He married a young woman of American Indian and Mexican heritage who'd been brought to him by some of The Lost. They'd found her beaten and abandoned in a clump of creosote bushes by a dirt road, and it was said that Castell never once asked her about her past, either. They had a son, Charles, and were apparently a monogamous, contented couple. Castell abused neither his position nor his power to evoke enthusiasm.

He argued, swore, smoke occasional cigars, drank moonshine, played poker, and could plug the selected eyeball of a sidewinder at a hundred paces at dusk with a handgun. He displayed several accents in the course of even a single sentence, and spoke at least rudiments of English, Spanish, and German. He also kept his word, and earned respect daily.

Church of New Universal Harmony was incorporated, but continued voluntarily to pay taxes and fees and such from which religions were officially exempt. He rendered unto Caesar, and Caesar liked that just fine. The business deals, connections, and the virtuosity displayed by Castell's structuring of the Church's finances, holdings, and such led many to believe that their founder had once been a hugely successful businessman who had suffered a crisis of conscience. He had, they thought, wandered for a few years, until he understood about Harmony, and then he started organizing things again, this time along Harmonic principles.

Castell died from a stress-induced cardiac infarction during the negotiations for license and the actual purchase of colonizing rights to a new world, which he called Haven. Many rumors at the time linked him with CoDominium Intelligence, but such rumors never specified whether he was supposed to have been a member or simply talked to them as he'd talked to so many other groups of self-interested authorities. Certainly selective harmonizing, or Choosing the Right Song, as he called it, would be a likely route for him to have chosen in such a bitter battle to secure a new place for his Harmonies. Except for the one occasion of his jailhouse epiphany, he always tried to sing along with the loudest.