Word: mescalito
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Mescalito, Jimson weed and "little smoke" if they cause ypu to meet up with a cricketlike being with a warty head, or a 100-ft.-high gnat with spiky hair and drooling jaws? Please pass me an aspirin...
...destruction, by Don Juan, of the young anthropologist's interpretation of the world; of what can, and cannot, be called "real." The Teachings describes the first steps in this process. They involved natural drugs. One was Lophophora williamsii, the peyote cactus, which, Don Juan promised, revealed an entity named Mescalito, a powerful teacher who "shows you the proper way of life." Another was Jimson weed, which Don Juan spoke of as an implacable female presence. The third was humito, "the little smoke"?a preparation of dust from Psilocybe mushrooms that had been dried and aged for a year...
...powers" or impersonal forces at large in the world that a "man of knowledge"?his term for sorcerer ?must learn to use. Prepared and administered by Don Juan, the drugs drew Castaneda into one frightful or ecstatic confrontation after another. After chewing peyote buttons Castaneda met Mescalito successively as a black dog, a column of singing light, and a cricketlike being with a green warty head. He heard awesome and uninterpretable rumbles from the dead lava hills. After smoking humito and talking to a bilingual coyote, he saw the "guardian of the other world" rise before...
Ever since The Teachings appeared, would-be disciples and counterculture tourists have been combing Mexico for the old man. One awaits the first Don Juan Prospectors' Convention in the Bruio Bar-B-Q of the Mescalito Motel Young Mexicans are excited to the point where the authorities may not even allow Castaneda's books to be released there in Spanish translation. Said one Mexican student who is himself pursuing Don Juan: "If the books do appear, the search for him could easily turn'into a gold-rush stampede...
...what becomes of the "feminine" aspect of human personality in Don Juan's world? In the first book, Don Juan reverses our cultural stereotypes in describing an ally as female-like: violent, cruel, unpredictable. On the other hand, mescalito, the spirit of peyote, is described as male-like: kind, generous, giver of pleasure. Don Juan can be kind and nurturant towards his protege, but the emphasis is always on stoic courage. It appears no accident that Castaneda's opponent is the deadly sorceress La Catalina, who is the only woman in the three books...