ABSTRACT
Most Westerners associate shamanism with the tales of Don Juan, as told by the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda. In his fictionalized account of Yaqui sorcery, Castaneda (1973) portrayed the shaman as someone who attains greater power through the drug-induced dream states that allowed for closer communication with the spirits. The general idea was that an apprentice sorcerer would, under the guidance of a mentor, journey into the spirit world in order to combat evil by accumulating power and overcoming bad intentions. This is not unlike the sort of classic, mythological tales depicted by Joseph Campbell (1990), in his historical review of heroic adventures throughout the ages. Myths of all cultures, from Hercules and Samson to Star Wars, portray the hero as someone who goes on a quest to obtain greater power or “the force.”
