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Somehow I think it's about time I post this. It's about a meeting I had many years ago in Arequipa, Peru.

I was there in Peru for a holiday of a month with several others. When we arrived in Arequipa I felt rather sick and stayed alone while the others went on a guided tour in the nearby canyon, close to El Misti, the volcano close to this city. Although I was sick I felt the urge to go out and stroll around in this old and beautiful city.

I came across an old monastery, La Recoleta, and wanted to visit it's little museum. The caretaker told me it was closed because of repairments that were going on, so I left and went into a bar in the neighbourhood. The bar was called Embrugada or something like that. It had an enchanting athmosphere and I felt myself very relaxed. Sitting at a small table on the terrace of the bar, I ordered a beer and tried to read a book about Peru. I also watched the women in my neighbourhood who in their turn were very interested in me, giggling and talking all the time. I was rather pleased with the attention and I guessed I wouldn't have to spend this night on my own. This went on for about half an hour when I noticed a man who seemed to be watching me very intently from a table in the opposite corner of the terrace. He started to walk up and down the terrace and every time he passed my table he looked me in the eyes. My first thought was that he was either gay or a secret agent. Suddenly he came to my table and politely asked if he could join me. Although a bit suspicious, I invited him to have a beer with me.

My suspicions proved to be wrong. He thought I was a German, and being interested in Germany, and especially Johan Sebastian Bach, he wanted to talk with me. He intruduced himself as Joey or Johnny Arana, in German, but I asked him to talk in English, a language I had a better command of. We talked about many things: business,women,crime in Peru,Germany,mystics, the weather and so on. I noticed he was well liked by the women at the other table and that made me rather jealous. And amazed because he was a rather old man, much shorter than I was and a bit chubby with dark wavy hair and a heavy drinker.

We talked and talked and at some moment I was talking to him about the work of Gurdjieff and Sufism, a subject that interested me very much at the time. When I said that some Sufi groups, to deflect puplic attention, form fake groups, he started smiling mischievously.

He started talking about his brother he only met several years ago for the first time. They had been identical twins and had been separated at birth. His mother had adopted him because she couldn't have any children of herself. When he was in his fifthies his dieing mother told him, he was not her real son. She said where he could find his real family and that he was one of an identical twin. So he set out to find his family and his twin brother. He finally got hold of his brother in California, who by then was a well known writer. His brother was stunned about this unknown twin brother showing up all of a sudden in the university.

This Joe/Johnny (I don't remember exactly what his first name was) then told me that his brother as well as he were both flabbergasted at their likeness. And started talking about their past lives. After several hours Joey/Johny noticed that although they were physically almost carbon copies of each other, they were opposite in character. His brother, Carlitos, was rather introverted while he himself was more outgoing, flamboyant. He also noticed that Carlitos was rather awkward with women, while Joe was a real womanizer. But both were actually very shrewd: Joey as a businessman and Carlitos as a philosopher. It was Carlitos who didn't like the adoptive name of Joey/Johnny: Luis. So Carlitos came up with the idea to call his twin brother Joey/Johny, a name he gave himself sometimes.

Joey/Johnny said to me he had been smiling so mischievously when I talked about the fake Sufi groups, because that was close to what his brother Carlitos proposed to him. Carlitos was a rather popular figure in California, because he had written some books about his connection to a group of Mexican brujo's he met during his study in anthropology. He became fed up with the 'groupies' that followed his tracks and came up with this plan. He would instruct his twin brother Joey with everything he knew about the teachings he received of the brujo's and wanted him to take his place in the public as much as possible. Joey, being a succesful businessman himself, wasn't much inclined to partake in such an undertaking, but Carlitos convinced him it would yield him enough to support himself and more.

So the Arana brothers worked close together and became the most intimate friends one could imagine. They learned many things of each other: business, psychology, medicine,philosophy. Their only problem was that they had to meet in great secrecy to prevent themselves from being detected by the 'groupies' of Carlitos. And so they most times met in Peru, the country where both were born.More and more Joey replaced Carlitos in his dealings with publishers and speeches to students at the univerity. Carlitos finally wanted to disappear totally from the public eye and set up a group of female bruja's with Joey in the lead. After several years they came out to the public and 'preached' the teachings of the original brujo's with Joey as their 'leader'. The books they wrote were written mostly by Joey with the help of Carlitos, but not even the women in this new group suspected anything and they loved this Joey/Carlitos to death.

Joey/Johnny was about to finish his talking and order a new glass of whiskey. At that moment I wasn't altogether interested in his story about his acts with his brother, because I was becoming so jealous of his succes with the nearby women, I just wanted to leave.
He seemed to notice my frustration and said something in Spanish to the women. They all started screaming with laughter and I felt utterly embarressed to the point I stood up, shook his hand, said goodbye and left the bar. I heard him say something like "Hey amigo,..." but I didn't want to listen to him any more and went.

It was only a few years ago that I linked this Joey/Johnny Arana with Carlos Castaneda. It was after the death of Castaneda that pictures started appearing of him in newspapers and later on the internet. I saw the face of Joey Arana I met in that bar in Arequipa many years ago. I was dumbstruck. I remembered his story about his twin brother Carlitos and thought: " Is this the same guy???" Then I learned at SA there was a difference between the early books of Castaneda and his later ones. About Carlos's way with women. About his liver problem. In some book (I don't know which one) I read that Carlos Castaneda was also called Carlos Arana. Then it dawned on me: it was not Carlos who died of liver cancer, but his brother Joey/Johnny!!

To many of you this may seem as an "ELVIS LIVES!"-story, but I sincerely think they did not bury/cremate Carlos, but his twin brother Joey Arana instead. Somehowe I hope I am right and the one and only Carlos is reading all this crap and will come out of the closet. No fake naguals but the real one......IF he has ever been a real nagual that is.

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