Are we there yet?

Carlos Castaneda fills in some gaps left by the previous volumes, going back and re-telling in much more detail his initial meeting with Don Juan. For much of this volume I found myself bored and incredulous. It seems that if Carlos had experienced many of these fantastic events so early in his apprenticeship that the surprise he shows later on (ie in the first two books) would be somewhat diminished. Had I the energy I'd go through and double-check all the dates in the third book with the dates in the first two; I'm positive things wouldn't add up, because it seems many of the lessons Carlos gets in this volume were introduced much later chronologically in Volume 2.

But the final third of Journey to Ixtlan satisfies a great deal as Carlos begins to lose his attachment to the world and his hopeless rationality. Eventually he manifests himself as a column of air...

...the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.