Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda, by Amy Wallace, North Atlantic Books, 2003
Introduction by Richard Jennings
Amy Wallace (aka Ellis Laura Finnegan)
Amy is the author of Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda. The book recounts the 27 years she knew and interacted with Castaneda and the “Witches,” from the time she first met him at age 16, to the time from the early 90s until Castaneda’s death in April ’98, when she was one of his lovers and a member of his inner circle. Published in 2003, this was the book that finally revealed to the general public the cult around Castaneda and the machinations of his final years. She herself died, too young, in 2013.
I first met Amy in 1995 at the Omega Workshop in May. Over the months that followed as I got increasingly involved with Castaneda and company, we became close friends and confidants. Amy had initially shared with me in November 1995 that she, and the other women in the group, had sexual relationships with Castaneda. I spent the weekend processing that info before deciding to continue to follow Castaneda as my teacher. She was also the person Castaneda designated as his liaison to the Sunday Group for most of the group’s existence, so I was regularly in touch with her about those sessions.
Amy was the daughter of best-selling novelist Irving Wallace and was coauthor of several of the Wallace family’s nonfiction collaborations, including The Book of Lists, The Book of Lists #2, The Book of Predictions and The Two (a biography of the original Siamese twins that she coauthored with her father). She also coauthored The Psychic Healing Book with Bill Henkin. On her own, she authored The Prodigy: A Biography of William James Sidis, the World’s Greatest Child Prodigy, and a well-received novel, Desire. After Sorcerer’s Apprentice was published, she went on to produce two more books: The Book of Lists: Horror, co-edited with her long time boyfriend Scott Bradley and Del Howison; and The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists, co-authored with Dick Manitoba.
Following Castaneda’s death, Amy and I met or talked by phone on a daily basis, initially trying to figure out what happened to the missing women whom we had both been close to. As I started researching Castaneda and his colleagues through court records and other documents, and Amy interacted with remaining Cleargreen members who were then acting out in increasingly bizarre ways (the meltdown of cult members following the death of their leader), we shared that info with each other. Together we gradually processed our time with Castaneda, essentially helping to “deprogram” each other from the cult.
As a lawyer, I also helped Amy with some legal and financial issues regarding her father’s estate, and several times toured Irving Wallace’s home, then occupied by his widow, Amy’s mother Sylvia, and the adjoining building that housed Irving Wallace’s library, furnished with numerous literary artifacts he had collected, including a writing desk that had belonged to Dickens. I even adopted Amy’s two rescue cats, which she had picked up at an animal shelter a few months after Castaneda died (Castaneda had banned his inner circle from having pets). I doted on those two cats (whom I eventually named Louis and Josephine) when I visited Amy at her Westwood home, and therefore happily agreed to give them a good home when she got involved for awhile with a boyfriend who was allergic to cats.
Richard and Amy in 2004
Once Amy decided she was going to write a memoir about her life with Castaneda, I provided her my complete set of notes of workshops and private sessions with Castaneda, and the fruits of all my research into the real historical facts regarding Castaneda and the other members of Cleargreen.
Amy and I had much in common, not the least of which was both being Goats or Sheep in Chinese astrology, which we had both studied. We were both born in 1955. We were also both students of the Enneagram, and she had been an exemplar of Enneagram Type Two for exemplar sessions organized by Enneagram guru Helen Palmer in Berkeley.
Amy had an ebullient personality, was a marvelous conversationalist and a loyal friend. We delighted in each other’s company. She confided stories about Castaneda and the others in the group to me that don’t appear in her book, and I know first hand the trauma and pain she experienced working on that memoir and the memories she had to dredge up for it. You can get a sense of that from the answers she gave in 2003 to questions from Sustained Action readers here.
We grew apart in the years following the publication of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, when I moved from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area and Amy, for a time, relapsed into opiate addiction. We had been back in touch in the months before she died in 2013 and were planning to get together but unfortunately she passed before that could happen. I miss her deeply and mourn her loss. I don’t know that I would have recovered as well or as quickly from my cult experience without her support and friendship.
Amy in Sedona on a trip we took together in 2002
I highly recommend Amy’s book to anyone who wants to know what life amongst those closest to Castaneda was really like. Below are links to excerpts from the book and a review of it by Sustained Action contributor Sandy McIntosh, as well as a helpful key to the names of Castaneda’s circle in her book, since the publisher required her to use pseudonyms for some of the Cleargreen members who were arguably not public figures. Also linked below is a touching tribute by her friend David Houston and the video of her memorial service, where her brother and co-author David Wallechinsky gives a moving remembrance of his sister.
Key to the Names used in Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Review of Sorcerer’s Apprentice by SA contributor Sandy McIntosh
Obit by Amy’s friend David Houston
Memorial service for Amy 9/29/2013
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