THE UNBRIDLED SEX LIFE OF CARLOS CASTANEDA

Carlos Castaneda kept his life very secret, but over time several aspects of it have been discovered, and here I will be posting the information I find about his sex life.

In Peru

When Carlos Castaneda was a young man living in Peru, his friends say he was quite the ladies' man. He had an affair with a girl whom he got pregnant, and that was very likely one of the reasons why he decided to emigrate to the United States in 1951 (at the age of 25). To prevent something similar from happening again, Castaneda had a vasectomy.

Marriage to Margaret Runyan

In 1955 Castaneda met an American woman named Margaret Runyan, and finally married her in 1960 in Tlaquiltenango, Mexico .

Margaret wanted to have a child, but since Castaneda could no longer do so, he asked a handsome Slavic man named Adrian Guerritsen Jr. to impregnate her, and he took the child she had as his own.

Affair with Mary Barker

A few months later Castaneda and Margaret separated, and shortly afterwards Castaneda began a relationship with another American woman named Mary Joan Barker who was a librarian at UCLA.

 

 

Castaneda never married Mary and finally divorced Margaret in 1973.

Affair with Gloria Garvin

In 1969 Mary introduced Castaneda to anthropologist Gloria Garvin de Joseph, who also became his lover.  

Castaneda becomes famous

After the great success of his first book "The Teachings of Don Juan" published in 1968, many people attended the talks that Castaneda gave.

Carlos Castaneda had become a kind of "shamanic rock star," and just like rock stars, Castaneda surely had sexual relations with many of his female admirers.

 

His witches

Several women joined him, forming his inner circle. First came "the witches," known as:

Taisha Abelar

Florinda Donner

Carol Tiggs

Castaneda supposedly brought them together with him because they were the warriors who formed his group, since in the shamanic tradition of Don Juan Matus, the nahual of each generation has to form a group of sorcerers in order to achieve liberation together.

But the first thing that's disconcerting is that while the groups of the previous nahuals were larger and comprised both men and women, Castaneda's group consisted only of these three women, and all of them were young and beautiful. There wasn't a single fat, old, or ugly woman, unlike the descriptions given to some of the witches in the earlier nahual groups.

Castaneda explains that the difference in his group was due to the fact that he did not possess the amount of energy necessary to form a traditional group given his energetic configuration because he was a "three-pointed nahual" while the previous nahuals were "four-pointed nahuals".

Which could be, but to me that sounds more like a pretext invented by Castaneda to be able to have his harem without generating a scandal among his followers since, according to Don Juan, warriors have to be celibate.

And although Castaneda's witches did not openly declare themselves to be the Castaneda's lovers, some of them did hint at it.

1. For example, Florinda Donner, in her book "Shabono" (1984), which has a prologue written by Castaneda, included the following dedication:

« To the five-legged spider that carries me on its back. »

Researcher Manuel Carballal gave the following explanation: "Arana is Castaneda's other real surname; he actually said that when he lived with Don Juan he used the name 'Charly Spider' because he was making a play on words; and the other four 'legs' are the four women who lived with him."

I believe it is more of a play on words and that Florinda Donner in reality meant "for the five-legged spider," that is, Castaneda represented by his two legs, his two arms, plus his erect penis," who carries me on his back," alluding to the sexual games they had.

2. Another example was Taisha Abelar who in her book "The Sorcerer's Crossing" (1992) commented that the first time she met Castaneda she felt very attracted to him:

« He had dark skin, was short, and seemed very strong. His hair was black and curly. He gestured animatedly when he spoke, and his face was full of energy and expressiveness. There was something about him that made him stand out from everyone else. My heart skipped a beat, and I was immediately drawn to him. »

(Chapter 21)

3. It is also well known that Carlos Castaneda married Florinda Donner in Las Vegas on September 27, 1993, and two days later he also married Carol Tiggs in the same city.

Her explorers

Over time, more women joined Castaneda's inner circle (and also a few men called "elements").

Nury Alexander

Tycho Thal

In order not to contradict the story he had told, that Don Juan asserted that Castaneda was "a three-pointed nahual" and that was why he only had three witches by his side, Castaneda invented other roles for these new women:

Castaneda said that Nury was "The Blue Explorer," an energetic entity he rescued in the dream world who had been born into the physical world as a human.  Castaneda said something similar about Tycho, who was "The Orange Explorer."

Castaneda in reality met Nury while she was working as a waitress and attending classes at ULCA. She had suffered a tragedy in her childhood: her father almost died in an accident that left him with permanent injuries.

During the nearly twenty years she lived with Castaneda, and despite her gray hair, Nury behaved like a child, claiming she had been trapped in another dimension since the age of seven. She played with dolls and spoke like a little girl.

Amy Wallace says that Castaneda told her:

 

-      "Nury was seven years old when she first got into my bed. She climbed on top of me and thump, thump, thump! She wanted to do it at seven years old ... and we did! What could I do? I couldn't resist... she sexually assaulted me while I was asleep!"

His affair with Amy Wallace

 

The writer Amy Wallace published a book entitled "Witch's Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda" (2003) where she reveals that she met Castaneda when she was 17 years old and that she later became one of the members of his inner circle and also became his lover.

In her book, she recounts that when her father, Irving Wallace, died in 1990, Amy was 35 years old and living in Berkeley, California. Shortly afterward, Castaneda called her and told her that Irving had appeared to him in a dream and was trapped in the Wallace house, and that he needed Castaneda and Amy to go and free him.

Amy traveled to Los Angeles, where Castaneda began to seduce her until they finally had sex. Castaneda told her he hadn't had sex in 20 years.

(Cid's note: which is a huge lie.)

When Amy later worried that she might have become pregnant because they hadn't used any contraception, Castaneda jumped out of bed exclaiming:

 

-       "Me, get you pregnant? Impossible! The nahual's sperm isn't human. It doesn't match your fluids. You're human... Don't let the nahual's sperm escape, baby, because it will burn your humanity."

(Cid's note: Castaneda didn't mention that he had a vasectomy and implied that his sperm was going to transform Amy.)

The BBC broadcast a documentary about Castaneda where they interviewed Amy, and she mentioned:

« Carlos wanted us to have sex in my childhood bedroom to break the spell of all the old energy.

. . .

Later, Castaneda had taken the strange step of adopting Nury as his daughter in the 1990s, and he was also sexually active with her, which gave their adoption a completely bizarre atmosphere, you know? Castaneda once told me, "You have the same vagina as my daughter, that's why I love her so much. »

Richard Jennings was a student of Castaneda and he recounts that in May 1995 he met Amy at the Omega workshop, they became great friends and confidants, and she revealed to him that she and the other women in the inner group had had sexual relations with Castaneda.

His president

Talia Bey was the president of the organization created by Castaneda (Cleargreen) to commercialize his teachings.

His chacmools

Castaneda called his last personal disciples "chacmools".

Kylie Lundahl

Nyei Murez

Renata Murez

Her close students

Other women who were close students of Castaneda during his later years were:

Aerin Alexander

Halley Alexander van Oosten

Zaia Alexander

Carola García Arslan

Constanza Coll

Rylin Demaris

Darien Donner

Margarita Nieto

Araceli Zafra

Moonchild or Thurney

Note: I cannot say with complete certainty that all of Castaneda's chacmools and close female students were also his lovers, but knowing how much of a womanizer he was and the fascination he produced among his followers, it is very likely that he also had sex with them.

The ugly ones had no chance of getting in

in Castaneda's personal group

I heard of a woman who was willing to do anything to become one of his close students, truly anything; however, since she wasn't very attractive, I suspect that was the real reason Castaneda refused to accept her.  

Castaneda also shared his disciple-lovers

with his protégés

Marco Antonio Karam is a prominent promoter of Buddhism, and in his youth he was considered by Carlos Castaneda as his future successor; and Karam told the following to journalist Geoffrey Gray:

« As part of my initiation into the inner circle of Carlos Castaneda's group, he ordered me to have sexual relations with Carol Tiggs (whom Castaneda had also married).

Castaneda presented this to me as a worthy honor for his designated successor.

I stayed at a hotel with Carol during her trips to Mexico City. We were just two disciples following our master's orders.

Castañeda told us that having sex was a ritualistic exercise that united energies and sought to align the spiritual genes of his group.

It wasn't something passionate, it was something mechanical that simply had to be done to achieve that supposed harmony.

Carol remained indifferent and impassive in the face of that order; she was simply told that she had to do it, and she did it. »

I get the impression that Castaneda was already so obsessed with sex that he also wanted his protégé to enter into this dynamic of sexual compulsion; just as a drunkard wants others to drink alcohol too.

And Karam also asserted that Castaneda was a sexual deranged maniac, since he declared:

« Castaneda was  very obsessed with sex, always trying to manipulate attractive women he met into having sex with him. And having sex with witches was also a way of controlling them.

Castaneda manipulated everyone into competing against each other; he was very brilliant at it, like all cult leaders. His group was like a game of musical chairs, where everyone fought to be the favorite at that moment and capture his attention.

Castaneda's predatory sexual attitude toward all of them was not a sign of a spiritually developed person. »

Castaneda didn't care about destroying lives

just to sleep with a woman

Jacobo Grinberg and his daughter mentioned the case of a woman whom Castaneda pressured a lot to join his group, but she had to abandon her son.

Jacobo Grinberg said:

« Eventually, Castaneda stopped communicating with most of us, except for one of the women in our group. He spoke to her day and night, urging her to abandon everything and join his group.

The problem was that this abandonment meant leaving one of her children unprotected, a child who was emotionally and materially dependent on his mother. This woman was subjected to such pressure by Castaneda that on one occasion she had to ask him not to try to contact her anymore.

When she told us about the terrible pressure Castaneda put her under, I was deeply shocked and I still don't understand what happened. »

Estusha Grinberg added:

« My father witnessed things that Carlos Castaneda did that he disliked a lot. For example, my father told me that there was a woman with a son, and at one point my father got very angry with Castaneda because Castaneda told this woman that if she wanted to be in his group she had to detach herself from her son, and that was that, she had to leave him.

But there was no one else to care for that child; the child's father wasn't taking responsibility, and that meant abandoning the child. But Castaneda didn't care about that; for him, the woman had no choice but to detach herself from her son. » 

We already know what Castaneda wanted to do with this woman, but since he didn't want to deal with children, he also pressured her a lot to abandon her son, who had no one else to take care of him.

And this shows you how cruel, callous, and inhuman Castaneda had become, not caring about the harm he was going to cause that child, just to satisfy his whim of wanting to have sex with his mother.

Shortly after Castaneda's death

Carol described to Amy her last conversation with Florinda:

« Florinda was getting ready to leave, without saying 'I love you,' 'I wish you the best,' nothing. It was very cruel. Suddenly, at the door, she turned to me and said, "Carol, were you ever jealous of the nagual and his women?"

I replied, "No, Florinda, I didn't have any. I had other problems with him, believe me, but that wasn't one of them... I'm not jealous. I mean, listen, after all, I was the number two pimp."

Then Florinda smiled and said, "Well... he had many women, you know? I was just curious, that's why I asked you," and she turned and left. Not a hug, not a kiss, not a thank you, not a goodbye, nothing. »

OBSERVATION

Castaneda's most ardent followers will continue to believe that nothing sexual happened between Carlos Castaneda and all these women, but based on everything I've discovered about Castaneda, I'm more inclined to believe that all of that was true.

And this implies that Carlos Castaneda was an immense hypocrite because while he demanded sexual abstinence from his followers in order to become great shamanic warriors, he –who as a nahual should have set an example of impeccability– was, on the contrary, extremely sexually active with several women at the same time, and several of them very young.

And here I have only mentioned the lovers who have been discovered, but surely there were many more who preferred to remain anonymous, so it is very likely that Carlos Castaneda had sexual relations with hundreds of women.