Evon Davis

In the introduction to Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda wrote, “For the purpose of presenting my argument I must first explain the basic premise of sorcery as don Juan presented it to me.  He said that for a sorcerer, the world of everyday life is not real, or out there, as we believe it is.  For a sorcerer, reality, or the world we all know, is only a description.”

It seems to me like writers would get this better than anyone else.  That’s why I think of myself as a warrior-sorcerer, like don Juan, because that’s the philosophy I live by, or sometimes as a writer-sorcerer, because I think when we write, we create reality.  That’s magic.

Writers create reality by describing it, even if they are just making it up in their minds.  They are shaping reality.  Science-fiction often describes what our reality will become in the future and then we watch it unfold.

But I need to remind myself of this when I am fearful.  Whatever I am afraid of is not real, or out there, as I believe it is.  It’s only a scary story.