, so they could be conceived and delivered without sex or causing "holes" in the mother either. According to J.J., when Carol was later asked about the scouts, she didn¡¯t address Florinda¡¯s story of parthenogenesis, but simply did a turn on the edge of the platform, like a runway model in a fashion show, asking "See any holes?" Carol also explained that, to her, the essence of sorcery was "body snatching." She claimed that sorcerers empty themselves out completely and refurbish themselves like an apartment house that is trying to attract a more upscale clientele. A sorcerer then waits in emptiness for something abstract to descend and take possession of them. Carol also mentioned that her book, Tales of Energy, would be published soon. Carol demonstrated the Death Defier¡¯s eye with six participants (see description of this on p. 4 of Issue 5 of the Nagualist). About 100 people attended.
September 29, 1993 - Carlos "Aranha" marries "Carol Muni Tiggs Alexander" in Las Vegas. Marriage license No. C 472425 lists this as Carol¡¯s first marriage, and her date of birth as Nov. 24, 1957, in Arizona, and her parents as John Michael Alexander and Carol Tiggs of Arizona. [Just two days before, Carlos Castaneda had married Florinda Donner in Vegas.]
October 14-17, 1993 - Witches appear at four-day workshop at Akahi Farms in Maui.
Carol spoke the third night, and all four took questions on Sunday morning. Notes quote them as saying they were "testing out the workshop format, and had reformulated them in the last year." They recommended Tai Chi, demonstrated some "sorcery passes"; otherwise topics were consistent with later workshops -- recapitulation, phenomenology, intentionality, and courtship rituals taking energy. Carol said she was lost for two years after her "return" in 1983, and that she wandered around disoriented. When she wandered into the Phoenix Bookstore in 1985 where Castaneda was giving a lecture, Castaneda went to her and asked, "Where have you been my little freak of nature?" She said she was "slowly remembering things again." Carol gave the death defier¡¯s eye to, I think, seven people, including J.J. Stoecker and Michelle (later known as Rylin DeMaris), who suffered a psychotic break or something in the following days and ended up depending on Carol¡¯s "healing." The last sentence of Van¡¯s notes on the final Q&A session with all three states: "They avoid chronological histories so that people won¡¯t know their personal history, they keep from a linear discussion, they don¡¯t cross reference with each other."
Carol Tiggs Chronology part IV