Don Juan explained to Carlos in “Journey to Ixtlan”, that stopping the world was a technique practiced by those who were hunting for power, a technique by virtue of which the world as we know it was made to collapse.

Clarity is all that we hold to be good and just, all the values that society holds as true are built upon clarities manipulation, and are so ingrained, so interwoven into our moral ideals, that clarity is invisible to the sorcerer.

The concept of the “man of knowledge” is a person who lives an examined life and progresses through stages of awareness, connection, and ego dissolution. A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning, a man who has, without rushing or without faltering, gone as far as he can in unraveling the secrets of power and knowledge. To become a man of knowledge one must challenge and defeat his four natural enemies.