When I was a teenager, I became enamored of the mystical works of Carlos Castaneda that

chronicled his time as an apprentice to the brujo, or sorcerer, known as Don Juan the Yaqui
Indians.

Castaneda had been a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles when he
met Don Juan seemingly by accident on day at a bus station in Arizona. The Yaqui shaman
might have been short with grizzled, wizened features but it was said he knew secrets and had
powers possessed by no ordinary man and he and Carlos, despite the vast difference in their
backgrounds, felt an immediate affinity for each other.

This fateful meeting would change the life of Carlos, as, under the tutelage of Don Juan the
Yaqui Indian, he would be initiated into the shamanic arts that would endow him with not just
insight into the secrets of the fundamental truths that underpin our reality and that most of us
never even suspect, unless we read his books, but also amazing powers like the ability to turn
into animals and leave your body and fly across the landscape, you know, things that would be
inherently interesting to do.

I was bowled over when I read Castanedas first book called The Teachings of Don Juan: A
Yaqui Way of Knowledge. The dry title which was due to the fact that the book was actually
written as a PhD thesis belied the fact that this was a first-hand account, and perhaps the only
first-hand account ever written, of the training of a Indian sorcerer or shaman. Boy, was I
jealous. I wished that I could meet some mystical sorcerer who would make me his apprentice
and explain to me the meaning of life.

Fortunately, Don Juan allowed Castaneda to take copious notes while receiving his training and
this served as the material for his books, which became phenomenal best sellers. It might seem
strange that there would be such a demand for what, on the surface anyway, seemed like such a
strange and esoteric subject. But fact is that many of us at that time were seekers that is, we
were looking for a higher spiritual truth to counteract the crass commercialism and conspicuous
consumption that had established its hegemony over American culture. We believed there was a
different road, a path that led towards a new kind of existence and we were determined to find it.

I devoured the Castaneda books as they came out, one more bizarre than the last, even though
and tried to put the lessons into practice but it wasnt easy. The worldview was bizarre and
complex, with its depiction of layers of egg-shaped worlds connected by sticky membranes and
the odd behavior of a vulgar cast of characters. As a philosophy, it didnt really make much
sense but at the time I was ready to believe in almost anything that was radically different from
the reality of the world around me.

And then one day I found myself at the bus station in Tucson, Arizona, sitting uncomfortably on
a plastic-backed chair and hoping to have my own encounter with Don Juan or somebody like
him. After all, if Carlos Castaneda could meet his Indian shaman at a bus station in the
southwest, then why couldnt I do the same? Well, there were probably a lot of reasons but I
was hopeful anyway and even if nothing came of this adventure, I at least wanted to give it a try.

In fact, my original reason for taking a trip to the southwest hadnt been to look for an Indian
shaman at all but to visit Julia Garcia, whom I had met in San Francisco where she had been
visiting a friend. Julia and I had really hit it off, or thats what I thought anyway, although when
I made a surprise visit to El Paso, where she lived, she wasnt exactly thrilled. In fact, she was
shocked when I called her when I arrived, for reasons I couldnt figure it out. She met me at a
coffee shop, where she screamed at me hysterically, and then told me never to contact her again.
I had no idea what I had done wrong. But, then, women, who can figure them out?

That was disappointing but I preferred to look on the bright side, as this now gave me the
opportunity to look for Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian. The problem was that nobody knew who he
really was or where he lived. It was assumed by some that the name was an alias or that he
might even be a composite of several figures that Carlos had combined into one memorable
character.

If he did exist, I had no idea how to go about finding him, or any other shaman for that matter. I
didnt especially need to meet Don Juan himself. I would have been happy to encounter anyone
with a complete knowledge of the shamanic system of the native American Indians or sorcery or
magic or just about anything with a paranormal bent. I just assumed that all shamanic systems
were pretty much the same, at least as far as their core teachings went. Otherwise, how could
they be true?

In the end, I decided to do what Carlos Castaneda had done, which was to go and wait at the bus
station in Tucson. I realized that it would be an extraordinary coincidence if the same thing
happened to me that had happened to him. But isnt that what destiny is, an extraordinary
coincidence? In order to let fate work its magic, we first must give ourselves up to it. Thats
what Carlos had done and it had worked for him.

So after I was rejected by Julia, I hitchhiked from El Paso to Tucson, because, being a poor
college student, I couldnt afford to waste money on the bus. That was quite a trip, Ill tell you.
The American southwest is not necessarily the ideal place for hitchhiking for a college student
from San Francisco, but I managed to make the journey relatively unscathed except for one brief
incident with a bearded truck driver who insisted I come home with him so he could show me his
taxidermy collection. However, I managed to get away when he stopped for gas.

At Tucson I stayed at a hostel downtown that contained several other seekers, although most of
them were seeking drugs. Then I spent a couple of days hanging out at the bus station, which, I
have to say, was not the most salubrious place I have ever been. I did see some Indians or what
appeared to be Indians anyway, but I was too timid to accost them. And the only people who
approached me were people who wanted spare change or else were out of their minds, perhaps
due to drugs or a problem with alcohol. I peered closely at all of them in case they might be a
shaman in disguise who was testing me.

When I wasnt at the bus station, I walked around Tucson a little to see the sights, but there
wasnt all that much to see, as it turned out. Tucson is actually a pretty boring place, especially
if you dont have a car, because most of the sites of interest are outside the city such as the
Indian reservation, the desert parks, and the petrified forest. Its not a good place for walking
either because the desert sun beats down on you mercilessly.

I was beginning to think that my trip to the southwest was going to turn out to be a complete
failure. Curses! Why was it that Carlos Castaneda could accidentally run into a sorcerer but I
couldnt? Was it because I came from the wrong ethnic background? Or was it just my destiny
to always have my hopes crushed?

I had just about decided to leave for home when early one evening, I stepped into a hippie caf
and ordered a coffee supposedly made from Indian coffee beans, as the Indian theme was quite
prevalent in Tucson. I then sat down on a sagging sofa beneath a group of photographs of
Indians engaged in some kind of ceremony, which might have been a shamanic ceremony for all
I knew.

I was feeling a little bit depressed. I hadnt expected this trip to completely transform my life,
but I suppose I was secretly hoping that I would have some kind of adventure. Nevertheless, I
always did my best to try to remain upbeat and positive-minded, because I read that we influence
reality by the way we think. Carlos Castaneda might even have said this, in fact. I hadnt found
this personally to be true but I was an enlightened being so what did I know.

Moreover, I was starting to feel alienated, which can easily happen when youre far away from
home and subject to anxiety attacks. You lose your place in the world and then youre not sure
who you are anymore, what your purpose is, or even if you still exist. You start asking questions
like, Why am I here? and What is the purpose of my life?

Actually, I often asked these kinds of questions anyway. Usually, we take the world around us
for granted, no matter how strange it might be, but once you find yourself adrift in unfamiliar
surroundings, the fundamental facts of life no longer seem so clear cut. Its as though existence
is full of cracks and it would be easy to slip through one of them.

While I was thinking these things, a man came in the caf and sat down with a cup of coffee in
the armchair across from me. He looked very much like an Indian. He had long black hair that
he wore in braids, although it was tinted with blonde streaks, and he was wearing the type of hat
that Indians wear. Well, the type of hat you see in the movies anyway. He also had the features
of an Indian, dark skin, high cheekbones, slanted eyes. As he sipped his coffee, he stared at me.

Hey, dude, he said, hows it hanging.

It turned out his name was Al and he made a living selling Indian jewelry and other trinkets to
tourists and souvenir shops. He had some nice bracelets and rings made out of turquoise stones
and I was sorry that I couldnt afford to buy any of them.

I told him that I was a college student in San Francisco and that I had come here hoping to meet
a shaman.

A shaman? Al exclaimed. How the heck did you expect to meet a shaman?

Then I explained about Carlos Castaneda and his fateful meeting with Don Juan, the Yaqui
Indian, at the bus station and how I was hoping the same sort of thing would happen to me.

You thought that if you just hung around the bus station long enough a shaman would suddenly
appear? he exclaimed, laughing out loud and slapping his knees.

Maybe it does sound strange, I mumbled, but dont you believe in destiny?

Of course I believe in destiny, he said. Im an Indian. All Indians believe in destiny. And
come to think of it, maybe we were destined to meet. Im not a shaman, but, as it happens, my
granddad is. He lives up at the reservation. In fact, were having a party there tonight, because
its the full moon. We always have parties to celebrate the full moon because its a big deal in
Indian culture. You can come along if you like. I cant guarantee hell tell you anything because
hes not very talkative, but, hey, what have you got to lose?

I now know that whenever you hear those words what have you got to lose you had better
run in the other direction. But I was still young at the time and trusting and I had the idea that
the universe was based on love . So I thought that if fate offered you something, you should
take it, because that was the path you were supposed to be on.

Al had some business to take care of, but he came back for me about an hour later and then we
set off for the reservation of the Peekaboo Indians. I had never heard of this tribe, but when I
mentioned that to Al, he said there were probably a lot of tribes Id never heard of. Youre a
white guy, you probably only know the tribes youve seen in the movies like the Cherokees or
the Apaches. But, actually, there are hundreds of Indian tribes.

We drove down the highway for quite a while and then turned off into the desert, going down
badly rutted dirt roads as evening came on. The drive was taking longer than I expected, which
made me a little nervous, especially since we were now out in the middle of nowhere. I realized
I could be killed and buried out here in the desert and no one would ever be the wiser. Probably
nobody would even bother to look for me. Id just disappear without a trace.

And yet I wasnt too worried. I still believed in the inherent goodness of human nature. Besides,
I didnt have anything worth stealing, so there was no reason anybody would want to kill me.
And Al was a friendly guy and even hippie-like, with his long hair and his blonde streaks.
More to the point, it was too late to do anything about the situation now. Even if I got out of the
truck, Id just be lost in the darkness of the desert. I had no idea what kind of creatures were out
here. I might not even survive until morning.

Eventually, we crossed a bridge built over a dry stream bed and passed through a broken gate
that Al said marked the entrance to the reservation. We then drove down another dirt road until
we reached a cabin. There were spindly trees and cacti growing around it. Some men wearing
boots and hats and long-sleeved shirts came out to greet us. They had long black hair and dark
faces. One also had a bandana over his face. They looked a little suspicious but at least they
looked like Indians.

I asked them about the culture of the Peekaboo Indians, but all they would say was that the
Peekaboos were the keepers of great secrets. I was happy to hear this, because I wanted to learn
some great secrets, but they didnt actually tell me any of them. They were more interested in
partying.

So first they took out the peace pipe, which was packed with some really potent Indian weed and
maybe even a light dusting of some whacky mushroom, and began passing it around. Then they
produced something called Special Liquor, which was supposed to facilitate an altered state of
mind. I have to say that it worked really well too, because after just one cup, my mind was
completely altered.

The full moon was a cause for celebration for the Peekaboos, and when I asked why, they said,
Because you can see things better. At some point, Al introduced me to his grandfather, who, I
noticed, didnt have many of his teeth left. He smiled a lot but didnt say much. However, when
the dancing started, he sure could shake a leg.

These Indians all played an instrument of some kind a fiddle, a comb, a recorder, a hand drum,
for instance. I had my harmonica with me so I fit right in, wailing away as though possessed,
which I might have been. It was a night Ill never forget, whether I want to or not, which isnt to
say I remember much of it either. It exists in a kind of a dream world of fuzzy shapes and
strange sounds. While hooting and hollering up a storm, the Peekaboos began their wild Indian
dance. Then I started dancing as well. I didnt really dance much in public, not since that time
when, in the throes of delirium, I had knocked over Minnie Cooper on the dance floor at the high
school. Then when I had tried to help her back up, she had told me to go to hell, after which
somebody pointed out that my pants had split in back and everybody started laughing at me. So
I had fled in humiliation and never returned to the dance floor since.

Even so, I liked to dance, and sometimes used to dance in private in the woods in order to relieve
my terror and anxiety at being alive. Now, under the influence of the special liquor, I really got
into it, shaking and gyrating, leaping up and down. I almost felt as though I, too, could be an
Indian and even though I fell down a few times, it didnt hurt at all.
The coyotes were howling in the hills or maybe it was wild dogs and then I saw these luminous
eggs floating around. I mean, they werent actually eggs, they were egg-shaped objects or not
even objects but just blobs of light bobbing up and down in the air. They would float down,
touch the ground, and then bounce back up in the air. I was beguiled, thinking that I had entered
the world of Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian. I tried to touch them but they bounced away from me.
Then I chased them until I realized that I was tottering on the edge of a precipice. One more step
and I would have fallen.

I wanted to fall. Thats what I was thinking. I thought that would be the easiest thing in the
world to do. Then the breeze picked up and on it I could hear a voice whispering. It sounded
familiar, but I couldnt quite place it, because it was hoarse and hard to hear. In other words, it
was a distorted voice coming to me from the darkness. The voice was telling me to leap.

Leap! the voice said. Leap! You can fly like an eagle!

At the time, this sounded like good advice. After all, Don Juan had been able to transform into
various kinds of animals and had taught this skill to Carlos. So there was no reason why I
couldnt turn into an eagle or some other kind of bird. It was just a question of altering your
state of mind. Then your reality would be altered as well. If you believed in your ability to
achieve the impossible, then you could. Thats what I thought. And then I leapt from the ledge.

And I fell. I flapped my arms but I discovered that they werent wings and therefore werent any
help when it came to flying. I guess it would have been funny if it hadnt happened to me. I
seemed to roll down an incline and then ran into a really hard and sharp object, at which point I
lost consciousness.

When I opened my eyes, the sun was shining and I was lying on the ground. I had evidently
rolled down a hill, coming to a stop when I run into the big cactus looming over me. I climbed
back the hill and looked around me but the Indians were gone. The cabin was still there but it
was just a wrecked hulk, with the roof caved in and the porch collapsed. It looked like it hadnt
been used in years.

I found my knapsack, which was lying on the floor of the porch of the cabin. Everything I had
was in there, all my money, a change of clothes, the keys to my apartment back home. So I let
out a sigh of relief and gave a prayer of thanks to the Great Shaman in the Sky.

Then I had to find my way back to civilization, which was no easy task. I had no idea where I
was and no food or water. I didnt even have a hat. I should have had one but I had a prejudice
against hats and didnt like to wear them. But out in the desert, hats are a necessity. You dont
want that sun beating down on your bare head, after all. Youll soon be dead of sunstroke.

There was only one road, so I started walking down it, hoping I was going in the right direction,
and sooner or later it would lead me to the main road. I wasnt really sure how far it might be. It
seemed to me that wed driven a long time after leaving the road, but I couldnt be sure, because
it was dark and I was disoriented anyway.

I guess I had romantic notions about the desert, which I thought was a place of mysterious power
and supernatural happenings. But when youre lost in it with no water and the sun beating down
on you, your perspective changes radically. Then the desert is no longer a place of
contemplation. All you care about is survival. Its in a situation like this that you realize the
importance of survival skills. Unfortunately, I didnt have any.

Death out here was no longer an abstraction, a vague concept bouncing around on the distant
horizon. Instead, it was an old man right, beckoning with gnarled fingers in front of me At least
I thought I saw an old man. I wonder if that could have been Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian.
Maybe he was trying to tell me the way to go. I took a deep breath and wiped my brow. I was
determined to make it, to survive. I dont know why. I just felt that way.

I wondered if Al was going to come back for me. Then I wondered if Al even existed or if I had
gone temporarily crazy and just imagined him. But if that was the case, how had I gotten out
here? I hadnt walked all this way, thats for sure. Somebody must have brought me. But then
why would he abandon me? Maybe they had been stoned they had forgotten I was there. But
then, what about my pants? That was a strange thing to have happen. Id never lost my pants
before. All in all, it was a confusing situation.

In any case, I was used to being abandoned. My parents used to abandon me, my brother, my
other relatives. Just lately, Julia Garcia had abandoned me. I was being abandoned all over the
place, come to think of it. This was just one more example.

I had been walking for about half an hour or so when I saw a truck coming down the road
towards me. I turned around and began waving my arms wildly. The truck came to a stop and I
climbed in the front. It was being driven by an old man wearing a Stetson.

What the heck are you doing out here? he asked.

I told him that I had been attending the full-moon ritual of the Peekaboo Indians the night before
and that when Id woken up, they were all gone and I was alone. He took his Stetson off his
head and slapped it against his thigh. Who the hell are the Peekaboos? he asked.

This is their reservation, the Peekaboo Indians.

I never heard of anything so dumb in my life, he said. Peekaboo Indians! There aint no
Indians out here anyway, Peekaboo or otherwise. This is ranch land.

Well, it looked like I had really been fooled. Fortunately, the old man, even though he was
cantankerous and kept calling me an idiot, did me the favor of giving me a ride out to the
highway where I was able to catch a bus. Along the way, I asked him if he had ever heard of
Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian, who had been featured in the books of Carlos Castaneda, but he just
said, Good lord. I dont know what it is with you kids today, running around and looking for all
kinds of magical crap instead of putting your nose to the grindstone and doing something with
your life. It must be all the drug youre taking.

In the end, I got back home safely, but without my life being transformed. Oh, well. And then
later I found out that that Don Juan didnt even exist, that Carlos Castaneda had made him up.
Or so I was told by my college philosophy professor, who had a moustache. The wonderful and
whacky world of Don Juan that had been chronicled by Carlos turned out to be nothing but a
fiction,

I have to admit I was sorely disappointed. This was like finding out that the Bible isnt true or
love is just a product of hormones. On the other hand, Carlos Castaneda later set himself up as a
shaman in a mansion in Los Angeles where he had a harem of female disciples. So I guess he
turned out to be a wily old magician after all.