Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda

When the teenaged Amy Wallace, daughter of bestselling writer Irving Wallace, was introduced by her father to the infamous, reclusive Carlos Castaneda, she little suspected this meeting would lead to a twenty-year friendship and, ultimately, a life changing love affair.
Castaneda, whose teachings moved a generation, told Amy that her now deceased father came to him in a dream, and asked him to protect her from a mysterious danger. At first skeptical, Amy eventually fell in love with both the man and his spiritual teachings.
Over the course of four years, Wallace was drawn deeper and deeper into Castaneda’s hermetic, inner circle of disciples. But the promise of eternal life and divine love soon turned sour, as Castaneda–the man who had promised to make her his wife–now wanted her as part of his harem, as well as even procuring new women. He alternately told her that his larger than-life teacher, don Juan, was “a metaphor” and “a real being.”
By turns erotic and suspenseful, darkly humorous and heart-rendering, Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an unflinching examination of the exquisite heights and degrading depths of Wallace’s life within the group of “witches” and “apprentices.” This honest portrayal of her dependence on Castaneda, constantly reinforced by her mentor/lover’s combination of charisma and cruelty, will keep you turning pages.
With the skill of a master storyteller and the spiritual courage of a lifelong seeker, Wallace takes us from early meetings to a romantic idyll in Mexico; she shares previously unpublished material straight from the Nagual and explores the harrowing aftermath of Castaneda’s death–including the mystery of five missing disciples who may have left Los Angeles in a suicide pact–and the shattering long term effects of his legacy. Finally, we see her ultimate, uplifting escape from the group, as she learns the danger of giving away her power to another and the consequent joy of recovering the strength of her spirit, a power each one of us possesses.
A love story, a cautionary tale, and a precise account of stranger-than-fiction events, this memoir shows us Castaneda as he was, and encourages the reader to reject the manipulations of a brilliant, complex, but tragically flawed and jealous guru, in favor of the magic within.