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In the book, Castaneda continues his description of his apprenticeship under the tutelage of Don Juan. As in his previous book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge , Castaneda describes the experiences he has with Don Juan while under the influence of the psychotropic plants that Don Juan offered him, peyote (Lophophora williamsii) and a smokable mixture of what Castaneda believed to be, among other plants, dried mushroom of the genus Psilocybe . The main focus of the book centered on Don Juan's attempts at getting Carlos to See, a practice best described as, in Castaneda's own words, "perceiving energy directly as it flows through the universe".
The book contains an introduction, an epilogue and two separate parts. Part One, "The Preliminaries of 'Seeing'", describes his re-initiation into the apprenticeship from which he withdrew in late 1965, and also describes his introduction to another brujo (sorcerer) named Don Genaro. Part Two, "The Task of 'Seeing'", elaborates on the mental processes involved with Seeing, and begins with Castaneda realizing that the plants are a necessary tool to arrive at Seeing.
Carlos Castañeda was an American writer. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that purport to describe training in shamanism that he received under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus.
Miguel Ángel Ruiz Macías, better known as Don Miguel Ruiz, is a Mexican author of Toltec spiritualist and neoshamanistic texts.
Robert Gordon Wasson was an American author, ethnomycologist, and Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co.
Nuevo tango is either a form of music in which new elements are incorporated into traditional tango music, or an evolution of tango dance that began to develop in the 1980s.
Richard de Mille was an American author.
Aesthetic Realism is a philosophy founded in 1941 by the American poet and critic Eli Siegel (1902–1978). He defined it as a three-part study: "[T]hese three divisions can be described as: One, Liking the world; Two, The opposites; Three, The meaning of contempt."
Víctor Sánchez is a Mexican author. He was initially inspired by the writings of Carlos Castaneda and by his own studies among the Wirrarika, said to be cultural descendants of the Pre-Columbian Native American Toltecs.
Neoshamanism refers to new forms of shamanism. It usually means shamanism practiced by Western people as a type of New Age spirituality, without a connection to traditional shamanic societies. It is sometimes also used for modern shamanic rituals and practices which, although they have some connection to the traditional societies in which they originated, have been adapted somehow to modern circumstances. This can include "shamanic" rituals performed as an exhibition, either on stage or for shamanic tourism, as well as modern derivations of traditional systems that incorporate new technology and worldviews.
Xtabentún is an anise liqueur made in Mexico's Yucatán region from anise seed, and fermented honey produced by honey bees from the nectar of xtabentún flowers. Rum is then added to the anise and honey mixture. Because of the rum content, the xtabentún liqueur is sometimes called a "distilled honey" beverage, which is misleading, because the honey alcohol is fermented, not distilled. It is, nonetheless, a spirit beverage, since rum, a distilled product, is added. Distilleries still survive today in the Yucatán that produce the liqueur.
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868, and has been officially headquartered at the university's flagship campus in Berkeley, California, since its inception.
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples.
The Art of Dreaming is a 1993 book by the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda. It details events and techniques during a period of the author's apprenticeship with the Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus, between 1960 and 1973.
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge was published by the University of California Press in 1968 as a work of anthropology, though it is now widely considered a work of fiction. It was written by Carlos Castaneda and submitted as his Master's thesis in the school of Anthropology. It purports to document the events that took place during an apprenticeship with a self-proclaimed Yaqui Indian Sorcerer, don Juan Matus from Sonora, Mexico between 1960 and 1965.
Journey to Ixtlan is the third book by Carlos Castaneda, published as a work of nonfiction by Simon & Schuster in 1972. It is about an apprenticeship to the Yaqui shaman, Don Juan.
Carlos Castaneda was an American author whose works influenced the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and have had a lasting influence on the New Age Movement. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968 and ending with The Active Side of Infinity in 1998, Castaneda wrote a series of books that he claimed described his shamanic training with the characters don Juan Matus, don Genaro Flores, don Vicente Medrano, don Silvio Manuel, and their entire group of sixteen sorcerers, from 1960 to 1973. These accounts are not without controversy in that some believe his books are works of fiction.
Florinda Donner is an American writer and anthropologist known as one of Carlos Castaneda's "witches".
Taisha Abelar, born Maryann Simko, was an American writer and anthropologist who was an associate of Carlos Castaneda.
Roger T. Hane (1939–1974) was an illustrator of paperback books, commercial advertising campaigns, and record albums, known for his surreal, fanciful art. During his eleven-year professional career, Hane produced over three hundred illustrations. He painted the covers of the Collier-Macmillan editions of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia books, as well as such Simon & Schuster publications as Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan and A Separate Reality. He also created artwork for Avon Books, E.P. Dutton Company, and Collier Books.
The Book of est is a fictional account of the training created by Werner Erhard, (est), or Erhard Seminars Training, first published in 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The book was written by est graduate Luke Rhinehart. Rhinehart is the pen name of writer George Cockcroft. The book was endorsed by Erhard, and includes a foreword by him. Its contents attempts to replicate the experience of the est training, with the reader being put in the place of a participant in the course. The end of the book includes a comparison by the author between Erhard's methodologies to Zen, The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, and to Rhinehart's own views from The Dice Man.
Glauco Villas Boas was a Brazilian illustrator, cartoonist and religious leader. He belonged to the Villas-Bôas brothers family.
