The Teachings of Don Juan is a 1968 anthropology book by Carlos Castaneda that continues to inspire many followers. Castaneda said that the book documents his time between 1960 and 1965 with a Yaqui sorcerer (the Yaqui are a Native American tribe from northern Mexico). Castaneda used a term “tensegrity” to refer to several meditative stretches that he and his followers employ. They founded a company called Cleargreen Incorporated in 1995 to teach tensegrity throughout the world.
Our Los Angeles business litigation attorneys are now representing the only heir of Castaneda in a copyright infringement case against Cleargreen over the use of tensegrity. Castaneda’s sole descendant was Nuri Alexander, whom Castaneda adopted as his daughter. Nuri in turn adopted Aerin Alexander, Nuri’s only child. Castaneda shared his tensegrity knowledge with his granddaughter Aerin before he passed away in 1998. Joining Aerin is plaintiff Miles Reid, who trained under Castaneda for over 15 years.
Aerin and Miles have been traveling and teaching tensegrity for 14 years on behalf of Cleargreen. They began making their own version of tensegrity movements that involved significant modifications of the instructional videos and books that Cleargreen had sold to the public. Cleargreen is using more and more of Aerin and Miles’s material as opposed to their original tensgrity movements, and this is the reason underlying the copyright infringement lawsuit that the two are pursing against Cleargreen and production company Laugan.
Castaneda and his tensegrity concepts have many supporters throughout the world. Are you familiar with the original movements and the new modifications from Aerin and Miles? How would you describe the differences?
