I met a scientist at a party a well known man. Eminent. A luminary. "Dr. X." He wanted to dis me, heavily. He said, "I read your first book; the rest were boring. Look, I'm not interested in anecdotes. I'm interested in proof." Dr. X confronted me. He must have thought l was as important as he was. I said, "If I was to prove the law of gravity, wouldn't you need a degree of training to follow me? You'd need 'membership' maybe even equipment. You'd need to have taken Physics 1, 2, 16, maybe even Physics 23.

You'd have already made tremendous sacrifices to learn: to go to school, to study long hours. You may even have stopped dating. " I told him if he wanted proof he'd have to take Sorcery 101. But he wouldn't do that; that takes preparation. He got angry and left the room. Sorcery is a flow, a process. Just as in physics you need certain knowledge to follow the flow of the equations, Dr. X would have had to do some very basic things to be in a position to have enough energy to understand the flow of sorcery. He would have had to "recapitulate" his life.

So: the scientist wanted proof but didn't want to prepare. That's the way we are. We don't want to do the work---we want to be helicoptered to awareness, without getting mud in our shoesies. And if we don't like what we see, we want to be helicoptered back.

C. Castaneda