Castaneda’s Kung Fu Teacher Howard Y. Lee

Carlos Castaneda was a student of Howard Y. Lee, who taught Kung Fu for many years in Los Angeles. Howard was also an acupuncturist, who eventually performed a version of acupuncture using no needles.

Castaneda mentioned Howard many times during Sunday group and other private sessions. The two pieces on this site devoted to Castaneda’s relationship with Howard are here:

1. Castaneda on His Kung Fu Teacher Howard Lee (Cleargreen night session part VI)
2. Howard Y. Lee on Carlos Castaneda, by Daniel Lawton

For years, Howard only knew Castaneda as “Carlos Aranha” until Castaneda dedicated his book The Fire from Within to “H.Y. Lee.” According to Castaneda, once Howard knew Castaneda’s identity as the author of books Howard had read, their relationship dramatically changed.

Castaneda spoke extensively about his relationship with Howard during a night session at the end of 1996 with his Cleargreen group. He not only spoke eloquently of his admiration for and debt to Howard, but also did amusing imitations of Howard’s “mush mouth,” low affect speaking style. At the end of this session, Castaneda acknowledged that a lot of what he taught as Tensegrity came from what he learned from Howard: “A lot of the movements I show you, like the arm circles, I got from Howard Lee. They are refinements to the movements because of Howard Lee.”

The first piece listed above consists of the basically verbatim notes of this session that I took immediately after the session ended (a technique of “total recall” I developed during the months I attended private sessions with Castaneda, who didn’t allow us to take notes while he was speaking): Castaneda Night Session discussing Howard Y. Lee.

The other piece on this site listed above about their relationship is by Sunday Group member Daniel Lawton, who currently runs the subreddit r/Castaneda. It summarizes Daniel’s experiences of sessions with Howard Y. Lee, and what Howard had to say about Castaneda.

©️ 2024 by Richard Jennings, all rights reserved