Darkness: The Power of Illumination
Illuminating and engaging. Cheyene intelligently describes a new paradigm extracted from the teachings of one of the last great living Aztec Medicine Men that involves the integration of ancient and modern knowledge into a new movement.
—Daniel Pinchbeck, Author
—2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
Shaahin has accomplished the enormous task of translating the eternal truths of the healing power of darkness into a common sense, coherent weave of wisdom, stories, and the courageous plans of action of the spiritual warrior.
This book will shake the very foundation on which you stand, and this internal earthquake will plunge you into the ember seed of light/dark consciousness. Embrace the path of the unknown; in that darkness, you will find your true soul purpose which you were born to fulfill on this planet. Darkness: The Power of Illumination will be a must read for all the people I serve.
—Elena Avila BSN,MSN, Curandera, and Author
—Woman Who Glows in the Dark
Today’s challenging times require a new understanding and relationship with the wisdom, fertility and power of Darkness. This book opens a portal towards this realization.
—Dr. Tom Pinkson, Author
—Flowers of Wiricuta - Journey to Shamanic Power
Powerful and thought-provoking, Darkness is a unique and bold approach to spiritual awakening. Drawing upon ancient Aztec traditions, Cheyene offers the reader a new way of coping with the contradictions of life, and presents an illuminating path to personal and cosmic mastery. Darkness will entice spiritual seekers, both old and new, to take a journey they will never forget.
— Ron Scolastico, Ph.D., Author
—Becoming Enlightened; Twelve Keys to Higher Consciousness
DARKNESS: THE POWER OF ILLUMINATION.
Copyright © 2009, Shaahin Cheyene, All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in compliance with Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright laws using brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews, and for journalistic purposes.
Victory Films Inc.
Darkness: The Power of Illumination
Smashwords Edition. All rights reserved under United States and World copyright protection.
Published Worldwide by Victory Films Inc. http://www.darkzess.com Los Angeles, California, USA.
Cover Design by Joey Irizarry Cover Photo by George Richard Waldren IV
Interior Photos by Shaahin Cheyene, Aaron Platt, and Marc Schap
Edited by Michael McClay and Colleen Lippert
Darkness
The Power of Illumination
Shaahin Cheyene
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009, Shaahin Cheyene. All Rights Reserved.
This book presents information based upon research and personal experiences of the author. It is not intended to be a substitute for a professional consultation with a physician or healthcare provider. Neither the publisher nor the author can be held responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of any of the information in this book. If you have a condition that requires medical advice, the publisher and the author urge you to consult a competent healthcare professional.
This book in no way advocates or condones the use of illegal drugs or substances of any kind or employed for the express purpose of recreational usage. The processes and substances used by individuals whose experiences are recounted herein were achieved under the supervision of experienced professionals, and usage should not be undertaken without the direct supervision of professionals, facilitators, physicians, or organizations who are licensed or recognized as such by official domestic or international agencies.
To Mitklan Ehekateotl Kuauhtlinxan
I am forever grateful for your wisdom, encouragement and support. Thank you for illuminating The Darkness from within.
DARKNESS
The Power of Illumination
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
I PATH OF DARKNESS
1. MY STORY
2. THE TEACHER EMERGES: “EHE” MITKLAN EHEKATEOTL KUAUHTLINXAN
3. A HOMEOPATHIC APPROACH TO SELF-EMPOWERMENT
4. SELF SERVICE
5. BEYOND SHAMANISM
6. THE LAW OF OPPOSITES
7. WU WEI
II. DARKNESS AND ILLUMINATION
8. PATHS TO TRANSCENDENCE
9. CLARITY IS A TRICK OF THE LIGHT
10. THE DARK CYCLE
11. VISIONS OF DARKNESS: THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND
12. POSITIVE THINKING WILL KILL YOU
III. KILL YOUR GURU
13. NEW AGE THINKING: A SNAPSHOT
14. KILLING THE GURU
15. EMERGENCE
16. FORGIVENESS
IV. DISCIPLINES OF DARKNESS: FOUNDATIONS OF THE AZTEC TRADITION
17. THE HOLY TRINITY
18. FUNDAMENTALS
19. TRINITY 1: PHYSICAL
20. TRINITY 2: MENTAL-EMOTIONAL
21. TRINITY 3: SPIRITUAL
22. BRUTAL HONESTY
V DARKNESS AND NUTRITION AND LIFESTYLE
23. DARKNESS AND NUTRITION: OVERVIEW
24. AZTEC DIET
25. LIGHT KILLS
26. FLUORIDE
VI. SIGNPOSTS ON THE PATHWAY: NAVIGATING THE DARKNESS
27. SILENCE
28. MEDITATION WILL KILL YOU
29. SUSPEND JUDGMENT
30. SIMPLICITY
31. BALANCE
32. INTUITION
33. INTENTION
34. DISCIPLINE
35. THE DARK SIDE OF VIOLENCE
36. COURAGE
37. GRATEFULNESS: CULTIVATING AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
38. EXCELLENCE
39. WORD
40. PATIENCE
41. RITUAL: MAKING LIFE SACRED
42. TRUST
43. HERBAL THERAPIES
44. CHANGE: THE ONLY CONSTANT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many of the teachings in this book are based partly on my experiences before and during the making of my first feature-length documentary, Serpent and the Sun: Tales of an Aztec Apprentice. This book is a much more in-depth look at the lessons from the film. It can be read before or after seeing the film or independent of the film altogether. If you do plan to see the film, it will be far more illuminating if the book is read first.
I will mention, however, that learning the important lessons of the past and capturing many of these special moments on film, such as the endless green landscapes, flowing waterfalls, vast mountains, and forgotten back roads, would not have been possible without the help and cooperation of the Aztec people.
With Ehekateotl as our guide, all doors opened. As my film team and I traveled through the heart of the country, we were allowed access to never-before-seen parts of Mexico. The indigenous people recognized him immediately as the carrier of the word of his people. His credentials were unquestioned by the people whom we visited. We were treated with respect and kindness. People who were living in desperate conditions shared their food, and opened their homes and their hearts to us.
In return, through Ehekateotl, we are sharing their story and the story of their people. We feel it is the least we can do in showing our gratitude for a rare opportunity to learn about the Aztec customs and way of life.
Although I have never apprenticed with Ehekateotl, I consider myself a student of his teachings. I have had the great privilege of having him as a friend and mentor, and have had the benefit of traveling with him through the mountains of Mexico. Over the course of the last several years, I have received many healing treatments, harmonizations*, lessons, and teachings from him and his people. I am grateful to Ehekateotl and his people for their contribution to this book and our film, and for agreeing to share their love, kindness, time, wisdom, knowledge, and darkness with us.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all who helped make this film and, subsequently, this book a reality; I am eternally grateful to everyone.
*Harmonization is a term used by Ehekateotl that refers to his practice of bringing harmony to the body, mind, and spirit through his healing systems. I also use the term harmonization in this book when referring to reflective and meditative techniques for transcendence. The two are not to be confused.
I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
—Morpheus
The Matrix
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
—Henry David Thoreau
Foreword
The only way out is through.
The question is are you living life fully or just fully being lived by life? Perhaps you have picked up this book because you noticed that you are not like the minions of sheep running around living ordinary lives.
You never have and never will fit into a “normal” life. That’s okay. You are not alone. Although you pretend at times to be normal, you know now and have always known that there is something different about you, something dark.
You don’t fit the mold, and it’s become obvious to you. At times you feel like you are hiding your true nature. You tend to be overly critical of yourself every now and then, but you just can’t see exactly what it is you are missing. But there is something missing – something seemingly indelible.
There is a huge gap between the person you claim to be and the person you really are. The gap grows wider every day, but you don’t even know who you really are. Perhaps it’s that pesky feeling that you have a great deal of unused potential but you haven’t been able to develop that potential to its full advantage yet.
Deep inside, you know there is no “self-help” book that will help you. You’ve tried it all and now you need real change.
Perhaps a dramatic change is on the horizon. You feel it in your gut. Something big is coming. You know what is needed now is not self-help, but rather a complete death and destruction of who you’ve been and a rebirth and transformation into something new and genuine.
In The Darkness, we can discover the “it” we have been searching for. We can find the “splinter” in our minds. What is required is a radical reversal of our belief system that leads to lasting liberation.
This book is full of contradictions. These contradictions are part of the teachings. Life will disappoint you when your expectations are contradicted. Eliminate your expectations and you remove disappointment. Before you continue reading, see if you can clear away all expectations. This book is not designed to take you calmly from one place to the next. It is not a gentle point-by-point progression to that “life-changing liberation.”
The system described herein is fierce, courageous, aggressive, and extra-strength, and is designed to tear you away from your weak, frail, and false reality and deliver you into the true and more authentic you.
Many people will have you believe that the world is gentle, kind, fair, and full of light and goodness. The truth is that although there is love and kindness in the world it is also a fact that it is filled with darkness. Both darkness and light coexist in our near-perfect ecosystem. Neither one can exist without the other. When applied to the human race, no member gets to the “light” without going through what this book will explain and refer to as “The Darkness” – no one.
The world is not fair and that is a good thing. This imbalance allows the proverbial underdog (i.e., you and me) to get ahead when, by all “fair” measures, such advancement seemingly would be impossible.
The world we live in, by its very nature, is violent, aggressive, and predatory. It will eat you alive if given half a chance. Your only hope for survival is to continually improve and work on yourself and empower others to do the same. You have to move, change, and grow constantly. Otherwise, you will not survive.
If you are ready for this change, then read on. If you are not, then put down this book, use the pages to line your hamster’s cage, or, better yet, give it to someone who is ready. You may want to take a seat. This is not some light, watered-down New Age “Spirituality 101” philosophy. This is the Path of Darkness.
Through it you will find The Power of Illumination.
Darkness
The Power of Illumination
I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I am not a Zen Buddhist. I am not advocating Zen Buddhism. I am not trying to convert anyone to it. I have nothing to sell. I’m an entertainer. That is to say, in the same sense, that when you go to a concert and you listen to someone play Mozart, he has nothing to sell except the sound of the music. He doesn’t want to convert you to anything. He doesn’t want you to join an organization in favor of Mozart’s music as opposed to say Beethoven’s.
— Alan Watts
I. PATH OF DARKNESS
1
My story
Before we begin our journey along the Path of Darkness, I must share my story with you. I believe this will give you not only a clear picture of me and my personal path devoted to healing, but also it will allow you to see what motivated me to begin my journey in the first place. It is my hope that you will find the inspiration to begin your own journey through The Darkness as you read these pages.
The Journey Begins
The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step.
I was born in the summer of 1975 on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, into a family of conservative yet highly-neurotic Iranian Jews. My family had prospered under the regime of Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi).
For at least five generations, both of my grandfathers were master herbalists. I guess I missed the T-shirts, but “Revolution Happens” seemed to be the cry of the times. The revolution that transformed Iran from a constitutional monarchy under the Shah to an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini alarmed many Jews and set off a new exodus.
A unique set of circumstances surrounded the revolution because it lacked many customary elements: defeat after a war, financial crisis, rebellion by the poor and disenfranchised, a disgruntled military, and other traditional causes. A return to religious fundamentalism and a wholesale rejection of Western influence was at its core. It was an astonishingly profound change facilitated at lightning speed, overthrowing an ancient monarchy heavily protected by a lavishly financed army backed by the U.S. and Great Britain. Thus, it became a theocracy based on the guardianship of the Islamic Jurists that still exists today. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, my family, with me in tow, fled for fear of religious persecution. Life as I knew it changed forever.
At the end of the day, I guess it all worked out for the best for my family and me. Who knows what kind of dreary work I would have pursued and lifeless existence I would have lived had I not come to the United States. When one door closes, another opens.
It’s really astonishing how unforgiving life can be to those who refuse to change with it. My transition to life in a new country wasn’t exactly smooth. I was what you would call a “weirdo” in school. I had few friends and was always obsessed with thoughts well beyond my age. Other kids didn’t understand me because I sounded too old, while adults simply thought I was strange. After several failed attempts to fit in with the school’s “In” crowd, I decided to start my own group.
I rounded up other weirdoes, social misfits, and malcontents at my little school and started a business selling nudie magazines, candy, and liquor, all from the boys’ bathroom. My accomplice was Kal, a four-foot tall Greek kid who was just short enough to fit under the theft detection devices at the liquor store. Moreover, he was too adorable for anyone to suspect him of stealing. Kal would sneak into the liquor store (aptly named “The Blind Duck”) and purloin some fine literature, booze, and a pack or two of smokes. It took about a month for us to accumulate a substantial cache of goodies for our enterprise. It was like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson book.
We had Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler magazines; a vast stockpile of mini-bar-sized liqueurs; an enormous assortment of stolen candy; bags of whiteout, VCR head cleaner, paint thinner, and super glue (inhalants); a galaxy of over-the-counter meds pilfered from medicine cabinets; and a quart of scotch and some beers. Adding to that, we liberated a loaded .22 Magnum Mini-Revolver from Kal’s father’s gun collection. His father was a gun freak, and Kal managed to “borrow” firearms from his father’s desk at every opportunity to show off in school. I never really liked the gun, but I guess in compensation for his diminutive size it made him feel more like a big gangster. The gun was only used to impress our peers, and it made us feel like bona fide criminals.
Now that the “inventory” was secured in our lockers, my job was to sell our wares in the boys’ bathroom to the highest bidder during breaks.
Soon the word spread and our little business grew. However, after a “business dispute” arose from a customer, we were ratted out. We managed to rush the evidence home before they searched the lockers, but they pulled both me and Kal into the principal’s office the next day. We were put in separate rooms, but no matter how hard they tried we would not “rat” on each other. We denied everything, although our peers knew what we did. Due to the lack of evidence, the punishment was relatively mild. We got off light, but the principal made it clear that we were both on his “shit list” as he called it.
The result was that we wound up in endless detention. But being young entrepreneurs, it worked out in our favor. We used the opportunity to get new customers for our clandestine wares. Detention business was even better. The flip side was that although we were still not “normal” kids, the “weirdoes” had gained new respect on the playground. We managed to remain true to ourselves and to what we were. Lesson learned.
The shortest summer in history came and went, and soon Kal and his family moved to some godforsaken suburban hell on the outskirts of the San Fernando Valley. That officially ended our partnership. Now, once again, I was on my own.
I moved on through junior high and, like any self-respecting nerd, I found new, weirder friends. I dedicated my free time mainly to reading everything I could find in the science fiction and self-help section of the library. When the first affordable Walkman came out, I took every last cent I had and bought one. I had only enough money for one tape. It was Michael Jackson’s Beat It. I can’t even count how many times I listened to that tape, but it helped me shut out the outside world as I filled my head with information for my next journey.
Like most kids at this age, I was feeling the teenage “need to fit in” syndrome. I desperately wanted to be cool, but no matter how hard I tried, I never fit the mold. In the eclectic, affluent Los Angeles Westside, my school was a well-known incubator for aspiring drug addicts. Specific requirements for being “cool” included ingesting copious amounts of drugs purchased using lunch money, having unprotected sex in strange places while on said drugs, and joining others in all types of illegal activities.
Although I had no profound moral objections to the idea of doing drugs, I simply did not have the money or the time to enjoy them. More importantly, I found myself on a mission. I had decided that I was going to make something of my life and myself, even though at the time I had no idea how to go about it or what that something would be. In retrospect, it was a good choice.
By the time I reached my junior year, I was fed up with everything. I wasn’t learning anything I wanted to learn in school. On the other hand, my personal books on self-empowerment provided me with infinitely more useful information than the government-issued textbooks and the misinformation meted out by low-paid high school teachers. At this point, I had no friends and most of the weirdoes had moved on to other schools. The school remained awash with rich surfer/stoner kids to whom I couldn’t relate – at all. Worse, at home I was being progressively repressed by parents who simply did not understand me.
With an elaborate and well-researched presentation in hand, I somehow convinced my parents that a GED was better than a diploma. This would be my ticket to move on to community college and finally learn what really interested me. I was relieved when they agreed to my plan. I was really looking forward to the freedom to study what I wanted. Unfortunately, the more I looked into it, I realized that community college was really just an extension of high school. They basically dished out the same useless information being fed to me in high school – only I would have to pay for it.
Things at home began heating up even more as my parents realized that, despite every Jewish mother’s dream, I wasn’t going to be a doctor or a lawyer. In fact, I had clearly stated that I was opting out of the Jewish religion altogether because as an Iranian I disagreed with the politics of religion. Needless to say, that did not go down very well.
As a result, my parents became more and more controlling and decided that I needed to go back to high school, even if it meant being a year behind. As much as I was disappointed in the community college scene, going back to high school was out of the question. As things got more unbearable, I decided that my only option was to run away from home. It was a tough decision, but I was fifteen and felt I was at the end of my rope. There were no real choices in front of me; the only thing I knew was that anything was better than what I was going through at the time. With my decision made, I decided to leave via the community college where I would hatch my plan.
“Bob”: An Urban Shaman
I remember being in the college computer lab planning my escape when all of a sudden I heard a booming voice resonate through the room. My head whipped around in the direction of the voice. Except for the lady in charge of the lab, I was the only other person in the room. Ambling closer, I saw what appeared to be a homeless man walking through the door. He had a commanding presence and spoke very eloquently in perfect English. He was an African man with long dark dreadlocks down to his shoulders.
He was the type of character that had no place in the “society of ordinary people.” You could tell from his demeanor: he had “been there and done that.” He had the air of a powerful outcast who had been to the other side and had come back to liberate anyone who cared to listen. His eyes were intense. If you were ever to see in someone’s eyes determination, patience, disobedience, non-conformity, and power all at once, this was the guy with those eyes.
His strong features and massive teeth spoke to his strangely endearing lack of vanity and a nearly diabolical sense of humor. His teeth were extraordinary. In fact, they were so large that they looked otherworldly. At her desk, the lab lady visibly flinched every time he laughed.
The man’s clothing was tattered and years out of style, so it was easy to confuse him as being homeless. He wore an outdated tracksuit with a large ballpoint pen in the pocket of his shirt and flip-flops that exposed his massive feet. Those feet showed signs of age and character; they were the feet of a man who had traveled far, I remembered thinking. He gently took a seat at one of the computer stations.
He removed several old books and other research materials from his bag and began typing intently on the keyboard. Each time one of his massive fingers hit the keyboard, I heard the table shake. Each time he laughed at something he had written, I thought the paint on the walls would start to flake and fall off. This was no ordinary man. I had never seen anyone like him.
In life, there are always those moments that create such a deep impression that you know you will never forget them. There are certain people who can never be erased from your memory. Somehow, like a carefully woven fabric, they are pressed irreversibly into your long-term memory and you know it even then. As I watched the large man work, I tried desperately not to stare. The more I tried not to stare, the more I found myself staring. As if in a strange state of hypnosis, I was mesmerized. I simply couldn’t help it. I don’t know exactly what it was about him, but I was captivated by his presence. I knew he was one of those rare people.
Shortly thereafter, the lab lady stepped out of the room. With no one else there, I pleaded silently to no one in particular, “Please, don’t talk to me.” Right then he pointed.
“That there, young man, will kill you!” he exclaimed with a chuckle. I quickly looked around to see what the offensive item was. Then I saw the candy bar sticking out of my bag.
“I love those things!” I said indignantly.
“You will pay for it later,” he said with self-assurance. As I was about to respond, I noticed a Mason jar in his hand. It was filled with a strange liquid that appeared to have fresh herbs suspended in it. I didn’t know what to say.
Finally, I asked, “What’s that?”
He reached into his bag and removed a second jar, which he offered to me. Then I heard the voice inside my head for the first time. It was my intuition: “Go ahead; you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Don’t ask me why I did so at the time, but I trusted him. I took the jar and drank the liquid. It was strong and strangely herbal. In a weird way, it was delicious. It tasted like nothing I had ever had before. I smiled.
Thus began my year-long apprenticeship under “Bob,” as he was known to those around him. From that day forward, once again my life changed forever.
In a time before the explosion of today’s easily-accessible mobile phones, email, and the Internet, there were very few choices for communication. However, I had a free voicemail service through the school, and during the next year, many a day was spent waiting for Bob to call and leave a message telling me where our next meeting would be. Switching from a McDonald’s diet to a strict vegan one was just the beginning. Along the way, I would learn many lessons from this strange and captivating man.
Settling in to my wayward lifestyle, I took to sleeping on the beach, in abandoned buildings and cars, and on the occasional couch of people I met along the way. I had no money and no possessions, but I had some very precious gifts: I had all the time in the world and I was free. I ate very little but never seemed to go hungry. The highlight of those days was meeting up with Bob.
At each meeting, he revealed a new lesson to me. Each lesson involved one important element of how to be a “Man of Power.” Sometimes I would not hear from Bob for weeks at a time, only to get a voicemail message telling me to meet him at a local twenty-four-hour café at 3:30 in the morning for that day’s lesson. Time went by so fast that I barely even realized I had nowhere to live, was underage, and had no idea what the future would hold. For the first time in my life, I was free and I was learning what really mattered to me. It was the greatest year of my life.
It’s not easy to explain who Bob really was, but I’ll try by first saying that Bob was a true urban shaman. He was strange, mysterious, and cryptic, to say the least. He seemed to know everyone and everyone knew him, at least on a cursory level. But when you delved deeper, no one really knew anything about him. They just assumed he was a local mad man or an eccentric homeless person. To the untrained eye he was just another crazy community college denizen who frequented the computer lab.
One of the reasons Bob was so hard to fathom was that you could never get a straight answer from him. His age, place of residence (if any), and his personal life and history were almost all a mystery. It was only years later that I deciphered from his many stories that he had been around the East Coast during the Sixties, where he was exposed to massive doses of LSD and was involved in political activism. There, he began a rough apprenticeship with a medicine man that led him out of a state of confusion and into his true self. Then, before Bob was ready, the medicine man disappeared and he was on his own. By that time, the 1960s were over and the decade’s cultural trappings had disappeared or were absorbed into society. Bob was immersed in spreading the teachings he had received. He led a double life, traveling as both a teacher of metaphysics and as a political activist.
One day, it occurred to me that Bob was not going to be around forever. The idea scared me. I thought to myself how lost I would be without him. The world was cold and scary, and without him there to paint it twenty-seven shades of strange and fantastic I wouldn’t know what to do. It’s funny how often something happens, right when you think of it and almost as if by the projection of thought. As if by reverse magnetism, insecurity always pushes away that thing you yearn for the most.
At this point in my life, the streets of Los Angeles were wearing on me. It had been two months since I had heard from Bob, and I was frightened that he was missing or, worse, that something had happened to him. He wasn’t around the lab or any of the other places he frequented. Then, as I sat at the local health food store eating my tofu sandwich, I heard that oh-so-familiar boom in the background. It was him. But he didn’t notice me at all. I ran up to greet him but he ignored me. That was very strange. It was as if he was teaching me a lesson through his silence. I kept speaking to him, but he quickly made his escape. I was devastated.
My first reaction was that I had done something to upset him, but I quickly remembered one of his greatest lessons: Control your emotions – do not be led by them. This was not a man who acted through his emotions. This was a man of action and intention; every action he took was deliberate. Still, I was confused. I knew I had lost him, just as he had lost his own medicine man.
It was strange getting accustomed to living in a world without his tutelage. At first I cried like a baby. Then I pulled myself together and reflected on the previous year of my life. I came to realize that I now had the tools to make it on my own and that his parting gift to me was the greatest gift anyone could give: the gift of freedom and independence. Bob did not want me to use him as a crutch. As his teacher before him, he had saved the greatest lesson for last: the lesson on how to be independent.
This was a lesson he could not teach in any other way. I remembered how Bob used to tell me, “We are born into this world alone and we leave it alone. A man must know how to stand on his own two feet and be guided through the waves of life by his intuition. You might not see more than two feet in front of you, but when you are on the path of the heart, never be afraid to be alone. Why? Because you never really are alone.”
After that day, I never saw or heard from Bob again.
I came to realize that my life was changing forever once again. Bob was nowhere to be found, and I was still broke, virtually homeless, and lacking inspiration. It was a major turning point in my life. I knew I would need to pull myself up by my bootstraps or perish. I chose the bootstraps.
One sunny summer afternoon, I found myself at the Santa Monica Public Library in the business and finance section. Now at the age of seventeen, I knew nothing about corporate business or finance except what I had learned on the streets, and from Bob. I didn’t know much about industry or starting a company either, but what I did know was that I wanted to do something big and make a boatload of cash.
I walked through the aisles and pulled out all the books I could find on business and making money. I pulled every copy of Forbes, Fortune, and Success magazines I could get my hands on. I got Think and Grow Rich, The Greatest Salesman, and a stack of other “get rich” self-help books.
About six hours later, I came to the realization that to make the big money my choices were limited. There was religion, politics, petrochemicals, arts and entertainment, real estate, and drugs. I had no interest in religion or politics, both of which looked severely corrupt. Besides, becoming the Pope or a third-world dictator seemed like a far cry from my current situation. I knew nothing about oil, while arts and entertainment seemed like oversaturated markets in Los Angeles. What’s more, I had no “artistic” talents to speak of. And real estate required money, which I didn’t have.
Ecstacy
So, by the process of elimination, I was left with drugs. But how? Which ones? Then, as if on cue, a book fell off the shelf and hit me in the head. It was Robert Johnson’s work entitled Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology of Joy. The fact that I never actually opened the book, and that it had nothing to do with drugs, mattered not. The curious synchronicity – that it hit me in the head at the right time – made quite an impression.
From my nights of wandering through the Los Angeles underground rave scene, I knew that a drug called Ecstasy, or MDMA, had become all the rage. Ecstasy had become the staple of late night raves and the source of profit for most club owners and promoters. The problem was that my own multiple run-ins with the LAPD made me highly risk-averse.
At this point, I took on a small exercise I had learned from Napoleon Hill’s seminal work entitled Think and Grow Rich.
“THINK AND GROW RICH”:
GAINING POWER THROUGH THE “MASTER MIND”
The “Master Mind” is defined as: “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”
No individual may have great power without this “Master Mind” principle. Previously, instructions were given to create PLANS for the purpose of translating DESIRE into its monetary equivalent. If you carry out these instructions with PERSISTENCE and intelligence, and use discrimination in the selection of your “Master Mind” group, your objective will have been reached half-way.
To better understand the “intangible” potentialities of power available to you, there are two characteristics of the “Master Mind”; one is economic and the other is psychic. Economic advantages may be created by a person who uses advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group who is willing to lend him aid in a spirit of PERFECT HARMONY. This alliance has been the basis of nearly every great fortune. Understanding this great truth may determine your financial status.
— Napoleon Hill
Think and Grow Rich
This exercise, called GAINING POWER THROUGH THE “MASTER MIND,” involved creating an imaginary advisory council that one would meet with daily in the “theatre of one’s mind.” This worked well for me because I didn’t really have any friends, and Bob was gone. The concept of an imaginary advisory council that would coach me on important matters was encouraging. I created my council and in it I put all the people who inspired me. There was Bob, of course, Alan Watts, Bruce Lee, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Mahatma Gandhi, and a number of other characters that I empowered to advise me on key aspects of my life.
I made it a daily discipline to “meet” with my mastermind council. I would sit somewhere where I knew I would be left alone and close my eyes. Then I would imagine an empty meeting room with a large conference table. The room was an old-style library with oak walls and leather chairs, and it was filled with old books. Every day I imagined council members entering and taking their appropriate seat. Each had a unique personality and, in my mind, each was as real as if he actually existed. As time went by, each took on even more detailed personality traits, beliefs, and characteristics. Occasionally, they would argue amongst themselves. Bob was particularly realistic as I had actually known him, having had contact with him a short while before. It was fun.
When I asked my council members about getting into the drug business, the advice I got was to study the players and the market, find a niche in that market, create a product and/or service for that niche, be the first in that market, and move rapidly to dominate it.
This quickly became my mantra in business. Most importantly, I needed to make sure that no harm could come to others or me as a result of my work.
Incredibly enough, and in retrospect, I realized it hadn’t even occurred to me once that I was only seventeen, homeless, alone, and without a dime to my name.
I went to work. I spent endless nights and days at raves and underground clubs. I even began to throw several raves at underground clubs myself. I made it my business to watch and learn everything I could about the ecstasy drug trade – although while at the clubs, I was not really part of them. They were in the aquarium and I was on the outside. I would be up at 3 just observing people. I would watch people coming and going. I would see money exchange hands. I would see the drug dealers conducting their business.
I noticed that the supply and flow of pills worked in a very particular manner. Slightly older dealers supplied the young dealers. The older dealers were supplied by an anonymous source from the United Kingdom, which sometimes limited their ability to supply regularly. The process was all spastic-like and very inconsistent. I also noted that there were way too many Ecstasy dealers at the raves. The police were intimately involved in much of the distribution, and dealers who “took care” of the police regularly would be busted far less.
Immediately after drug sales dried up for the night, “coincidentally” the police would shut down the clubs. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the big profit was really being made by two parties: the manufacturers and the law. The little guys in between were taking all the risk and in return, as payment, were getting only the scraps that fell from the big boys’ table.
I watched this for some time until I discovered a major change. This was my opportunity. I noticed that the supply and quality of the drugs suddenly degraded quickly and drastically. Multiple manufacturers came into the game, and their formulas were extremely low “bathtub” quality. Dealers – desperate and in a rush for quick profits – naturally gravitated to substandard suppliers. This cheaper product, however, was dangerous, and the actual pills weren’t the real thing; moreover, they didn’t even resemble pure MDMA Ecstasy. This low-grade version was often ephedrine hydrochloride speed tabs, speedballs, caffeine tabs, aspirin, and off-the-map variations of designer drugs, aquarium cleaning tablets, and/or anything else that resembled the “real thing” and was cheap to produce.
The manufacturers had decided that it was too expensive and complicated to make the real McCoy and import it. Besides, they reasoned, ravers rarely checked the quality of the drug before tossing it down the hatch. By then it was usually too late. Dealers would rather make anything that could be passed off as Ecstasy and continue selling it until people caught on. By that time, they were long gone.
Then it occurred to me. What if there was a way I could make my own version of Ecstasy that was made strictly from herbs, was completely legal, and, being all-natural, had none of the illegal Ecstasy’s side effects? I went to the library again the next day, but this time I stumbled into the herbs and natural medicines section. I hit the books again. I grabbed a roll of quarters and a telephone directory. I stationed myself at the nearest payphone. I called every herbalist in town and spoke to everyone and anyone who would speak to me. I also consulted doctors, college professors, authors...you name it. As I kicked over every rock in the herb field, many thought I was crazy. I even managed to get through to the great naturopathic doctor Andrew Weil, M.D. – a hero of mine. Dr. Weil referred me to a number of resources, which helped me a great deal. I then began to formulate my first batch of magic pills.
After a few weeks, I came up with my first formula. I somehow managed to piece together $1,000 from various sources. I used the cash to manufacture the first batch. My overhead was low and my potential for profit was very high, since I was making it in my friend’s garage. After a couple hundred batches and a number of failed attempts, I finally landed one that seemed pretty effective.
I named the product “Herbal Ecstacy.” I made sure to misspell Ecstasy with a “c” to avoid any confusion or to add more confusion, depending on how you look at things. The first batch consisted of several baggies of black herbal goo. I placed a sticker of a butterfly on one side of the bag and an “e” on the other. I held it up in front of my eyes, and, admittedly, the concoction didn’t even resemble pills. It was more like several mushy black balls in a bag. It looked disgusting and tasted even worse – but somehow I knew it would work. I tried it on a rave partner I had at the time. He was a bald, 200-pound, forty-year-old raver with a body already so full of drugs that Jerry Garcia would have stood in awe. He had the tolerance of an ox, so I knew if it worked on him that it would work on anyone.
He chugged down about twenty of the gooey black pills (the recommended dosage in those days) with a bottle of water. He almost gagged, but the promise of a free Ecstasy high kept him hopeful.
It took about forty-five minutes. “Wait a second, I think I feel it!” I heard him exclaim. “Yep,
I’m rolling. You sure this is legal?” I nodded emphatically. Then he smiled. “Who cares? Can I have more?”
The stuff worked! In fact, he mentioned the effects were strong enough to get a small horse high. My next step was to sell the pills somehow.
Stuffing a small backpack with the baggies of goo, I went raving as the first “legal” Ecstacy drug dealer. As I waited by the door with my long hair, Ray Ban sunglasses, microwave size pager, and raver Nikes, the club began filling up with revelers seeking the next big high. My bulging backpack was sold out in about fifteen minutes. After about an hour, the “customers” who were blissfully intoxicated by the gooey substance were sending other customers my way. The club owner demanded a cut and I gladly obliged. I made several runs to my car, filling up and returning to the club.
This was incredible. I couldn’t believe it was that easy. Somehow, I had slipped under the radar. I had found a drug-dealing utopia and was excited by the possibility of exploiting this new Shangri La to the fullest. Then a young man approached me. He was the “big dealer” in the club. I thought he was unhappy that I was infringing on his territory. “Hey, you the guy selling that herbal stuff?” he asked.
In fact, he was out of MDMA. His supply had dried up. He said he knew some “VIPs that needed to be serviced ASAP” and asked if he could sell my product. I said yes. Hundreds of other dealers followed in the months to come. Needless to say, they liked the idea of a seemingly unlimited supply with no possibility of being “busted.” And thus started my illustrious career as an herbal pill pusher.
It sounds incredible, but I took the $1,000 and turned it into $100,000 in less than a month. With that, I was able to get a small apartment on the beach with rent paid for a full year in advance. I bought a shiny red convertible. Then I took the rest of the $100,000 and perfected the product. I reduced it to five tiny tablets emblazoned with a butterfly on one side and an “e” on the other. I printed slick marketing materials – brochures and posters – and produced electric rave packaging. The crowds ate it up – literally!
The speed of Herbal Ecstacy’s marketing penetration was astounding. At one stage, it felt like every former Ecstasy dealer in town was working for me. My product was everywhere and the “buzz” grew exponentially. I knew then that I needed to move from the local rave scene to the mainstream. I rented a couple of small offices in Venice Beach, and hired 200 of my “closest friends” to come and work for me. Within a year, we were reported to have made over $300 million dollars in sales. We opened offices in five countries, and the product was unavoidably pervasive no matter where you looked.
It was a crazy adventure. Despite shady knock-offs, mass looting of our warehouse, and eventual government and corporate intervention, the product always seemed to survive in one form or another and eventually found a life of its own. In fact, although I am no longer involved, the products are still on the market to this day in several countries.
I then expanded the Herbal Ecstacy brand, adding over 200 different products, including a highly-successful herbal cigarette line that was once the object of a bidding war between two large tobacco companies. I left the Ecstacy business and took a year off. As a by-product of my research, I then developed a revolutionary new drug delivery technology called the “Vapir Vaporizer.”
Entrepreneur: Many Paths, One Purpose
These were heady times for me, and from the profits I was able to spend the next several years as a high-energy entrepreneur. Among other things, I worked as a consultant for several of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, continued developing hundreds of herbal products, created a smoking cessation product and company, worked as an herbalist, started an herbal products distribution company, and created a veggie oil/biodiesel co-op.
In no particular order, I accomplished many far-reaching goals: published a magazine (with over 100,000 issues in circulation); appeared on many talk shows, including “The Montel Williams Show” and Seattle’s “Town Hall”; was photographed by David LaChapelle; and enjoyed the cover of Newsweek three times. Additionally, my products and I were the subjects of countless other cover stories for hundreds of other magazines and newspapers. I was interviewed on the BBC, NBC, ABC, CNN, CNBC, MTV, and many other major television and radio networks.
I also dabbled in politics; bought and sold real estate; became an “angel” investor; raised money for films; financed several dot-com startups; day-traded commodities, stocks, futures, and options; turned down an offer to go public; founded one company to build flying jetpacks and another to build electric cars; produced an electronic music CD (over 50,000 copies sold); designed T-shirts (over 50,000 sold) and started a screen printing company; established a graphic design and marketing firm; produced a workout video; wrote a TV show; made a scifi film with rapper Vanilla Ice; wrote a few books and got them published; and wrote articles and blogs.
I also traveled extensively; imported hookahs and other strange objects from India and Thailand; opened an Ecstacy retail store franchise; discovered a supply for a strange ancient Mexican drug and was the first to import it on a mass scale to the United States; experimented with every major (and minor) hallucinogen from around the world; and, for fun, held séances and performed intuitive and psychic readings.
As if this wasn’t enough, additionally I: owned a couple of clubs, designed clothing and furniture; built electronics; restored, bought, and sold classic cars; built a house in Thailand; and fell in and out of love.
My most satisfying activities, however, were working with inner-city youth and donating to charity.
Although it sounds incredible, I tried to buy an island to start my own country. In that effort I even attempted – unsuccessfully – to create my own legal currency.
And, finally, I adopted thirteen kids; started a film production company; made a few documentaries; and learned to cook. The last item is still a work in progress (and I was only kidding about the kids). Then, finally, as if by design, when I hit my thirtieth birthday, I took a little time off for reflection.
I was then ready for the single most important and challenging effort of my life.
2
THE TEACHER EMERGES:
“EHE”
MITKLAN EHEKATEOTL KUAUHTLINXAN
There are three simple things that ultimately led me to the most important path of my life: travel, writing, and filmmaking. From these three activities I have found the richest and most fulfilling journey of all – and the reason why you now hold this book in your hands.
I traveled and studied with different teachers everywhere I went. Each teacher – everyone from indigenous healers, shamans, and medicine men and women to writers, mentalists, magicians, and those involved in metaphysical realms and the occult – has offered me a unique perspective on life.
They say that when a student is ready, the teacher will appear. Each and every time in my life, when I was ready for that next stage, that next lesson, that teacher has always appeared.
My meeting with the great Aztec medicine man, Mitklan Ehekateotl Kuauhtlinxan, was one of those moments. It was during the filming of what was to be, initially, a series of documentaries on the medicine men and women of Mexico that I came across Ehekateotl. I knew from the moment I was introduced to him that he was “the real thing.”
This meeting threw the idea of filming ordinary travel documentaries into question. I had a strong feeling that the subject of the real film that I wanted to make was now clearly in sight and substantially different from the standard “made for TV” fare.
His story was extraordinary, and he would be solely responsible for the depth and emotional impact in what was to be the final film, Serpent and the Sun: Tales of an Aztec Apprentice. By the time we reached his home in Mexico, I was exhausted. For our original documentary concept, we had already been filming for nearly a month. By then I had been operating on only three hours of sleep a night, and I was plagued with a bad stomach infection. When we finished our first interview with Ehekateotl, he suggested that I stay in his home and receive a treatment. I was grateful for the opportunity and was willing to try anything to get better.
My crew had left and I was there in Ehekateotl’s treatment room alone. “Before I can attend to you, I have to clean the energy of the room,” he whispered. He gave me some simple instructions. He then quietly left the room to prepare.
The room, traditional whitewashed adobe built in the Aztec tradition, was nearly round, and each nook of the room had a sacred item representing one of the four directions. Sage and copal smoke rose from small incense burners carefully placed on the floor. The room was specifically designed to allow no light in. The windows were covered by intricately designed fabrics woven by his apprentices. Small candles flickered and highlighted the shadows of herbs and various medicines that hung from the ceiling to dry. In the exact center of the room was an elevated table blanketed with sheets. He called this his “therapy table.” I had been instructed to disrobe and to get under the sheets.
After a few minutes of being in this room, I fell into some sort of a trance. I never heard the door open, but as I felt Ehekateotl’s presence in the room, my body broke out in a cold sweat. My palms became clammy and a strange anticipation came over me. Before he even laid a hand on me, my body became frozen and paralyzed. Visions began to parade in my mind. Images played like a manic, rapidly-paced slide show. It felt like the beginnings of a strange mushroom trip. It was in this moment that I realized I was alone in the ceremonial center of the room with a 240-pound Aztec hovering over me.
He began to play a flute over me. I asked him why I was so cold, and he pointed out that the room was above 85 degrees Fahrenheit and that it was just my releasing of energy. “It is beginning. You must close your eyes now.”
As I closed my eyes, I felt a rush of feelings come over me. As if it wasn’t enough that I had lost control over my body, my emotions and feelings suddenly began to run rampant. I began to laugh, scream, and cry simultaneously as he applied what seemed to be an ancient form of acupressure to my body. He had explained that he sang while doing his therapy in order to harmonize what he called the “tonal” body. Hundreds of years before the term “aura,” the Aztecs knew about the “tonal.”
I heard ancestral voices layered into his voice as he sang his song. Behind closed eyes, each note represented an image being extracted from my mind. I felt memories from my childhood gently being loosened and lifted away. I felt traumas that were recorded into the fabric of my body liberated. I felt connected to the source.
Then, as if in an instant, I heard him clap his hands. A stream of cold aromatic oil was splashed over my stomach and then my forehead. I began to feel my body again. I felt his hand over my forehead and heard the tone of his ceramic flute over me. I opened my eyes expecting to see him above me but he was gone. The room was empty.
I looked at the clock. It had been over three hours. His work was finished and my pain was gone. I was energized and felt as if someone had given back a part of myself. Then I heard the door open as he returned to the room. “I have to now go and clean the energy of the work we have done here. You must rest now.”
He carefully wrapped me up tightly in the cloth sheet. The final product was a mummy-like cocoon that covered my entire body and face. He instructed me to sleep, moving as little as possible until the morning.
I can’t remember any of the crazy dreams I had that night. But I can remember that they were some of the craziest I had ever had. When I awoke, Ehekateotl was there with something in his hand. It was a traditional hot chocolate and chili Aztec drink. The chocolate and spices, which came from the mountains of Oaxaca, were so unusually aromatic that the smell alone was surely therapeutic. I began to sip the chocolate sitting up while still wrapped in a blanket.
It was at this point that I became convinced that this man was destined to be the next great teacher for me personally and the main focus of our film. I had to convince him to join our journey. As he poured another cup of the hot chocolate concoction in his outdoor kitchen, I nervously began to ask him if he would come with us. Since I hadn’t rehearsed, I had no idea of how to ask him or what to say. I began to stumble upon my words. I didn’t say much that was coherent.
“What I wanted to ask you, I mean, what I wanted to say is...”
“My bag was packed for me last night. I am ready to join you.” Once again, I was shocked. He already knew my intention and had already agreed to join us before I had even asked.
As for synchronicity, he noted that there was to be a gathering of traditional healers in Oaxaca at the exact time we planned to be there. He suggested that he may be able to introduce us to some of these healers.
With that out of the way, we discussed our journey together and the engaging potential of his upcoming journey with Tachi, his aspiring young apprentice during the period of our filming. Both would walk southward to Chiapas in the furthest southern province of Mexico while our camera chronicled the event.