Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda was probably born on 25th December 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru, emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and became naturalized there in 1957. He studied anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he obtained his B.A. 1962 and Ph.D. in 1973. Both degrees were awarded him for the work Castaneda claimed was based on his field notes of a series of encounters with Juan Matus, a Yaqui sorcerer whom he referred to as Don Juan (the PhD in particular for the book published as Journey to Ixtlan). The repeated visits to Don Juan took form of sorcery apprenticeship, enabling Castaneda to observe and analyse a sorcery tradition from the position of membership. That was the main point of his thesis.

At the time when Castaneda acquired his Ph.D., the idea that certain observations only made sense from the position of membership did not figure prominently anywhere outside particle physics. Thanks to the popularity of his books it has gained vogue since, but most people including serious thinkers, still understand membership as concept-sharing and are quite unprepared to consider it as an all-inclusive reality. (An Edifice of Intent is based on the latter consideration.)

Castaneda’s thesis was published as The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge in 1968. It was followed by eleven more books elaborating on the same subject (for a full list and more biographical and other details, visit Wikipedia or Cleargreen). They were hugely popular and influential during the seventies when George Lucas was conceiving his Star Wars and making the first episode. In addition, Castaneda established a system of physical movements – magical passes – which he called Tensegrity, borrowing the term from Buckminster Fuller, architect and philosopher, whom he greatly admired.

According to the available information, Castaneda died on 27th April 1998 in Los Angeles. After his death, the Tensegrity Movement, by then worldwide, continued to be directed by Cleargreen, an organisation run by his cohorts and disciples.