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I feel it important to point out right now that even though Carlos Castaneda primarily focused for the entirety of both his first book, "The Teachings Of Don Juan", and his second book, "A Separate Reality", on the use of mind altering drugs as it related to his enlightnment, he later realized and admitted that he had misunderstood the nature of the psychotropic plants as they relate to enlightenment. The following is taken from the introduction of his third book, "Journey To Ixlan", wherein, he acknowledges his erroneous 'Power-Plant' assumptions.
[*erroneous - incorrect or based on an incorrect assumption; containing or characterized by error; innacurate]
Castaneda: from "Journey to Ixtlan"
I have already presented the case of my apprenticeship in two previous works: "The Teachings of Don Juan" and "A Separate Reality".
My basic assumption in both books has been that the articulation points in learning to be a sorcerer were the states of nonordinary reality produced by the ingestion of psychotropic plants.
...
My perception of the world through the effects of those psychotropics had been so bizarre and impressive that I was forced to assume that such states were the only avenue to communicating and learning what don Juan was attempting to teach me.
That assumption was erroneous.
...
It became evident to me, that I was mistaken in my original assumption about the role of psychotropic plants.
The plants were not the essential feature of the sorcerer's description of the world, but rather, they were only an aid to cement, so to speak, parts of the description which I had been incapable of perceiving otherwise.
My insistence on holding on to my standard version of reality rendered me almost deaf and blind to don Juan's aims.
Therefore, it was simply my lack of sensitivity which had fostered the plant use.
In reviewing the totality of my field notes I became aware that don Juan had given me the bulk of the new description at the very beginning of our association in what he called "techniques for stopping the world". I had discarded those parts of my field notes in my earlier works because they did not pertain to the use of psychotropic plants. I have now rightfully reinstated them in the total scope of don Juan's teachings and they comprise the first seventeen chapters of this work.
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