Castaneda Critique
8 posts
Image courtesy Greg Mamishian & Gaby Geuter The chronology of Carlos Castaneda colleague Florinda Donner-Grau has been revised and updated here. Florinda Donner-Grau was one of the three supposed Witches (i.e., fellow apprentices of Castaneda’s teacher don Juan) and one of the five women closest to him who disappeared after Castaneda’s death. This 25th anniversary
Teresa and Jacobo Grinberg Just added here Professor Jacobo Grinberg’s account of the interactions he and his wife Teresa had with Carlos Castaneda and his group in 1991, when the two were invited to become part of Castaneda’s group in Los Angeles. Professor Grinberg declined the offer, and kept secret his interactions with Castaneda per
Just added to the site is a new piece by former Sunday Group participant and Castaneda scholar David Worrell that succinctly summarizes the timelines covered by Castaneda’s key books. David also identifies a few of the major inconsistencies between Castaneda’s own books, as well as between those books and that of his colleague, Florinda Donner
Carol Tiggs, back row far left, with her August 2015 certification class as a Sound Yoga instructor David Worrell noted and summarized in 2020 for Sustained Reaction these three very different and contradictory versions of the story of Carol Tiggs supposed first meeting with don Juan. In reverse chronological order, the first is from from
What if everything about you was a lie? If your origin and whole life story was the fantastic, grandiose concoction of a famous and powerful man who came into your life in your late teens and then dictated how and where you would live, supporting you all the while, for the next 20 years? Who would you be and how could you carry on after that man died? Nury or Nuri Alexander (it’s Nury on her original name change application, but Nuri shows up on other legal documents), a.k.a. Claude, a.k.a. the Blue Scout (born Patricia Lee Partin) found she could not continue under those circumstances. When her inventor/creator ceased being around to maintain her on the absurdly high pedestal he had erected for her, she inevitably fell to earth and died.
Sandy McIntosh, an original SA contributor (and former Tensegrity workshop attendee), befriended Angelica, the woman who would become Castaneda’s doctor in the two years before his death, at Tensegrity workshops. He was on hand when Florinda and Taisha first singled her out to serve as Castaneda’s doctor (and become, briefly, a member of the inner
A new piece by original Sustained Action contributor (and professional writer/poet) Sandy McIntosh, reflects on having re-read all of the works of Castaneda and his cohorts (Florinda Donner and Taisha Abelar) in recent years. The piece is entitled They Are What We Know. A brief excerpt encapsulates what Sandy learns: I reread the books and
The original Sustained Action website went up in 1999. That version of the website contained material that would be of interest to fellow Castaneda followers (workshop notes, summaries of private sessions with Castaneda) in an effort to lure them into reading the other material (e.g., chronologies of Castaneda and the Witches, reports on likely source
