Part 1 of 2
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Conversations With Carlos Castaneda
Penthouse Magazine - December 1972 - Pages 83-86, 139-142 (original PDF of just these pages, SFW!!).
By John Wallace
[From the March 5, 1973 Time Magazine interview (paraphrased): Castaneda’s celebrity is concrete too. It now makes it difficult for him to teach and lecture, especially after an incident at the University of California’s Irvine campus last year when a professor named John Wallace procured a Xerox copy of the manuscript of Ixtlan, and along with lecture notes from seminars on shamanism Castaneda was giving, as well as accounts of his personal talks and outings with Carlos, peddled the result to Penthouse magazine. This so infuriated Castaneda that he is reluctant to accept any major lecture engagements in the future]:
"In the summer of 1960 Carlos Castaneda sat with a friend in a Greyhound bus terminal in a hot dusty Arizona border town. An unknown and unrecognized 25-year-old graduate student in anthropology at UCLA, Carlos had gone to the Southwest to gather information about medicinal plants used by the local Indians. Waiting in the bus terminal he met the most remarkable human being that he would ever encounter, an event that was to bring him fame and fortune, and shatter all his beliefs about the nature of reality.
The man was a wrinkled, darkened, old Yaqui Indian with a reputation for expertise in the matter of medicinal plants. Carlos struck up a conversation with him about peyote. That conversation was to last for 12 years and culminate in several books that would capture the imaginations of people all over the world. The first of these was The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. It met with instant success and critical acclaim. The second, A Separate Reality, found a large and enthusiastic audience eager to learn more about the ideas of Carlos Castaneda.
Carlos, as it turned out, had stumbled on one of the few remaining practitioners of the nearly forgotten art of Yaqui sorcery. The man was don Juan Matus, medicine man, curer, sorcerer, warrior, brujo. Not that Carlos was to find this out immediately. It was nearly a year before don Juan took him into his confidence and began explaining the nature of the Yaqui way of knowledge.
In actuality, Carlos was tricked into his apprenticeship with don Juan. As he has explained, nobody gets to be a sorcerer by choosing to be one. The sorcerer must trick the unsuspecting person into accepting an apprenticeship. In Carlos’ case, don Juan frightened him by telling him that a woman sorceress by the name of La Catalina was after his life. He appealed to Carlos for help and in this fashion slyly drew the young anthropologist into a world of weird and unexplainable phenomena, of incredible mind-shattering psychotropic drug experiences, of eerie psychological powers, evil forces, spirits, and mysterious ritual.
There is nothing in Carlos background to suggest that he was destined for such adventures. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Christmas day of 1935, he was raised in the traditions surrounding the family of a South American intellectual. His father was a university professor. Educated in Buenos Aires, Carlos came to the United States as a young man to seek further education at UCLA. He became a naturalized citizen in 1959, and is now in the final stages of completing a Ph.D. in anthropology at UCLA. Although he has spent most of his life in academic circles, Carlos is suspicious of conventional academics. “My father,” he has told me, “like most academic intellectuals, never corroborates anything.” Truth, to Carlos Castaneda, seems to be something that grows out of direct experience, something that can be verified in the everyday happenings of one’s life. He seems distrustful of the abstractions typical of academics. In order for Carlos to accept something as truth, he must see it working in his own life and in the lives of others.
Perhaps this is why his writings have been so well accepted by others. Carlos sticks very close to his actual experiences in his apprenticeship with don Juan. People can relate to his simple accounts of his travels and adventures through the world of Yaqui sorcery. Other reasons for the success of Carlos’ work are widespread interest in psychedelic experience, and, more important, the fact that people in technologically advanced societies seem desperately to want to believe that alternative realities are possible for them. Still another factor is Carlos’ obvious involvement in the Yaqui way. Violating the fundamental rules of detachment and objectivity characteristic of modern academic anthropology, Carlos gets right in there with don Juan, letting his experiences take him where they will. In short, Carlos not only studies the Yaqui way, he believes it with all his heart. While academic anthropologists may find his adventures with don Juan impossible to believe, Carlos has no doubts. He trusts his experiences. He has lived them.
Carlos believes don Juan when he tells him that he is a crow and that, in time, Carlos will be a crow too. Carlos believes that sorcerers can assume the forms of many creatures, birds. dogs, coyotes, and so forth. He believes that he can now hold conversations with animals, that sorcerers can perform astonishing acts like climbing vertical waterfalls by wrapping tentacle-like fibers that protrude from their abdomens around rocks and other means of support, and that sorcerers can, at will, change the world about them in seemingly miraculous ways. He believes that spirits of all kinds are ever present about us. He has seen allies.
In the system of Yaqui sorcery, allies are “spirits,” “forces,” “powers,” other than human agents that the sorcerer seeks to harness and put to use in his own life. Carlos says: “allies are really nothing to be afraid of. They are forces. Just forces. Neither for nor against.” But then he seems to contradict himself: “But look out when you are alone in the sticks in the dark. It is not safe. You must be very sure of what you are doing. Especially at the edge of steep precipices where the ally will pop out in front of you suddenly. These falls you hear about these are no accidents.”
Carlos is filled with advice on how to deal with the allies. “One should never gaze directly at an ally. Otherwise, it will be all over for you. Kaput.” It is best to scan the ally quickly with rapid movements of the eyes, never allowing one’s vision to come to rest directly on it. Carlos told me of coming across an ally in a parking lot on the UCLA campus. It had assumed a form rather like a shining crystal. It was on the pavement near the front wheel of his car. Carlos said that he refused to acknowledge its presence. He simply eased into his car and drove rapidly away. On another occasion, he encountered an ally in the form of a student as he made his way to the commons for a quick snack before class. “Until you are ready to deal with the ally,” Carlos warns, “ignore it.”
When Carlos talks of allies, he sometimes jokes about them outrageously, and seems to make fun of the whole business. But one senses that the joking is rather like whistling in the dark. There are times when Carlos’ terror is unmistakable. One does not need much imagination to sense the horror that lurks in a reality populated by spirits that can assume any shape and “pop out at you” on the edge of precipices and other dangerous places. How frightening it must be to be completely uncertain about the people who come into one’s life by chance. If you believe in allies as Carlos does, what eerie thoughts must flash through your mind when a stranger comes to your door or stops you on the street to ask directions.
There are times when Carlos’ uneasiness is evident. I have watched his eyes when he is surrounded by the large groups of admirers who follow him about campus. He seems constantly to be scanning the persons about him, his attitude alert and watchful. He has rarely appeared to me to be relaxed and at ease in the company of others.
I understand Carlos’ apprehension as I too was afforded a quick glimpse into the world of allies. In fact, it was one of these that caused me to seek Carlos out. Though I was thoroughly fascinated by his writings and found them filled with a haunting beauty and rich perception one does not normally encounter in the writings of academic anthropologists, it was an experience with what I thought was an ally that took me to Carlos. Since Carlos was teaching at the university where I teach, it was an easy enough matter to locate him. I drew a sketch of the ally I had seen and went to his undergraduate class at the University of California at Irvine. My first meeting with Carlos was last spring. And it proved to be a very weird meeting.
I went to the place where Carlos was to be lecturing, but when I got there he was nowhere to be seen. The huge hall was overflowing with students but Carlos wasn’t there. A female anthropologist was lecturing in place of Carlos. I asked if any of the students around me had seen him that day. Nobody had. I scanned the lecture hall but I really didn’t know what he looked like. The only description I had to go on was that of a friend, who said: “Carlos looks like a Cuban waiter, You can’t miss him.” Unfortunately, everybody looked like Cuban waiters that day except the ladies. I gave it up and leaving the lecture hall headed across campus to my car. On the way, thought: “OK, this is proof. You are not to get together with Carlos Castaneda. It wasn’t meant to be. You’ve had a clear message. Get in your car and split.” As I reached for my car door, an image came into my mind seemingly out of nowhere. I saw a chubby, little, darkhaired man dressed in a conservatively cut, brown suit leaning back in a chair against a post on the deck of a coffee shop clear across campus. He was in conversation with a student.
I walked back across campus, through the coffee shop and out onto the deck. As in the image that flashed through my mind, perfect down to the last detail, I saw the scene that I’ve just described. I took a seat to the right of the man and the student and watched them out of the corner of my eye. I became aware that the man was watching me out of the corner of his eye. The student left after a few moments. The man in the chair turned toward me full face and broke into a welcoming grin. I walked over to him and said: “You’re Carlos Castaneda, right?”
He said: “Yes. Sit down. Sit down.”
I said: “I knew you’d be here.”
“That’s good,” said Carlos.
Carlos was pleased to find that I was a member of the faculty of social sciences. However, he seemed a bit ambiguous when he said, “a psychologist, huh?” I quickly glossed over that identification since I wasn’t sure which way Carlos turned when it came to psychologists. But he seemed to warm up to me quickly. He said, “You are interested in seeing?” I said: “Yes Carlos, I am. I mean I think I’ve already started.” I showed Carlos the sketch of the ally I had drawn. Carlos gasped and said very seriously: “Oh my, it’s one of those weird things!”
“What weird things?”, I asked.
“It’s an ally,” Carlos said slowly. “Yes, it has the feeling.”
I told him where and how I came to see it. Carlos listened sympathetically. He said: “I can teach you what to do when this happens.”
I said: “I ignored it.”
“Good,” said Carlos. “You did the right thing. Don’t look at it. Ignore it. But you must come to see me. We will have a nice lunch. Maybe some Mexican food. We’ll have a good lunch.”
“Carlos,” I said, “I’m really not seeking anything. I have had a spiritual benefactor for five years now.”
“Five years,” said Carlos. “Si.” He studied me closely.
“Power has a way of finding power,” he said. I laughed. Carlos laughed too. He said: “I feel finished inside these days. Empty. There is no more. There is no more for me to do. Do you know what I mean?”
I said, "Yes,” even though I wasn’t sure. “I feel finished too,” I said, wondering what I actually meant.
“Anyway, John, we’ll go for a nice lunch. Where is your office? I’ll come see you.” I gave him my office number and phone. We agreed to meet for lunch.
I went home. My wife Ruth said: “Did you meet Carlos?” Ruth was enrolled in Carlos’ graduate seminar and was well informed about yaqui sorcery.
I said: “Yeah I did. Anyway, he wants me to be a sorcerer.”
“Get out of here, you idiot,” she laughed. “You and your silly fantasies. Honestly, John, sometimes I think you really are totally freaked out.” She stopped and considered me carefully." John," she said slowly and deliberately, “are you really serious?”
“Well maybe I am,” I said. “Maybe that’s really what I ought to do. Go to Mexico with Carlos and be a sorcerer’s apprentice.”
“Good Lord,” said Ruth. She thought about it for a few minutes and then: “And what do you expect me to do while you’re running around Mexico being a sorcerer with Carlos?”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be too long. Maybe a month or two. I’d just go down there with Carlos and kind of get into it for just a little while to see what it’s all about. Maybe I could even get to meet don Juan.”
“He won’t take you to see don Juan,” she said. “Carlos says that he is not allowed to tell anybody where don Juan lives. It’s an absolute law of Yaqui sorcery.”
“Well, maybe I can meet him when he comes to L.A. to visit Carlos,” I said.
“Don Juan won’t go near L.A.,” said Ruth. “Carlos was going to bring him to L.A. once. They were in the car about 50 miles from town when don Juan said, 'Stop the car. Turn around. I’m not going in there. Too many evil spirits. The vibrations of L.A. freaked him out!”
“You’re putting me on,” I said.
“Ask Carlos, yourself,” she said. “That’s what he told us in class today. Carlos turned the car around and they drove back to Mexico.”
Anyway, for some reason or another, I was suddenly fascinated with Yaqui sorcery, don Juan, and Carlos. I rushed up to campus the next day for my appointment with Carlos. Since he had a reputation for dressing conservatively and, moreover, looking a bit askance at unconventional dress, I got myself all duded up in a sportscoat and tie like I wear when I have to go to traffic court. I waited around my office and around Carlos’ office from 11 in the morning until one in the afternoon. Carlos didn’t show for the luncheon. I called his teaching assistant, Rosemary Lee. “Carlos split for Mexico this morning,” Rosemary said. “He’s got to see don Juan immediately. I don’t know what it’s about. There are some questions he’s got to have answers for right away. Anyway, don’t worry about his missing lunch with you. He does it all the time. He never shows up when he says he’s going to.”
I went out to lunch with Ron Sukenick, a novelist friend of mine whom I found waiting outside Carlos’ door. Ron said: “How come you have a luncheon appointment with Carlos? I have a luncheon appointment with Carlos.”
“Forget it Ron,” I said. “Nobody’s got an appointment with Carlos. He split for Mexico. He had to ask don Juan something.”
On the way back from lunch, I bumped into Carlos on the elevator: I nearly jumped out of my shoes. “Carlos,” I shouted. “I thought you were in Mexico, Carlos said, “I am in Mexico”, or maybe he said, “I was in Mexico,” or maybe even, “I was going but didn’t.” The thought flashed crazily through my head, “maybe he’s in Mexico and in the elevator.” I Was so astonished that I didn’t know what to say so I said, "Gee Carlos, I’m sorry I missed you for lunch.”
Carlos said: ”I waited in my office with the door open from 11 o’clock until well after one." I stared at Carlos in utter disbelief. I had been to his office five times checking to see if he was ready to go to lunch. The door was closed and I’m certain that my loud banging would have aroused even a sleeping ally Carlos continued. But we must talk, John: We have much to talk about."
“OK, Carlos,” I said. "But I really do need to talk with you and soon. Some weird stuff is beginning to happen. If it’s OK with you, I’ll just start coming to your graduate seminar.”
“But of course, John," Carlos said. “By all means. Come to the graduate seminar. We’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
I went to Carlos graduate seminar for the remainder of the year and listened to what Carlos had to say. And Carlos had a lot to say.
“My apprenticeship is ended,” Carlos began. “There is nothing more that don Juan can teach me anymore. I have all the units of description that the sorcerer needs to proceed by myself. Don Juan, you see, was concerned with giving me another description of the world, another way of seeing, another reality. But I must do it by myself now.”
I knew that Carlos had paid his last visit to don Juan in May of 1971. He seemed to consider that visit the last of his apprenticeship. At that time, some truly astonishing things had happened to him. He arrived at don Juan’s house to find him in the company of his friend, don Genaro, another Yaqui sorcerer. Don Genaro immediately confronted Carlos with an incredible action, Laughing so hard that he almost went into convulsions, don Genaro lay on his belly on the floor and began moving his arms with a swimming motion Carlos was amazed to see don Genaro begin to move and glide about the Toom on his belly as though he were actually on a large skate board with wheels! Don Genaro laughed uproariously as he moved quickly and smoothly about the floor around and about don Juan and Carlos. When confronted with the incongruous antics of don Genaro in the past, Carlos had attempted to explain them away. This time, he held his rational impulses in check and simply stared dumbfounded at don Genaro gliding smoothly about the floor. Carlos considered this an important event since he was convinced that if he resisted the attempt to explain away don Genaro’s act, he would “come to see.”
With don Genaro’s “swimming” over, don Juan told Carlos about the “cubic centimeter of chance.” Every person, sorcerer or not, has a cubic centimeter of chance that will pop out before his eyes when least expected. The average man is ignorant of this. But not the warrior who is ever alert and waiting. Call it what you will, “luck,” “good fortune”” whatever, the fact remains that it will pop out before you “like a stick" inviting you to “pluck it". Carlos stresses this attitude of waiting. The sorcerer waits for the rabbit to come to him on the hunt. He waits for the rattlesnake to pop out of his hole. He waits for the women that he will need for protection to come to him. The sorcerer or Brujo, as Carlos says, must be alert and ready to capitalize on the cubic centimeter of chance.
Don Juan also told Carlos that don Genaro would make his car disappear. Don Genaro said that he could do it and, in fact, he had already done so. The three of them walked out of the house to examine Carlos’ car. Carlos was dumbfounded to find that the car was nowhere to be seen, yet don Genaro had never left don Juan’s house. He searched the area where he had left it in total disbelief growing more disoriented by the moment. Don Genaro and don Juan clowned outrageously. Laughing heartily, don Genaro poked around under rocks as though he expected to find the car under one of them. He and don Juan teamed up to move a large boulder with a stick, leading Carlos to believe that the car would be there. Finally, don Genaro made a kite of his hat and having tied a long string to it, ran down the hill flying the kite-hat behind him. Carlos said that don Juan told him to watch the kite and not to take his eyes from it. Precisely at the spot where the kite fell to the ground, Carlos car appeared. Carlos said he raced to the car to examine it in detail. He heard don Juan shouting behind him. “Don’t stare at the car, goddamnit! Stop the World!”
It is both easy and difficult to convey precisely what don Juan meant. If the person you are trying to explain it to senses that his reality is not the only possible reality and that all realities are merely descriptions, then it is easy. But if the other person shies away from the possibility of multiple realities and hence, multiple descriptions of the world, then it is difficult. In truth, the notion of stopping the world is the central idea in the sorcerer’s system of beliefs. Carlos himself says: "I used to think that the psychotropic drugs were the important part. I no longer believe that. They were only an aid. Don Juan told me that everything he taught me was a means for stopping the world.”
Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a description of the world. We constantly interpret the world in terms of this description. It is this flow of interpretations that must be interrupted if we are to grasp the nature of a separate reality. A technique for “stopping the world,” then, is any set of circumstances so alien to this flow of interpretations in our heads that it literally stops this world of description. And when we have succeeded in stopping the world or more correctly, our everyday description of it, then we are in the position to finally see it. “In order to see the world,” says Carlos, we must first stop doing it.” He means, of course, we must stop doing our description of the world.
Carlos says that the most important activity one can learn is called not-doing. To "not-do” another person, for example, is to refuse to employ the usual description of them. It is then according to Carlos that we will really see them. Don Juan says that when you stop doing other people, you will finally see them as they really are. Underneath it all, everybody looks exactly the same. They look like luminous eggs.
As don Juan explained to Carlos, all of don Genaro’s actions- swimming about the floor and making the car disappear- were his way of forcing Carlos to stop the world and see. These acts were so alien to Carlos’ normal description of the world, he was forced to stop doing his description. Don Juan told him that he thought Carlos had finally succeeded. Beginning with don Genaro’s incredible act of swimming, Carlos was now able to see. There was nothing more that he could teach Carlos.”
There was a curious air of suspended disbelief in the graduate seminar room. The students wanted to believe these and the other incredible accounts that Carlos gave of his adventures with don Juan but they seemed embarrassed in their believing. There was a lot of tense laughter. They often tried to come up with rational explanations for what had happened. Several psychiatrists who came regularly to the seminar talked about “projection," “known actions of certain psychoactive drugs,” and even the “ascending reticular activating system of the brain stem.” Carlos said, “perhaps,” and “that’s interesting,” and so forth, and then went on to talk about hunting rattlesnakes with don: Juan, talking with coyotes and other interesting things.
Carlos told of how he encountered a "bilingual coyote. When Carlos asked, “How are you, little coyote?” the coyote answered “I’m all right, and you?” Carlos said that the coyote was bilingual because it also said such things as “Que bueno,” mixing up English subjects and verbs with Spanish conjunctions and exclamations. Carlos said, “It is unthinkable that I would talk to a coyote. Inconceivable. But obviously, it is possible. It is even possible to talk to a chicano coyote, one that is bilingual.” He laughed at that and watched the class with obvious humor.
Carlos continued: “The world is nothing more than the descriptions that have been pounded into our heads since we have been children. Don Juan gave me a different description of the world. I accepted his description and once I changed from my description, I changed my perceptions. I could see. The sorcerer must work through the perceptual glosses of the culture in order to see. He must become aware of the fact that other descriptions are possible."
One of the students in the seminar said: “That’s why don Juan kept scaring the shit out of you. He was breaking down your way of putting it together.”
“I was a tough customer,” Carlos admitted. “Don Juan had to use three psychotropic plants to disrupt my glosses. Mescalito, yerba del diablo, and humito.” Carlos was talking about peyote, datura, and mushrooms. Carlos is very cautious about psychotropic drugs. He said: “The intake of psychotropics may be utilized in the case of a very stubborn person. But they are deleterious to the body. I had to spend months in limbo after taking them. Especially mushrooms. These were very deleterious to my body. Months would go by when I was sick all the time. I couldn’t digest nothing. I had a haunting sadness with the mushrooms. 1964-5, horrible years. The whole body must be a perceiver if you wish to be fully aware. Look at me now. I have not slept for 24 hours but it doesn’t show. My body is in the state of optimum now. Strain does not seem to affect me.”
Carlos seems concerned that people should not dismiss his work as simply the result of drug experience. He stresses don Juan’s careful attitude towards psychotropics. Don Juan, Carlos said, “has no need for mushrooms or any psychotropics anymore. But don Juan must still collect them. It is a ritual that don Juan must do. He must go out each day and collect the mushrooms with meticulous care. He is hooked to the alternatives that the steps are important, not the results. Even though don Juan will not use these any more, he will still prepare them with extraordinary care.” As Carlos points out, both don Genaro and don Juan are expert botanists. Both of them gather many medicinal plants other than psychotropics for the markets of Mexico. Don Juan gathers the rare ones.
Carlos told how he was horrified to find the remnants of a colony supposedly started by Timothy Leary in the 1960s. When the Mexican authorities ran the Leary group out of Mexico, some of the people remained behind, hiding in the hills until things had cooled. Carlos talked of going to a house where these people still lived. He said: “I walked in wearing my best smile and said, 'Hi friends! I’m Carlos Castaneda from Los Angeles.” They were all zonked out. There were 25 of them in a big room. Stoned. One little girl who almost smiled at me almost encouraged me. But she wouldn’t talk to me either. She lifted up her leg to scratch it. It was very hairy. I was shocked at what I saw there. Truly shocked. I got up and left. Don Juan came and we went into the mountains. I told him about the Americans. Don Juan told me that he had seen them too. He thought them truly preposterous. He told me that he saw them in the fields eating the mushrooms directly. Don Juan was appalled- it is truly, toxic to eat the mushrooms like that without meticulous preparation. He could not understand how they could be so stupid. He saw a naked American standing in the field, eating the mushrooms right there on the spot. Don Juan was horrified. The mushrooms must be picked with utmost care. They must be stored in a gourd for a year and mixed properly with other things. The ritual even includes the way you must handle them. You must take the mushroom in the left hand and transfer it to the right to place it in the gourd for storage. And there must be enormous concentration to find the right one. It is better to practice the Yaqui exercises than to use the psychotropics.”
Carlos told of hunting “power food" with don Juan. They went in search of rabbits and rattlesnakes. Don Juan told Carlos that they must wait for the rabbit to come to them when the twilight was at its apex. Carlos said: “You must wait for that very moment right before the light goes flip and is gone. If the rabbit appears then, you must kill it. The same with the rattlesnake. If it comes at the apex of the twilight, you must kill it. This food that comes at the apex of the twilight is power meat. Sensational stuff. I go to the market in L.A. and buy steak. It’s terrible. You don’t know how it was slaughtered. I hate lamb chops. You feel the anguish of the lamb when it was being slaughtered. But power meat is a gift. Always a peaceful affair. Don Juan will kill a deer when it comes his way in extraordinary circumstances. Even a cougar. This power meat is truly astonishing stuff. I ate all kinds of power meat on my journeys through the mountains with don Juan. We even ate mountain lion. It all looks the same. All you need to sustain you for a year is some power meat, some pinoli (a dried corn flower), some dried chilies and some water. You don’t need anything else: I would lose only five pounds in two months with nothing but power meat and pinoli to sustain me.”
One day Carlos clarified for me what he meant during our very first conversation when he said that he felt “empty” and finished. Carlos was talking about himself and his life. He said, "I don’t have any unfinished business right now. I can go from here to eternity. There is nothing waiting for me. No unfinished business. Nothing to hold me back. At this moment, there is nothing in LA that I have not finished. I call this being tight. There are no loose ends. My father didn’t think this way. He thought you could store only so much and then use it up, waste it. And from then on, it was all downhill. I think the other way is true. Don Juan’s way. It is better to have nothing. To have no loose ends. It is better to cut these off.”
Carlos talked of his mother and father and their “terror of being alive”. He described his father as a “bored intellectual, a professor." His mother complained constantly of having nothing. She would say to Carlos: “Nobody has given me anything. I have no diamond ring.” Carlos said that she would cry and that he “cried with the woman because she did not have a diamond ring.” When Carlos told don Juan about his mother, don Juan said: “If nobody ever gave her anything, the world was hers to take.” “If a man can liberate himself from the terror of being alive, that would truly be enough.” As don Juan told Carlos, "only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge. Because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.”
Carlos’ past difficulties with his mother do not appear in his everyday relationships with women, He is charming, graceful, and attentive to the women about him. He does joke though about the fact that he has never heard of a woman apprentice." Carlos, getting the phrase amusingly backwards, said: “Maybe it’s because sorcerers are chauvinistic male pigs.”
Apparently don Juan likes to play tricks on the ladies though. Carlos told how a WW “beetle” pulled up in front of don Juan’s house. “Quick, Carlos don Juan ordered, hide under that straw mat.” Carlos did what he was told, not knowing what to expect. He peeked out from under the mat to find that don Juan’s visitor was a lovely young social worker. She proceeded to talk very familiarly with don Juan as though they were old friends. Carlos, considering don Juan’s age, thought it funny that he had managed to attract a lovely young lady and he tittered under the mat. Don Juan laughed uproariously and said: "Don’t be afraid. It’s only Carlos hiding there under that grass mat.” Apparently sorcerers have a lot of fun together.
Women, however, do enter the life of the sorcerer in an important way. Carlos told us the fascinating tale of the Four Winds. The sorcerer must be constantly on the alert for women who are blown to him