Guess what? If you go to April 1 2023 and see the post TAISHA ABELAR'S LOST BOOK - STALKING WITH THE DOUBLE (RESTORED VERSION) you will be able to read a manuscript copy of the book.
************
A little background.
Many years ago when I was a regular at an independently owned coffee house on Ventura Boulevard and taking night classes at the local community college, one of the servers there, who I really liked, showed me her copy of Taisha Abelar's first and only book, and encouraged me to read it. This coffee house friend had recently gone on a vision quest which she believed had oriented her purpose in life and future career.
I read the book and was utterly mystified and intregued. Since then I've read the book twice more, each time years enough apart to not have remembered everything I read before, and each time having a different pov on it in the end, as my understanding or mystification of my own life changes me.
Since then I've also read around the whole Carlos Castaneda controversy; was Taisha one of his cult members? Did the various "witches," or devotees, or whatever they really were, who published books around the subject, all pass fiction off as nonfiction? Or did they really experience what some of them wrote about?
Castandeda died a human death of cancer, and soon after several of these people, including Taisha, disappeared. There was talk of a possible ritual suicide, maybe in an abandoned mine or cave in the desert. Taisha's family filed a missing person report but many people felt that these people had just staged a disappearance and gone off to Mexico or wherever, to continue their esoteric pursuits. Tellingly, money inherited was left behind as well.
One of the Castaneda "witches," who inherited the bulk of his fortune, continues to live and remains silent and protected by an attorney. She has not written anything.
Then, a couple years ago, it was reported that Taisha had a new book that would soon be published. Some people said this meant that all along she had been hiding out and writing and would soon reappear, possibly to take over leadership of the group. A few years have gone by and speculation is that she left behind an unfinished manuscript which, by now, has seen a number of ghost writers.
The publishing house has announced publication a number of times, and so the book became almost ready to order on Amazon. So far, no Taisha, no book.
C 2012 Christine Trzyna / Christine Trzyna Writerly Life All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved.
