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Laxer, Mark Eliot

"Take Me for a Ride: coming of age in a destructive cult"


"But a crow isn't always a crow," said Jim softly, paraphrasing Don
Juan as he stirred the seeds. "Sometimes it's a powerful sorcerer
in disguise."
Intrigued by the paradox of the crow, I plowed through The Teachings of Don
Juan and through Castaneda's A Separate Reality and Journey To Ixtlan.
At summer's end, still drugless and clueless as to whether crows
were birds or sorcerers, I left Boston clutching a Castaneda book.
Back in New York, I chose to see the world less through the eyes
of an eleventh grader taking honors physics and history,
and more through the eyes of a sorcerer's apprentice.
I incorporated into my daily routine Don Juan's recommendations.
As an exercise in humility, I spoke aloud to plants. To *see* beyond
society's description of reality, I tried to stop my thoughts.
To expand my awareness beyond the confines of the waking state,
I sought to wake within a dream.
My interest in what lay beyond the scope of traditional reality led
to an interest in what lay beyond the scope of traditional education,
and, that fall, I thought about switching to a public experimental
high school founded in the late '60s. I firmly believed that I
would thrive in a world without grades, attendance taking, tests,
and requirements.


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