Updated and Expanded Carol Tiggs Chronology
Carol Tiggs, aka Muni Aranha, in 2015
The chronology of Carol Tiggs (aka Kathleen Pohlman, Elizabeth Austin, Muni Aranha) that was originally published here in June 1999 has been updated and expanded (by 40%) to take into account what we have learned about her and her true personal history over the past 25 years. That includes information from her mother, Harriet Pohlman, with whom she lived for 14 years–i.e., most of the time she was supposedly in the “Second Attention” for 10 years, and others who knew her at different stages of her life. It also includes a summary of her penultimate public appearance, at a Cleargreen workshop in Sochi, Russia, in 2015, where she made a complete fool out of herself. It is based on the entirety of this new information and having known and followed Carol since he met her in 1995 that the founder of this website concludes: “Carol’s own misdeeds, abuses of trust and outright fraud make her the singular villain of the post Castaneda years.”
The complete 2024 Update can be found here. Here’s the new intro:
Update Introduction
What we can now conclude, 25 years after the first version of this chronology was published, is that Carol’s behavior–which includes going to lengths to maintain the absurd story that Castaneda “burned with the fire from within,” and that the missing women who committed suicide following his death were “traveling”–is consistent not only with narcissistic personality disorder, just like Castaneda, but is also that of a sociopath. Unlike Castaneda, however, she is not the rare “charismatic guru” type of narcissist. She lacks that type’s ability to “read” people that Castaneda possessed in spades. She also has none of his preternatural gift for storytelling, or even inventing believable and consistent lies. All she had to go on was her relative attractiveness for an individual of her age, and the grandiose but unsustainable stories he left behind that caused gullible Castaneda followers to project super powers on her, at least until she opened her mouth.
From Carol’s behavior over the years, both with Castaneda in the picture and without, it is pretty clear she lacks any kind of moral compass, and will simply use people for her own ends, no matter the harm that causes. She has been around the New Age bullshit block long enough that she’s picked up some techniques for conning the most gullible, including the basic hypnosis induction techniques Castaneda had her learn in the early ’90s from videotapes and books. But she has no skill at telling effective stories–for example, she could not and would not ever write the book about her supposed sorceric experiences that was long claimed to be in the works–and is apparently too lazy even to put in the minimal effort needed to keep her stories straight. She has at least been smart enough to stay out of the public eye for most of the last 25 years. Given she is a Stanford grad, she’s clearly not stupid. But she stumbled badly on her first outing at a Cleargreen workshop in 17 years as detailed below, not only making up a melodramatic and patently absurd story about her childhood, but also claiming a technique she had just learned that summer in getting certified as a vocal yoga instructor had been taught to her by don Juan in their first supposed meeting. It is highly unlikely then that she will ever make the mistake of appearing in public like that again.
Carol’s very sad workshop “comeback” after all these years only confirmed what those of us who had watched and known her through the years had long come to realize: Carol is nothing without the svengali who scripted, staged and oversaw her appearances as one of the two most important living protagonists of his elaborate myth. As Bruce Wagner told Amy Wallace following Castaneda’s death regarding Carol, “She is no more fit to take on the job of leader than I am to redo the plumbing in your house.” Far from being a supremely powerful “sorcereress” who “rides the Death Defier,” or even “superpussy,” she is a pathetic victim of her own and Castaneda’s grandiose web of lies aimed at making a narcissist loser seem special enough to merit others’ attention and admiration. And the supreme irony, in my mind, is that all these years after Castaneda’s death and her elevation as a supernatural being, Ms. Tiggs and the few other remaining charlatans at Cleargreen are reduced to peddling bogus “breath techniques,” exactly like the many gurus Castaneda claimed to have once visited and that he mercilessly lampooned to us in Sunday sessions.
Whereas Taisha Abelar was an intelligent and talented true believer, and Florinda Donner was a naturally charismatic serial liar and sociopath, Carol is basically just a sociopathic but inept nobody without a puppet master around to transform her into a “magical being.” Based on the material I reviewed and people I spoke to in putting together this updated chronology, I have nothing but contempt for how Carol has operated and treated people. Her choices, actions and inaction have generated nothing but increasing suspicion and ridicule of Castaneda’s legacy. She deserves to be shunned and what’s left of the Cleargreen organization disbanded. As we know, however, from the painful national spectacle of Donald Trump, pathological narcissists never admit their misdeeds or failures. They will blame it on others, and otherwise make up lies and excuses until their dying day.
Yes, the cult of Castaneda is a story of victims and villains. Carol was both–a victim of Castaneda’s years of abuse and manipulation–but her own misdeeds, abuses of trust and outright fraud make her the singular villain of the post Castaneda years. In honor of all the people whose trust and faith she abused and crapped on, it is time to update the ludicrous and sad chronology of one Carol Tiggs.
by Richard Jennings
©️ 2024 by Richard Jennings, all rights reserved
Related Links:
Next
Add comment