ABSTRACT
Castaneda’s search for understanding seems always to turn on a search for methods and rules. His questioning of don Juan continually revolves around the ‘set form of procedures’, the ‘principle to which action or procedure conforms or is bound or intended to conform’, through which, he believes, don Juan makes sense of non-ordinary reality. Castaneda feels he cannot ‘conceive the problem’ without knowing the methods he must employ and the rules he must follow. He therefore wants ‘a clue, or at least a hint, as to how to proceed’. In using our methods and rules, we get a sense of exerting mastery over a technique.
