It is the belief of the sorcerers of the most ancient lineage that there is an inherent amount of energy existing in each one of us, an amount which is not subject to the onslaughts of outside forces for augmenting it or for decreasing it. They believe that this quantity of energy is sufficient to accomplish something which they deem to be the obsession of every sorcerer on Earth: breaking the parameters of normal perception.
They are convinced that our incapacity to break those parameters is induced by our culture and social milieu. They maintain that our culture and social milieu, our consensus reality, deploys our inherent energy in the process of fulfilling established behavioral patterns which don't allow us to break the parameters of normal perception.
Breaking those parameters is the unavoidable issue of mankind. Breaking them means the entrance into unthinkable worlds of a pragmatic value in no way different from the value of our world of everyday life. We are obsessed with breaking those parameters and we fail miserably at it.
-- Carlos Castaneda, from Magical Passes (1998)
