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.

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.