Rating: 
Summary: Carajo! The chickens have come home to roost.
Review: There were a few things Carlos forgot to ask for on that hilltop before leaving his detested Caxamalca: he asked for money, fortune, fame, beautiful chickas and power. What he forgot to ask for were love, humility, peace and God. Amy Wallace shows us in this book that this was a terrible bargain to make. She shows us a Castaneda who was authoritarian, manipulative, paranoid and infantile; the pudgy little man exhibited the worst traits of an insecure macho, including posturing, jealousy, racism and lechery. It was perhaps a terrible inevitability that made the 65 year old cabron pick Amy, the lovely young daughter of a well-known writer (and a talented writer in her own right) for one of his victims. Now we too get to see the life of this sham-man in a close-up. Amy shows us how C kept a harem of women cajoled and intimidated into providing sexual favors in the worst tradition of guru-xploitation. The way he got them into his bed was pathetic. [ "Amy", he whispered (to the 25 year-old Amy Wallace). Suddenly, he was more solemn than I'd ever seen him. "You have to give your poto to the nagual. For magical purposes we must have a "close encounter." It's the only way left to us. The hole between a woman's legs is magic and when the nagual leaves his juice inside it goes directly to her brain...it's the fastest way." (p. 81)]. For all the obsession Castaneda had with sex one does not have an impression Castaneda actually ENJOYED intimacy. Intimacy, love, caring were, well, all too human ("ape-like").
What made me sad and profoundly angry was reading about C's efforts to deprive his "disciples" and "lovers" of their essence, of who they truly were; only then would he feel comfortable, in control. The man made them break all contact with their families and friends -even destroy the photographs depicting their "previous" selves; Amy was ordered to get rid of her beloved cats. Similar methods have been used by cults (and by militaries) all over the world. When he had his women isolated, he started with emotional abuse and sexual melodrama. The man was a classical psychopath. "I confessed", wrote Castaneda in one of his books, "that I have never respected or liked anybody, not even myself, and that I had always felt I was inherently evil." As de Mille said: "Carlos cannot open his gap and let his passion flow into another person. He cannot commit himself to anything but the separate reality, first in his mind, then on paper....Telling stories excites him but only displays his power to fill up the social world with cobwebs." Wallace shows us the profile of an old child, a congenital liar, who felt helpless and deeply afraid of women and female power, just as he was afraid of life and love. Not surprisingly, the man's fears of women, sex and love creep up in his books, in the coldness and lovelesness of his "Don Juan" character. Castaneda had grown callous to pain and sadness and incapable of seeing anyone else's right to freedom but his own. Amy shows in this remarkable book that, 20 years ago, de Mille was right on target. Amy's book also begs the question about whether the stuff Carlos wrote about was real or not. One of Castaneda's prime talents was to find, select, transform, marshall, and present other people's ideas as his own without letting the sources show. The experiences of "Carlos" may then well be true. As is this book. Wallace's journey is a Tale of true Power: power to survive vile spiritual assaults with grace and with love. She shows us how dehumanizing the control of one human being over another can be for everyone involved and how this has destroyed the creator of Don Juan. She has emerged from hell with important teachings. There can be no compromise when it comes to freedom and truth. Muchas gracias, Amy.
Rating: 
Summary: Cappuccino?!?!?!
Review: Thanks to Amy we now know that Carols Castaneda was not faster than the speeding bullet, he could not walk on water and he could not fly through walls!! We now know that he not only did not have any paranormal powers but worst of all he liked cappuccinos and pastries!!!! Shame on Castaneda for telling Amy that his semen had magical qualities. Shame on Amy for jumping into bed with him so that she could explore the Second Attention with him through Mr. Castaneda's magical semen. Amy's excuse is that Castaneda was filling a void in her life, as a father figure. Well, I don't buy it. It seems that Amy was a willing participant in this whole charade with all the rest of the colorful cast.
Now we know that Castaneda was no Jesus. Now we know that Castaneda's Attention was not at the Third level. Now we now that Castaneda could not even spell Attention since his novels needed very heavy editing! Don Juan was actually Elvis and Alan Watts combined. Thank you Amy for this expose, we can all go about our business. However, I still cannot get over the fact that Castaneda liked cappuccinos!!!!! Yours in all the Blue Scouts....
Rating:
Summary: Where is Jerry Springer?
Review: I just finished reading this book and I am totally disgusted. I am not going to say that Amy Wallace is not telling the truth. She probably is telling the truth. However, I am not sure about her motives. The picture that comes out of the book is a picture of a clinically psychotic person who is in desperate need of approval. The underlying theme in every incident that she recounts that proves to be very "disastrous" for her is "not being accepted". This is a tale of a deeply disturbed woman who is very bitter about her unsucceful attempt at being "recognized" as a member of a group. She says that the group members used "stalking" as means to fabricate lies. Fine, but it seems that she had no problem with it when she thought she was successful at it. She recounts an incident where Castaneda asked her and a fellow nicknamed Dexter to play a role for her mom and brother. When she thought she had successfully pulled it off she was ecstatic!! It is when Castaneda got mad at her for being happy about what she had done that she realized that Castaneda is a cruel man and also a sadist. Nobody forced her to go to these meetings, and in fact she mentions that she was asked not to attend on several occasions. She even went as far as hiring a detective to track Castaneda down when she was asked not to attend! Well, I am sorry it seems that Amy Wallace is very bitter about the fact she really wanted to be "his" woman but it just did not work for her. I am not defending Castaneda, far from it. But, her story is poor and disjointed recollections of a bitter and rejected person. She will do well on Jerry Springer. Save your money and do not spend it on this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not the first time this has been said
Review: Amy Wallace was not the first person to write about this side of Castaneda. The bad anthropology behind Castaneda's writings was the basis of a 1993 book by Dr. Jay Courtney Fikes titled "Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties". He claims that Dr. Peter Furst and another anthropologist named Meyerhoff knowingly fabricated and misrepresented rituals in collaboration with Castaneda.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for the failed warrior.
Review: Unlike the raving reviews of others I don't have anything good to say about this piece of junk. My objections to this piece of fiction? -Amy contracts herself throughout the book. -Not once does she provide any verifiable data to back up her accusations / claims. -Throughout the book she shows herself as a whiner who feels justified in holding others, Carlos Castaneda for example, responsible for her own failures. I suspect that her motivation for writing this piece of fiction was her apparent need to take revenge on those who obviously realized that she's not made out of the warriors material that one needs to be made out of if one wants to follow the warriors way, and that would be Carlos Castaneda among others, and her own need for attention. In this case from the failed warriors at Sustained Action. Who I suspect wrote the raving reviews here at amazon.com. As another reviewer stated: a book about a great man, written by a bitter ex lover. Undoubtedly this piece of fiction will be used by the failed warriors to justify their own failure. Good for them. However, the warriors that are worth their salt will most certainly in no way be discouraged by this. As they are the one's that must have realised that the Teachings of Don Juan never were about investing blind faith in what Carlos Castaneda said or did, as was reported explicitly by CC in his own books, but about the verification of Don Juan's proposals as presented in those same books. One more remark: what many reviewers call "heartbreaking and touching", appears to be nothing but their own self-pity projected on Amy Wallace, and the tale of self-pity that she tells.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING!!!!!!!
Review: Amazing!!
A MASTERPIECE about SELF-IMPOTANCE!!!
An essential tool about what to do for anyone that take himself very seriously.
Learn every trick on how to fool yourself by feeling victimn of everything and responsable of nothing.
A must read after "Women who loooooove too much". Five Stars, no doubt!!!
Rating:
Summary: Empathy for the author, praise for the work...
Review: An undeniable dichotomy exists between two groups: those who have found themselves in a "cult", influenced by a "guru", and those who have not. Though certain social cliques and assorted organizations may resemble such situations, they are unable to equal the level of emotional investment in such a unit. I have my own experiences in such a "cult", and because of that, my experience reading this book was one of comfort - in that someone else knew what the manipulation felt like - and one of discomfort. More than a few passages are difficult to traverse, due to the author's haunting recollections of the group's mind games and her emotional response to them. However, none of this brings down the book, as it remains a testament to the author's strength - not only as a person, but as a writer - that she is able to recount such incidents and experiences with an honesty a lot of people could not manage. Aside from the book's therapeutic value, it's a great primer for those who'd like to find out more about Castaneda, but wish to see things from an surprisingly neutral source - a person who loves Castaneda in spite of his manipulative ways. Quite simply, a great read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Who loves him the most?
Review: It's sad to read in these reviews such animosity toward the author. Amy Wallace has written a book that should be required reading for Tensegrity practitioners or anyone interested in Castaneda's legacy. That Amy has written a great book, one that I couldn't put down and one providing many details to better understand Castaneda, this has become, unfortunately, an aside. Here on Amazon, the review section is now a place to shoot the messenger, which isn't fitting for any "apprentices" of Castaneda, no matter how supportive you think it is. Castaneda appreciated awareness in his followers, not tasteless social maneuvering. As a tensegrity practitioner myself, I can't understand the problem people have with this book. Don't defend against it, this only blinds us against the lessons the book shares. Thanks, Amy Wallace, for your work.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating look at cult dynamics
Review: I'd never heard of Carlos Castaneda until someone recommended this book to me, so I guess I'm an unbiased reviewer (no preconceived opinions to defend). Of course, that also means I'm in no position to judge how accurately it portrays CC and his inner circle. All I can give is my subjective reaction: it rings true. The characters, as bizarre and are, seem real, and it appears that Ms. Wallace has portrayed them in a balanced, evenhanded way -- no black-and-white good guys and bad guys. The almost unimaginably bizarre goings-on in CC's cult have an unexpected ring of familiarity to them -- because they're the same petty intrigues and politics we experience in everyday normal life, only on steroids. The temptation to point and laugh at the cultist wackos is kept in check by the persistent awareness that you've acted in some of the same ways yourself, on a smaller scale. It makes the story both touching and deeply disturbing.
Rating: 
Summary: a good read for the curious...
Review: Since I am familiar the author, as well as Castaneda and all of the other characters she writes about, I won't give the book five stars because I'm biased. However I would like you, the reader, to take note of the wildly polarized variance in the reveiws of this book. This indication ALONE reveals the highly controversial nature of what Amy has put into print, a first person behind the scenes look into the secretive cult of Carlos Castaneda. To those whose experience of Castaneda is through his books and their own imagination, reading Amy's book will slap your sorceric fantasies in the face with her experiences of how Carlos actually lived, as well as how he died. So if you want to keep your idealised picture of the literary world of sorcery intact, reading Amy's book will only make you angry. But if your adult curiousity is stronger than your need to hold on to childish fantasies, Sorcerer's Apprentice is the one-of-a-kind read that will open your eyes.
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