wareness.  From that, they
developed  the  three  sets  of  techniques.  The  first is  the mastery  of
stalking, the second is the mastery of intent,  and the third is the mastery
of  dreaming. He maintained that he had taught me these three  sets from the
very first day we met.
     He  told me that he had taught me the mastery of awareness in two ways,
just as  the new seers recommend. In his teachings for the right side, which
he had done in normal awareness, he accomplished two goals: he taught me the
warriors'  way,  and  he  loosened my  assemblage point  from  its  original
position.  In  his  teachings  for  the  left  side, which he  had  done  in
heightened  awareness,  he  also  accomplished two  goals: he  had  made  my
assemblage point shift to as  many positions as I was capable of sustaining,
and he had given me a long series of explanations.
     Don Juan stopped talking and stared at me fixedly. There was an awkward
silence; then  he started to talk about  stalking. He  said that it had very
humble  and fortuitous origins. It started from an observation the new seers
made that when warriors steadily behave in ways not customary  for them, the
unused  emanations inside their cocoons begin to glow. And their  assemblage
points shift in a mild, harmonious, barely noticeable fashion.
     Stimulated  by this observation, the  new seers began to  practice  the
systematic control of their  behavior. They called this practice  the art of
stalking.  Don Juan  remarked  that the  name,  although objectionable,  was
appropriate,  because  stalking entailed a  specific kind  of behavior  with
people, behavior that could be categorized as surreptitious.
     The new seers, armed with this technique, tackled the  known in a sober
and  fruitful way. By continual practice, they made their  assemblage points
move steadily.
     "Stalking is one of the two greatest accomplishments of the new seers."
he  said.  "The new seers decided that it should be taught to  a  modern-day
nagual when  his assemblage  point has moved quite deep into  the left side.
The reason  for this decision is that a nagual must  learn the principles of
stalking  without  the encumbrance of  the human  inventory. After  all, the
nagual is  the  leader  of a group,  and to lead them  he has to act quickly
without first having to think about it.
     "Other warriors can learn stalking in their normal awareness,  although
it is  advisable  that they  do it  in  heightened awareness-- not  so  much
because of the value of heightened awareness, but because it imbues stalking
with a mystery that it doesn't really have; stalking is merely behavior with
people."
     He said that I could now understand that shifting the  assemblage point
was the reason why the new seers placed such a high value on the interaction
with petty tyrants.  Petty tyrants forced seers  to use  the  principles  of
stalking and, in doing so, helped seers to move their assemblage points.
     I asked him if the old seers knew anything at all about the  principles
of stalking.
     '"Stalking  belongs exclusively to  the  new seers,"  he said, smiling.
"They  are the only seers who had  to deal with people. The old ones were so
wrapped up in their  sense of  power that they didn't even know  that people
existed, until people started clobbering them  on the  head. But you already
know all this."
     Don Juan said next that the mastery of intent together with the mastery
of stalking are  the new  seers' two masterpieces, which mark the arrival of
the  modern-day  seers.  He  explained  that  in their efforts  to  gain  an
advantage  over their  oppressors  the  new seers pursued every possibility.
They knew that <heir predecessors  had accomplished  extraordinary  feats by
manipulating  a  mysterious  and miraculous force,  which  they  could  only
describe  as power. The  new  seers  had very little  information about that
force,  so  they were  obliged to examine it  systematically through seeing.
Their efforts were  amply rewarded when they discovered that  the energy  of
alignment is that force.
     They began  by seeing  how  the glow of awareness increases in size and
intensity  as  the  emanations  inside  the  cocoon  are  aligned  with  the
emanations  at large. They used that observation  as a springboard,  just as
they  had done  with stalking, and went  on to  develop a complex series  of
techniques to handle that alignment of emanations.
     At first they referred to those techniques as the mastery of alignment.
Then they realized that what was involved was much more than alignment; what
was involved was  the energy that comes out of the alignment of  emanations.
They called that energy will.
     Will became the  second basis. The new  seers understood it as a blind,
impersonal, ceaseless  burst of energy  that makes us  behave in the ways we
do.  Will accounts for our perception of the  world of ordinary affairs, and
indirectly,  through  the  force  of that  perception, it  accounts  for the
placement of the assemblage point in its customary position.
     Don Juan said that the  new seers  examined how  the  perception of the
world of  everyday  life takes  place and saw the effects  of will. They saw
that alignment  is  ceaselessly  renewed in order to  imbue perception  with
continuity. To  renew  alignment every time with the freshness that it needs
to make up  a living world, the burst of energy that comes out of those very
alignments is automatically rerouted to reinforce some choice alignments.
     This new observation served the new  seers as another springboard  that
helped them reach  the third  basis of the set. They called  it intent,  and
they  described  it  as  the  purposeful  guiding  of  will,  the energy  of
alignment.
     "Silvio Manuel, Genaro, and Vicente were pushed by the nagual Julian to
learn those three  aspects of the seers' knowledge,"  he went on. "Genaro is
the master  of handling  awareness, Vicente is  the master  of stalking, and
Silvio Manuel is the master of intent.
     "We are now doing a final explanation of the mastery of awareness; this
is why Genaro is helping you."

     Don Juan talked to  the female apprentices  for a  long time. The women
listened with serious expressions  on their faces. I felt sure he was giving
them  detailed instructions about  difficult procedures,  judging  from  the
women's fierce concentration.
     I had been barred from their meeting,  but I had watched  them as  they
talked in the  front room of Genaro's  house. I  sat at  the  kitchen table,
waiting until they were through.
     Then the women got up to leave,  but before they did,  they came to the
kitchen with don  Juan. He sat  down facing me while  the women talked to me
with  awkward  formality.  They  actually  embraced me.  All  of  them  were
unusually friendly, even  talkative. They said that they were going to  join
the  male  apprentices, who had  gone with Genaro  hours earlier. Genaro was
going to show all of them his dreaming body.
     As soon  as  the  women  left,  don  Juan  quite abruptly  resumed  his
explanation. He said that as time passed and the new seers established their
practices,  they realized  that  under  the prevailing conditions  of  life,
stalking  only  moved the assemblage  points minimally. For maximum  effect,
stalking  needed an ideal setting; it  needed  petty tyrants in positions of
great authority and power.  It  became  increasingly  difficult for  the new
seers to place themselves in  such situations; the task of improvising  them
or seeking them out became an unbearable burden.
     The new  seers  deemed it imperative  to see the  Eagle's emanations in
order to find a  more suitable  way to move  the assemblage  point.  As they
tried  to see the emanations  they were faced  with a very serious  problem.
They found  out that there  is no way to  see  them without running a mortal
risk, and yet they had to see them. That was the time when they used the old
seers'  technique of  dreaming  as a  shield  to protect themselves from the
deadly blow of the Eagle's  emanations. And in  doing so, they realized that
dreaming was in itself the most effective way to move the assemblage point.
     "One of  the strictest commands of the  new seers," don Juan continued,
"was that warriors have to learn  dreaming  while they are in  their  normal
state of awareness. Following that  command, I began teaching  you  dreaming
almost from the first day we met."
     "Why do the new seers  command that dreaming has to be taught in normal
awareness?" I asked.
     "Because dreaming is so dangerous and dreamers so vulnerable," he said.
"It is  dangerous  because  it  has  inconceivable power; it  makes dreamers
vulnerable because it leaves them at the mercy of the incomprehensible force
of alignment.
     "The new seers realized that in our normal state  of awareness, we have
countless  defenses that  can safeguard  us  against  the  force  of  unused
emanations that suddenly become aligned in dreaming."
     Don Juan  explained that dreaming, like  stalking, began with a  simple
observation. The old seers  became aware that in dreams the assemblage point
shifts slightly to the left side in a most natural manner. That point indeed
relaxes when man sleeps and all kinds of unused emanations begin to glow.
     The old  seers became immediately  intrigued with that observation  and
began  to work with that natural  shift until they were able to  control it.
They called that control dreaming, or the art of handling the dreaming body.
     He remarked that there is hardly  a way of describing the  immensity of
their knowledge about dreaming. Very little of  it,  however, was of any use
to the new seers. So  when the  time  of reconstruction came, the  new seers
took  for themselves only the bare  essentials of dreaming  to aid  them  in
seeing the Eagle's emanations and to help them move their assemblage points.
     He  said that seers,  old and  new,  understand dreaming as  being  the
control of the  natural shift that  the assemblage point undergoes in sleep.
He stressed that to control that shift does not mean  in  any way  to direct
it,  but  to  keep  the  assemblage  point  fixed at  the position  where it
naturally moves in  sleep, a most difficult maneuver that took the old seers
enormous effort and concentration to accomplish.
     Don Juan explained that dreamers have  to strike a very subtle balance,
for dreams  cannot  be  interfered  with, nor can they be  commanded  by the
conscious effort of  the dreamer,  and yet the shift of the assemblage point
must  obey  the   dreamer's  command--  a  contradiction  that   cannot   be
rationalized but must be resolved in practice.
     After  observing dreamers while they slept, the  old seers hit upon the
solution  of letting dreams follow their  natural course. They had seen that
in some dreams, the assemblage point of the dreamer would drift considerably
deeper into the left side than in other dreams.  This observation  posed  to
them the question of whether  the content of the dream makes  the assemblage
point move, or the movement of the  assemblage point by  itself produces the
content of the dream by activating unused emanations.
     They soon realized that the  shifting  of the assemblage point into the
left side  is what produces dreams. The farther the movement, the more vivid
and bizarre the dream.  Inevitably, they attempted to  command their dreams,
aiming to make their assemblage points move deeply into  the left side. Upon
trying   it,   they   discovered  that  when  dreams   are  consciously   or
semiconsciously manipulated, the assemblage point immediately returns to its
usual place. Since what they wanted was for that point to move, they reached
the unavoidable conclusion that interfering with dreams was interfering with
the natural shift of the assemblage point.
     Don Juan said that  from there the  old seers went  on to develop their
astounding knowledge  on the subject --  a knowledge which  had a tremendous
bearing on what the new seers aspired to do with dreaming, but was of little
use to them in its original form.
     He told me that thus far I had understood dreaming as being the control
of dreams, and that every one of the exercises he had  given  me to perform,
such  as finding my hands in  my dreams, was not,  although it might seem to
be, aimed at teaching me to command my dreams. Those exercises were designed
to keep my  assemblage point  fixed at  the place where  it had moved in  my
sleep. It  is  here that the  dreamers have to strike a  subtle balance. All
they can direct is  the fixation of their assemblage points.  Seers are like
fishermen equipped with a line that casts  itself wherever  it may; the only
thing they can do is keep the line anchored at the place where it sinks.
     "Wherever the assemblage point moves  in  dreams is called the dreaming
position,"'  he went  on.  "The old seers became so  expert at keeping their
dreaming position that they were even able to wake up while their assemblage
points were anchored there.
     "The old  seers  called  that  state  the  dreaming  body, because they
controlled  it to the extreme  of creating a  temporary  new body every time
they woke up at a new dreaming position.
     "I have to make it clear to you that dreaming has a terrible drawback,"
he went on. "It belongs to the old seers. It's tainted with their mood. I've
been very careful in guiding you through it,  but  still there  is no way to
make sure."
     "What are you warning me about, don Juan?" I asked.
     "I'm  warning  you  about  the  pitfalls  of dreaming, which  are truly
stupendous,"  he replied. "In dreaming, there is really no way of  directing
the movement of  the  assemblage  point;  the  only thing that dictates that
shift is the inner strength or weakness of dreamers. Right there we have the
first pitfall."
     He said  that at first  the new seers were hesitant to use dreaming. It
was their belief  that dreaming, instead of fortifying, made warriors  weak,
compulsive, capricious. The old seers were all like that. In order to offset
the  nefarious effect of dreaming, since they had no other option but to use
it, the new seers developed a complex and rich system of behavior called the
warriors' way, or the warriors' path.
     With that system, the new  seers fortified themselves and  acquired the
internal  strength they needed to guide the shift of the assemblage point in
dreams.  Don Juan stressed that the strength  that he was talking  about was
not conviction alone. No one  could have had stronger  convictions than  the
old  seers,  and yet  they were weak  to the core. Internal strength meant a
sense of  equanimity, almost  of indifference, a feeling  of being  at ease,
but, above all, it  meant a natural  and profound bent for examination,  for
understanding. The new seers called all these traits of character sobriety.
     "The conviction that the new seers have," he continued, "is that a life
of impeccability by itself  leads unavoidably to a  sense of  sobriety,  and
this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point.
     "I've said that the new seers believed that the assemblage point can be
moved from within. They went one step further and maintained that impeccable
men need  no one  to guide them, that by  themselves, through  saving  their
energy,  they can do  everything  that seers do. All they need  is a minimal
chance,  just  to  be  cognizant  of  the  possibilities  that   seers  have
unraveled."
     I told him  that we were back in the same position we had been in in my
normal  state of  awareness.  I  was still  convinced that  impeccability or
saving energy was something  so vague that it could be interpreted by anyone
in whatever whimsical way he wanted.
     I  wanted  to  say more to  build  my argument, but a  strange  feeling
overtook me. It was an actual physical sensation that  I was rushing through
something. And  then  I  rebuffed my own  argument. I knew without any doubt
whatsoever that  don Juan was right. All that is required is  impeccability,
energy,  and that begins  with  a  single act  that  has  to be  deliberate,
precise, and sustained. If that act  is repeated long enough, one acquires a
sense of unbending intent, which can be applied to anything else. If that is
accomplished the road  is  clear. One thing will lead  to another until  the
warrior realizes his full potential.
     When I told don Juan what I had just realized, he laughed with apparent
delight and exclaimed that this was indeed a godsent example of the strength
that  he was  talking about.  He  explained that  my  assemblage  point  had
shifted, and that it had been moved by sobriety to a  position that fostered
understanding.  It could  have  as well  been moved by  capriciousness  to a
position that only enhances self-importance, as had been the case many times
before.
     "Let's talk now about  the dreaming body."'  he went on. "The old seers
concentrated  all their efforts on exploring  and  exploiting  the  dreaming
body. And  they succeeded  in  using it  as a more practical  body, which is
tantamount to saying they recreated themselves in increasingly weird ways."
     Don  Juan maintained  that it is common  knowledge among the  new seers
that flocks of  the old sorcerers  never  came  back after  waking  up  at a
dreaming position of their liking. He said that chances are they all died in
those inconceivable  worlds, or they may still  be alive today in  who knows
what kind of contorted shape or manner.
     He stopped and looked at me and broke into a great laugh.
     "You're dying to ask me what the old seers did with  the dreaming body,
aren't you?"  he asked, and urged me with a movement  of his chin to ask the
question.
     Don  Juan   stated  that  Genaro,  being  the  indisputable  master  of
awareness, had shown me the dreaming body many times while I  was in a state
of  normal   awareness.  The   effect  that  Genaro   was   after  with  his
demonstrations was to make my assemblage point  move, not from a position of
heightened awareness, but from its normal setting.
     Don Juan told  me then, as  if he were letting a secret be known,  that
Genaro was waiting for us in some  fields  near  the  house to  show me  his
dreaming body. He repeated over and over that I was now in the perfect state
of awareness to see and understand what the dreaming body really is. Then he
had me get up, and we walked through the front room to reach the door to the
outside. As I was about to open  the door, I  noticed that someone was lying
on the pile of floor mats that  the apprentices used as beds. I thought that
one of the apprentices must have returned to the house while don  Juan and I
were talking in the kitchen.
     I went up to him, and then I realized that it was Genaro. He  was sound
asleep, snoring peacefully, lying face down.
     "Wake him up," don Juan said to me.  "We've got to be going. He must be
dead tired."
     I gently shook  Genaro.  He slowly turned around,  made  the sounds  of
someone  waking up from a deep  slumber. He stretched his  arms, and then he
opened his eyes. I screamed involuntarily and jumped back.
     Genaro's  eyes were not  human eyes  at  all. They were  two  points of
intense amber light. The jolt of my fright had been so intense that I became
dizzy. Don Juan tapped my back and restored my equilibrium.
     Genaro stood up and smiled at me. His features were rigid.  He moved as
if he were drunk or physically impaired. He walked by me and headed directly
for the wall.  I winced at the imminent crash, but  he went through the wall
as  if it were not  there at all.  He  came back  into the  room through the
kitchen doorway. And then, as I looked in true  horror, Genaro walked on the
walls,  with his body parallel to the ground, and on  the ceiling,  with his
head upside down.
     I fell backwards as I tried to follow his movements. From that position
I didn't see Genaro anymore;  instead I was looking at a  blob of light that
moved on the ceiling above me and on the walls, circling the room. It was as
if someone  with a giant  flashlight was shining the beam on the ceiling and
the walls.  The beam of light was finally turned  off.  It  disappeared from
view by vanishing against a wall.
     Don Juan remarked that my animal fright was always out of measure, that
I had to  struggle to  bring it  under  control, but that all in all, I  had
behaved very well. I had seen Genaro's dreaming body as it really is, a blob
of light.
     I asked him how he was so sure I had done that.  He replied that he had
seen my  assemblage point first  move toward its normal  setting in order to
compensate for my fright, then  move deeper into  the left, beyond the point
where there are no doubts.
     "At  that position there  is  only  one  thing one can  see:  blobs  of
energy,"  he went on.  "But from  heightened awareness to  that  other point
deeper into the left side, it is only a short hop. The real feat is to  make
the assemblage  point shift  from  its  normal  setting  to  the point of no
doubt."
     He added  that we still had an appointment  with Genaro's dreaming body
in the fields around the house, while I was in normal awareness.

     When we were back in Silvio Manuel's house, don Juan said that Genaro's
proficiency with  the  dreaming body was  a very minor  affair compared with
what the old seers did with it.
     "You'll  see  that very  soon,"  he said  with  an  ominous tone,  then
laughed.
     I questioned him about it with mounting fear, and that only evoked more
laughter. He finally stopped  and said that he was  going to  talk about the
way the new seers got to the dreaming body and the way they used it.
     "The old seers were after a perfect replica of the body," he continued,
"and they  nearly succeeded in getting one. The only thing they  never could
copy was the eyes.  Instead of eyes, the dreaming body has just the glow  of
awareness. You never realized that before, when Genaro used  to show you his
dreaming body.
     "The new seers could not care less about a perfect replica of the body;
in  fact, they are not even interested in copying the  body at all. But they
have kept just the  name dreaming body  to mean a feeling, a surge of energy
that is transported by the movement of the assemblage point to any  place in
this world, or to any place in the seven worlds available to man."
     Don Juan then  outlined the procedure for getting to the dreaming body.
He  said that  it starts with  an initial act, which  by  the fact  of being
sustained  breeds  unbending  intent.  Unbending  intent leads  to  internal
silence,  and  internal silence to  the inner strength  needed  to  make the
assemblage point shift in dreams to suitable positions.
     He  called this  sequence the  groundwork. The development  of  control
comes after the groundwork has been completed; it consists of systematically
maintaining the dreaming  position by  doggedly holding on  to the vision of
the dream. Steady practice results in a  great facility to hold new dreaming
positions with new dreams, not so much because one gains  deliberate control
with  practice,  but because every  time this control is exercised the inner
strength  gets  fortified.  Fortified  inner  strength  in  turn  makes  the
assemblage point  shift into  dreaming positions, which  are  more and  more
suitable to fostering sobriety; in other words, dreams  by themselves become
more and more manageable, even orderly.
     "The development of dreamers is indirect,"  he went on. "That's why the
new  seers believed we can do dreaming by  ourselves,  alone. Since dreaming
uses a natural, built-in  shift  of the  assemblage point, we should need no
one to help us.
     "What we badly need is sobriety,  and  no one can give it to us or help
us get it except ourselves. Without it, the shift of the assemblage point is
chaotic, as our ordinary dreams are chaotic.
     "So,  all  in  all, the  procedure  to  get  to  the dreaming  body  is
impeccability in our daily life."
     Don  Juan  explained that once sobriety  is  acquired and the  dreaming
positions become increasingly  stronger, the next  step is to wake up at any
dreaming position.  He remarked  that the  maneuver, although made to  sound
simple, was really a very complex affair-- so complex that  it  requires not
only sobriety  but all  the attributes  of  warriorship as well,  especially
intent.
     I asked him how intent helps seers wake up  at a  dreaming position. He
replied  that intent,  being the most sophisticated control of the force  of
alignment, is  what maintains, through the dreamer's sobriety, the alignment
of whatever emanations  have been  lit up by the movement of the  assemblage
point.
     Don Juan said that  there is one more formidable  pitfall of  dreaming:
the very strength of the dreaming body. For example, it is very easy for the
dreaming body to gaze at  the  Eagle's  emanations  uninterruptedly for long
periods of  time, but it is also very easy in the end  for the dreaming body
to be totally consumed by  them. Seers  who gazed at  the Eagle's emanations
without their  dreaming bodies died, and those  who gazed at them with their
dreaming bodies burned with the fire  from within. The new  seers solved the
problem by seeing in teams. While one seer gazed  at the  emanations, others
stood by ready to end the seeing.
     "How did the new seers see in teams?" I asked.
     "They  dreamed  together, '"  he replied. "As  you yourself  know, it's
perfectly  possible  for  a  group  of seers to  activate  the  same  unused
emanations.  And  in  this case also,  there  are  no known  steps,  it just
happens; there is no technique to follow."
     He added that in dreaming together, something in us takes the lead  and
suddenly we  find ourselves sharing the same view with other  dreamers. What
happens is  that  our human condition  makes  us focus the glow of awareness
automatically on the same  emanations that other  human beings are using; we
adjust the position of our assemblage points to fit the others around us. We
do that on the right side, in our ordinary perception, and we also do it  on
the left side, while dreaming together.

     12 The Nagual Julian

     There was a  strange  excitement in the house.  All  the  seers  of don
Juan's party seemed to be so elated that they  were actually absentminded, a
thing that  I had never witnessed before. Their usual high level  of  energy
appeared  to have  increased. I became very apprehensive.  I asked don  Juan
about it. He took me to  the back patio. We walked  in silence for a moment.
He said that the time was  getting closer  for all of them to  leave. He was
pressing his explanation in order to finish it in time.
     "How do you know that you are closer to leaving?" I asked.
     "It  is  an internal  knowledge,"  he  said.  "You'll  know  it someday
yourself.  You  see,  the  nagual Julian  made  my  assemblage  point  shift
countless times, just as I have made yours shift. Then  he left me  the task
of realigning all those  emanations  which he  had helped  me align  through
these shifts. That is the task that every nagual is left to do.
     "At any rate, the job of realigning all those emanations  paves the way
for the  peculiar  maneuver of  lighting up  all  the emanations  inside the
cocoon. I have  nearly done that. I am about to reach my maximum. Since I am
the nagual, once I do light up all the emanations  inside my cocoon  we will
all be gone in an instant."
     I felt I  should be sad and weep, but something in me was  so overjoyed
to hear that the nagual Juan Matus  was about to  be free  that I jumped and
yelled with sheer delight. I knew that sooner or later I would reach another
state of awareness and I would weep with sadness. But that  day I was filled
with happiness and optimism.
     I told don Juan how I felt. He laughed and patted my back.
     "Remember what  I've  told  you," he  said. "Don't  count  on emotional
realizations. Let  your  assemblage point move first, then years  later have
the realization."
     We walked to the  big room and sat down to talk. Don Juan hesitated for
a  moment. He looked out of the window. From my chair I could see the patio.
It was early  afternoon; a  cloudy day. It  looked  like  rain.  Thunderhead
clouds were moving in from the west. I liked cloudy days. Don  Juan did not.
He seemed restless as he tried to find a more comfortable sitting position.
     Don  Juan began  his  elucidation by commenting  that the difficulty in
remembering  what  takes  place  in  heightened  awareness  is  due  to  the
infinitude of  positions  that  the assemblage  point can adopt  after being
loosened from its normal setting.  Facility in  remembering  everything that
takes place  in  normal  awareness, on  the  other  hand, has to do with the
fixity of the assemblage point on one spot, the spot where it normally sets.
     He told me that he commiserated with me. He suggested that I accept the
difficulty of recollecting and acknowledge that I might fail  in my task and
never be able to realign all the emanations that he had helped me align.
     "Think  of  it this way," he  said, smiling. "You may never be  able to
remember this very conversation that we are having now, which at this moment
seems to you so commonplace, so taken for granted.
     "This indeed is the  mystery of  awareness. Human beings reek  of  that
mystery;  we reek of darkness,  of things  which are inexplicable. To regard
ourselves in  any other terms is madness. So don't demean the mystery of man
in you by feeling sorry for  yourself or by trying to rationalize it. Demean
the stupidity of man in you  by understanding  it. But  don't  apologize for
either; both are needed.
     "One of  the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery  against
the stupidity in each of us."
     He explained that stalking practices  are not something one can rejoice
in; in fact, they are downright objectionable. Knowing  this, the  new seers
realize that it would be against everybody's interest to discuss or practice
the principles of stalking in normal awareness.
     I pointed out to him  an incongruity. He had  said that there is no way
for warriors to act in the world while they are in heightened awareness, and
he had  also said that stalking is simply behaving  with people in  specific
ways. The two statements contradicted each other.
     "By not  teaching  it  in  normal  awareness I  was  referring  only to
teaching  it to  a  nagual," he said. "The  purpose of  stalking is twofold:
first,  to move the assemblage point as steadily and safely as possible, and
nothing  can do the  job  as  well  as  stalking:  second,  to  imprint  its
principles at such a deep level that the human inventory is bypassed,  as is
the natural reaction of refusing and judging something that may be offensive
to reason."
     I told him that  I sincerely doubted I  could judge or  refuse anything
like that.  He laughed  and said that I  could not be an  exception, that  I
would react  like everyone  else once I heard about the  deeds  of a  master
stalker, such as his benefactor, the nagual Julian.
     "I  am not exaggerating when I tell you  that the nagual Julian was the
most  extraordinary  stalker  I have ever  met," don  Juan  said. "You  have
already heard about his stalking  skills from everybody else. But I've never
told you what he did to me."
     I wanted to  make  it  clear to him that I had not heard anything about
the nagual Julian from anyone, but just before I voiced my protest a strange
feeling of uncertainty swept over me. Don Juan seemed to know instantly what
I was feeling. He chuckled with delight.
     "You can't  remember, because  will is not available  to  you  yet," he
said. "You need a life of  impeccability and  a great surplus of energy, and
then will might release those memories.
     "I am going to tell you the story of how the nagual Julian behaved with
me  when  I  first  met  him.  If  you  judge  him  and  find  his  behavior
objectionable while you are in heightened  awareness,  think of how revolted
you might be with him in normal awareness."
     I protested that he was setting me up. He assured me that all he wanted
to do with his story was to  illustrate the manner in which stalkers operate
and the reasons why they do it.
     "The nagual Julian was the last  of the old-time stalkers," he went on.
"He was a stalker not so  much because of  the circumstances of his life but
because that was the bent of his character."
     Don  Juan explained  that  the new seers  saw  that  there are two main
groups of human beings: those who care about others and those who do not. In
between  these  two  extremes they  saw  an endless mixture  of the two. The
nagual Julian belonged  to the category of  men who  do not  care; don  Juan
classified himself as belonging to the opposite category.
     "But  didn't you tell me that the nagual Julian was  generous,  that he
would give you the shirt off his back?" I asked.
     "He certainly was," don Juan replied. "Not only was he generous; he was
also  utterly  charming,   winning.  He  was  always  deeply  and  sincerely
interested  in  everybody around  him. He  was kind and open  and gave  away
everything he had to anyone who needed it, or to anyone he happened to like.
He was in  turn  loved  by  everyone, because  being  a master  stalker,  he
conveyed to them his true feelings: he  didn't give a plugged nickel for any
of them."
     I did not say anything, but don Juan was aware of my sense of disbelief
or even  distress at what he was saying. He chuckled and shook his head from
side to side.
     "That's stalking," he said.  "You see, I haven't even begun my story of
the nagual Julian and you are already annoyed."
     He exploded  into a giant  laugh  as  I tried  to  explain  what I  was
feeling.
     "The nagual Julian didn't care about anyone," he continued. "That's why
he  could help people.  And  he  did; he gave them  the shirt off  his back,
because he didn't give a fig about them."
     "Do you  mean,  don Juan, that the  only ones who help their fellow men
are those who don't give a damn about them?" I asked, truly miffed.
     "That's  what stalkers say," he said with a beaming  smile. "The nagual
Julian,  for  instance,  was  a  fabulous  curer. He  helped  thousands  and
thousands of people, but he never took credit for it. He let people  believe
that a woman seer of his party was the curer.
     "Now, if he had been a  man who cared  for  his fellow men, he would've
demanded  acknowledgment. Those who care for others care  for themselves and
demand recognition where recognition is due."
     Don Juan  said  that he, since he belonged to the category of those who
care  for  their  fellow men, had never  helped anyone: he felt awkward with
generosity; he could not even conceive being loved as the nagual Julian was,
and he would certainly feel stupid giving anyone the shirt off his back.
     "I  care so much for my fellow  man," he continued,  "that I  don't  do
anything for  him.  I wouldn't know what to do. And I would always  have the
nagging sense that I was imposing my will on him with my gifts.
     "Naturally, I  have overcome all these feelings with the warriors' way.
Any  warrior  can be  successful with  people, as  the  nagual  Julian  was,
provided he  moves his assemblage point to a position where it is immaterial
whether people like  him, dislike him, or ignore him.  But  that's  not  the
same."
     Don  Juan  said  that  when  he  first  became aware of  the  stalkers'
principles,  as  I was then doing, he  was as distressed as he could be. The
nagual Elias,  who  was very  much like  don Juan,  explained  to  him  that
stalkers like the nagual Julian are natural leaders of people. They can help
people do anything.
     "The nagual Elias  said  that  these  warriors  can help  people to get
cured," don Juan went  on, "or they can  help them to get ill. They can help
them to find happiness or  they can help them to find sorrow. I suggested to
the nagual Elias  that instead of saying that these warriors help people, we
should  say that they  affect  people. He said  that they  don't just affect
people, but that they actively herd them around."
     Don Juan  chuckled and looked  at me fixedly. There  was a  mischievous
glint in his eyes.
     "Strange, isn't it?" he asked. "The way stalkers arranged what they see
about people?"
     Then  don Juan started his story about the nagual Julian.  He said that
the nagual Julian spent many, many  years  waiting for an apprentice nagual.
He  stumbled on don  Juan  one day while  returning home after a short visit
with acquaintances in a nearby  village. He  was, in fact, thinking about an
apprentice nagual as he walked  on the road when he heard a loud gunshot and
saw people scrambling in every direction. He ran  with them into  the bushes
by the side of the road and only came out from his hiding place at the sight
of a group of people gathered around someone wounded, lying on the ground.
     The wounded person was, of course, don  Juan, who had  been shot by the
tyrannical  foreman.  The nagual Julian saw instantly  that don Juan  was  a
special man whose cocoon was divided into  four sections instead  of two; he
also realized  that don Juan  was badly wounded. He knew that he had no time
to waste.  His  wish had been fulfilled,  but he  had to work  fast,  before
anyone sensed what was going on. He held his head  and  cried, "They've shot
my son!"
     He  was  traveling  with one of the female  seers of his party, a husky
Indian woman, who always officiated publicly as his mean shrewish wife. They
were an excellent team of stalkers. He cued the  woman  seer,  and she  also
started weeping and wailing for their son, who was  unconscious and bleeding
to death. The nagual Julian begged the onlookers not to call the authorities
but rather to help him move his son to his house in the city, which was some
distance away. He offered money to some strong young men if they would carry
his wounded, dying son.
     The  men carried don Juan to  the nagual Julian's house. The nagual was
very generous with them and paid them handsomely. The men were so touched by
the  grieving  couple, who had  cried all the way to the  house,  that  they
refused to take the money, but  the nagual Julian insisted that they take it
to give his son luck.
     For a few  days, don Juan  did not  know  what to think about  the kind
couple who had  taken him  into their  home. He said that to him, the nagual
Julian appeared as  an almost senile old man. He was not  an Indian, but was
married to a young, irascible, fat Indian wife, who was as physically strong
as she was ill-tempered. Don Juan thought that she  was definitely  a curer,
judging by the way  she treated his wound and by the quantities of medicinal
plants stashed away in the room where they had put him.
     The woman also dominated the old  man  and made  him tend to don Juan's
wound  every day. They had made a bed for don Juan out of a thick floor mat,
and the old man had a terrible time kneeling down to reach him. Don Juan had
to fight not to laugh at the comical sight  of the  frail old man trying his
best  to bend his knees. Don Juan said that while  the  old man  washed  his
wound, he would  mumble incessantly;  he had a vacant look in his  eyes; his
hands shook, and his body trembled from head to toe.
     When he  was down on  his knees, he could never get  up  by himself. He
would call his wife, yelling  in a raspy voice, filled with contained anger.
The wife would come into the room and both of them would get into a horrible
argument.  Often she  would  walk  out,  leaving  the  old man to get  up by
himself.
     Don  Juan assured me that  he  had never felt so sorry for anyone as he
felt  for that poor, kind old man. Many times he wanted to rise and help him
up, but he could hardly move himself.  Once the  old  man spent half an hour
cursing and yelling, as he puffed and crawled like a slug, before he dragged
himself to the door and painfully lifted himself up to a standing position.
     He explained to don Juan that his poor health was  due to advanced age,
broken  bones that had  not mended properly,  and rheumatism. Don  Juan said
that  the  old man raised  his eyes toward heaven and confessed to  don Juan
that  he was the most wretched man on earth;  he had come to  the curer  for
help and had ended up marrying her and becoming a slave.
     "I asked the old man why he didn't leave," don Juan continued. "The old
man's eyes widened with  fear. He choked on his own saliva trying to hush me
and  then he  went rigid and fell down like  a log on the floor, next  to my
bed, trying to make me stop talking. 'You don't know what you're saying; you
don't  know  what you're saying. Nobody can run away  from this place, ' the
old man kept on repeating with a wild expression in his eyes.
     "And  I believed him. I was convinced that  he was more miserable, more
wretched than  I had ever been  myself.  And  with every day  that  passed I
became more and more uncomfortable in that house. The food was great and the
woman  was  always out curing people, so  I was  left  with the old  man. We
talked a lot about my life. I liked to talk to him. I told him that I had no
money to pay him for his kindness, but that I would do anything to help him.
He told me that  he was beyond help, that he was ready to die, but that if I
really meant what I said, he  would appreciate it  if I would marry his wife
after he died.
     "Right then  I knew the  old  man was  nuts. And right then I also knew
that I had to run away as soon as possible."
     Don Juan said that when he was well enough  to walk around unaided, his
benefactor  gave him  a chilling  demonstration of his ability as a stalker.
Without  any  warning or preamble he put  don  Juan face  to  face  with  an
inorganic living  being.  Sensing that don Juan was planning to run away, he
seized  the opportunity to scare him  with an ally  that was somehow able to
look like a monstrous man.
     "The sight of that ally nearly drove me insane," don Juan continued. "I
couldn't believe  my eyes, and yet the monster was right in front of me. And
the frail old man was next to me whimpering and begging the monster to spare
his life. You see,  my benefactor  was like the old seers; he could dole out
his fear, a piece at a time, and the  ally was reacting to it. I didn't know
that.  All I could  see  with  my  very own eyes  was a horrendous  creature
advancing on us, ready to tear us apart, limb from limb.
     "The  moment the ally lurched onto us, hissing like a serpent, I passed
out  cold. When I came to my senses again, the old man  told me that  he had
made a deal with the creature."
     He explained to don  Juan that the man had  agreed  to let both of them
live,  provided  don Juan enter the man's service.  Don Juan  apprehensively
asked what was involved in the service. The old man replied that it would be
slavery,  but pointed out that don Juan's life had nearly  ended  a few days
back when he had been  shot.  Had not he and his wife come along to stop the
bleeding,  don  Juan would surely have died, so there was really very little
to bargain with, or to bargain for. The monstrous man knew that and had  him
over a barrel. The old man told don Juan to stop vacillating and  accept the
deal, because if he refused, the monstrous man, who was listening behind the
door, would burst in and kill them both on the spot and be done with it.
     "I had enough nerve to ask the  frail old  man, who was shaking  like a
leaf,  how  the  man would kill  us,"  don  Juan  went on. "He said that the
monster planned  to  break all the  bones  in our bodies,  starting with our
feet, as we screamed in unspeakable  agony, and that it would take at  least
five days for us to die.
     "I accepted that man's conditions instantly. The old man, with tears in
his eyes, congratulated me and said that the deal wasn't really that bad. We
were going to  be more prisoners than slaves of the  monstrous  man,  but we
would eat at least twice a day; and since we had life, we could work for our
freedom; we could plot, connive, and fight our way out of that hell."
     Don Juan  smiled and then broke into laughter. He  had known beforehand
how I would feel about the nagual Julian.
     "I told you you'd be upset," he said.
     "I really don't  understand, don Juan," I said. "What was  the point of
putting on such an elaborate masquerade?"
     "The point is very  simple,"  he said, still  smiling. "This is another
method of teaching, a  very good one. it requires tremendous imagination and
tremendous  control on the  part of the  teacher. My  method of  teaching is
closer to what  you consider  teaching. It requires  a tremendous amount  of
words. I  go  to  the  extremes  of talking. The nagual  Julian  went to the
extremes of stalking."
     Don Juan said that there were two  methods of teaching among the seers.
He was  familiar with both  of  them. He preferred the  one that  called for
explaining everything and letting the other person know the course of action
beforehand.   It   was  a  system   that   fostered  freedom,   choice,  and
understanding. His benefactor's method, on the other hand, was more coercive
and did not allow for choice or  understanding. Its great advantage was that
it forced warriors to live the seers' concepts directly with no intermediary
elucidation.
     Don  Juan  explained that  everything  his benefactor  did to him was a
masterpiece of strategy. Every one of  the nagual Julian's words and actions
was  deliberately  selected to cause  a  particular effect. His  art  was to
provide his words and actions with the most suitable context, so  that  they
would have the necessary impact.
     "That's the  stalkers' method," don  Juan  went  on.  "It  fosters  not
understanding but total realization. For instance, it took me a lifetime  to
understand  what he had done to me by making me face  the  ally, although  I
realized all that without any explanation as I lived that experience.
     "I've  told  you that Genaro,  for example, doesn't understand what  he
does,  but  his realization  of what he is doing  is as keen  as it can  be.
That's because his assemblage point was moved by the stalkers' method."
     He said that if  the  assemblage point is  forced out of  its customary
setting  by the  method of  explaining  everything,  as in my case, there is
always  the need for someone else not only to help in the  actual dislodging
of the assemblage point, but in dispensing the explanations of what is going
on. But if the assemblage  point is moved by the stalkers' method, as in his
own case,  or Genaro's, there is only a need for the  initial catalytic  act
that yanks the point from its location.
     Don  Juan  said  that  when  the  nagual   Julian  made  him  face  the
monstrous-looking ally his  assemblage point moved under the impact of fear.
So intense a fright  as that  caused by the  confrontation, coupled with his
weak physical condition, was ideal for dislodging his assemblage point.
     In order to offset  the  injurious effects of fright, its impact had to
be cushioned, but  not minimized. Explaining what  was happening  would have
minimized fear. What the nagual Julian wanted was to make sure that he could
use that initial catalytic fright as many times as he needed it, but he also
wanted to make sure  that he could cushion its devastating impact;  that was
the reason for his masquerade. The more  elaborate  and dramatic his stories
were, the  greater their cushioning effect.  If he, himself, seemed to be in
the same boat  with don Juan, the  fright would not be as intense  as if don
Juan were alone.
     "With his  penchant for drama," don Juan went  on, "my  benefactor  was
able  to  move my assemblage point  enough to imbue me right  away  with  an
overpowering feeling  for the  two  basic qualities  of warriors:  sustained
effort and unbending intent. I knew that in order to be free  again someday,
I would have  to work in an  orderly  and  steady fashion and in cooperation
with the frail old man, who in my opinion needed my help as much as I needed
his. I knew beyond a shadow  of  a doubt  that that  was what I wanted to do
more than anything else in life."

     I did not get to talk  to don Juan again until two  days later. We were
in Oaxaca,  strolling in the main  square,  in the early morning. There were
children walking to school, people going to church, a few men sitting on the
benches, and taxi drivers waiting for tourists from the main hotel.
     "It goes without  saying that the most difficult thing in the warriors'
path is to make the assemblage point move," don Juan said. "That movement is
the completion of the warriors' quest. To go on from there is another quest;
it is the seers' quest proper."
     He  repeated  that in  the warriors' way, the  shift of the  assemblage
point is everything.  The old seers absolutely failed to realize this truth.
They thought  the movement  of the  point was  like a marker that determined
their positions  on a scale  of worth. They never conceived that it was that
very position which determined what they perceived.
     "The  stalkers'  method," don  Juan went  on, "in the hands of a master
stalker  like  the  nagual Julian, accounts  for  stupendous shifts  of  the
assemblage point. These are very solid changes; you see, by  buttressing the
apprentice, the stalker-teacher  gets the  apprentice's full cooperation and
full participation. To get anybody's full cooperation and full participation
is about the most important outcome of the  stalkers' method; and the nagual
Julian was the best at getting both of them."
     Don Juan  said  that  there was no  way for him to describe the turmoil
that he went through as he  found  out, little by little, about the richness
and the complexity of the nagual  Julian's personality and life.  As long as
don Juan faced a scared, frail old man who seemed helpless, he was fairly at
ease, comfortable. But  one day, soon after they had made the deal with what
don  Juan  thought  of as  a  monstrous-looking man, his comfort was shot to
pieces  when the nagual Julian gave don Juan another unnerving demonstration
of his stalking skills.
     Although don Juan was quite well by then, the nagual Julian still slept
in  the same room with him in order to nurse him. When he  woke up that day,
he  announced to  don Juan that their captor was gone for a  couple of days,
which meant that he did not have to act  like an old man. He confided to don
Juan that he only pretended to be old in order to fool the monstrous-looking
man.
     Without giving  don Juan time to think, he jumped up from  his mat with
incredible agility;  he bent  over and dunked his head in a pot of water and
kept it there for a while.  When he straightened up, his hair was jet black,
the  gray hair had washed  away, and don  Juan  was looking at a  man he had
never  seen  before,  a  man perhaps in  his late  thirties.  He flexed  his
muscles, breathed deeply, and  stretched every part of his body as if he had
been too long inside a constricting cage.
     "When  I saw the  nagual Julian as  a  young man, I thought that he was
indeed the  devil," don Juan went on. "I closed my eyes and knew that my end
was near. The nagual Julian laughed until he was crying."
     Don Juan said that the nagual Julian then put him at ease by making him
shift back and forth between the right side and the left side awareness.
     "For  two days  the young  man  pranced  around  the  house," don  Juan
continued. "He told me stories about his life and jokes that sent me reeling
around the room with laughter. But what was even more astounding was the way
his wife had changed. She was actually thin and beautiful. I thought she was
a completely different woman. I raved  about how complete her change was and
how beautiful she looked. The young man said that when their captor was away
she was actually another woman."
     Don  Juan laughed and said that his devilish benefactor was telling the
truth. The woman was really another seer of the nagual's party.
     Don Juan asked the young man why they pretended to  be what  they  were
not. The young man  looked at don Juan, his eyes filled with tears, and said
that the mysteries of  the world  are indeed unfathomable. He and his  young
wife had been caught by inexplicable forces  and had to  protect  themselves
with that pretense. The reason why he carried on the way he did, as a feeble
old man, was that their captor was always peeking  in through cracks in  the
doors. He begged don Juan to forgive him for having fooled him.
     Don Juan asked  who that  monstrous-looking man  was. With a deep sigh,
the young man  confessed that he could not even guess. He told don Juan that
although he himself was an educated man, a famous  actor from the theater in
Mexico City, he was at a loss for explanations.  All he knew was that he had
come to be treated  for  the consumption that he had suffered from  for many
years. He was near death when his relatives brought him  to  meet the curer.
She helped  him to get well,  and  he  fell madly in love with the beautiful
young Indian and married her. His plans were to take her to the  capital  so
they could get rich with her curing ability.
     Before they started  on  the trip to Mexico  City, she warned him  that
they had to disguise themselves in order to escape a sorcerer. She explained
to him that her mother had also been a curer, and had been  taught curing by
that master sorcerer, who had demanded that she, the daughter, stay with him
for life. The young man said that he had  refused to ask his wife about that
relationship. He only  wanted to free her, so he disguised himself as an old
man and disguised her as a fat woman.
     Their story did not end happily. The horrible man caught them  and kept
them as prisoners. They did not  dare to take off their disguise in front of
that nightmarish man,  and in his presence they  carried on as if they hated
each other; but in reality, they pined for each other and lived only for the
short times when that man was away.
     Don Juan said  that the young man embraced him  and told him  that  the
room where don Juan was sleeping was the only safe place in the house. Would
he please go out and be on the lockout while he made love to his wife?
     "The house shook with their passion," don Juan went on, "while I sat by
the door feeling guilty for listening and scared to death that the man would
come back any  minute. And sure enough, I heard him coming into the house. I
banged on the  door,  and when  they didn't  answer,  I walked in. The young
woman was asleep naked and the young man  was nowhere in sight. I  had never
seen a  beautiful naked woman in my life. I was still very weak. I heard the
monstrous  man rattling outside. My embarrassment and my fear  were so great
that I passed out."
     The story about the nagual Julian's doings  annoyed me  no  end. I told
don Juan that I had failed  to understand the value  of the  nagual Julian's
stalking skills. Don Juan listened to me without making a single comment and
let me ramble on and on.
     When we  finally sat down on a bench, I was very tired. I did  not know
what to say  when he asked me  why his account of the nagual Julian's method
of teaching had upset me so much.
     "I can't  shake off  the  feeling that he  was a  prankster," I finally
said.
     "Pranksters don't teach anything deliberately  with their pranks,"  don
Juan retorted.  "The  nagual  Julian  played  dramas,  magical  dramas  that
required a movement of the assemblage point."
     "He seems like a very selfish person to me," I insisted.
     "He seems like that to you because you are  judging,"  he replied. "You
are being a moralist. I  went  through all that  myself. If you feel the way
you do on hearing about the nagual Julian, think of the way I must have felt
myself living  in his  house  for years.  I judged him, I feared him, and  I
envied him, in that order.
     "I  also loved him, but my envy was  greater than my love. I envied his
ease, his mysterious capacity to be young or old at will; I envied his flair
and above all his influence on whoever happened to be around. It would drive
me up  the  walls  to  hear  him  engage  people  in  the  most  interesting
conversation. He always had something to say; I never did, and I always felt
incompetent, left out."
     Don Juan's revelations made me feel ill at ease. I wished that he would
change the subject, for I did not  want  to hear that he was  like me. In my
opinion, he was indeed  unequaled. He obviously  knew how I felt. He laughed
and patted my back.
     "What I am  trying to do with the story of my envy," he went on, "is to
point  out to you something of  great importance, that the  position of  the
assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel.
     "My great  flaw at  that  time  was  that I could not  understand  this
principle.  I  was  raw.  I lived through self-importance, just  as  you do,
because that was where  my assemblage point  was  lodged.  You see, I hadn't
learned  yet that the way to  move that point is to establish new habits, to
will it to move. When it  did move, it was as  if I had just discovered that
the only way to deal  with peerless warriors  like  my benefactor is not  to
have self-importance, so that one can celebrate them unbiasedly."
     He said that realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great
outbursts of emotion and nothing more.  The other is the product of a  shift
of  the assemblage point; it  is not coupled with an emotional outburst  but
with action. The emotional realizations come years later after warriors have
solidified, by usage, the new position of their assemblage points.
     "The nagual Julian tirelessly guided all of  us to that kind of shift,"
don Juan  went on. "He got from  all  of  us  total  cooperation  and  total
participation  in  his bigger-than-life dramas. For instance, with his drama
of the young man and his wife and their captor he had my undivided attention
and  concern.  To  me  the story of  the  old man  who  was young  was  very
consistent.  I  had seen  the monstrous-looking  man with  my very own eyes,
which meant that the young man got my undying affiliation."
     Don  Juan said that the  nagual Julian was  a magician,  a conjurer who
could handle the force of will to a degree that would be incomprehensible to
the average man.  His dramas  included  magical  characters  summoned by the
force of intent, like the inorganic being that could adopt a grotesque human
form.
     "The nagual Julian's power was so impeccable,"  don Juan went on, "that
he could force anyone's assemblage point to shift and  align emanations that
would make him perceive  whatever the nagual Julian wanted. For example,  he
could look very old or  very young for his age, depending on  what he wanted
to accomplish. And all anyone  who  knew the nagual could say about  his age
was that it fluctuated. During the thirty-two years  that  I knew him he was
at  times  not much older  than you are now, and  at other  times he was  so
wretchedly old that he could not even walk."
     Don Juan said that under his benefactor's guidance his assemblage point
moved unnoticeably and yet profoundly. For instance, out of  nowhere one day
he realized that he had a fear that on the one hand  made no sense to him at
all, and on the other made all the sense in the world.
     "My fear was that through stupidity I  would lose my chance to  be free
and I would repeat my father's life.
     "There was nothing wrong with my father's life, mind you. He  lived and
died no  better and no worse than most men; the important  point is  that my
assemblage point had moved and I realized  one day that my father's life and
death hadn't amounted to a hill of beans, either to others or to himself.
     "My benefactor  told  me that my  father  and mother had lived and died
just to have me, and  that their own parents had done  the same for them. He
said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points
enough  to realize the tremendous price that has been paid  for their lives.
This shift  gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for
life in general, or for being alive in particular."
     Don Juan said that not only was the nagual Julian successful in guiding
his apprentices to move their assemblage points, but that he enjoyed himself
tremendously while doing it.
     "He certainly entertained himself immensely with me," don Juan went on.
"When the  other seers of my party began to come, years later, even I looked
forward to  the preposterous  situations that he created and  developed with
each one of them.
     "When the nagual  Julian left the world, delight went away with him and
never  came  back.  Genaro delights  us sometimes, but no one  can  take the
nagual Julian's place. His dramas were always bigger than life. I assure you
we didn't  know what  enjoyment  was until we saw  what he  did when some of
those dramas backfired on him."
     Don Juan rose from his favorite bench. He turned to  me. His eyes  were
brilliant and peaceful.
     "If you are ever  so dumb as to fail in your task," he said, "you  must
have at least enough energy to move your assemblage point in  order to  come
to this bench. Sit down here for an instant, free of thoughts and desires; I
will try to come here from wherever I am and collect you. I promise you that
I will try."
     He  then  broke  into a great laugh, as if the scope of his promise was
too ludicrous to be believed.
     "These words should be  said  in  the late  afternoon," he  said, still
laughing. "Never in the morning.  The  morning makes one feel optimistic and
such words lose their meaning."

     13 The Earth's Boost

     "Let's  walk on  the road to Oaxaca," don Juan  said to  me. "Genaro is
waiting for us somewhere along the way."
     His request took me by surprise.  I had been waiting all day for him to
continue his explanation. We  left  his house and walked in silence  through
the  town to  the  unpaved highway.  We walked  leisurely  for a long  time.
Suddenly don Juan began to talk.
     "I've been telling  you all along about the great findings that the old
seers  made," he said. "Just as they found out that organic life is  not the
only life  present on earth, they also discovered that the earth itself is a
living being."
     He waited a moment before continuing. He smiled at me as if inviting me
to make a comment. I could not think of anything to say.
     "The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon,"  he went on. "They saw
that there is a ball encasing the earth, a luminous cocoon that  entraps the
Eagle's emanations.  The earth is a gigantic sentient being subjected to the
same forces we are."
     He  explained   that   the  old  seers,  on  discovering  this,  became
immediately interested in the practical uses of  that knowledge.  The result
of their interest was  that the most  elaborate categories of their  sorcery
had  to  do with  the earth. They  considered the earth to  be the  ultimate
source of everything we are.
     Don Juan  reaffirmed  that  the old  seers were  not mistaken  in  this
respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source.
     He didn't say anything else  until we  met Genaro  about a mile  up the
road. He was waiting for us, sitting on a rock by the side of the road.
     He greeted me with great warmth. He said to me that we  should climb up
to the top of some small rugged mountains covered with hardy vegetation.
     "The three of us are going to sit against a rock," don Juan said to me,
"and look at the sunlight  as it is reflected on the eastern mountains. When
the  sun  goes  down behind the  western peaks,  the earth  may let  you see
alignment."
     When  we  reached the top of a mountain, we sat down,  as don  Juan had
said, with our backs against a rock. Don Juan made me sit in between the two
of them.
     I asked him what  he was planning to do. His cryptic statements and his
long silences were ominous. I felt terribly apprehensive.
     He didn't answer me. He kept on talking as if I had not spoken at all.
     "it  was  the  old  seers   who,  on  discovering  that  perception  is
alignment," he  said, "stumbled  onto something monumental. The sad part  is
that  their  aberrations  again  kept  them  from  knowing  what  they   had
accomplished."
     He pointed at the  mountain  range  east  of the small valley where the
town is located.
     "There  is  enough glitter in those mountains  to  jolt your assemblage
point," he said to  me.  "Just  before the sun goes down behind  the western
peaks,  you will have a few moments  to  catch all the glitter you need. The
magic  key that opens  the earth's doors is  made of  internal  silence plus
anything that shines."
     "What exactly should I do, don Juan?" I asked.
     Both of  them examined  me. I thought I saw in their  eyes a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion.
     "Just cut off the internal dialogue," don Juan said to me.
     I had an intense pang of anxiety and  doubt; I had no confidence that I
could  do  it at will.  After  an initial  moment of nagging frustration,  I
resigned my self just to relax.
     I looked around. I  noticed that we were high enough to  look down into
the  long,  narrow valley. More  than half  of it  was in the late-afternoon
shadows. The sun was still shining on  the foothills of the eastern range of
mountains, on the other side of the  valley;  the  sunlight made  the eroded
mountains look ocher,  while  the more distant  bluish peaks had  acquired a
purple tone.
     "You do realize that you've done this before, don't you?" don Juan said
to me in a whisper.
     I told him that I had not realized anything.
     "We've  sat here before  on  other occasions," he  insisted, "but  that
doesn't matter, because this occasion is the one that will count.
     "Today, with  the help of  Genaro, you are going to  find the  key that
unlocks everything. You won't be able to use it as yet, but you'll know what
it is and  where  it is.  Seers pay the  heaviest prices to  know that. You,
yourself, have been paying your dues all these years."
     He  explained  that  what  he  called the  key  to everything  was  the
firsthand knowledge that the earth is a sentient being and as such can  give
warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse  that comes from the awareness
of the earth  itself at the instant in which the emanations inside warriors'
cocoons  are  aligned with  the  appropriate  emanations inside  the earth's
cocoon. Since  both the  earth and man are sentient beings, their emanations
coincide, or rather, the earth has all the emanations present in man and all
the  emanations  that  are  present in  all  sentient  beings,  organic  and
inorganic  for that matter. When a moment of alignment takes place, sentient
beings  use that  alignment in  a  limited  way  and  perceive their  world.
Warriors can use that alignment  either to perceive, like everyone else,  or
as a boost that allows them to enter unimaginable worlds.
     "I've been waiting for you to ask  me  the only meaningful question you
can  ask,  but you  never ask  it,"  he continued. "You are hooked on asking
about whether the mystery of  it all is  inside us.  You came close  enough,
though.
     "The unknown  is not  really inside the cocoon of man in the emanations
untouched by  awareness, and yet it is there, in  a manner of speaking. This
is  the point you haven't understood. When I told you that  we can  assemble
seven  worlds besides the  one  we know,  you  took it  as being an internal
affair, because your total  bias is  to  believe that you are only imagining
everything you  do with  us.  Therefore,  you have never asked me  where the
unknown really is.  For  years I  have  circled with  my  hand  to point  to
everything  around  us and I  have  told you that the unknown is there.  You
never made the connection."
     Genaro began to laugh, then coughed and stood up. "He still hasn't made
the connection," he said to don Juan.
     I admitted to them that  if there was a connection to  be  made,  I had
failed to make it.
     Don Juan restated over and over that the portion of  emanations  inside
man's cocoon is in there only for awareness,  and that awareness is matching
that portion  of emanations with the  same portion of  emanations at  large.
They are  called emanations at large because  they are  immense; and to  say
that  outside  man's  cocoon is  the unknowable  is  to say that  within the
earth's cocoon is the unknowable. However, inside the earth's cocoon is also
the unknown, and inside man's cocoon the unknown is the emanations untouched
by awareness. When the  glow of awareness touches them,  they  become active
and  can be aligned  with the corresponding emanations  at  large. Once that
happens the unknown is perceived and becomes the known.
     "I'm  too dumb, don Juan. You have  to break it into smaller pieces for
me," I said.
     "Genaro is going to break it up for you," don Juan retorted.
     Genaro  stood up and started doing the same gait of  power that he  had
done before,  when he circled an enormous flat  rock in a corn field by  his
house,  while  don  Juan  had  watched in fascination.  This  time don  Juan
whispered in my ear that I should try to hear Genaro's movements, especially
the movements of his  thighs as they went up against his chest every time he
stepped.
     I  followed Genaro's  movements with my eyes. In a  few seconds  I felt
that some part of me had gotten  trapped  in Genaro's legs. The  movement of
his thighs would not let me go. I felt as if I were walking with him.  I was
even out of  breath. Then I realized that I was actually following Genaro. I
was in fact walking with him, away from the place where we had been sitting.
     I did  not see don Juan, just Genaro walking ahead of  me  in the  same
strange manner.  We walked  for hours and  hours.  My fatigue was so intense
that  I got a  terrible headache, and  suddenly  I  got sick. Genaro stopped
walking  and  came to my side. There was an intense glare around us, and the
light was reflected in Genaro's features. His eyes glowed.
     "Don't look at Genaro!" a voice ordered me in my ear. "Look around!"
     I obeyed. I thought I was in hell! The shock of seeing the surroundings
was so great that  I screamed in terror, but there was no sound to my voice.
Around me was the most vivid  picture of all the descriptions of  hell in my
Catholic upbringing. I was seeing a  reddish world, hot and oppressive, dark
and  cavernous, with  no  sky,  no light but  the malignant  reflections  of
reddish lights that kept on moving around us, at great speed.
     Genaro started  to walk again, and something pulled  me  with  him. The
force that was making me follow Genaro also kept me  from looking around. My
awareness was glued to Genaro's movements.
     I saw Genaro plop down as if he were  utterly exhausted. The instant he
touched the ground and stretched himself to  rest, something was released in
me  and  I was  able  again  to  look  around.  Don  Juan  was  watching  me
inquisitively. I was standing up facing him. We were at the same place where
we had sat down, a wide rocky ledge on  top of a  small mountain. Genaro was
panting and wheezing, and so was I. I was covered with perspiration. My hair
was dripping  wet.  My  clothes were soaked, as  if I  had been dunked  in a
river.
     "My  God,  what's  going  on!"  I  exclaimed  in utter  seriousness and
concern.
     The exclamation  sounded so silly that don  Juan  and Genaro started to
laugh.
     "We're trying to make you understand alignment," Genaro said.
     Don Juan gently helped me to sit down. He sat by me.
     "Do you remember what happened?" he asked me.
     I  told him that  I did and he insisted that I  tell him exactly what I
had  seen.  His request was  incongruous with what he had told me,  that the
only value of my experiences was the movement of my assemblage point and not
the content of my visions.
     He explained that Genaro  had tried to help me before in very  much the
same fashion as he had just done, but that I could never  remember anything.
He said that Genaro had guided my assemblage point this time, as he had done
before, to assemble a world with another of the great bands of emanations.
     There was a long silence. I was numb, shocked, yet my  awareness was as
keen as it had  ever been. I thought I had finally understood what alignment
was. Something  inside me, which I had  been activating without knowing how,
gave me the certainty that I had comprehended a great truth.
     "I think you're  beginning to gather your own momentum," don Juan  said
to me. "Let's go home. You've had enough for one day."
     "Oh, come on," Genaro said. "He's stronger than a bull. He's got to  be
pushed a little further."
     "No!" don Juan said emphatically. "We've got to save his strength. He's
only got so much of it."
     Genaro insisted that we stay. He looked at me and winked.
     "Look," he said to me, pointing to the eastern range of mountains. "The
sun has  hardly moved an  inch over  those mountains and yet you  plodded in
hell for hours and hours. Don't you find that overwhelming?"
     "Don't scare him unnecessarily!" don Juan protested almost vehemently.
     It was  then that I saw their maneuvers.  At that  moment the  voice of
seeing  told  me  that don  Juan and  Genaro were  a team of superb stalkers
playing with me. It was don Juan who always  pushed me beyond my limits, but
he always let Genaro  be  the heavy.  That  day  at  Genaro's house,  when I
reached a dangerous state of hysterical fright as Genaro questioned don Juan
whether I should be pushed, and don Juan assured me that Genaro was enjoying
himself at my expense, Genaro was actually worrying about me.
     My seeing was so shocking to me that  I  began to laugh. Both don  Juan
and Genaro  looked at me with  surprise. Then don  Juan seemed to realize at
once  what  was going through  my  mind.  He told Genaro,  and both  of them
laughed like children.
     "You're coming  of  age," don Juan said  to  me. "Right on time; you're
neither too stupid nor too bright. Just like me. You're not  like me in your
aberrations. There you  are more  like the nagual Julian, except that he was
brilliant."
     He stood up  and  stretched his  back.  He  looked at me  with the most
piercing, ferocious eyes I had ever seen. I stood up.
     "A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge," he  said to me.
"A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes
him a nagual."
     His eyes  glared for  an instant, and then they were covered by a cloud
of mellowness, kindness, humanness, and they were again don Juan's eyes.
     I  could  hardly  keep  my balance. I  was swooning helplessly.  Genaro
jumped to my side and helped me to sit  down. Both of them sat down flanking
me.
     "You are going to catch a boost from the earth," don Juan said to me in
one ear.
     "Think about the nagual's eyes," Genaro said to me in the other.
     "The boost will come at  the moment you see the glitter on the  top  of
that mountain," don Juan said and pointed to the highest peak on the eastern
range.
     "You'll never see the nagual's eyes again," Genaro whispered.
     "Go with the boost wherever it takes you," don Juan said.
     "If you think of the nagual's eyes, you'll  realize that there are  two
sides to a coin," Genaro whispered.
     I wanted to  think about what both of them were saying, but my thoughts
did not obey me. Something was pressing down  on me. I felt I was shrinking.
I had a sensation of nausea. I saw the  evening shadows advancing rapidly up
the  sides  of those eastern mountains. I had the feeling that I was running
after them.
     "Here we go," Genaro said in my ear.
     "Watch the big peak, watch the glitter," don Juan said in my other ear.
     There  was  indeed a  point  of intense brilliance  where don Juan  had
pointed,  on  the  highest  peak of  the range. I  watched the last  ray  of
sunlight being reflected on it. I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach, just
as if I were on a roller coaster.
     I felt, rather  than heard, a faraway earthquake rumble which  abruptly
overtook me.  The seismic waves were  so loud and so enormous that they lost
all  meaning  for  me. I was  an  insignificant  microbe  being twisted  and
twirled.
     The  motion slowed down  by degrees.  There was  one more  jolt  before
everything  came  to  a halt.  I tried to  look around. I  had  no point  of
reference. I seemed to be planted, like a tree.  Above me there was a white,
shiny,  inconceivably big  dome. Its presence made  me feel elated.  I  flew
toward it, or rather I was ejected like a projectile. I had the sensation of
being comfortable, nurtured, secure; the closer I got to the dome, the  more
intense those  feelings became.  They finally overwhelmed me  and I lost all
sense of myself.
     The next thing I knew, I was rocking slowly in the air like a leaf that
falls. I felt exhausted. A suction force started  to pull me. I went through
a dark hole and then I was with don Juan and Genaro.

     The next day don Juan, Genaro, and I went to Oaxaca. While don Juan and
I  strolled around  the main square,  in the  later afternoon,  he  suddenly
started to talk about what we had  done the day before. He asked me if I had
understood what  he  was referring to  when  he  said that the old seers had
stumbled onto something monumental.
     I told him that I did, but that I couldn't explain it in words.
     "And  what do you think was the main thing we wanted you to find out on
top of that mountain?" he asked.
     "Alignment," a voice said in my ear, at the same time I said it myself.
     I turned around in a reflex action and bumped into Genaro, who was just
behind me, walking  in my tracks.  The speed of my movement startled him. He
broke into a giggle and then embraced me.
     We sat down.  Don Juan  said  that  there were very few  things that he
could say  about the boost I  had gotten from  the  earth, that warriors are
always  alone in  such cases,  and true  realizations come much later, after
years of struggle.
     I told don Juan that my  problem in understanding was magnified by  the
fact that he  and  Genaro were  doing all the work. I  was  simply a passive
subject who could only react to their maneuvers. I could not for the life of
me initiate any action, because I did not know what a  proper action  should
be, nor did I know how to initiate it.
     "That's  precisely the point," don Juan said. "You are  not supposed to
know yet. You are going to be  left  behind,  by yourself,  to reorganize on
your own  everything we are doing to you now.  This is the task every nagual
has to face.
     "The nagual Julian did  the same thing to me, much more ruthlessly than
the  way we do it to  you. He  knew what  he  was doing; he  was a brilliant
nagual who was able to reorganize in a few years everything the nagual Ellas
had  taught  him. He did, in  no  time at all,  something  that would take a
lifetime for you or  for  me. The  difference was that all the nagual Julian
ever needed was a slight insinuation; his awareness would take it from there
and open the only door there is."
     "What do you mean, don Juan, by the only door there is?"
     "I  mean that when man's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit,
the results  are  always  the same for every  man. The techniques to make it
move may  be as different as  they can be, but  the results  are  always the
same, meaning that the assemblage point assembles other worlds, aided by the
boost from the earth."
     "Is the boost from the earth the same for every man, don Juan?"
     "Of  course.  The  difficulty  for  the  average  man  is  the internal
dialogue. Only when a state  of total  silence is  attained can one use  the
boost. You will corroborate that truth  the day you try to use that boost by
yourself."
     "I  wouldn't  recommend that  you try  it," Genaro said  sincerely. "It
takes  years to  become  an  impeccable warrior. In  order  to withstand the
impact of the earth's boost you must be better than you are now."
     "The speed of that boost will dissolve  everything about you," don Juan
said. "Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of individual
existence  don't  go  together. Yesterday  on  the  mountain,  Genaro and  I
supported  you  and served  as  your  anchors;  otherwise  you wouldn't have
returned. You'd be like some men who purposely used that boost and went into
the unknown and are still roaming in some incomprehensible immensity."
     I  wanted  him to  elaborate  on that, but  he refused. He changed  the
subject abruptly.
     "There's one thing you haven't understood yet about the earth's being a
sentient being," he said. "And Genaro, this  awful Genaro, wants to push you
until you understand."
     Both of them laughed. Genaro playfully shoved me and winked at me as he
mouthed the words, "I am awful."
     "Genaro  is  a  terrible  taskmaster,  mean  and  ruthless,"  don  Juan
continued.  "He  doesn't  give  a  hoot  about your  fears  and  pushes  you
mercilessly. If it wasn't for me. . ."
     He  was a perfect  picture  of  a  good,  thoughtful old gentleman.  He
lowered his eyes and sighed. The two of them broke into roaring laughter.
     When they had quieted down, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me
what I  had not understood yet, that the  supreme awareness of the  earth is
what  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  change  into  other  great bands  of
emanations.
     "We living beings are perceivers," he  said. "And  we perceive  because
some  emanations inside man's cocoon  become  aligned  with  some emanations
outside. Alignment, therefore,  is the  secret  passageway, and  the earth's
boost is the key.
     "Genaro wants you to watch the moment of alignment. Watch him!"
     Genaro stood up like a showman and took a bow,  then showed us  that he
had nothing  up  his  sleeves or  inside the legs of his pants. He took  his
shoes  off and shook them to show  that there was  nothing  concealed  there
either.
     Don Juan was laughing with total abandon. Genaro moved his hands up and
down. The  movement created an  immediate fixation in  me. I sensed that the
three of us suddenly got up and walked away from the square, the two of them
flanking me.
     As  we  continued  walking,  I  lost my peripheral  vision.  I did  not
distinguish  any more  houses or streets. I did not notice any mountains  or
any vegetation either. At one moment I realized that I had lost sight of don
Juan and  Genaro; instead  I saw  two  luminous bundles  moving  up and down
beside me.
     I  felt an instantaneous panic, which  I immediately controlled.  I had
the unusual but well-known sensation that I was myself and yet I  was not. I
was aware, however, of everything around me by means of a strange and at the
same time  most familiar capacity. The  sight of the world came to me all at
once. All of me  saw; the entirety of what I in my normal consciousness call
my  body was capable of sensing as if it were an enormous eye  that detected
everything. What I first detected, after seeing the two blobs  of light, was
a  sharp violet-purple world made out of something that looked  like colored
panels and canopies. Flat, screenlike panels of irregular concentric circles
were everywhere.
     I felt a  great pressure  all  over me, and then I heard a  voice in my
ear. I was seeing. The voice  said  that the pressure was due to the  act of
moving. I was moving together with don Juan and Genaro. I felt a faint jolt,
as if I had broken a paper  barrier, and I found myself facing a luminescent
world. Light radiated from everyplace, but  without being glaring. It was as
if the sun were about to erupt from behind some white diaphanous  clouds.  I
was looking down  into the  source of light. It was a beautiful sight. There
were no landmasses, just fluffy white  clouds and light. And we were walking
on the clouds.
     Then something imprisoned me again. I moved at the same pace as the two
blobs of light by my sides.  Gradually they  began to lose their brilliance,
then  became opaque, and finally they were don  Juan  and  Genaro.  We  were
walking on a deserted side street away from the main square. Then we  turned
back.
     "Genaro just  helped you to align your emanations with those emanations
at large that belong to another band," don  Juan said to  me. "Alignment has
to be a very peaceful, unnoticeable act. No flying away, no great fuss."
     He said that  the sobriety  needed to let the assemblage point assemble
other worlds is something that cannot be improvised. Sobriety has  to mature
and  become  a force  in  itself before  warriors can break  the  barrier of
perception with impunity.
     We were  coming closer to the main  square. Genaro had not said a word.
He walked in silence, as  if absorbed in thought.  Just before we came  into
the square, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me one more thing: that
the position of  the assemblage point  is everything, and  that the world it
makes us perceive is so real that it does not leave room for anything except
realness.
     "Genaro will let his  assemblage point  assemble another world just for
your  benefit,"  don  Juan  said to me. "And then you'll realize that as  he
perceives it, the force of his perception will leave room for nothing else."
     Genaro walked ahead of us, and don Juan ordered me to roll my eyes in a
counterclockwise direction while I looked at  Genaro, to avoid being dragged
with him. I  obeyed him. Genaro was five  or six feet away from me. Suddenly
his shape became diffuse and in one instant he was gone like a puff of air.
     I thought of the science fiction movies I had seen and wondered whether
we are subliminally aware of our possibilities.
     "Genaro  is  separated  from  us  at   this  moment  by  the  force  of
perception," don  Juan said quietly.  "When the assemblage point assembles a
world, that  world is total.  This is the marvel that the old seers stumbled
upon and never realized what it was: the  awareness of the earth can give us
a boost to align other great bands of emanations, and the  force of that new
alignment makes the world vanish.
     "Every  time the old seers  made a new alignment they believed they had
descended to the  depths' or  ascended to the heavens above. They never knew
that the  world  disappears like a puff of  air when  a  new total alignment
makes us perceive another total world."

     14 The Rolling Force

     Don  Juan  was  about  to  start  his  explanation  of  the mastery  of
awareness, but he changed his mind and stood up.  We had been sitting in the
big room, observing a moment of quiet.
     "I want you to try seeing  the Eagle's  emanations," he said. "For that
you must first move your assemblage point until you see the cocoon of man."
     We  walked from  the  house to the  center of town. We sat  down on art
empty, worn park bench  in front of  the  church, it  was early afternoon; a
sunny, windy day with lots of people milling around.
     He repeated, as if he were trying to drill  it into me,  that alignment
is  a unique force because it either helps the assemblage point shift, or it
keeps it glued to its customary position. The aspect of alignment that keeps
the point  stationary, he said, is will; and the  aspect that makes it shift
is intent. He remarked that one  of the most haunting mysteries is how will,
the impersonal force  of  alignment, changes  into intent,  the personalized
force, which is at the service of each individual.
     "The strangest  part of this mystery is  that the change is  so easy to
accomplish," he went  on.  "But what is not so easy is to convince ourselves
that it is  possible. There, right there, is our safety catch. We have to be
convinced. And none of us wants to be."
     He told me then that I  was in my  keenest state of awareness, and that
it was possible for me to infend my assemblage point to shift deeper into my
left side,  to  a  dreaming  position.  He  said that warriors  should never
attempt seeing unless  they are  aided by dreaming.  I  argued  that to fall
asleep  in  public was not one  of my fortes.  He  clarified  his statement,
saying that to  move the assemblage point away from its natural  setting and
to  keep it  fixed at a new  location is to  be asleep; with practice, seers
learn to be asleep and yet behave as if nothing is happening to them.
     After a moment's pause he  added that for purposes of seeing the cocoon
of man, one has to  gaze  at people from  behind, as  they walk  away. It is
useless  to  gaze at people face to face, because the front  of  the egglike
cocoon  of man has a protective shield, which seers call the front plate, it
is an almost  impregnable, unyielding shield that protects us throughout our
lives against  the  onslaught  of  a  peculiar  force that  stems  from  the
emanations themselves.
     He also told me not to be surprised if my body was stiff,  as though it
were  frozen;  he said that  I  was  going  to feel very  much  like someone
standing in the middle of a room looking at the street through a window, and
that  speed was of the essence, as people were going to  move extremely fast
by  my  seeing window.  He  told me then  to relax  my muscles,  shut off my
internal dialogue, and let my assemblage point drift away under the spell of
inner silence. He urged  me to smack  myself  gently  but firmly on my right
side, between my hipbone and my ribcage.
     I did that three times and I was  sound asleep. It was a most  peculiar
state of sleep. My body was dormant, but I was perfectly aware of everything
that  was  taking place. I  could hear don  Juan  talking  to me and I could
follow every one of his  statements as if I were awake, yet I could not move
my body at all.
     Don Juan said that a man was going to walk by my seeing window and that
I should try to see him. I unsuccessfully attempted to move my head and then
a shiny egglike  shape appeared, it was resplendent. I was awed by the sight
and  before I could recover from my surprise,  it was gone. It floated away,
bobbing up and down.
     Everything had been so sudden  and fast that it made me feel frustrated
and impatient. I felt that I was beginning to wake up. Don Juan talked to me
again and urged me  to relax. He said that I had no right and no time to  be
impatient.  Suddenly,  another luminous being  appeared  and  moved away. It
seemed to be made of a white fluorescent shag.
     Don Juan whispered in my  ear that if I wanted to, my eyes were capable
of slowing down everything they focused on.  Then he warned  me that another
man was coming. I realized  at that instant that there  were two voices. The
one I had just heard was the same one that had admonished  me to be patient.
That was don Juan's. The other, the one that told  me to use my eyes to slow
down movement, was the voice of seeing.
     That afternoon, I saw ten luminous beings in  slow motion. The voice of
seeing guided  me to witness  in them everything don  Juan had told me about
the glow of awareness. There was a vertical band with a stronger  amber glow
on the right side of those egglike luminous creatures, perhaps one-tenth  of
the total volume of the cocoon. The  voice said that that was man's band  of
awareness. The voice pointed out a dot on man's band,  a dot with an intense
shine; it was high on the oblong shapes, almost on the crest of them, on the
surface of the cocoon; the voice said that it was the assemblage point.
     When I saw each luminous creature in profile, from the point of view of
its body, its egglike shape was  like a gigantic  asymmetrical yoyo that was
standing edgewise, or like an  almost round pot that was resting on its side
with its lid on. The part that looked like a lid was the front plate; it was
perhaps one-fifth the thickness of the total cocoon.
     I would have gone on seeing those  creatures, but don  Juan said that I
should  now gaze  at  people face to face  and sustain my  gaze until  I had
broken the barrier and I was seeing the emanations.
     I followed  his command. Almost instantaneously, I saw a most brilliant
array of live, compelling  fibers  of  light. It  was a dazzling  sight that
immediately shattered my balance. I fell down on the cement walk on my side.
From  there, I saw the compelling fibers of light  multiply themselves. They
burst open and myriads of other fibers  came out of  them.  But  the fibers,
compelling as  they were, somehow  did not  interfere with my ordinary view.
There were scores of people going into church. I was no  longer seeing them.
There  were quite  a few women and  men  just around the bench. I wanted  to
focus  my  eyes on them, but instead I  noticed how  one of those  fibers of
light bulged suddenly. It became like a ball of fire that was perhaps  seven
feet  in diameter, it rolled  on me. My first impulse was to roll out of its
way.  Before I could even move  a muscle the ball  had hit me.  I felt it as
clearly as if someone had punched me gently in the stomach. An instant later
another ball of fire  hit me, this time with considerably more strength, and
then  don  Juan whacked me really hard on the cheek with  his  open  hand. I
jumped  up involuntarily  and  lost  sight of  the  fibers  of light and the
balloons that were hitting me.

     Don Juan said that I had successfully endured my  first brief encounter
with  the Eagle's emanations,  but that a  couple of shoves from the tumbler
had  dangerously opened up my gap. He added that  the  balls that had hit me
were called the rolling force, or the tumbler.
     We  had returned to his house, although I did not remember how or when.
! had spent hours  in a sort of  semisleeping state. Don  Juan and the other
seers of his group  had given me large  amounts of water to drink. They  had
also submerged me in an ice-cold tub of water for short periods of time.
     "Were those fibers I saw the Eagle's emanations?" I asked don Juan.
     "Yes.  But you didn't really see them," he  replied. "No sooner had you
begun to see  than the tumbler stopped  you. If  you had remained  a  moment
longer it would have blasted you."
     "What exactly is the tumbler?" I asked.
     "It  is a force  from the  Eagle's  emanations," he  said. "A ceaseless
force that strikes us every instant of  our lives, it  is  lethal when seen,
but otherwise we are oblivious to it, in our ordinary lives, because we have
protective  shields.  We  have  consuming  interests  that  engage  all  our
awareness.  We are permanently  worried about our station,  our possessions.
These shields, however, do  not keep the  tumbler away, they simply keep  us
from  seeing it directly, protecting us in this way from getting hurt by the
fright  of seeing the balls of fire hitting us. Shields are a great help and
a great hindrance to us. They  pacify  us and at the same time fool us. They
give us a false sense of security."
     He  warned  me that a moment would  come  in my life when  I  would  be
without  any shields, uninterruptedly  at the mercy  of the tumbler. He said
that it is an obligatory stage in the life of a warrior, known as losing the
human form.
     I asked him to explain to  me  once and for all  what the human form is
and what it means to lose it.
     He replied  that  seers describe the human form as the compelling force
of alignment of  the  emanations lit by the glow of awareness on the precise
spot on which normally man's assemblage point is  fixated.  It is  the force
that  makes us into persons.  Thus, to be a person  is  to  be compelled  to
affiliate  with that force  of  alignment and consequently to be  affiliated
with the precise spot where it originates.
     By reason of  their activities, at a given moment the assemblage points
of warriors drift toward the left.  It is a permanent move, which results in
an uncommon sense of aloofness,  or control, or  even abandon. That drift of
the assemblage point  entails  a  new alignment  of emanations.  It  is  the
beginning of  a  series  of greater  shifts.  Seers very  aptly  called this
initial shift losing the human form, because it marks an inexorable movement
of the  assemblage  point  away from its original setting, resulting  in the
irreversible loss of our affiliation to the force that makes us persons.
     He asked me then to describe all the details I could remember about the
balls of fire. I told him that I had seen them so briefly  I  was not sure I
could describe them in detail.
     He pointed out  that seeing is  a  euphemism  for moving the assemblage
point, and that if I moved mine  a fraction more to the left I would have  a
clear picture of the balls of fire, a picture  which  I could interpret then
as having remembered them.
     I tried to have a clear picture, but I couldn't,  so I described what I
remembered.
     He listened attentively and then urged me to recall if they were  balls
or circles of fire. I told him I didn't remember.
     He explained that  those balls  of fire are  of  crucial importance  to
human beings because they are the expression of a force that pertains to all
details  of life  and death,  something that the  new seers call the rolling
force.
     I asked him to clarify what he  meant  by all the details of  life  and
death.
     "The  rolling force is the  means through which  the  Eagle distributes
life  and  awareness  for  safekeeping," he  said. "But it also is the force
that, let's say, collects the rent. It makes all living beings die. What you
saw today was called by the ancient seers the tumbler."
     He said  that seers describe it as an eternal line of iridescent rings,
or balls of fire, that roll onto living beings ceaselessly. Luminous organic
beings meet the rolling  force head on, until the day when  the force proves
to  be too much for them and the creatures  finally collapse. The  old seers
were mesmerized by seeing how the tumbler then tumbles them into the beak of
the Eagle to be devoured. That was the reason they called it the tumbler.
     "You said that  it  is a mesmerizing  sight. Have you yourself  seen it
rolling human beings?" I asked.
     "Certainly I've seen it," he replied, and after a pause he added,  "You
and I saw it only a short while ago in Mexico City."
     His assertion was so farfetched that I felt obliged  to tell  him  that
this time he was wrong. He laughed  and reminded me  that on that  occasion,
while both of us were sitting on a bench in the Alameda Park in Mexico City,
we  had witnessed the death of a man. He said that I had recorded  the event
in my everyday-life memory as well as in my left-side emanations.
     As don  Juan  spoke  to me  I had the sensation of  something inside me
becoming lucid by  degrees, and I could visualize with uncanny  clarity  the
whole scene in the park. The man was lying on the grass with three policemen
standing by him  to keep  onlookers away. I  distinctly  remembered don Juan
hitting me on my back to make me change levels of awareness. And then I saw.
My seeing was imperfect. I was unable to shake off the sight of the world of
everyday life. What I ended up with was a composite of filaments of the most
gorgeous colors superimposed on the buildings and the traffic. The filaments
were  actually lines of colored  light that came from  above. They had inner
life; they were bright and bursting with energy.
     When I looked at the dying man, I saw what don  Juan was talking about;
something that was at  once like circles of fire, or iridescent tumbleweeds,
was  rolling everywhere  I  focused  my eyes.  The circles  were rolling  on
people, on don Juan, on me. I felt them in my stomach and became ill.
     Don Juan  told me  to focus my eyes on the  dying man. I saw him at one
moment curling up,  just as a sowbug curls itself up upon being touched. The
incandescent circles pushed him away, as if they were casting him aside, out
of their majestic, inalterable path.
     I had not liked  the feeling.  The circles of fire  had  not scared me;
they were not awesome,  or sinister. I  did not feel morbid or  somber.  The
circles rather had nauseated me. I'd felt them in  the pit of my stomach. It
was a revulsion that I'd felt that day.
     Remembering them conjured up again  the  total feeling  of discomfort I
had  experienced  on that occasion. As I got ill, don Juan laughed  until he
was out of breath.
     "You're such an exaggerated fellow." he said. "The rolling force is not
that  bad.  It's lovely, in fact.  The  new  seers  recommend that  we  open
ourselves to it. The old seers also opened themselves to it, but for reasons
and purposes guided mostly by self-importance and obsession.
     "The  new  seers, on the other hand, make friends with  it. They become
familiar with that  force by handling  it  without  any self-importance. The
result is staggering in its consequences."
     He said that a shift of the  assemblage point is all that is  needed to
open  oneself to the rolling force. He added that if  the force is seen in a
deliberate  manner, there is  minimal danger. A situation that is  extremely
dangerous, however, is an involuntary shift  of the assemblage point  owing,
perhaps, to  physical  fatigue, emotional exhaustion, disease,  or simply  a
min