Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Joseph Grange

Critical Essay by Joseph Grange

The full significance of drugs as an alternative metaphysics of existence awaits something more than the pseudo-apocalyptic prose of Leary or its neo-Zen endorsement by Alan Watts. In [A Separate Reality, an] intensely personal account of his apprenticeship to a Yaqui Indian shaman, Carlos Castaneda draws a terrifying yet compelling portrait of the concrete demands and rewards of a life lived in and through the use of the hallucinogens. As a result, the outline of the significance of drugs for the Western mind is sketched and the full seriousness of such an alternative way of life made apparent….

There are thrills galore in this book, but a recounting of the bizarre and mysterious experiences undergone by Castaneda—he travels through water, is pursued by irreal objects, and witnesses a number of states of non-ordinary reality—would not do justice to the importance of this work. A Separate Reality is not a Disneyland...
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