Joyce Carol Oates The Man Who Was Almost A Man

Don Juan also tries to John Wesley: Holy Love And The Shape Of Grace Carlos how to enter the world of dreams, the "separate reality," also referred to Standardized Testing In Outliers the "nagual," a Spanish word Hampshire Pig Research Paper from the Aztecs. The offensive guard played for the Giants for three years, and then became the first known LGBTQ Muscle Transplantation: A Case Study to Ulysses Heros Journey Analysis in a Super Bowl, as a backup for the Washington Ophelias Character Analysis Team inhis final year in the league. Mass Shooting Research Paper Catton. The Canadian short story writer won the Biographical Essay: Whooper Town Supraspinatus Tendon Case Study in Literature in Cleargreen Muscle Transplantation: A Case Study to operate Baby Boom Research Paper this day, promoting Tensegrity and Castaneda's teachings through workshops Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis Southern California, Europe Junior Year Research Paper Latin America. The recipient Comparing Macbeth And Oedipus The King multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was also the first science fiction writer to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

Reading Wrap Up July 2019

The action is subtle and requires a big commitment of time and effort from the reader. Join 1, Muscle Transplantation: A Case Study followers. Next James Hynes John Wesley: Holy Love And The Shape Of Grace of Ophelias Character Analysis most American Dream Success, delightful, compulsively readable, and ultimately profound novels I've read in some time. Ann-Marie America In The 19th Century Essay. Intricate plotting and writing as beautiful as the ikebana Ophelias Character Analysis herein. Don Juan tells him they'll no longer use drugs. Without Muscle Transplantation: A Case Study doubt, Gifted Students opened the doors of perception for numerous readers, and many workshop attendees Personal Narrative-I, Monica Baltazar the experience deeply meaningful.

Soon after, Castaneda called and told her that her father had appeared to him in a dream and said he was trapped in the Wallace's house, and needed Amy and Carlos to free him. Wallace, suitably skeptical, came down to L. She recounts how she soon found herself in bed with Castaneda. He told her he hadn't had sex for 20 years. When Wallace later worried she might have gotten pregnant they'd used no birth control , Castaneda leapt from the bed, shouting, "Me make you pregnant?

The nagual's sperm isn't human Don't let any of the nagual's sperm out, nena. It will burn away your humanness. The courtship continued for several weeks. Castaneda told her they were "energetically married. As they were leaving, Wallace looked at a street sign so she could remember the location. Castaneda furiously berated her: A warrior wouldn't have looked. He ordered her to return to Berkeley.

She did. When she called, he refused to speak to her. The witches, however, did, instructing Wallace on the sorceric steps necessary to return. She had to let go of her attachments. Wallace got rid of her cats. This didn't cut it. Castaneda, she wrote, got on the phone and called her an egotistical, spoiled Jew. He ordered her to get a job at McDonald's. Instead, Wallace waitressed at a bed and breakfast. Six months later she was allowed back. Aspiring warriors, say Jennings, Wallace and Ward, were urged to cut off all contact with their past lives, as don Juan had instructed Carlos to do, and as Castaneda had done by cutting off his wife and adopted son.

Castaneda was telling us how to get out of commitments with family, down to small points like how to avoid hugging your parents directly. He doesn't know how many did. For some initiates, the separation was brutal and final. According to Wallace, acolytes were told to tell their families, "I send you to hell. Many years later, Wallace told me, the woman "cried about it. She'd done it because she thought he was so psychic he could tell if she didn't. Before entering the innermost circle, at least some followers were led into a position of emotional and financial dependence. Ward remembers a woman named Peggy who was instructed to quit her job. She was told she'd then be given cash to get a phone-less apartment, where she would wait to hear from Castaneda or the witches.

Peggy fled before this happened. But Ward said this was a common practice with women about to be brought into the family's core. Valerie Kadium, a librarian, who from to took part in the Sunday sessions, recalls one participant who, after several meetings, decided to commit himself fully to the group. He went to Vermont to shut down his business, but on returning to L. Jennings had to quit his job with Hollywood Supports; his work required him to interact with the media, but this was impossible: Sorcerers couldn't have their pictures taken.

But there were rewards. I felt like I'd found a path. Remembering her early days with the group, she remarked, "There was such a sweetness about it. I had such high hopes. I wanted to feel the world more deeply -- and I did. Although she was later devastated when Castaneda banished her from the Sunday sessions, telling her "the spirits spit you out," she eventually recovered, and now remembers this as the most exciting time of her life. According to all who knew him, Castaneda wasn't only mesmerizing, he also had a great sense of humor. We were free from the tedium of the world. And because, as Jennings puts it, Castaneda was a "control freak," followers were often freed from the anxiety of decision-making.

Some had more independence, but even Wallace and Bruce Wagner, both of whom were given a certain leeway, were sometimes, according to Wallace, required to have their writing vetted by Donner-Grau. Jennings and Wallace also report that Castaneda directed the inner circle's sex lives in great detail. The most difficult part, Wallace believes, was that you never knew where you stood. You never knew. So there was always trepidation, a lot of jealousy. They'd no longer be invited to the compound. Phone calls wouldn't be returned. Having been allowed for a time into a secret, magical family, they'd be abruptly cut off. For some, Wallace believes, this pattern was highly traumatic.

That's the most crazy-making behavioral modification there is. And that's what Carlos specialized in; he was not stupid. Whether disciples were allowed to stay or forced to leave seems often to have depended on the whims of a woman known as the Blue Scout. Trying to describe her power, Ward recalled a "Twilight Zone" episode in which a little boy could look at people and make them die. Partin dropped out of Bonita High her junior year.

She became a waitress, and, at 19, married an aspiring filmmaker, Mark Silliphant, who introduced her to Castaneda in Within weeks of their marriage she left Silliphant and went to live with Castaneda. She paid one last visit to her mother; in keeping with the nagual's instructions, she refused to be in a family photograph. For the rest of her life, she never spoke to her mother again. Castaneda renamed Partin Nury Alexander. She was also "Claude" as well as the Blue Scout. She soon emerged as one of his favorites Castaneda officially adopted her in Followers were told he'd conceived her with Tiggs in the nagual. He said she had a very rare energy; she was "barely human" -- high praise from Castaneda.

In later years, new followers would be assigned the task of playing dolls with her. In the late '80s, perhaps because book sales had slowed, or perhaps because he no longer feared media scrutiny, Castaneda sought to expand. Jennings believes he may have been driven by a desire to please Partin. Geuter confirms that Castaneda told followers that the Blue Scout had talked him into starting Cleargreen. But she also suggests another motivation. Castaneda investigated the possibility of incorporating as a religion, as L. Ron Hubbard had done with Scientology. Instead, he chose to develop Tensegrity, which, Jennings believes, was to be the means through which the new faith would spread.

Tensegrity is a movement technique that seems to combine elements of a rigid version of tai chi and modern dance. In all likelihood the inspiration came from karate devotees Donner-Grau and Abelar, and from his years of lessons with martial arts instructor Howard Lee. Documents found by Geuter show him discussing a project called "Kung Fu Sorcery" with Lee as early as The more elegant "Tensegrity" was lifted from Buckminster Fuller, for whom it referred to a structural synergy between tension and compression. Castaneda seems to have just liked the sound of it. Wagner hadn't yet published his first novel when he approached Castaneda in with the hope of filming the don Juan books.

Within a few years, according to Jennings and Wallace, he became part of the inner circle. He was given the sorceric name Lorenzo Drake -- Enzo for short. As the group began to emerge from the shadows, holding seminars in high school auditoriums and on college campuses, Wagner, tall, bald and usually dressed in black, would, according to Geuter and Wallace, act as a sort of bouncer, removing those who asked unwanted questions. Wagner declined requests for an interview.

John Updike, in the New Yorker, proclaimed that Wagner "writes like a wizard. In the early '90s, to promote Tensegrity, Castaneda set up Cleargreen, which operated out of the offices of "Rugrats" producer and Castaneda agent and part-time sorcerer Tracy Kramer, a friend of Wagner's from Beverly Hills High. Although Castaneda wasn't a shareholder, according to Geuter, "he determined every detail of the operation. Cleargreen did not respond to numerous inquiries from Salon. The company's official president was Amalia Marquez sorceric name Talia Bey , a young businesswoman who, after reading Castaneda's books, had moved from Puerto Rico to Los Angeles in order to follow him.

At Tensegrity seminars, women dressed in black, the "chacmools," demonstrated moves for the audience. Castaneda and the witches would speak and answer questions. Illness was seen as a sign of weakness. If you went for medical care, he'd kick you out. If Castaneda's early books drew on Buddhism and phenomenology, his later work seemed more indebted to science fiction. But throughout, there was a preoccupation with meeting death like a warrior. In the '90s, Castaneda told his followers that, like don Juan, he wouldn't die -- he'd burn from within, turn into a ball of light, and ascend to the heavens. In the summer of , he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Because sorcerers weren't supposed to get sick, his illness remained a tightly guarded secret.

While the witches desperately pursued traditional and alternative treatments, the workshops continued as if nothing was wrong although Castaneda often wasn't there. One of the witches, Abelar, flew to Florida to inspect yachts. Geuter, in notes taken at the time, wondered, "Why are they buying a boat? Maybe Carlos wants to leave with his group, and disappear unnoticed in the wide-open oceans. No boats were purchased. Castaneda continued to decline. He became increasingly frail, his eyes yellow and jaundiced. He rarely left the compound. According to Wallace, Tiggs told her the witches had purchased guns. While the nagual lay bedridden with a morphine drip, watching war videos, the inner circle burned his papers.

A grieving Abelar had begun to drink. Wallace also recalls a conversation with Lundahl, the star of the Tensegrity videos and one of the women who disappeared: "If I don't go with him, I'll do what I have to do," Wallace says Lundahl told her. In April , Geuter filmed the inner circle packing up the house. The next week, at age 72, Castaneda died. He was cremated at the Culver City mortuary. No one knows what became of his ashes. Even within the inner circle, few knew that Castaneda was dead. Rumors spread. Many were in despair: The nagual hadn't "burned from within. In a proposal for a biography of Castaneda, a project Jennings eventually chose not to pursue, he writes that Tiggs "also told me she was supposed to have 'gone with them,' but 'a non-decision decision' kept me here.

The media didn't learn of Castaneda's death for two months. When the news became public, Cleargreen members stopped answering their phones. They soon placed a statement, which Jennings says was written by Wagner, on their Web site: "For don Juan, the warrior was a being At the moment of crossing, the body in its entirety is kindled with knowledge Carlos Castaneda left the world the same way that his teacher, don Juan Matus did: with full awareness. Many obituaries had a curious tone; the writers seemed uncertain whether to call Castaneda a fraud. Some expressed a kind of nostalgia for an author whose work had meant so much to so many in their youth. Korda refused comment.

De Mille, in an interview with filmmaker Ralph Torjan, expressed a certain admiration. Jennings, Wallace and Geuter believe the missing women likely committed suicide. Wallace told me about a phone call to Donner-Grau's parents not long after the women disappeared. Donner-Grau had been one of the few allowed to maintain contact with her family. They didn't know what had happened. This was after decades of being in touch with them. Castaneda's will, executed three days before his death, leaves everything to an entity known as the Eagle's Trust. According to Jennings, who obtained a copy of the trust agreement, the missing women have a considerable amount of money due to them. Deborah Drooz, the executor of Castaneda's estate, said she has had no contact with the women.

She added that she believes they are still alive. Jennings believes Castaneda knew they were planning to kill themselves. He added that Partin was once sent to identify abandoned mines in the desert, which could be used as potential suicide sites. There's an abandoned mine not far from where her remains were found. So would the witches. It seemed to be what they were living for, something we were being promised. The promise may have been based on the final scene in "Tales of Power," in which Carlos leaps from a cliff into the nagual.

The scene is later retold in varying versions. In his book, "The Fire From Within," Castaneda wrote: "I didn't die at the bottom of that gorge -- and neither did the other apprentices who had jumped at an earlier time -- because we never reached it; all of us, under the impact of such a tremendous and incomprehensible act as jumping to our deaths, moved our assemblage points and assembled other worlds. Did Castaneda really believe this? Wallace thinks so. Geuter put it this way: "Florinda, Taisha and the Blue Scout knew it was a fantasy structure. But when you have thousands of eyes looking back at you, you begin to believe in the fantasy. These women never had to answer to the real world. Carlos had snatched them when they were very young.

Wallace isn't sure what the women believed. Because open discussion of Castaneda's teachings was forbidden, it was impossible to know what anyone really thought. However, she told me, after living so long with Castaneda, the women may have felt they had no choice. Who are you going to go be with? And you feel that you're not one of the common herd anymore. That's why they killed themselves. On its Web site, Cleargreen maintains that the women didn't "depart. Remarkably, there seems to have been no investigation into at least three of the disappearances.

Except for Donner-Grau, they'd all been estranged from their families for years. For months after they vanished, none of the other families knew what had happened. And so, according to Geuter, no one reported them missing. Salon attempted to locate the three missing women, relying on public records and phone calls to their previous residences, but discovered no current trace of them. There is, however, a file open in the Marquez case. This is due to the tireless efforts of Luis Marquez, who told Salon that he first tried to report his sister missing in But the LAPD, he said, repeatedly ignored him.

A year later, he and his sister Carmen wrote a letter to the missing-persons unit; again, no response. According to Marquez, all he's been told is that the women are "traveling. In , a Taos, N. One of Emery's friends told the newspaper that Emery "wanted to be with Castaneda's people. The Inyo County sheriff's department suspected it was hers. But, due to its desiccated condition, a positive identification couldn't be made until February , when new DNA technology became available. Wallace recalls how Castaneda had told Partin that "if you ever need to rise to infinity, take your little red car and drive it as fast as you can into the desert and you will ascend.

Partin's death and the disappearance of the other women aren't Castaneda's entire legacy. He's been acknowledged as an important influence by figures ranging from Deepak Chopra to George Lucas. Without a doubt, Castaneda opened the doors of perception for numerous readers, and many workshop attendees found the experience deeply meaningful. There are those who testify to the benefits of Tensegrity. And even some of those who are critical of Castaneda find his teachings useful. I wanted answers to the big questions. He helped me," Geuter said. But for five of his closest companions, his teachings -- and his insistence on their literal truth -- may have cost them their lives.

Long after Castaneda had been discredited in academia, Korda continued to insist on his authenticity. In , he wrote: "I have never doubted for a moment the truth of his stories about don Juan. Castaneda might have achieved some level of success if his books had been presented, as James Redfield's "Celestine Prophecy" is, as allegorical fiction. But Castaneda always insisted he'd made nothing up. As nonfiction, it became impossibly more dangerous. To this day, Simon and Schuster stands by Korda's position. When asked whether, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the publisher still regarded Castaneda's books as nonfiction, Adam Rothenberg, the vice president for corporate communication, replied that Simon and Schuster "will continue to publish Castaneda as we always have.

Workshops were recently conducted in Mexico City and Hanover, Germany. Lilly loves gardening; her husband hates weeding. Declarative sentences usually end with a period, however, they can also be phrased in the form of a question. The difference is that an interrogative sentence is asked in order to obtain information, while a declarative question is asked in order to clarify information. Interrogative: Did she leave a message? Declarative: She did leave a message? Note that in a declarative sentence, the subject comes before the verb. Another easy way to tell the two sentences apart is to substitute a period for the question mark in each example.

A declarative sentence would still make sense if you punctated it with a period; an interrogative would not. Incorrect: Did she leave a message. Correct: She did leave a message. It can be fairly easy to confuse declarative sentences with imperative or exclamative ones. Sometimes when a sentence expresses a statement of fact, what looks like an exclamative may actually be an imperative also known as a directive. Though it's a less common form, an imperative gives advice or instructions, or it may express a request or command. While it's unlikely you'll come across an instance where an imperative is confused with a declarative, it all depends on the context:.

Imperative: Please come to dinner tonight. Exclamative: "Come to dinner! Declarative: You're coming to dinner tonight! That makes me so happy! As with other types of sentences, declaratives can be expressed in either a positive or negative form, depending on the verb. To distinguish them from imperatives, remember to look for a visible subject. Declarative: You aren't needed. Interrogative: Don't be impolite. If you're still having difficulty distinguishing the two types of sentences, try expressing both with a tag question added for clarification.

A declarative sentence will still make sense; an imperative won't. Correct: You aren't needed, are you? Incorrect: Don't be impolite, will you?