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I first read The Art of Dreaming. Then I started with The Teachings of Don Juan and read all of the 10+ books in the series. I also read the book that was written by the women from his party. Really enjoyed all of it.

"Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you...Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question..Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use".

From "The Teachings of Don Juan"

This issue of "making oneself unavailable" is very well described in The Teachings Of Don Juan. Read all about it.

So much for my focus; I'm only five paragraphs in and already my mind is wandering to "hmm, attention, this reminds me of 'The Rock Warrior's Way' which itself draws from Carlos Castaneda's 'The Teachings of Don Juan', and oh crap, I haven't finished that book either . . . "

ETA: I'll leave these for the curious:

> "Proper use of attention, in warrior-speak, is impeccability."

> "When acting impeccably, a warrior directs all of his attention toward his ultimate quest: to gain self-knowledge and personal power."

> "Essentially, a warrior is an impeccable hunter of personal power."

ETA2: Gah! I keep getting distracted. Now the mention of "Alerting; Orienting; and Executive Attention." makes me think of John Boyd and his OODA loop, another thing I've been meaning to look into.

ETA3: Well, fuck. Looks like I need to start gaming again:

> "Far from reducing our ability to concentrate, video games can actually increase it. They are a powerful stimulant of attention."

Peter passed years ago, brought down by alcohol. Lesson in there somewhere. I think it's the 2nd edition that has a thank you to my father in the forward. My father ran a graphics arts photography house that I worked in all through my youth. I did most the halftones for the 2nd edition. "A Friend With Weed is A Friend Indeed" was definitely in the book it's also in one of the compendiums of clip art, I think that is where Peter found it. My favorite was the spider webs where they fed various drugs to orb weavers and see what effect it had on the webs and the near perfection of the LSD web. One year Peter gave drug talks. Each week would have it's subject be a single drug. I went to the MDMA talk. A bunch of us took the drug then answered questions and shared our experiences as the talk went on. To this day I am shocked the authorities let him get away with it. Peter Stafford was a trip. Brilliant guy but goofy as hell. He was tall and lanky and talked like goofy the Disney cartoon character. Picture goofy explaining graduate level organic chemistry, strange and wonderful at the same time.

I first did LSD on a warm rock in a babbling brook in Aspen. The next few were in the fore mentioned Nisene Marks. A state park and redwood forest. It had been clear cut in the late 1800s and has mostly grown back with fairy circles of redwood trees surrounding the huge stumps of cut old growth redwoods. If ever there were places for me to get mystical, those two would be at the top of my list. I also read Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan during that period, so I am familiar with the idea of mysticism with Psychedelics. In my and my friends case it just never took for whatever reason...

The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda