or emotional or physical crisis, such as being frightened or being drunk. "When the assemblage point shifts involuntarily, the rolling force cracks the cocoon," he went on. "I've talked many times about a gap that man has below his navel. It's not really below the navel itself, but in the cocoon, at the height of the navel. The gap is more like a dent, a natural flaw in the otherwise smooth cocoon. It is there where the tumbler hits us ceaselessly and where the cocoon cracks." He went on to explain that if it is a minor shift of the assemblage point, the crack is very small, the cocoon quickly repairs itself, and people experience what everybody has at one time or another: blotches of color and contorted shapes, which remain even if the eyes are closed. If the shift is considerable, the crack also is extensive and it takes time for the cocoon to repair itself, as in the case of warriors who purposely use power plants to elicit that shift or people who take drugs and unwittingly do the same. In these cases men feel numb and cold; they have difficulty talking or even thinking; it is as if they have been frozen from inside. Don Juan said that in cases in which the assemblage point shifts drastically because of the effects of trauma or of a mortal disease, the rolling force produces a crack the length of the cocoon; the cocoon collapses and curls in on itself, and the individual dies. "Can a voluntary shift also produce a gap of that nature?" I asked. "Sometimes," he replied. "We're really frail. As the tumbler hits us over and over, death comes to us through the gap. Death is the rolling force. When it finds weakness in the gap of a luminous being it automatically cracks it open and makes it collapse." "Does every living being have a gap?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. "If it didn't have one it wouldn't die. The gaps are different, however, in size and configuration. Man's gap is a bowl-like depression the size of a fist, a very frail vulnerable configuration. The gaps of other organic creatures are very much like man's; some are stronger than ours and others are weaker. But the gap of inorganic beings is really different. It's more like a long thread, a hair of luminosity; consequently, inorganic beings are infinitely more durable than we are. "There is something hauntingly appealing about the long life of those creatures, and the old seers could not resist being carried away by that appeal." He said that the same force can produce two effects that are diametrically opposed. The old seers were imprisoned by the rolling force, and the new seers are rewarded for their toils with the gift of freedom. By becoming familiar with the rolling force through the mastery of intent, the new seers, at a given moment, open their own cocoons and the force floods them rather than rolling them up like a curled-up sowbug. The final result is their total and instantaneous disintegration. I asked him a lot of questions about the survival of awareness after the luminous being is consumed by the fire from within. He did not answer. He simply chuckled, shrugged his shoulders, and went on to say that the old seers' obsession with the tumbler blinded them to the other side of that force. The new seers, with their usual thoroughness in refusing tradition, went to the other extreme. They were at first totally averse to focusing their seeing on the tumbler; they argued that they needed to understand the force of the emanations at large in its aspect of life-giver and enhancer of awareness. "They realized that it is infinitely easier to destroy something," don Juan went on, "than it is to build it and maintain it. To roll life away is nothing compared to giving it and nourishing it. Of course, the new seers were wrong on this count, but in due course they corrected their mistake." "How were they wrong, don Juan?" "It's an error to isolate anything for seeing. At the beginning, the new seers did exactly the opposite from what their predecessors did. They focused with equal attention on the other side of the tumbler. What happened to them was as terrible as, if not worse than, what happened to the old seers. They died stupid deaths, just as the average man does. They didn't have the mystery or the malignancy of the ancient seers, nor had they the quest for freedom of the seers of today. "Those first new seers served everybody. Because they were focusing their seeing on the life-giving side of the emanations, they were filled with love and kindness. But that didn't keep them from being tumbled. They were vulnerable, just as were the old seers who were filled with morbidity." He said that for the modern-day new seers, to be left stranded after a life of discipline and toil, just like men who have never had a purposeful moment in their lives, was intolerable. Don Juan said that these new seers realized, after they had readopted their tradition, that the old seers' knowledge of the rolling force had been complete; at one point the old seers had concluded that there were, in effect, two different aspects of the same force. The tumbling aspect relates exclusively to destruction and death. The circular aspect, on the other hand, is what maintains life and awareness, fulfillment and purpose. They had chosen, however, to deal exclusively with the tumbling aspect. "Gazing in teams, the new seers were able to see the separation between the tumbling and the circular aspects," he explained. "They saw that both forces are fused, but are not the same. The circular force comes to us just before the tumbling force; they are so close to each other that they seem the same. "The reason it's called the circular force is that it comes in rings, threadlike hoops of iridescence-- a very delicate affair indeed. And just like the tumbling force, it strikes all living beings ceaselessly, but for a different purpose. It strikes them to give them strength, direction, awareness; to give them life. "What the new seers discovered is that the balance of the two forces in every living being is a very delicate one," he continued, "if at any given time an individual feels that the tumbling force strikes harder than the circular one, that means the balance is upset; the tumbling force strikes harder and harder from then on, until it cracks the living being's gap and makes it die." He added that out of what I had called balls of fire comes an iridescent hoop exactly the size of living beings, whether men, trees, microbes, or allies. "Are there different-size circles?" I asked. "Don't take me so literally," he protested. "There are no circles to speak of, just a circular force that gives seers, who are dreaming it, the feeling of rings. And there are no different sizes either. It's one indivisible force that fits all living beings, organic and inorganic." "Why did the old seers focus on the tumbling aspect?" I asked. "Because they believed that their lives depended on seeing it," he replied. "They were sure that their seeing was going to give them answers to age-old questions. You see, they figured that if they unraveled the secrets of the rolling force they would be invulnerable and immortal. The sad part is that in one way or another, they did unravel the secrets and yet they were neither invulnerable nor immortal. "The new seers changed it all by realizing that there is no way to aspire to immortality as long as man has a cocoon." Don Juan explained that the old seers apparently never realized that the human cocoon is a receptacle and cannot sustain the onslaught of the rolling force forever. In spite of all the knowledge that they had accumulated, they were in the end certainly no better, and perhaps much worse, off than the average man. "In what way were they left worse off than the average man?" I asked. "Their tremendous knowledge forced them to take it for granted that their choices were infallible," he said. "So they chose to live at any cost." Don Juan looked at me and smiled. With his theatrical pause he was telling me something I could not fathom. "They chose to live," he repeated. "Just as they chose to become trees in order to assemble worlds with those nearly unreachable great bands." "What do you mean by that, don Juan?" "I mean that they used the rolling force to shift their assemblage points to unimaginable dreaming positions, instead of letting it roll them to the beak of the Eagle to be devoured." 15 The Death Defiers I arrived at Genaro's house around 2: 00 p. m. Don Juan and I became involved in conversation, and then don Juan made me shift into heightened awareness. "Here we are again, the three of us, just as we were the day we went to that flat rock," don Juan said. "And tonight we're going to make another trip to that area. "You have enough knowledge now to draw very serious conclusions about that place and its effects on awareness." "What is it with that place, don Juan?" "Tonight you're going to find out some gruesome facts that the old seers collected about the rolling force; and you're going to see what I meant when I told you that the old seers chose to live at any cost." Don Juan turned to Genaro, who was about to fall asleep. He nudged him. "Wouldn't you say, Genaro, that the old seers-were dreadful men?" don Juan asked. "Absolutely," Genaro said in a crisp tone and then seemed to succumb to fatigue. He began to nod noticeably. In an instant he was sound asleep, his head resting on his chest with his chin tucked in. He snored. I wanted to laugh out loud. But then I noticed that Genaro was staring at me, as if he were sleeping with his eyes open. "They were such dreadful men that they even defied death," Genaro added between snores. "Aren't you curious to know how those gruesome men defied death?" don Juan asked me. He seemed to be urging me to ask for an example of their gruesomeness. He paused and looked at me with what I thought was a glint of expectation in his eyes. "You're waiting for me to ask for an example, aren't you?" I said. "This is a great moment," he said, patting me on the back and laughing. "My benefactor had me on the edge of my seat at this point. I asked him to give me an example, and he did; now i'm going to give you one whether you ask for it or not." "What are you going to do?" I asked, so frightened that my stomach was tied in knots and my voice cracked. It took quite a while for don Juan to stop laughing. Every time he started to speak, he'd get an attack of coughing laughter. "As Genaro told you, the old seers were dreadful men," he said, rubbing his eyes. "There was something they tried to avoid at all costs: they didn't want to die. You may say that the average man doesn't want to die either, but the advantage that the old seers had over the average man was that they had the concentration and the discipline to intend things away; and they actually intended death away." He paused and looked at me with raised eyebrows. He said that I was falling behind, that I was not asking my usual questions. I remarked that it was plain to me that he was leading me to ask if the old seers had succeeded in intending death away, but he himself had already told me that their knowledge about the tumbled had not saved them from dying. "They succeeded in intending death away," he said, pronouncing his words with extra care. "But they still had to die." "How did they intend death away?" I asked. "They observed their allies," he said, "and seeing that they were living beings with a much greater resilience to the rolling force, the seers patterned themselves on their allies." The old seers realized, don Juan explained, that only organic beings have a gap that resembles a bowl. Its size and shape and its brittleness make it the ideal configuration to hasten the cracking and collapsing of the luminous shell under the onslaughts of the tumbling force. The allies, on the other hand, who have only a line for a gap, present such a small surface to the rolling force as to be practically immortal. Their cocoons can sustain the onslaughts of the tumbler indefinitely. because hairline gaps offer no ideal configuration to it. "The old seers developed the most bizarre techniques for closing their gaps," don Juan continued. "They were essentially correct in assuming that a hairline gap is more durable than a bowl-like one." "Are those techniques still in existence?" I asked. "No, they are not," he said. "But some of the seers who practiced them are." For reasons unknown to me, his statement caused a reaction of sheer terror in me. My breathing was altered instantly, and I couldn't control its rapid pace. "They're still alive to this day, isn't that so, Genaro?" don Juan asked. "Absolutely," Genaro muttered from an apparent state of deep sleep. I asked don Juan if he knew the reason for my being so frightened. He reminded me about a previous occasion in that very room when they had asked me if I had noticed the weird creatures that had come in the moment Genaro opened the door. "That day your assemblage point went very deep into the left side and assembled a frightening world," he went on. "But I have already said that to you; what you don't remember is that you went directly to a very remote world and scared yourself pissless there." Don Juan turned to Genaro, who was snoring peacefully with his legs stretched out in front of him. "Wasn't he scared pissless, Genaro?" he asked. "Absolutely pissless," Genaro muttered, and don Juan laughed. "I want you to know that we don't blame you for being scared," don Juan continued. "We, ourselves, are revolted by some of the actions of the old seers. I'm sure that you have realized by now that what you can't remember about that night is that you saw the old seers who are still alive." I wanted to protest that I had realized nothing, but I could not voice my words. I had to clear my throat over and over before I could articulate a word. Genaro had stood up and was gently patting my upper back, by my neck, as if I were choking. "You have a frog in your throat," he said. I thanked him in a high squeaky voice. "No, I think you have a chicken there," he added and sat down to sleep. Don Juan said that the new seers had rebelled against all the bizarre practices of the old seers and declared them not only useless but injurious to our total being. They even went so far as to ban those techniques from whatever was taught to new warriors; and for generations there was no mention of those practices at all. It was in the early part of the eighteenth century that the nagual Sebastian, a member of don Juan's direct line of naguals, rediscovered the existence of those techniques. "How did he rediscover them?" I asked. "He was a superb stalker, and because of his impeccability he got a chance to learn marvels," don Juan replied. He said that one day as the nagual Sebastian was about to start his daily routines-- he was the sexton at the cathedral in the city where he lived-- he found a middle-aged Indian man who seemed to be in a quandary at the door of the church. The nagual Sebastian went to the man's side and asked him if he needed help. "I need a bit of energy to close my gap," the man said to him in a loud clear voice. "Would you give me some of your energy?" Don Juan said that according to the story, the nagual Sebastian was dumbfounded. He did not know what the man was talking about. He offered to take the Indian to see the parish priest. The man lost his patience and angrily accused the nagual Sebastian of stalling. "I need your energy because you're a nagual," he said. "Let's go quietly." The nagual Sebastian succumbed to the magnetic power of the stranger and meekly went with him into the mountains. He was gone for many days. When he came back he not only had a new outlook about the ancient seers, but detailed knowledge of their techniques. The stranger was an ancient Toltec. One of the last survivors. "The nagual Sebastian found out marvels about the old seers," don Juan went on. "He was the one who first knew how grotesque and aberrant they really were. Before him, that knowledge was only hearsay. "One night my benefactor and the nagual Elias gave me a sample of those aberrations. They really showed it to Genaro and me together, so it's only proper that we both show you the same sample." I wanted to talk in order to stall; I needed time to calm down, to think things out. But before I could say anything, don Juan and Genaro were practically dragging me out of the house. They headed for the same eroded hills we had visited before. We stopped at the bottom of a large barren hill. Don Juan pointed toward some distant mountains to the south, and said that between the place where we stood and a natural cut in one of those mountains, a cut that looked like an open mouth, there were at least seven sites where the ancient seers had focused all the power of their awareness. Don Juan said that those seers had not only been knowledgeable and daring but downright successful. He added that his benefactor had showed him and Genaro a site where the old seers, driven by their love for life, had buried themselves alive and actually intended the rolling force away. "There is nothing that would catch the eye in those places," he went on. "The old seers were careful not to leave marks. It is just a landscape. One has to see to know where those places are." He said that he did not want to walk to the faraway sites, but would take me to the one that was nearest. I insisted on knowing what we were after. He said that we were going to see the buried seers, and that for that we had to stay until it got dark under the cover of some green bushes. He pointed them out; they were perhaps half a mile away, up a steep slope. We reached the patch of bushes and sat down as comfortably as we could. He began then to explain in a very low voice that in order to get energy from the earth, ancient seers used to bury themselves for periods of time, depending on what they wanted to accomplish. The more difficult their task, the longer their burial period. Don Juan stood up and in a melodramatic way showed me a spot a few yards from where we were. "Two old seers are buried there," he said. "They buried themselves about two thousand years ago to escape death, not in the spirit of running away from it but in the spirit of defy ing it." Don Juan asked Genaro to show me the exact spot where the old seers were buried. I turned to look at Genaro and realized that he was sitting by my side sound asleep again. But to my utter amazement, he jumped up and barked like a dog and ran on all fours to the spot don Juan was pointing out. There he ran around the place in a perfect mime of a small dog. I found his performance hilarious. Don Juan was nearly on the ground laughing. "Genaro has shown you something extraordinary," don Juan said, after Genaro had returned to where we were and had gone back to sleep. "He has shown you something about the assemblage point and dreaming. He's dreaming now, but he can act as if he were fully awake and he can hear everything you say. From that position he can do more than if he were awake." He was silent for a moment as if assessing what to say next. Genaro snored rhythmically. Don Juan remarked how easy it was for him to find flaws with what the old seers had done, yet, in all fairness, he never tired of repeating how wonderful their accomplishments were. He said that they understood the earth to perfection. Not only did they discover and use the boost from the earth, but they also discovered that if they remained buried, their assemblage points aligned emanations that were ordinarily inaccessible, and that such an alignment engaged the earth's strange, inexplicable capacity to deflect the ceaseless strikes of the rolling force. Consequently, they developed the most astounding and complex techniques for burying themselves for extremely long periods of time without any detriment to themselves. In their fight against death, they learned how to elongate those periods to cover millennia. It was a cloudy day, and night fell quickly. In no time at all, everything was in darkness. Don Juan stood up and guided me and the sleepwalker Genaro to an enormous flat oval rock that had caught my eye the moment we got to that place. It was similar to the flat rock we had visited before, but bigger. It occurred to me that the rock, enormous as it was, had deliberately been placed there. "This is another site," don Juan said. "This huge rock was placed here as a trap, to attract people. Soon you'll know why." I felt a shiver run through my body. I thought I was going to faint. I knew that I was definitely overreacting and wanted to say something about it, but don Juan kept on talking in a hoarse whisper. He said that Genaro, since he was dreaming, had enough control over his assemblage point to move it until he could reach the specific emanations that would wake up whatever was around that rock. He recommended that I try to move my assemblage point, and follow Genaro's. He said that I could do it, first by setting up my unbending intent to move it, and second by letting the context of the situation dictate where it should move. After a moment's thought he whispered in my ear not to worry about procedures, because most of the really unusual things that happen to seers, or to the average man for that matter, happen by themselves, with only the intervention of intent. He was silent for a moment and then added that the danger for me was going to be the buried seers' inevitable attempt to scare me to death. He exhorted me to keep myself calm and not to succumb to fear, but follow Genaro's movements. I fought desperately not to be sick. Don Juan patted me on the back and said that I was an old pro at playing an innocent bystander. He assured me that I was not consciously refusing to let my assemblage point move, but that every human being does it automatically. "Something is going to scare the living daylights out of you," he whispered. "Don't give up, because if you do, you'll die and the old vultures around here are going to feast on your energy." "Let's get out of here," I pleaded. "I really don't give a damn about getting an example of the old seers' grotesqueness." "It's too late," Genaro said, fully awake now, standing by my side. "Even if we try to get away, the two seers and their allies on the other spot will cut you down. They have already made a circle around us. There are as many as sixteen awarenesses focused on you right now." "Who are they?" I whispered in Genaro's ear. "The four seers and their court," he replied. "They've been aware of us since we got here." I wanted to turn tail and run for dear life, but don Juan held my arm and pointed to the sky. I noticed that a remarkable change in visibility had taken place. Instead of the pitch-black darkness that had prevailed, there was a pleasant dawn twilight. I made a quick assessment of the cardinal points. The sky was definitely lighter toward the east. I felt a strange pressure around my head. My ears were buzzing. I felt cold and feverish at the same time. I was scared as I had never been before, but what bothered me was a nagging sensation of defeat, of being a coward. I felt nauseated and miserable. Don Juan whispered in my ear. He said that I had to be on the alert, that the onslaught of the old seers would be felt by all three of us at any moment. "You can grab on to me if you want to," Genaro said in a fast whisper as if something were prodding him. I hesitated for an instant. I did not want don Juan to believe that I was so scared I needed to hold on to Genaro. "Here they come!" Genaro said in a loud whisper. The world turned upside down instantaneously for me when something gripped me by my left ankle. I felt the coldness of death on my entire body. I knew I had stepped on an iron clamp, maybe a bear trap. That all flashed through my mind before I let out a piercing scream, as intense as my fright. Don Juan and Genaro laughed out loud. They were flanking me no more than three feet away, but I was so terrified I did not even notice them. "Sing! Sing for dear life!" I heard don Juan ordering me under his breath. I tried to pull my foot loose. I felt then a sting, as if needles were piercing my skin. Don Juan insisted over and over that I sing. He and Genaro started to sing a popular song. Genaro spoke the lyrics as he looked at me from hardly two inches away. They sang off-key in raspy voices, getting so completely out of breath and so high out of the range of their voices that I ended up laughing. "Sing, or you're going to perish," don Juan said to me. "Let's make a trio," Genaro said, "We'll sing a bolero." I joined them in an off-key trio. We sang for quite a while at the top of our voices, like drunkards. I felt that the iron grip on my leg was gradually letting go of me. I had not dared to look down at my ankle. At one moment I did and I realized then that there was no trap clutching me. A dark, headlike shape was biting me! Only a supreme effort kept me from fainting. I felt I was getting sick and automatically tried to bend over, but somebody with superhuman strength grabbed me painlessly by the elbows and the nape of my neck and did not let me move. I got sick all over my clothes. My revulsion was so complete that I began to fall in a faint. Don Juan sprinkled my face with some water from the small gourd he always carried when we went into the mountains. The water slid under my collar. The coldness restored my physical balance, but it did not affect the force that was holding me by my elbows and neck. "I think you are going too far with your fright," don Juan said loudly and in such a matter-of-fact tone that he created an immediate feeling of order. "Let's sing again," he added. "Let's sing a song with substance-- I don't want any more boleros." I silently thanked him for his sobriety and for his grand style. I was so moved as I heard them singing "La Valentina" that I began to weep. "Because of my passion, they say that ill fortune is on my way. It doesn't matter that it might be the devil himself. I do know how to die Valentina, Valentina. I throw my self in your way. If I am going to die tomorrow, why not, once and for all, today?" All of my being staggered under the impact of that inconceivable juxtaposition of values. Never had a song meant so much to me. As I heard them sing those lyrics, which I ordinarily considered reeking with cheap sentimentalism, I thought I understood the ethos of the warrior. Don Juan had drilled into me that warriors live with death at their side, and from the knowledge that death is with them they draw the courage to face anything. Don Juan had said that the worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear. I walked to don Juan and Genaro and embraced them to express my boundless gratitude and admiration for them. Then I realized that nothing was holding me any longer. Without a word don Juan took my arm and guided me to sit on the flat rock. "The show is just about to begin now," Genaro said in a jovial tone as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit. "You've just paid your admission ticket. It's all over your chest." He looked at me, and both of them began to laugh. "Don't sit too close to me," Genaro said. "I don't appreciate pukers. But don't go too far, either. The old seers are not yet through with their tricks." I moved as close to them as politeness permitted. I was concerned about my slate for an instant, and then all my qualms became nonsense, for I noticed that some people were coming toward us. I could not make out their shapes clearly but I distinguished a mass of human figures moving in the semidarkness. They did not carry lanterns or flashlights with them, which at that hour they would still have needed. Somehow that detail worried me. I did not want to focus on it and I deliberately began to think rationally. I figured that we must have attracted attention with our loud singing and they were coming to investigate. Don Juan tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed with a movement of his chin to the men in front of the group of others. "Those four are the old seers," he said. "The rest are their allies." Before I could remark that they were just local peasants, I heard a swishing sound right behind me. I quickly turned around in a state of total alarm. My movement was so sudden that don Juan's warning came too late. "Don't turn around!" I heard him yell. His words were only background; they did not mean anything to me. On turning around, I saw that three grotesquely deformed men had climbed up on the rock right behind me; they were crawling toward me, with their mouths open in a nightmarish grimace and their arms outstretched to grab me. I intended to scream at the top of my lungs, but what came out was an agonizing croak, as if something were obstructing my windpipe. I automatically rolled out of their reach and onto the ground. As I stood up, don Juan jumped to my side, at the very same moment that a horde of men, led by those don Juan had pointed out, descended on me like vultures. They were actually squeaking like bats or rats. I yelled in terror. This time I was able to let out a piercing cry. Don Juan, as nimbly as an athlete in top form, pulled me out of their clutches onto the rock. He told me in a stern voice not to turn around to look, no matter how scared I was. He said that the allies cannot push at all, but that they certainly could scare me and make me fall to the ground. On the ground, however, the allies could hold anybody down. If I were to fall on the ground by the place where the seers were buried, I would be at their mercy. They would rip me apart while their allies held me. He added that he had not told me all that before because he had hoped I would be forced to see and understand it by myself. His decision had nearly cost me my life. The sensation that the grotesque men were just behind me was nearly unbearable. Don Juan forcefully ordered me to keep calm and focus my attention on four men at the head of a crowd of perhaps ten or twelve. The instant I focused my eyes on them, as if on cue, they all advanced to the edge of the flat rock. They stopped there and began hissing like serpents. They walked back and forth. Their movement seemed to be synchronized. It was so consistent and orderly that it seemed to be mechanical. It was as if they were following a repetitive pattern, aimed at mesmerizing me. "Don't gaze at them, dear," Genaro said to me as if he were talking to a child. The laughter that followed was as hysterical as my fear. I laughed so hard that the sound reverberated on the surrounding hills. The men stopped at once and seemed to be perplexed. I could distinguish the shapes of their heads bobbing up and down as if they were talking, deliberating among themselves. Then one of them jumped onto the rock. "Watch out! That one is a seer!" Genaro exclaimed. "What are we going to do?" I shouted. "We could start singing again," don Juan replied matter-of-factly. My fear reached its apex then. I began to jump up and down and to roar like an animal. The man jumped down to the ground. "Don't pay any more attention to those clowns," don Juan said. "Let's talk as usual." He said that we had gone there for my enlightenment, and that I was failing miserably. I had to reorganize myself. The first thing to do was to realize that my assemblage point had moved and was now making obscure emanations glow. To carry the feelings from my usual state of awareness into the world I had assembled was indeed a travesty, for fear is only prevalent among the emanations of daily life. I told him that if my assemblage point had shifted as he was saying it had, I had news for him. My fear was infinitely greater and more devastating than anything I had ever experienced in my daily life. "You're wrong," he said. "Your first attention is confused and doesn't want to give up control, that's all. I have the feeling that you could walk right up to those creatures and face them and they wouldn't do a thing to you." I insisted that I was definitely in no condition to test such a preposterous thing as that. He laughed at me. He said that sooner or later I had to cure myself of my madness, and that to take the initiative and face up to those four seers was infinitely less preposterous than the idea that I was seeing them at all. He said that to him madness was to be confronted by men who had been buried for two thousand years and were still alive, and not to think that that was the epitome of preposterousness. I heard everything he said with clarity, but I was not really paying attention to him. I was terrified of the men around the rock. They seemed to be preparing to jump us, to jump me really. They were fixed on me. My right arm began to shake as if I were stricken by some muscular disorder. Then I became aware that the light in the sky had changed. I had not noticed before that it was already dawn. The strange thing was that an uncontrollable urge made me stand up and run to the group of men. I had at that moment two completely different feelings about the same event. The minor one was of sheer terror. The other, the major one, was of total indifference. I could not have cared less. When I reached the group I realized that don Juan was right; they were not really men. Only four of them had any resemblance to men, but they were not men either; they were strange creatures with huge yellow eyes. The others were just shapes that were propelled by the four that resembled men. I felt extraordinarily sad for those creatures with yellow eyes. I tried to touch them, but I could not find them. Some sort of wind scooped them away. I looked for don Juan and Genaro. They were not there. It was pitch-black again. I called out their names over and over again. I thrashed around in darkness for a few minutes. Don Juan came to my side and startled me. I did not see Genaro. "Let's go home," he said. "We have a long walk." Don Juan commented on how well I had performed at the site of the buried seers, especially during the last part of our encounter with them. He said that a shift of the assemblage point is marked by a change in light. In the daytime, light becomes very dark; at night, darkness becomes twilight. He added that I had performed two shifts by myself, aided only by animal fright. The only thing he found objectionable was my indulging in fear, especially after I had realized that warriors have nothing to fear. "How do you know I had realized that?" I asked. "Because you were free. When fear disappears all the ties that bind us dissolve," he said. "An ally was gripping your foot because it was attracted by your animal terror." I told him how sorry I was for not being able to uphold my realizations. "Don't concern yourself with that." He laughed. "You know that such realizations are a dime a dozen; they don't amount to anything in the life of warriors, because they are canceled out as the assemblage point shifts. "What Genaro and I wanted to do was to make you shift very deeply. This time Genaro was there simply to entice the old seers. He did it once already, and you went so far into the left side that it will take quite a while for you to remember it. Your fright tonight was just as intense as it was that first time when the seers and their allies followed you to this very room, but your sturdy first attention wouldn't let you be aware of them." "Explain to me what happened at the site of the seers," I asked. "The allies came out to see you," he replied. "Since they have very low energy, they always need the help of men. The four seers have collected twelve allies. "The countryside in Mexico and also certain cities are dangerous. What happened to you can happen to any man or woman. If they bump into that tomb, they may even see the seers and their allies, if they are pliable enough to let their fear make their assemblage points shift; but one thing is for sure: they can die of fright." "But do you honestly believe that those Toltec seers are still alive?" I asked. He laughed and shook his head in disbelief. "It's time for you to shift that assemblage point of yours just a bit," he said. "I can't talk to you when you are in your idiot's stage." He smacked me with the palm of his hand on three spots: right on the crest of my right hipbone, on the center of my back below my shoulder blades, and on the upper part of my right pectoral muscle. My ears immediately began to buzz. A trickle of blood ran out of my right nostril, and something inside me became unplugged. It was as if some flow of energy had been blocked and suddenly began to move again. "What were those seers and their allies after?" I asked. "Nothing," he replied. "We were the ones who were after them. The seers, of course, had already noticed your field of energy the first time you saw them; when you came back, they were set to feast on you." "You claim that they are alive, don Juan," I said. "You must mean that they are alive as allies are alive, is that so?" "That's exactly right," he said. "They cannot possibly be alive as you and I are. That would be preposterous." He went on to explain that the ancient seers' concern with death made them look into the most bizarre possibilities. The ones who opted for the allies' pattern had in mind, doubtless, a desire for a haven. And they found it, at a fixed position in one of the seven bands of inorganic awareness. The seers felt that they were relatively safe there. After all, they were separated from the daily world by a nearly insurmountable barrier, the barrier of perception set by the assemblage point. "When the four seers saw that you could shift your assemblage point they took off like bats out of hell," he said and laughed. "Do you mean that I assembled one of the seven worlds?" I asked. "No, you didn't," he replied. "But you have done it before, when the seers and their allies chased you. That day you went all the way to their world. The problem is that you love to act stupid, so you can't remember it at all. "I'm sure that it is the nagual's presence," he continued, "that sometimes makes people act dumb. When the nagual Julian was still around, I was dumber than I am now. I am convinced that when I'm no longer here, you'll be capable of remembering everything." Don Juan explained that since he needed to show me the death defiers, he and Genaro had lured them to the outskirts of our world. What I had done at first was a deep lateral shift, which allowed me to see them as people, but at the end I had correctly made the shift that allowed me to see the death defiers and their allies as they are. Very early the next morning, at Silvio Manuel's house, don Juan called me to the big room to discuss the events of the previous night. I felt exhausted and wanted to rest, to sleep, but don Juan was pressed for time. He immediately started his explanation. He said that the old seers had found out a way to utilize the rolling force and be propelled by it. Instead of succumbing to the onslaughts of the tumbler they rode with it and let it move their assemblage points to the confines of human possibilities. Don Juan expressed unbiased admiration for such an accomplishment. He admitted that nothing else could give the assemblage point the boost that the tumbler gives. I asked him about the difference between the earth's boost and the tumbler's boost. He explained that the earth's boost is the force of alignment of only the amber emanations, it is a boost that heightens awareness to unthinkable degrees. To the new seers it is a blast of unlimited consciousness, which they call total freedom. He said that the tumbler's boost, on the other hand, is the force of death. Under the impact of the tumbler, the assemblage point moves to new, unpredictable positions. Thus, the old seers were always alone in their journeys, although the enterprise they were involved in was always communal. The company of other seers on their journeys was fortuitous and usually meant struggle for supremacy. I confessed to don Juan that the concerns of the old seers, whatever they may have been, were worse than morbid horror tales to me. He laughed uproariously. He seemed to be enjoying himself. "You have to admit, no matter how disgusted you feel, that those devils were very daring," he went on. "I never liked them myself, as you know, but I can't help admiring them. Their love for life is truly beyond me." "How can that be love for life, don Juan? It's something nauseating," I said. "What else could push a man to those extremes if it is not love for life?" he asked. "They loved life so intensely that they were not willing to give it up. That's the way I have seen it. My benefactor saw something else. He believed that they were afraid to die, which is not the same as loving life. I say that they were afraid to die because they loved life and because they had seen marvels, and not because they were greedy little monsters. No. They were aberrant because nobody ever challenged them and they were spoiled like rotten children, but their daring was impeccable and so was their courage. "Would you venture into the unknown out of greed? No way. Greed works only in the world of ordinary affairs. To venture into that terrifying loneliness one must have something greater than greed. Love, one needs love for life, for intrigue, for mystery. One needs unquenching curiosity and guts galore. So don't give me this nonsense about your being revolted. It's embarrassing!" Don Juan's eyes were shining with contained laughter. He was putting me in my place, but he was laughing at it. Don Juan left me alone in the room for perhaps an hour. I wanted to organize my thoughts and feelings. I had no way to do that. I knew without any doubt that my assemblage point was at a position where reasoning does not prevail, yet I was moved by reasonable concerns. Don Juan had said that technically, as soon as the assemblage point shifts, we are asleep. I wondered, for instance, if I was sound asleep from the stand of an onlooker, just as Genaro had been asleep to me. I asked don Juan about it as soon as he returned. "You are absolutely asleep without having to be stretched out," he replied. "If people in a normal state of awareness saw you now, you would appear to them to be a bit dizzy, even drunk." He explained that during normal sleep, the shift of the assemblage point runs along either edge of man's band. Such shifts are always coupled with slumber. Shifts that are induced by practice occur along the midsection of man's band and are not coupled with slumber, yet a dreamer is asleep. "Right at this juncture is where the new and the old seers made their separate bids for power," he went on. "The old seers wanted a replica of the body, but with more physical strength, so they made their assemblage points slide along the right edge of man's band. The deeper they moved along the right edge the more bizarre their dreaming body became. You, yourself, witnessed last night the monstrous result of a deep shift along the right edge." He said that the new seers were completely different, that they maintain their assemblage points along the midsection of man's band. If the shift is a shallow one, like the shift into heightened awareness, the dreamer is almost like anyone else in the street, except for a slight vulnerability to emotions, such as fear and doubt. But at a certain degree of depth, the dreamer who is shifting along the midsection becomes a blob of light. A blob of light is the dreaming body of the new seers. He also said that such an impersonal dreaming body is more conducive to understanding and examination, which are the basis of all the new seers do. The intensely humanized dreaming body of the old seers drove them to look for answers that were equally personal, humanized. Don Juan suddenly seemed to be groping for words. "There is another death defier," he said curtly, "so unlike the four you've seen that he's indistinguishable from the average man in the street. He's accomplished this unique feat by being able to open and close his gap whenever he wants." He played with his fingers almost nervously. "The ancient seer that the nagual Sebastian found in 1723 is that death defier," he went on. "We count that day as the beginning of our line, the second beginning. That death defier, who's been on the earth for hundreds of years, has changed the lives of every nagual he met, some more profoundly than others. And he has met every single nagual of our line since that day in 1723." Don Juan looked fixedly at me. I got strangely embarrassed. I thought my embarrassment was the result of a dilemma. I had very serious doubts about the content of the story, and at the same time I had the most disconcerting trust that everything he had said was true. I expressed my quandary to him. "The problem of rational disbelief is not yours alone," don Juan said. "My benefactor was at first plagued by the same question. Of course, later on he remembered everything. But it took him a long time to do so. When I met him he had already recollected everything, so I never witnessed his doubts. I only heard about them. "The weird part is that people who have never set eyes on the man have less difficulty accepting that he's one of the original seers. My benefactor said that his quandaries stemmed from the fact that the shock of meeting such a creature had lumped together a number of emanations. It takes time for those emanations to separate themselves." Don Juan went on to explain that as my assemblage point kept on shifting, a moment would come when it would hit the proper combination of emanations; at that moment the proof of the existence of that man would become overwhelmingly evident to me. I felt compelled to talk again about my ambivalence. "We're deviating from our subject," he said. "It may seem that I'm trying to convince you of the existence of that man; and what I meant to talk about is the fact that the old seer knows how to handle the rolling force. Whether or not you believe that he exists is not important. Someday you'll know for a fact that he certainly succeeded in closing his gap. The energy that he borrows from the nagual every generation he uses exclusively to close his gap." "How did he succeed in closing it?" I asked. "There is no way of knowing that," he replied. "I've talked to two other naguals who saw that man face to face, the nagual Julian and the nagual Elias. Neither of them knew how. The man never revealed how he closes that opening, which I suppose begins to expand after a time. The nagual Sebastian said that when he first saw the old seer, the man was very weak, actually dying. But my benefactor found him prancing vigorously, like a young man." Don Juan said that the nagual Sebastian nicknamed that nameless man "the tenant," for they struck an arrangement by which the man was given energy, lodging so to speak, and he paid rent in the form of favors and knowledge. "Did anybody ever get hurt in the exchange?" I asked. "None of the naguals who exchanged energy with him was injured," he replied. "The man's commitment was that he'd only take a bit of superfluous energy from the nagual in exchange for gifts, for extraordinary abilities. For instance, the nagual Julian got the gait of power. With it, he could activate or make dormant the emanations inside his cocoon in order to look young or old at will." Don Juan explained that the death defiers in general went as far as rendering dormant all the emanations inside their cocoons, except those that matched the emanations of the allies. In this fashion they were able to imitate the allies in some form. Each of the death defiers we had encountered at the rock, don Juan said, had been able to move his assemblage point to a precise spot on his cocoon in order to emphasize the emanations shared with the allies and to interact with them. But they were all unable to move it back to its usual position and interact with people. The tenant, on the other hand, is capable of shifting his assemblage point to assemble the everyday world as if nothing had ever happened. Don Juan also said that his benefactor was convinced-- and he fully agreed with him-- that what takes place during the borrowing of energy is that the old sorcerer moves the nagual's assemblage point to emphasize the ally's emanations inside the nagual's cocoon. He then uses the great jolt of energy produced by those emanations that suddenly become aligned after being so deeply dormant. He said that the energy locked within us, in the dormant emanations, has a tremendous force and an incalculable scope. We can only vaguely assess the scope of that tremendous force, if we consider that the energy involved in perceiving and acting in the world of everyday life is a product of the alignment of hardly one-tenth of the emanations encased in man's cocoon. "What happens at the moment of death is that all that energy is released at once," he continued. "Living beings at that moment become flooded by the most inconceivable force. It is not the rolling force that has cracked their gaps, because that force never enters inside the cocoon; it only makes it collapse. What floods them is the force of all the emanations that are suddenly aligned after being dormant for a lifetime. There is no outlet for such a giant force except to escape through the gap." He added that the old sorcerer has found a way to tap that energy. By aligning a limited and very specific spectrum of the dormant emanations inside the nagual's cocoon, the old seer taps a limited but gigantic jolt. "How do you think he takes that energy into his own body?" I asked. "By cracking the nagual's gap," he replied. "He moves the nagual's assemblage point until the gap opens a little. When the energy of newly aligned emanations is released through that opening, he takes it into his own gap." "Why is that old seer doing what he's doing?" I asked. "My opinion is that he's caught in a circle he can't break," he replied. "We got into an agreement with him. He's doing his best to keep it, and so are we. We can't judge him, yet we have to know that his path doesn't lead to freedom. He knows that, and he also knows he can't change it; he's trapped in a situation of his own making. The only thing he can do is to prolong his ally-like existence as long as he possibly can." 16 The Mold of Man Right after lunch, don Juan and I sat down to talk. He started without any preamble. He announced that we had come to the end of his explanation. He said that he had discussed with me, in painstaking detail, all the truths about awareness that the old seers had discovered. He stressed that I now knew the order in which the new seers had arranged them. In the last sessions of his explanation, he said, he had given me a detailed account of the two forces that aid our assemblage points to move: the earth's boost and the rolling force. He had also explained the three techniques worked out by the new seers-- stalking, intent, and dreaming -- and their effects on the movement of the assemblage point. "Now, the only thing left for you to do before the explanation of the mastery of awareness is completed," he went on, "is to break the barrier of perception by yourself. You must move your assemblage point, unaided by anyone, and align another great band of emanations. "Not to do this will turn everything you've learned and done with me into merely talk, just words. And words are fairly cheap." He explained that when the assemblage point is moving away from its customary position and reaches a certain depth, it breaks a barrier that momentarily disrupts its capacity to align emanations. We experience it as a moment of perceptual blankness. The old seers called that moment the wall of fog, because a bank of fog appears whenever the alignment of emanations falters. He said that there were three ways of dealing with it. It could be taken abstractly as a barrier of perception; it could be felt as the act of piercing a tight paper screen with the entire body; or it could be seen as a wall of fog. In the course of my apprenticeship with don Juan, he had guided me countless times to see the barrier of perception. At first I had liked the idea of a wall of fog. Don Juan had warned me that the old seers had also preferred to see it that way. He had said that there is great comfort and ease in seeing it as a wall of fog, but that there is also the grave danger of turning something incomprehensible into something somber and foreboding; hence, his recommendation was to keep incomprehensible things incomprehensible rather than making them part of the inventory of the first attention. After a short-lived feeling of comfort in seeing the wall of fog I had to agree with don Juan that it was better to keep the transition period as an incomprehensible abstraction, but by then it was impossible for me to break the fixation of my awareness. Every time I was placed in a position to break the barrier of perception I saw the wall of fog. On one occasion, in the past, I had complained to don Juan and Genaro that although I wanted to see it as something else, I couldn't change it. Don Juan had commented that that was understandable, because I was morbid and somber, that he and I were very different in this respect. He was lighthearted and practical and he did not worship the human inventory. I, on the other hand, was unwilling to throw my inventory out the window and consequently I was heavy, sinister, and impractical. I had been shocked and saddened by his harsh criticism and became very gloomy. Don Juan and Genaro had laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks. Genaro had added that on top of all that I was vindictive and had a tendency to get fat. They had laughed so hard I finally felt obliged to join them. Don Juan had told me then that exercises of assembling other worlds allowed the assemblage point to gain experience in shifting. I had always wondered, however, how to get the initial boost to dislodge my assemblage point from its usual position. When I'd questioned him about it in the past he'd pointed out that since alignment is the force that is involved in everything, intent is what makes the assemblage point move. I asked him again about it. "You're in a position now to answer that question yourself," he replied. "The mastery of awareness is what gives the assemblage point its boost. After all, there is really very little to us human beings; we are, in essence, an assemblage point fixed at a certain position. Our enemy and at the same time our friend is our internal dialogue, our inventory. Be a warrior; shut off your internal dialogue; make your inventory and then throw it away. The new seers make accurate inventories and then laugh at them. Without the inventory the assemblage point becomes free." Don Juan reminded me that he had talked a great deal about one of the most sturdy aspects of our inventory: our idea of God. That aspect, he said, was like a powerful glue that bound the assemblage point to its original position. If I were going to assemble another true world with another great band of emanations, I had to take an obligatory step in order to release all ties from my assemblage point. "That step is to see the mold of man," he said. "You must do that today unaided." "What's the mold of man?" I asked. "I've helped you see it many times," he replied. "You know what I'm talking about." I refrained from saying that I did not know what he was talking about. If he said that I had seen the mold of man, I must have done that, although I did not have the foggiest idea what it was like. He knew what was going through my mind. He gave me a knowing smile and slowly shook his head from side to side. "The mold of man is a huge cluster of emanations in the great band of organic life," he said. "It is called the mold of man because the cluster appears only inside the cocoon of man. "The mold of man is the portion of the Eagle's emanations that seers can see directly without any danger to themselves." There was a long pause before he spoke again. "To break the barrier of perception is the last task of the mastery of awareness," he said. "In order to move your assemblage point to that position you must gather enough energy. Make a journey of recovery. Remember what you've done!" I tried unsuccessfully to recall what was the mold of man. I felt an excruciating frustration that soon turned into real anger. I was furious with myself, with don Juan, with everybody. Don Juan was untouched by my fury. He said matter-of-factly that anger was a natural reaction to the hesitation of the assemblage point to move on command. "It will be a long time before you can apply the principle that your command is the Eagle's command," he said. "That's the essence of the mastery of intent. In the meantime, make a command now not to fret, not even at the worst moments of doubt. It will be a slow process until that command is heard and obeyed as if it were the Eagle's command." He also said that there was an unmeasurable area of awareness in between the customary position of the assemblage point and the position where there are no more doubts, which is almost the place where the barrier of perception makes its appearance. In that unmeasurable area, warriors fall prey to every conceivable misdeed. He warned me to be on the lockout and not lose confidence, for I would unavoidably be struck at one time or another by gripping feelings of defeat. "The new seers recommend a very simple act when impatience, or despair, or anger, or sadness comes their way," he continued. "They recommend that warriors roll their eyes. Any direction will do; I prefer to roll mine clockwise. "The movement of the eyes makes the assemblage point shift momentarily. In that movement, you will find relief. This is in lieu of true mastery of intent."' I complained that there was not enough time for him to tell me more about intent. "It will all come back to you someday," he assured me. "One thing will trigger another. One key word and all of it will tumble out of you as if the door of an overstuffed closet had given way." He went back then to discussing the mold of man. He said that to see it on my own, unaided by anyone, was an important step, because all of us have certain ideas that must be broken before we are free; the seer who travels into the unknown to see the unknowable must be in an impeccable state of being. He winked at me and said that to be in an impeccable state of being is to be free of rational assumptions and rational fears. He added that both my rational assumptions and my rational fears were preventing me at that moment from realigning the emanations that would make me remember seeing the mold of man. He urged me to relax and move my eyes in order to make my assemblage point shift. He repeated over and over that it was really important to remember having seen the mold before I see it again. And since he was pressed for time there was no room for my usual slowness. I moved my eyes as he suggested. Almost immediately I forgot my discomfort and then a sudden flash of memory came to me and I remembered that I had seen the mold of man. It had happened years earlier on an occasion that had been quite memorable to me, because from the point of view of my Catholic upbringing, don Juan had made the most sacrilegious statements I had ever heard. It had all started as a casual conversation while we hiked in the foothills of the Sonoran desert. He was explaining to me the implications of what he was doing to me with his teachings. We had stopped to rest and had sat down on some large boulders. He had continued explaining his teaching procedure, and this had encouraged me to try for the hundredth time to give him an account of how I felt about it. It was evident that he did not want to hear about it anymore. He made me change levels of awareness and told me that if I would see the mold of man, I might understand everything he was doing and thus save us both years of toil. He gave me a detailed explanation of what the mold of man was. He did not talk about it in terms of the Eagle's emanations, but in terms of a pattern of energy that serves to stamp the qualities of humanness on an amorphous blob of biological matter. At least, I understood it that way, especially after he further described the mold of man using a mechanical analogy. He said that it was like a gigantic die that stamps out human beings endlessly as if they were coming to it on a mass-production conveyor belt. He vividly mimed the process by bringing the palms of his hands together with great force, as if the die molded a human being each time its two halves were clapped. He also said that every species has a mold of its own, and every individual of every species molded by the process shows characteristics particular to its own kind. He began then an extremely disturbing elucidation about the mold of man. He said that the old seers as well as the mystics of our world have one thing in common-- they have been able to see the mold of man but not understand what it is. Mystics, throughout the centuries, have given us moving accounts of their experiences. But these accounts, however beautiful, are flawed by the gross and despairing mistake of believing the mold of man to be an omnipotent, omniscient creator; and so is the interpretation of the old seers, who called the mold of man a friendly spirit, a protector of man. He said that the new seers are the only ones who have the sobriety to see the mold of man and understand what it is. What they have come to realize is that the mold of man is not a creator, but the pattern of every human attribute we can think of and some we cannot even conceive. The mold is our God because we are what it stamps us with and not because it has created us from nothing and made us in its image and likeness. Don Juan said that in his opinion to fall on our knees in the presence of the mold of man reeks of arrogance and human self-centeredness. As I heard don Juan's explanation I got terribly worried. Even though I had never considered my self to be a practicing Catholic, I was shocked by his blasphemous implications. I had been politely listening to him, yet I had been yearning for a pause in his barrage of sacrilegious judgments in order to change the subject. But he went on drumming his point in a merciless way. I finally interrupted him and told him that I believed that God exists. He retorted that my belief was based on faith and, as such, was a secondhand conviction that did not amount to anything; my belief in the existence of God was, like everyone else's, based on hearsay and not on the act of seeing, he said. He assured me that even if I was able to see, I was bound to make the same misjudgment that mystics have made. Anyone who sees the mold of man automatically assumes that it is God. He called the mystical experience a chance seeing, a one-shot affair that has no significance whatsoever because it is the result of a random movement of the assemblage point. He asserted that the new seers are indeed the only ones who can pass a fair judgment on this matter, because they have ruled out chance seeings and are capable of seeing the mold of man as often as they please. They have seen, therefore, that what we call God is a static prototype of humanness without any power. For the mold of man cannot under any circumstances help us by intervening in our behalf, or punish our wrongdoings, or reward us in any way. We are simply the product of its stamp; we are its impression. The mold of man is exactly what its name tells us it is, a pattern, a form, a cast that groups together a particular bunch of fiberlike elements, which we call man. What he had said put me in a state of great distress. But he seemed unconcerned with my genuine turmoil. He kept on needling me with what he called the unforgivable crime of the chance seers, which makes us focus our irreplaceable energy on something that has no power whatsoever to do anything. The more he talked, the greater my annoyance. When I became so annoyed that I was about to shout at him, he had me change into yet a deeper state of heightened awareness. He hit me on my right side, between my hipbone and my rib cage. That blow sent me soaring into a radiant light, into a diaphanous source of the most peaceful and exquisite beatitude. That light was a haven, an oasis in the blackness around me. From my subjective point of view, I saw that light for an immeasurable length of time. The splendor of the sight was beyond anything I can say, and yet I could not figure out what it was that made it so beautiful. Then the idea came to me that its beauty grew out of a sense of harmony, a sense of peace and rest, of having arrived, of being safe at long last. I felt myself inhaling and exhaling in quietude and relief. What a gorgeous sense of plenitude! I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that I had come face to face with God, the source of everything. And I knew that God loved me. God was love and forgiveness. The light bathed me, and I felt clean, delivered. I wept uncontrollably, mainly for myself. The sight of that resplendent light made me feel unworthy, villainous. Suddenly, I heard don Juan's voice in my ear. He said that I had to go beyond the mold, that the mold was merely a stage, a stopover that brought temporary peace and serenity to those who journey into the unknown, but that it was sterile, static. It was at the same time a flat reflected image in a mirror and the mirror itself. And the image was man's image. I passionately resented what don Juan was saying; I rebelled against his blasphemous, sacrilegious words. I wanted to tell him off, but I could not break the binding power of my seeing. I was caught in it. Don Juan seemed to know exactly how I felt and what I wanted to tell him. "You can't tell the nagual off," he said in my ear. "It is the nagual who's enabling you to see. It is the nagual's technique, the nagual's power. The nagual is the guide." It was at that point that I realized something about the voice in my ear. It was not don Juan's, although it sounded very much like his voice. Also, the voice was right. The instigator of that seeing was the nagual Juan Matus. It was his technique and his power that was making me see God. He said it was not God, but the mold of man; I knew that he was right. Yet I could not admit that, not out of annoyance or stubbornness, but simply out of a sense of ultimate loyalty to and love for the divinity that was in front of me. As I gazed into the light with all the passion I was capable of, the light seemed to condense and I saw a man. A shiny man that exuded charisma, love, understanding, sincerity, truth. A man that was the sum total of all that is good. The fervor I felt on seeing that man was well beyond anything I had ever felt in my life. I did fall on my knees. I wanted to worship God personified, but don Juan intervened and whacked me on my left upper chest, close to my clavicle, and I lost sight of God. I was left with a tantalizing feeling, a mixture of remorse, elation, certainties, and doubts. Don Juan made fun of me. He called me pious and careless and said I would make a great priest; now I could even pass for a spiritual leader who had had a chance seeing of God. He urged me, in ajocular way, to start preaching and describe what I had seen to everyone. In a very casual but seemingly interested manner he made a statement that was part question, part assertion. "And the man?" he asked. "You can't forget that God is a male." The immensity of something indefinable began to dawn on me as I entered into a state of great clarity. "Very cozy, eh?" don Juan added, smiling. "God is a male. What a relief" After recounting to don Juan what I had remembered, I asked him about something that had just struck me as being terribly odd. To see the mold of man, I had obviously gone through a shift of my assemblage point. The recollection of the feelings and realizations I had had then was so vivid that it gave me a sense of utter futility. Everything I had done and felt at that time I was feeling now. I asked him how it was possible that having had such a clear comprehension, I could have forgotten it so completely. It was as if nothing of what had happened to me had mattered, for I always had to start from point one regardless of how much I might have advanced in the past. "That's only an emotional impression," he said. "A total misapprehension. Whatever you did years ago is solidly enclosed in some unused emanations. That day when I made you see the mold of man, for instance, I had a true misapprehension myself. I thought that if you saw it, you would be able to understand it. It was a true misunderstanding on my part." Don Juan explained that he had always regarded himself as being very slow to understand. He had never had any chance of testing his belief, because he did not have a point of reference. When I came along and he became a teacher, which was something totally new to him, he realized that there is no way to speed up understanding and that to dislodge the assemblage point is not enough. He had thought that it would be sufficient. Soon he became aware that since the assemblage point normally shifts during dreams, sometimes to extraordinarily distant positions, whenever we undergo an induced shift we are all experts at immediately compensating for it. We rebalance ourselves constantly and activity goes on as if nothing has happened to us. He remarked that the value of the new seers' conclusions does not become evident until one tries to move someone else's assemblage point. The new seers said that what counts in this respect is the effort to reinforce the stability of the assemblage point in its new position. They considered this to be the only teaching procedure worth discussing. And they knew that it is a long process that has to be carried out little by little at a snail's pace. Don Juan said then that he had used power plants at the beginning of my apprenticeship in accordance with a recommendation of the new seers. They knew by experience and by seeing that power plants shake the assemblage point way out of its normal setting. The effect of power plants on the assemblage point is in principle very much like that of dreams: dreams make it move; but power plants manage the shift on a greater and more engulfing scale. A teacher then uses the disorienting effects of such a shift to reinforce the notion that the perception of the world is never final. I remembered then that I had seen the mold of man five more times over the years. With each new time I had become less passionate about it. I could never get over the fact, however, that I always saw God as a male. At the end it stopped being God for me and became the mold of man, not because of what don Juan had said, but because the position of a male God became untenable. I could then understand don Juan's statements about it. They had not been blasphemous or sacrilegious in the least; he had not made them from within the context of the daily world. He was right in saying that the new seers have an edge in being capable of seeing the mold of man as often as they want. But what was more important to me was that they had sobriety in order to examine what they saw. I asked him why it was that I always saw the mold of man as a male. He said that it was because my assemblage point did not have the stability then to remain completely glued to its new position and shifted laterally in man's band. It was the same case as seeing the barrier of perception as a wall of fog. What made the assemblage point move laterally was a nearly unavoidable desire, or necessity, to render the incomprehensible in terms of what is most familiar to us: a barrier is a wall and the mold of man cannot be anything else but a man. He thought that if I were a woman I would see the mold as a woman. Don Juan stood up then and said that it was time for us to take a stroll in town, that I should see the mold of man among people. We walked in silence to the square, but before we got there I had an uncontainable surge of energy and ran down the street to the outskirts of town. I came to a bridge, and right there, as if it had been waiting for me, I saw the mold of man as a resplendent, warm, amber light. I fell on my knees, not so much out of piety, but as physical reaction to awe. The sight of the mold of man was more astonishing than ever. I felt, without any arrogance, that I had gone through an enormous change since the first time I had seen it. However, all the things I had seen and learned had only given me a greater, more profound appreciation for the miracle that I had in front of my eyes. The mold of man was superimposed on the bridge at first, then I refocused my eyes and saw that the mold of man extended up and down into infinity; the bridge was but a meager shell, a tiny sketch superimposed on the eternal. And so were the minute figures of people who moved around me, looking at me with unabashed curiosity. But I was beyond their touch, although at that moment I was as vulnerable as I could be. The mold of man had no power to protect me or spare me, yet I loved it with a passion that knew no limits. I thought that I understood then something that don Juan had told me repeatedly, that real affection cannot be an investment. I would have gladly remained the servant of the mold of man, not for what it could give me, for it has nothing to give, but for the sheer affection I felt for it. I had the sensation of something pulling me away, and before I disappeared from its presence I shouted a promise to the mold of man, but a great force whisked me away before I could finish staling what I meant. I was suddenly kneeling at the bridge while a group of peasants looked at me and laughed. Don Juan got to my side and helped me up and walked me back to the house. "There are two ways of seeing the mold of man," don Juan began as soon as we sat down. "You can see it as a man or you can see it as a light. That depends on the shift of the assemblage point. If the shift is lateral, the mold is a human being; if the shift is in the midsection of man's band, the mold is a light. The only value of what you've done today is that your assemblage point shifted in the midsection." He said that the position where one sees the mold of man is very close to that where the dreaming body and the barrier of perception appear. That was the reason the new seers recommend that the mold of man be seen and understood. "Are you sure you understand what the mold of man really is?" he asked with a smile. "I assure you, don Juan, that I'm perfectly aware of what the mold of man is," I said. "I heard you shouting inanities to the mold of man when I got to the bridge," he said with a most malicious smile. I told him that I had felt like a worthless servant worshiping a worthless master, and yet I was moved out of sheer affection to promise undying love. He found it all hilarious and laughed until he was choking. "The promise of a worthless servant to a worthless master is worthless," he said and choked again with laughter. I did not feel like defending my position. My affection for the mold of man was offered freely without thought of recompense. It did not matter to me that my promise was worthless. 17 The Journey of the Dreaming Body Don Juan told me that the two of us were going to drive to the city of Oaxaca for the last time. He made it very clear that we would never be there together again. Perhaps his feeling might return to the place, he said, but never again the totality of himself. In Oaxaca, don Juan spent hours looking at mundane, trivial things, the faded color of walls, the shape of distant mountains, the pattern on cracked cement, the faces of people. Then we went to the square and sat on his favorite bench, which was unoccupied, as it always was when he wanted it. During our long walk in the city, I had tried my best to work myself into a mood of sadness and moroseness, but I just could not do it. There was something festive about his departure. He explained it as the unrestrainable vigor of total freedom. "Freedom is like a contagious disease," he said. "It is transmitted; its carrier is an impeccable nagual. People might not appreciate that, and that's because they don't want to be free. Freedom is frightening. Remember that. But not for us. I've groomed myself nearly all my life for this moment. And so will you." He repeated over and over that at the stage where I was, no rational assumptions should interfere with my actions. He said that the dreaming body and the barrier of perception are positions of the assemblage point, and that that knowledge is as vital to seers as knowing how to read and write is to modern man. Both are accomplishments attained after years of practice. "It is very important that you remember, right now, the time when your assemblage point reached that position and it created your dreaming body," he said with tremendous urgency. Then he smiled and remarked that time was extremely short; he said that the recollection of the main journey of my dreaming body would put my assemblage point in a position to break the barrier of perception in order to assemble another world. "The dreaming body is known by different names," he said after a long pause. "The name I like the best is, the other. That term belongs to the old seers, together with the mood. I don't particularly care for their mood, but I have to admit that I like their term The other. It's mysterious and forbidden. Just like the old seers, it gives me the feeling of darkness, of shadows. The old seers said that the other always comes shrouded in wind." Over the years don Juan and other members of his party had tried to make me aware that we can be in two places at once, that we can experience a sort of perceptual dualism. As don Juan spoke, I began to remember something so deeply forgotten that at first it was as if I had only heard about it. Then, step by step, I realized that I had lived that experience myself. I had been in two places at once. It happened one night in the mountains of northern Mexico. I had been collecting plants with don Juan all day. We had stopped for the night and I had nearly fallen asleep from fatigue when suddenly there was a gust of wind and don Genaro sprang up from the darkness right in front of me and nearly scared me to death. My first thought was one of suspicion. I believed that don Genaro had been hiding in the bushes all day, waiting for darkness to set in before making his terrifying appearance. As I looked at him prancing around, I noticed that there was something truly odd about him that night. Something palpable, real, and yet something I could not pinpoint. He joked with me and horsed around, performing acts that defied my reason. Don Juan laughed like an idiot at my dismay. When he judged that the time was right, he made me shift into heightened awareness and for a moment I was able to see don Juan and don Genaro as two blobs of light. Genaro was not the fleshand-blood don Genaro that I knew in my state of normal awareness but his dreaming body. I could tell, because I saw him as a ball of fire that was above the ground. He was not rooted as don Juan was. It was as if Genaro, the blob of light, were on the verge of taking off, already up in the air, a couple of feet off the ground, ready to zoom away. Another thing I had done that night, which suddenly became clear to me as I recollected the event, was that I knew automatically that I had to move my eyes in order to make my assemblage point shift. I could, with my intent, align the emanations that made me see Genaro as a blob of light, or I could align the emanations that made me see him as merely odd, unknown, strange. When I saw Genaro as odd, his eyes had a malevolent glare, like the eyes of a beast in the darkness. But they were eyes, nonetheless. I did not see them as points of amber light. That night don Juan said that Genaro was going to help my assemblage point shift very deeply, that I should imitate him and follow everything he did. Genaro stuck out his rear end and then thrust his pelvis forward with great force. I thought it was an obscene gesture. He repeated it over and over again, moving around as if he were dancing. Don Juan nudged me on the arm, urging me to imitate Genaro, and I did. Both of us sort of romped around, performing that grotesque movement. After a while, I had the feeling that my body was executing the movement on its own, without what seemed to be the real me. The separation between my body and the real me became even more pronounced, and then at a given instant I was looking at some ludicrous scene where two men were making lewd gestures at each other. I watched in fascination and realized that I was one of the two men. The moment I became aware of it I felt something pulling me and I found myself again thrusting my pelvis backward and forward in unison with Genaro. Almost immediately, I noticed that another man standing next to don Juan was watching us. The wind was blowing around him. I could see his hair being ruffled. He was naked and seemed embarrassed. The wind gathered around him as if protecting him, or perhaps the opposite, as if trying to blow him away. I was slow to realize that I was the other man. When I did, I got the shock of my life. An imponderable physical force pulled me apart as if I were made out of fibers, and I was again looking at a man that was me, romping around with Genaro, gaping at me while I looked. And at the same time, I was looking at a naked man that was me, gaping at me while I made lewd gestures with Genaro. The shock was so great that I broke the rhythm of my movements and fell down. The next thing I knew, don Juan was helping me to stand up. Genaro and the other me, the naked one, had disappeared. I had also remembered that don Juan had refused to discuss the event. He did not explain it except to say that Genaro was an expert in creating his double, or the other, and that I had had long interactions with Genaro's double in states of normal awareness without ever detecting it. "That night, as he has done hundreds of times before, Genaro made your assemblage point shift very deep into your left side," don Juan commented after I had recounted to him everything I had remembered. "His power was such that he dragged your assemblage point to the position where the dreaming body appears. You saw your dreaming body watching you. And his dancing did the trick." I asked him to explain to me how Genaro's lewd movement could have produced such a drastic effect. "You're a prude," he said. "Genaro used your immediate displeasure and embarrassment at having to perform a lewd gesture. Since he was in his dreaming body, he had the power to see the Eagle's emanations; from that advantage it was a cinch to make your assemblage point move." He said that whatever Genaro had helped me to do that night was minor, that Genaro had moved my assemblage point and made it produce a dreaming body many, many times, but that those events were not what he wanted me to remember. "I want you to realign the proper emanations and remember the time when you really woke up in a dreaming position,"' he said. A strange surge of energy seemed to explode inside me and I knew what he wanted me to remember. I could not, however, focus my memory on the complete event. I could only recall a fragment of it. I remembered that one morning, don Juan, don Genaro. and I had sat on that very same bench while I was in a state of normal awareness. Don Genaro had said, all of a sudden, that he was going to make his body leave the bench without getting up. The statement was completely out of the context of what we had been discussing. I was accustomed to don Juan's orderly, didactic words and actions. I turned to don Juan, expecting a clue, but he remained impassive, looking straight ahead as if don Genaro and I were not there at all. Don Genaro nudged me to attract my attention, and then I witnessed a most disturbing sight. I actually saw Genaro on the other side of the square. He was beckoning me to come. But I also saw don Genaro sitting next to me, looking straight ahead, just as don Juan was. I wanted to say something, to express my awe, but I found myself dumbstruck, imprisoned by some force around me that did not let me talk. I again looked at Genaro across the park. He was still there, motioning to me with a gesture of his head to join him. My emotional distress mounted by the second. My stomach was getting upset, and finally I had tunnel vision, a tunnel that led directly to Genaro on the other side of the square. And then a great curiosity, or a great fear, which seemed to be the same thing at that moment, pulled me to where he was. I actually soared through the air and got to where he was. He made me turn around and pointed to the three people who were sitting on a bench in a static position, as if time had been suspended. I felt a terrible discomfort, an internal itching, as if the soft organs in the cavity of my body were on fire, and then I was back on the bench, but Genaro was gone. He waved goodbye to me from across the square and disappeared among the people going to the market. Don Juan became very animated. He kept on looking at me. He stood up and walked around me. He sat down again and could not keep a straight face as he talked to me. I realized why he was acting that way. I had entered into a state of heightened awareness without being helped by don Juan. Genaro had succeeded in making my assemblage point move by itself. I laughed involuntarily upon seeing my writing pad, which don Juan solemnly put inside his pocket. He said that he was going to use my state of heightened awareness to show me that there is no end to the mystery of man and to the mystery of the world. I focused all my concentration on his words. However, don Juan said something I did not understand. I asked him to repeat what he had said. He began talking very softly. I thought he had lowered his voice so as not to be overheard by other people. I listened carefully, but I could not understand a word of what he was saying; he was either speaking in a language foreign to me or it was mumbo jumbo. The strange part of it was that something had caught my undivided attention, either the rhythm of his voice or the fact that I had forced myself to understand. I had the feeling that my mind was different from usual, although I could not figure out what the difference was. I had a hard time thinking, reasoning out what was taking place. Don Juan talked to me very softly in my ear. He said that since I had entered into heightened awareness without any help from him my assemblage point was very loose, and that I could let it shift into the left side by relaxing, by falling half asleep on that bench. He assured me that he was watching over me, that I had nothing to fear. He urged me to relax, to let my assemblage point move. I instantly felt the heaviness of being deeply asleep. At one moment, I became aware that I was having a dream. I saw a house that I had seen before. I was approaching it as if I were walking on the street. There were other houses, but I could not pay any attention to them. Something had fixed my awareness on the particular house I was seeing. It was a big modern stucco house with a front lawn. When I got closer to that house, I had a feeling of familiarity with it, as if I had dreamed of it before. I walked on a gravel path to the front door; it was open and I walked inside. There was a dark hall and a large living room to the right, furnished with a dark-red couch and matching armchairs set in a corner. I was definitely having tunnel vision; I could see only what was in front of my eyes. A young woman was standing by the couch as if she had just stood up as I came in. She was lean and tall, exquisitely dressed in a tailored green suit. She was perhaps in her late twenties. She had dark-brown hair, burning brown eyes that seemed to smile, and a pointed, finely chiseled nose. Her complexion was fair but had been tanned to a gorgeous brown. I found her ravishingly beautiful. She seemed to be an American. She nodded at me, smiling, and extended her hands with the palms down as if she were helping me up. I clasped her hands in a most awkward movement. I scared myself and tried to back away, but she held me firmly and yet so gently. Her hands were long and beautiful. She spoke to me in Spanish with a faint trace of an accent. She begged me to relax, to feel her hands, to concentrate my attention on her face and to follow the movement of her mouth. I wanted to ask her who she was, but I could not utter a word. Then I heard don Juan's voice in my ear. He said, "Oh, there you are," as if he had just found me. I was sitting on the park bench with him. But I could also hear the young woman's voice. She said, "Come and sit with me." I did just that and began a most incredible shifting of points of view. I was alternately with don Juan and with that young woman. I could see both of them as clearly as anything. Don Juan asked me if I liked her, if I found her appealing and soothing. I could not speak, but somehow I conveyed to him the feeling that I did like that lady immensely. I thought, without any overt reason, that she was a paragon of kindness, that she was indispensable to what don Juan was doing with me. Don Juan spoke in my ear again and said that if I liked her that much I should wake up in her house, that my feeling of warmth and affection for her would guide me. I felt giggly and reckless. A sensation of overwhelming excitation rippled through my body. I felt as if the excitation were actually disintegrating me. I did not care what happened to me. I gladly plunged into a blackness, black beyond words, and then I found myself in the young woman's house. I was sitting with her on the couch. After an instant of sheer animal panic, I realized that somehow I was not complete. Something was missing in me. I did not, however, find the situation threatening. The thought crossed my mind that I was dreaming and that I was presently going to wake up on the park bench in Oaxaca with don Juan, where I really was, where I really belonged. The young woman helped me to get up and took me to a bathroom where a large tub was filled with water. I realized then that I was stark naked. She gently made me get into the tub and held my head up while I half floated in it. After a while she helped me out of the tub. I felt weak and flimsy. I lay down on the living-room couch and she came close to me. I could hear the beating of her heart and the pressure of blood rushing through her body. Her eyes were like two radiant sources of something that was not light, or heat, but curiously in between the two. I knew that I was seeing the force of life projecting out of her body through her eyes. Her whole body was like a live furnace; it glowed. I felt a weird tremor that agitated my whole being. It was as if my nerves were exposed and someone was plucking them. The sensation was agonizing. Then I either fainted or fell asleep. When I woke up, someone was putting face towels soaked in cold water on my face and the back of my neck. I saw the young woman sitting by my head on the bed where I was lying. She had a pail of water on a night table. Don Juan was standing at the foot of the bed with my clothes draped over his arm. I was fully awake then. I sat up. They had covered me with a blanket. "How's the traveler?" don Juan asked, smiling. "Are you in one piece now?" That was all I could remember. I narrated this episode to don Juan, and as I talked, I recalled another fragment. I remembered that don Juan had taunted and teased me about finding me naked in the lady's bed. I had gotten terribly irritated at his remarks. I had put on my clothes and stomped out of the house in a fury. Don Juan had caught up with me on the front lawn. In a very serious tone he had remarked that I was my ugly stupid self again, that I had put myself together by being embarrassed, which had proved to him that there was still no end to my self-importance. But he had added in a conciliatory tone that that was not important at the moment; what was significant was the fact that I had moved my assemblage point very deeply into the left side and consequently I had traveled an enormous distance. He had spoken of wonders and mysteries, but I had not been able to listen to him, for I had been caught in the crossfire between fear and self-importance. I was actually fuming. I was certain that don Juan had hypnotized me in the park and had then taken me to that lady's house, and that the two of them had done terrible things to me. My fury was interrupted. Something out there in the street was so horrifying, so shocking to me, that my anger stopped instantaneously. But before my thoughts became fully rearranged, don Juan hit me on my back and nothing of what had just taken place remained. I found myself back in my blissful everyday-life stupidity, happily listening to don Juan, worrying about whether or not he liked me. As I was telling don Juan about the new fragment that I had just remembered I realized that one of his methods for handling my emotional turmoil was to make me shift into normal awareness. "The only thing that soothes those who journey into the unknown is oblivion," he said. "What a relief to be in the ordinary world! "That day, you accomplished a marvelous feat. The sober thing for me to do was not to let you focus on it at all. Just as you began to really panic I made you shift into normal awareness; I moved your assemblage point beyond the position where there are no more doubts. There are two such positions for warriors. In one you have no more doubts because you know everything. In the other, which is normal awareness, you have no doubts because you don't know anything. "It was too soon then for you to know what had really happened. But I think the right time to know is now. Looking at that street, you were about to find out where your dreaming position had been. You traveled an enormous distance that day." Don Juan scrutinized me with a mixture of glee and sadness. I was trying my best to keep under control the strange agitation I was feeling. I sensed that something terribly important to me was lost inside my memory, or, as don Juan would have put it, inside some unused emanations that at one time had been aligned. My struggle to keep calm proved to be the wrong thing to do. All at once, my knees wobbled and nervous spasms ran through my midsection. I mumbled, unable to voice a question. I had to swallow hard and breathe deeply before I regained my calmness. "When we first sat down here to talk, I said that no rational assumptions should interfere with the actions of a seer," he continued in a stern tone. "I knew that in order to reclaim what you've done, you'd have to dispense with rationality, but you'd have to do it in .the level of awareness you are in now." He explained that I had to understand that rationality is a condition of alignment, merely the result of the position of the assemblage point. He emphasized that I had to understand this when I was in a state of great vulnerability, as I was at that moment. To understand it when my assemblage point had reached the position where there are no doubts was useless, because realizations of that nature are commonplace in that position. It was equally useless to understand it in a state of normal awareness; in that state, such realizations are emotional outbursts that are valid only for as long as the emotion lasts. "I've said that you traveled a great distance that day," he said calmly. "And I said that because I know it. I was there, remember?" I was sweating profusely out of nervousness and anxiety. "You traveled because you woke up at a distant dreaming position," he continued. "When Genaro pulled you across the plaza, right here from this bench, he paved the way for your assemblage point to move from normal awareness all the way to the position where the dreaming body appears. Your dreaming body actually flew over an incredible distance in the blink of an eyelid. Yet that's not the important part. The mystery is in the dreaming position. If it is strong enough to pull you, you can go to the ends of this world or beyond it, just as the old seers did. They disappeared from this world because they woke up at a dreaming position beyond the limits of the known. Your dreaming position that day was in this world, but quite a distance from the city of Oaxaca." "How does ajourney like that take place?" I asked. "There is no way of knowing how it is done," he said. "Strong emotion, or unbending intent, or great interest serves as a guide; then the assemblage poi