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Of course, my only access to native american medicine was via the occult/new age section at Borders. I wanted to find the cause of my disease within myself, and put a stop to it.

I read books on holistic medicine and managing pain using visualizations and meditation and so on. But I was not too interested in books written for sick people; reading them just made me feel more sick. In that sense I did have a spiritual disease. The feeling of being a sick person is different from the physical consequences of being sick. Most of the books I read were pretty silly even by my standards. But one author really caught my attention. His name was Carlos Castaneda. His books were about becoming the apprentice of an indigenous shaman named don Juan Matus.

Castaneda is pretty controversial because he always insisted his stories about don Juan were true. But it was pretty clear he was using something other than the ordinary definition of truth. I guess part of his magic is the lingering doubt over whether he is a fiction writer, an anthropologist, or a messenger from another dimension. (I think the final verdict is fiction writer.) One thing is certain about Castaneda though. He was a brilliant entrepreneur. He knew how to reach upper middle class gringos going through an emotional crisis. It isn’t clear what, if anything, his books take from native american culture, or whether don Juan is just a sock puppet for philosophical ideas from a variety of cultures. But what I remember most about his books is how they made me feel.

Like I could bend space and time to my will. That I had the potential to be something greater than this sorry sack of flesh and confusion. Someone that would not be sick nor dependent on doctors.

Someone that would not need to depend on anyone.