Карлос Кастанеда. Сила безмолвия (engl)

     Origin: http://hotmix.narod.ru ? http://hotmix.narod.ru


        Carlos Castaneda. The Power Of Silence



     Carlos Castaneda — "The Power Of Silence"

     Foreword

     My books are a true account of a teaching method that don Juan Matus, a
Mexican Indian  sorcerer, used in order to help me understand the sorcerers'
world. In this sense, my books  are the account of an on-going process which
becomes more clear to me as time goes by.
     It takes  years of training to teach us to deal intelligently  with the
world of everyday life. Our schooling - whether In plain reasoning or formal
topics  - is rigorous, because the knowledge we are trying to impart is very
complex. The same criteria apply  to  the sorcerers' world: their schooling,
which relies on oral instruction and the manipulation of awareness, although
different from ours, is just as rigorous, because  their knowledge is as, or
perhaps more, complex

     Introduction

     At  various times  don Juan  attempted to  name  his  knowledge  for my
benefit. He felt that the  most appropriate name was nagualism, but that the
term was too obscure. Calling  it simply "knowledge" made it  too vague, and
to call  it  "witchcraft"  was  debasing. "The mastery  of  intent"  was too
abstract,  and  "the search for  total freedom" too long  and  metaphorical.
Finally, because he was unable to find a more appropriate name, he called it
"sorcery," although he admitted it was not really accurate.
     Over the years, he had  given me different definitions of  sorcery, but
he  had always maintained  that definitions change  as  knowledge increases.
Toward  the  end  of  my  apprenticeship,  I  felt I was in  a  position  to
appreciate a clearer definition, so I asked him once more.
     "From  where  the  average  man stands,"  don  Juan said,  "sorcery  is
nonsense or an  ominous  mystery  beyond his reach. And he  is  right  - not
because  this is an absolute  fact,  but  because  the average man lacks the
energy to deal with sorcery."
     He stopped for  a moment before he continued.  "Human  beings  are born
with  a finite amount  of  energy,"  don  Juan  said,  "an  energy  that  is
systematically deployed, beginning at the moment of  birth, in order that it
may be used most advantageously by the modality of the time."
     "What do you mean by the modality of the time?" I asked.
     "The modality of the  time is the precise bundle of energy fields being
perceived," he answered. "I believe man's perception has changed through the
ages.  The actual  time decides  the  mode; the  time decides  which precise
bundle of energy fields, out of an incalculable number, are to be  used. And
handling  the  modality of  the time  - those few, selected energy fields  -
takes  all our available energy, leaving us nothing  that would help us  use
any of the other energy fields."
     He  urged  me with  a  subtle movement of his eyebrows to  consider all
this.
     "This  is what I mean when I say that  the average man lacks the energy
needed to deal with sorcery," he went  on.  "If he  uses only  the energy he
has, he can't perceive the worlds  sorcerers do. To perceive them, sorcerers
need to use  a cluster of energy fields not  ordinarily  used. Naturally, if
the average  man  is  to  perceive  those  worlds and understand  sorcerers'
perception he must use the same cluster they have used. And this is just not
possible, because all his energy is already deployed."
     He paused as if searching for the appropriate words to make his point.
     "Think of it  this  way," he proceeded.  "It isn't that as time goes by
you're learning sorcery; rather, what you're learning is to save energy. And
this  energy will enable you to  handle  some of the energy fields which are
inaccessible  to you now. And  that is  sorcery: the  ability  to use energy
fields  that  are not  employed  in perceiving  the ordinary world we  know.
Sorcery  is  a  state  of awareness.  Sorcery  is  the ability  to  perceive
something which ordinary perception cannot.
     "Everything I've  put you  through,"  don  Juan went  on,  "each of the
things I've shown you was only a device to convince you that there's more to
us than meets the eye.
     We  don't  need  anyone  to teach us  sorcery, because there  is really
nothing to learn. What we need is  a teacher  to  convince us that there  is
incalculable power at our fingertips.  What a strange paradox! Every warrior
on the path of  knowledge thinks, at one time or another, that he's learning
sorcery, but all he's doing is allowing himself to be convinced of the power
hidden in his being, and that he can reach it."
     "Is that what you're doing, don Juan - convincing me?"
     "Exactly.  I'm trying to convince you that  you can reach that power. I
went through the same thing. And I was as hard to convince as you are."
     "Once we have reached it, what exactly do we do with it, don Juan?"
     "Nothing. Once we  have reached it, it will,  by  itself,  make use  of
energy fields which  are available  to us but inaccessible. And  that, as  I
have  said, is  sorcery.  We begin  then  to  see  -  that is, to perceive -
something else; not  as imagination,  but as real and concrete. And  then we
begin to know without having to use words. And what any of us does with that
increased  perception,  with  that silent  knowledge,  depends  on  our  own
temperament."
     On another occasion, he  gave  me another kind  of explanation. We were
discussing an unrelated topic when he abruptly changed the subject and began
to tell me a joke. He laughed and,  very gently, patted  my back between the
shoulder blades, as if  he were  shy and  it was too forward of him to touch
me. He chuckled at my nervous reaction.
     "You're skittish," he said teasingly, and  slapped my back with greater
force.
     My ears buzzed.  For an instant I lost my breath. It felt us  though he
had hurt my  lungs. Every breath brought  me great discomfort.  Yet, after I
had coughed and choked a few  times,  my nasal  passages opened and I  found
myself
     taking deep, soothing breaths.  I had such a feeling of well-being that
I was not even annoyed at him for his blow, which had  been  hard as well as
unexpected.
     Then  don  Juan  began  a  most  remarkable  explanation.  Clearly  and
concisely, he gave me a different and more precise definition of sorcery.
     I had entered into a wondrous state of awareness! I had such clarity of
mind  that  I was able to comprehend  and assimilate everything don Juan was
saying. He said that in the universe there is an unmeasurable, indescribable
force  which  sorcerers  call  intent, and that  absolutely everything  that
exists in the  entire  cosmos  is attached to intent  by a connecting  link.
Sorcerers, or warriors,  as he called them,  were concerned with discussing,
understanding,  and  employing that connecting  link. They  were  especially
concerned with  cleaning  it of the numbing  effects  brought about  by  the
ordinary concerns of their everyday lives.  Sorcery at  this  level could be
defined as  the procedure  of cleaning one's connecting link  to intent. Don
Juan  stressed that this  "cleaning procedure" was  extremely  difficult  to
understand,  or to  learn to  perform. Sorcerers, therefore,  divided  their
instruction into two categories. One was  instruction  for the everyday-life
state  of  awareness,  in which  the  cleaning process  was presented  in  a
disguised fashion. The  other was instruction for  the states of  heightened
awareness, such as the one I was presently  experiencing, in which sorcerers
obtained   knowledge   directly  from   intent,  without   the   distracting
intervention of spoken language.
     Don Juan explained that by using heightened awareness over thousands of
years  of  painful struggle, sorcerers  had  gained  specific  insights into
intent; and that  they had passed these  nuggets of direct knowledge on from
generation to generation to the present. He said that the task of sorcery is
to take this seemingly incomprehensible knowledge and make it understandable
by the standards of awareness of everyday life.
     Then he explained the  role of the guide in the lives of  sorcerers. He
said that a guide is called "the nagual," and that  the nagual is a man or a
woman with  extraordinary energy,  a teacher who  has  sobriety,  endurance,
stability; someone seers  see as a luminous sphere having four compartments,
as  if four luminous balls  have  been compressed together. Because of their
extraordinary  energy, naguals are  intermediaries. Their energy allows them
to channel peace, harmony, laughter, and knowledge directly from the source,
from intent, and transmit them to their companions. Naguals  are responsible
for supplying what sorcerers call  "the  minimal chance":  the awareness  of
one's connection with intent.
     I told him that my mind was grasping everything he was telling me, that
the only  part of his explanation still unclear  to me was  why two  sets of
teachings were needed. I could understand everything he was saying about his
world easily,  and yet he had described the process of understanding as very
difficult.
     "You will need a lifetime to remember the  insights you've  had today,"
he said, "because most of them were silent knowledge. A few moments from now
you will  have forgotten them.  That's one of the unfathomable mysteries  of
awareness."
     Don Juan then made me shift  levels of consciousness by  striking me on
my left side, at the edge of my ribcage.
     Instantly  I  lost  my  extraordinary clarity of  mind  and  could  not
remember having ever had it. ...
     Don  Juan himself set me  the task of  writing  about the  premises  of
sorcery. Once, very casually in the early stages
     of my apprenticeship, he suggested that I write a book in order to make
use of the notes  I had always taken. I had accumulated  reams of  notes and
never  considered what  to do  with them. I argued that  the  suggestion was
absurd because I was not a writer.
     "Of course, you're  not a writer," he said,  "so  you will have to  use
sorcery.  First, you must visualize your experiences as if you were reliving
them, and then  you must see the  text in  your  dreaming. For you,  writing
should not be a literary exercise, but rather an exercise in sorcery."
     I have written in that manner about the premises of sorcery just as don
Juan explained them to me, within the context of his teaching.
     In his  teaching  scheme,  which was developed by sorcerers  of ancient
times, there  were two categories of instruction. One was  called "teachings
for the right  side," carried out  in  the ordinary  state of awareness. The
other was called "teachings for the left side,"  put into practice solely in
states of heightened awareness.
     These  two  categories  allowed  teachers  to school  their apprentices
toward  three  areas of  expertise:  the  mastery  of  awareness, the art of
stalking, and the mastery of intent.
     These  three  areas  of  expertise  are  the  three  riddles  sorcerers
encounter in their search for knowledge.
     The  mastery of awareness is the  riddle  of  the  mind; the perplexity
sorcerers experience when they recognize the astounding mystery and scope of
awareness and perception.
     The  art of  stalking  is  the  riddle  of the  heart;  the  puzzlement
sorcerers feel  upon becoming  aware  of  two things: first  that  the world
appears  to  us  to  be  unalterably  objective  and  factual,  because   of
peculiarities  of  our awareness  and perception; second,  that if different
peculiarities of perception come into play,  the very things about the world
that seem so unalterably objective and factual change. The mastery of intent
is  the riddle of the spirit,  or  the paradox of the abstract -  sorcerers'
thoughts and actions projected beyond our human condition.
     Don Juan's instruction on the art of stalking and the mastery of intent
depended  upon his instruction on  the mastery of  awareness, which was  the
cornerstone of his teachings,  and  which  consist  of the  following  basic
premises:
     1.  The  universe  is  an  infinite  agglomeration  of  energy  fields,
resembling threads of light.
     2.  These energy fields, called the  Eagle's emanations, radiate from a
source of inconceivable proportions metaphorically called the Eagle.
     3. Human beings are also composed of an incalculable number of the same
threadlike  energy  fields.  These  Eagle's  emanations   form  an   encased
agglomeration that manifests itself  as  a ball  of light  the  size of  the
person's body with the arms extended laterally, like a giant luminous egg.
     4. Only  a very  small  group of the energy fields inside this luminous
ball are  lit up  by a point of  intense  brilliance  located  on the ball's
surface.
     5.  Perception  occurs  when the  energy  fields  in  that small  group
immediately  surrounding  the point  of  brilliance  extend  their light  to
illuminate identical energy  fields outside the  ball. Since the only energy
fields  perceivable are those lit by  the point of brilliance, that point is
named "the  point where  perception is assembled" or simply  "the assemblage
point."
     6.  The assemblage  point can be moved from its usual  position on  the
surface of the luminous ball to another position on the surface, or into the
interior. Since the brilliance of the assemblage point can light up whatever
energy field it  comes in contact  with, when it  moves to a new position it
immediately  brightens  up  new energy fields, making them perceivable. This
perception is known as seeing.
     7.  When  the assemblage point shifts, it makes possible the perception
of  an entirely different  world  - as objective  and  factual as the one we
normally  perceive. Sorcerers go into that other world to get energy, power,
solutions to general and particular problems, or to face the unimaginable.
     8. Intent is the pervasive force that causes us to perceive.  We do not
become aware  because  we  perceive; rather, we perceive as a  result of the
pressure and intrusion of intent.
     9. The aim of sorcerers is to reach a state of total awareness in order
to experience  all  the  possibilities of perception  available to man. This
state of awareness even implies an alternative way of dying.
     A level  of practical knowledge was  included  as part  of teaching the
mastery of awareness. On that practical level don Juan taught the procedures
necessary to move the assemblage point. The two great systems devised by the
sorcerer seers  of  ancient  times to  accomplish  this were:  dreaming, the
control and utilization of dreams; and stalking, the control of behavior.
     Moving  one's assemblage point  was an  essential  maneuver  that every
sorcerer had to learn. Some of them, the naguals, also learned to perform it
for  others.  They  were  able to dislodge  the  assemblage  point  from its
customary position  by delivering a hard  slap  directly to  the  assemblage
point. This  blow, which  was experienced as  a smack  on the right shoulder
blade -  although  the body was never  touched  -  resulted  in  a  state of
heightened awareness.
     In compliance with his tradition, it was exclusively in these states of
heightened awareness that don Juan carried
     out  the most  important  and  dramatic  part  of  his  teachings:  the
instructions  for  the  left  side.  Because of the extraordinary quality of
these states, don Juan demanded that I not discuss them with others until we
had concluded everything in  the sorcerers' teaching scheme. That demand was
not  difficult for  me to  accept. In  those unique states  of awareness  my
capabilities for understanding the instruction  were  unbelievably enhanced,
but  at the same time  my capabilities for describing or even remembering it
were  impaired. I  could function  in  those  states  with  proficiency  and
assuredness, but I  could not recollect anything about them  once I returned
to my normal consciousness.
     It  took  me  years to be  able to  make  the crucial conversion of  my
enhanced awareness  into  plain memory. My reason  and  common sense delayed
this  moment  because they  were  colliding  head-on  with the preposterous,
unthinkable  reality of heightened awareness and direct knowledge. For years
the resulting cognitive disarrangement  forced me  to avoid the issue by not
thinking about it.
     Whatever I have written about my sorcery apprenticeship, up to now, has
been a recounting of how don Juan taught me the mastery of awareness. I have
not yet described the art of stalking or the mastery of intent.
     Don  Juan taught me their  principles and applications with the help of
two of his companions:  a  sorcerer named  Vicente Medrano and another named
Silvio Manuel,  but whatever I  learned from them still  remains  clouded in
what Don  Juan called the intricacies of heightened  awareness. Until now it
has  been impossible for  me to write or  even to think coherently about the
art of stalking and the mastery of  intent.  My  mistake has been to  regard
them as subjects for normal  memory and recollection.  They are, but  at the
mime time they are not.  In order to resolve  this contradiction, I have not
pursued  the  subjects directly  -  a virtual impossibility - but have dealt
with them indirectly through the concluding topic of don Juan's instruction:
the stories of the sorcerers of the past.
     He recounted these  stories to make evident what he called the abstract
cores of  his  lessons. But I  was incapable of  grasping  the nature of the
abstract  cores despite his  comprehensive explanations, which, I  know now,
were  intended more to open my mind  than to explain anything in a  rational
manner.  His way  of  talking  made  me  believe  for many  years  that  his
explanations of the abstract cores were like academic dissertations; and all
I was able to do, under these circumstances, was to take his explanations as
given. They became part of my tacit acceptance of his teachings, but without
the thorough assessment on my part that was essential to understanding them.
     Don Juan  presented three sets of six abstract  cores each, arranged in
an increasing level of complexity. I  have  dealt  here with the  first set,
which  is composed of the following:  the  manifestations of the spirit, the
knock of the  spirit, the trickery of the spirit, the descent of the spirit,
the requirements of intent, and handling intent.

     THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SPIRIT

     The First Abstract Core

     Don  Juan,  whenever it was  pertinent, used to tell  me  brief stories
about the  sorcerers  of  his  lineage, especially  his  teacher, the nagual
Julian.  They were  not really stories,  but rather descriptions of the  way
those  sorcerers  behaved  and  of  aspects  of their  personalities.  These
accounts  were  each designed  to shed  light  on  a  specific  topic  in my
apprenticeship.
     I had  heard the same stories  from the  other  fifteen  members of don
Juan's group of sorcerers, but none of these accounts had been able  to give
me  a  clear picture of the  people they described. Since I  had  no  way of
persuading  don  Juan to give me more details about those  sorcerers, I  had
resigned myself to the idea of never knowing about them in any depth.
     One  afternoon, in the mountains of  southern Mexico,  don  Juan, after
having  explained  to  me  more  about the  intricacies  of  the mastery  of
awareness, made a statement that completely baffled me.
     "I  think it's time for us to talk about the sorcerers of our past," he
said.
     Don  Juan  explained  that  it  was  necessary  that  I  begin  drawing
conclusions based on a systematic view of the past,
     conclusions  about both the world of daily  affairs and  the sorcerers'
world.
     "Sorcerers are  vitally  concerned  with  their past," he said.  "But I
don't mean their  personal past.  For sorcerers  their  past  is what  other
sorcerers  in  bygone  days  have done. And  what  we are now going to do is
examine that past.
     "The  average man also examines the past. But  it's mostly his personal
past he  examines, and he  does so for personal  reasons. Sorcerers do quite
the opposite;  they consult  their  past  in  order  to  obtain  a point  of
reference."
     "But isn't that what everyone does?  Look at the past to get a point of
reference?"
     "No!"  he  answered  emphatically.  "The average man  measures  himself
against the past,  whether  his  personal past or the past knowledge  of his
time, in order to find justifications for his present or future behavior, or
to establish  a model for himself. Only  sorcerers genuinely seek a point of
reference in their past."
     "Perhaps, don Juan, things would be  clear to me if you tell me  what a
point of reference for a sorcerer is."
     "For  sorcerers, establishing a  point  of  reference  means  getting a
chance  to  examine  intent" he replied. "Which is exactly  the aim  of this
final topic of instruction. And nothing can give sorcerers  a better view of
intent than examining stories  of other sorcerers battling to understand the
same force."
     He explained  that  as they examined  their  past, the sorcerers of his
lineage took careful notice of the basic abstract order of their knowledge.
     "In sorcery there  are twenty-one  abstract cores," don Juan  went  on.
"And  then, based  on  those  abstract cores,  there  are scores  of sorcery
stories about the naguals of our  lineage battling to understand the spirit.
It's time to tell you the abstract cores and the sorcery stories."
     I  waited for don Juan to begin telling me the stories, but  he changed
the subject and went back to explaining awareness.
     "Wait a minute," I protested. "What  about the  sorcery stories? Aren't
you going to tell them to me?"
     "Of course I  am," he said. "But they are not stories that one can tell
as if  they  were tales.  You've got to think your way through them and then
rethink them - relive them, so to speak."
     There was a long silence. I became very cautious and was afraid that if
I  persisted  in  asking  him  again  to  tell  me  the stories, I could  be
committing myself to  something  I might later regret. But  my curiosity was
greater than my good sense.
     "Well, let's get on with them," I croaked.
     Don  Juan,  obviously  catching  the  gist  of   my  thoughts,   smiled
maliciously. He stood and signaled me to follow. We had been sitting on some
dry rocks at the  bottom of a gully. It was mid-afternoon.  The sky was dark
and  cloudy. Low, almost-black rain  clouds  hovered  above the peaks to the
east. In comparison, the high clouds made  the sky seem clear to  the south.
Earlier it had rained heavily, but then the rain seemed to have retreated to
a hiding place, leaving behind only a threat.
     I should have been chilled to the bone, for it was very cold. But I was
warm. As I clutched a rock  don  Juan had  given me to hold, I realized that
this sensation of being warm in nearly freezing weather was familiar to  me,
yet it amazed  me  each  time. Whenever I  seemed about to freeze,  don Juan
would give  me a branch to  hold,  or  a  stone, or he would put a bunch  of
leaves  under  my  shirt,  on  the  tip of  my sternum, and  that  would  be
sufficient to raise my body temperature.
     I had tried unsuccessfully to recreate, by  myself,  the effect of  his
ministrations. He told me it was not the ministrations but his inner silence
that kept me warm, and the branches or stones or leaves were  merely devices
to trap my attention and maintain it in focus.
     Moving quickly,  we climbed the steep west side  of a mountain until we
reached a rock  ledge at the very top. We were in the foothills of a  higher
range  of mountains. From the rock  ledge I could see that fog had begun  to
move  onto the  south end of the valley floor below  us.  Low,  wispy clouds
seemed to be closing  in on us, too, sliding down from the black-green, high
mountain peaks  to the  west. After the rain, under the dark  cloudy sky the
valley and the mountains to the east  and south appeared covered in a mantle
of black-green silence.
     "This is the ideal place to have a talk," don Juan said, sitting on the
rock floor of a concealed shallow cave.
     The cave was perfect for the  two  of us to sit side by side. Our heads
were nearly touching the roof and our backs fitted snugly against the curved
surface of the rock wall. It was as if the cave had been carved deliberately
to accommodate two persons of our size.
     I noticed  another  strange  feature of  the  cave: when I stood on the
ledge, I could see the entire valley and the mountain ranges to the east and
south, but when I sat down, I was boxed  in by  the rocks. Yet the ledge was
at the level of the cave floor, and flat.
     I was  about  to  point  this strange effect out to don  Juan,  but  he
anticipated me.
     "This cave is  man-made," he  said.  "The  ledge is slanted but the eye
doesn't register the incline."
     "Who made this cave, don Juan?"
     "The ancient sorcerers. Perhaps thousands of years  ago. And one of the
peculiarities of this cave is that animals and insects and  even people stay
away from it. The ancient sorcerers seem to have infused it  with an ominous
charge that makes every living thing feel ill at ease."
     But  strangely I felt irrationally secure  and happy there. A sensation
of physical contentment made my entire body tingle. I actually felt the most
agreeable, the most delectable, sensation  in my stomach. It  was  as if  my
nerves were being tickled.
     "I don't feel ill at ease," I commented.
     "Neither do I," he said. "Which only  means that you and  I aren't that
far temperamentally from those  old  sorcerers of the past;  something which
worries me no end."
     I was afraid to pursue that subject any further, so I waited for him to
talk.
     "The  first  sorcery  story  I  am going  to tell  you is  called  'The
Manifestations of the Spirit,'  " don  Juan began, "but don't  let the title
mystify you.  The manifestations  of the spirit is  only the  first abstract
core around which the first sorcery story is built.
     "That first abstract core is a story in itself," he went on. "The story
says  that once upon  a time  there  was a  man, an average man  without any
special attributes.  He was, like everyone else,  a conduit  for the spirit.
And by virtue of that,  like everyone else, he was part of the spirit,  part
of the  abstract. But he didn't know it. The world kept him so  busy that he
had neither the time nor the inclination really to examine the matter.
     "The  spirit  tried,  uselessly,  to reveal their  connection. Using an
inner voice, the  spirit disclosed its secrets, but the man was incapable of
understanding the revelations. Naturally, he heard the inner  voice,  but he
believed it to be  his own feelings  he was feeling  and his own thoughts he
was thinking.
     "'The spirit, in order to shake him  out of his slumber, gave him three
signs, three successive manifestations. The
     spirit  physically crossed  the man's path in the most  obvious manner.
But the man was oblivious to anything but his self-concern."
     Don Juan stopped and looked at me as he did whenever he was waiting for
my  comments  and questions. I had nothing to say.  I did not understand the
point he was trying to make.
     "I've just told you the first  abstract  core," he continued. "The only
other thing I  could add is that because of the man's absolute unwillingness
to understand,  the  spirit was forced to use  trickery. And trickery became
the essence of the sorcerers' path. But that is another story."
     Don Juan explained that sorcerers understood this abstract core to be a
blueprint for events, or a recurrent pattern that appeared every time intent
was giving an indication of something meaningful. Abstract cores, then, were
blueprints of complete chains of events.
     He assured me that by means beyond comprehension, every detail of every
abstract core reoccurred to  every apprentice nagual.  He further assured me
that he had helped intent to involve me in all the abstract cores of sorcery
in the same  manner  that his  benefactor, the  nagual  Julian  and all  the
naguals  before him, had involved  their apprentices. The  process by  which
each apprentice  nagual encountered the abstract cores  created a  series of
accounts  woven around  those  abstract cores  incorporating  the particular
details of each apprentice's personality and circumstances.
     He said, for example, that I had my  own story about the manifestations
of the  spirit,  he  had his, his benefactor had his own,  so had the nagual
that preceded him, and so on, and so forth.
     "What is  my story  about the  manifestations of the  spirit?" I asked,
somewhat mystified.
     "If any  warrior is aware of his stories it's you," he replied.  "After
all, you've been  writing  about them for years. But you  didn't notice  the
abstract cores  because you are a practical man. You do everything only  for
the purpose  of  enhancing  your  practicality.  Although  you handled  your
stories to  exhaustion you had  no idea that  there was an abstract  core in
them. Everything I've done appears to  you, therefore, as an often-whimsical
practical activity:  teaching sorcery  to a reluctant and, most of the time,
stupid, apprentice. As long as you see it in those terms, the abstract cores
will elude you."
     "You must forgive me, don Juan," I  said, "but your statements are very
confusing. What are you saying?"
     "I'm trying to introduce the sorcery stories as a subject," he replied.
"I've  never  talked   to   you   specifically  about  this  topic   because
traditionally it's left hidden. It is the spirit's last artifice. It is said
that when  the  apprentice understands  the  abstract  cores  it's  like the
placing of the stone that caps and seals a pyramid."
     It was getting dark and it looked as though it was about to rain again.
I  worried that if the wind blew  from east to west while it was raining, we
were going  to  get soaked in that cave.  I was sure  don Juan was aware  of
that, but he seemed to ignore it.
     "It won't rain again until tomorrow morning," he said.
     Hearing my inner thoughts being answered made me jump involuntarily and
hit the top of my head  on the cave roof. It  was a thud  that sounded worse
than it felt.
     Don Juan held his sides laughing. After a while my head really began to
hurt and I had to massage it.
     "Your  company is  as  enjoyable to me as  mine  must have been  to  my
benefactor," he said and began to laugh again.
     We  were quiet for a few minutes. The silence around  me was ominous. I
fancied that I could  hear the rustling of the low  clouds as they descended
on us from the higher mountains. Then I realized that what I was hearing was
the soft wind. From  my position in the shallow cave,  it  sounded  like the
whispering of human voices.
     "I had the incredible good luck to be  taught by two naguals," don Juan
said  and  broke the mesmeric grip the  wind  had on me at that moment. "One
was, of  course, my  benefactor, the  nagual  Julian, and the other  was his
benefactor, the nagual Elias. My case was unique."
     "Why was your case unique?" I asked.
     "Because for generations  naguals have gathered their apprentices years
after their  own teachers have  left  the world,"  he explained.  "Except my
benefactor. I became  the nagual Julian's apprentice eight  years before his
benefactor  left  the world. I  had eight years'  grace. It was the luckiest
thing that could have happened to me, for I had the opportunity to be taught
by two opposite temperaments. It  was like being reared by a powerful father
and  an even more powerful grandfather who don't see eye to eye.  In  such a
contest, the grandfather  always  wins. So I'm  properly  the product of the
nagual Elfas's teachings.  I was  closer to him not only in  temperament but
also in looks. I'd say that  I owe him my fine tuning. However, the  bulk of
the work that went into turning me from a miserable being into an impeccable
warrior I owe to my benefactor, the nagual Julian."
     "What was the nagual Julian like physically?" I asked.
     "Do you know that to  this day it's hard for  me to visualize him?" don
Juan said. "I  know that sounds absurd, but  depending on  his needs or  the
circumstances, he could be either young or  old, handsome  or homely, effete
and weak or strong and virile, fat or slender, of medium height or extremely
short."
     "Do you mean he was an actor acting out different roles with the aid of
props?"
     "No, there were  no props involved and  he  was not merely an actor. He
was, of course, a great actor in his  own right, but that is different.  The
point is that he was capable  of transforming himself and becoming all those
diametrically opposed  persons.  Being a great actor enabled  him to portray
all the minute peculiarities of behavior that made each specific being real.
Let us say that he was at  ease in every change of being. As you are at ease
in every change of clothes."
     Eagerly,  I  asked don Juan  to  tell  me more about  his  benefactor's
transformations.  He said  that  someone  taught  him  how  to  elicit those
transformations, but that to explain any further would force him to  overlap
into different stories.
     "What  did the  nagual Julian  look  like when  he wasn't  transforming
himself?" I asked.
     "Let's  say  that before he  became  a  nagual he  was  very  slim  and
muscular," don Juan said.  "His hair  was  black, thick, and  wavy. He had a
long, fine nose, strong big white teeth, an oval face, strong jaw, and shiny
dark-brown eyes. He was about five feet eight inches tall. He was not Indian
or even a brown  Mexican,  but  he was not Anglo white either. In  fact, his
complexion seemed to be like no one else's,  especially  in his  later years
when his ever-changing complexion shifted constantly from dark to very light
and back again to  dark. When I  first met him he was a light-brown old man,
then as time went by, he became a light-skinned  young  man, perhaps  only a
few years older than me. I was twenty at that time.
     "But if the changes of his outer appearance were astonishing," don Juan
went  on,  "the   changes  of  mood  and  behavior   that  accompanied  each
transformation were  even more  astonishing. For example, when he was  a fat
young man, he was jolly and sensual.  When  he  was a skinny old man, he was
petty  and  vindictive.  When he  was a  fat old man,  he  was the  greatest
imbecile there was."
     "Was he ever himself?" I asked.
     "Not the  way  I am myself,"  he replied. "Since I'm  not interested in
transformation I am always the same.  But  he  was not  like me at all." Don
Juan  looked at me  as if he were  assessing  my inner strength.  He smiled,
shook his head from side to side and broke into a belly laugh.
     "What's so funny, don Juan?" I asked.
     "The  fact is that  you're  still too  prudish and stiff to  appreciate
fully  the nature of my benefactor's transformations and their total scope,"
he  said.  "I  only  hope that when  I tell  you about them you don't become
morbidly obsessed."
     For some reason I suddenly became quite uncomfortable and had to change
the subject.
     "Why are the naguals  called 'benefactors' and not simply teachers?"  I
asked nervously.
     "Calling a nagual a benefactor is a gesture his apprentices make,"  don
Juan  said.  "A  nagual creates an overwhelming feeling of  gratitude in his
disciples.  After  all,   a  nagual  molds  them  and  guides  them  through
unimaginable areas."
     I  remarked  that  to  teach  was  in  my  opinion  the  greatest, most
altruistic act anyone could perform for another.
     "For  you,  teaching  is  talking  about  patterns,"  he  said. "For  a
sorcerer, to  teach is what a  nagual does  for his apprentices. For them he
taps the  prevailing force in the universe: intent - the force  that changes
and reorders things or keeps them as  they are. The nagual  formulates, then
guides the consequences that that force can  have on  his disciples. Without
the nagual's molding intent there  would be no awe, no wonder  for them. And
his apprentices, instead  of embarking on a magical  journey  of  discovery,
would only  be learning  a trade: healer,  sorcerer, diviner, charlatan,  or
whatever."
     "Can you explain intent to me?" I asked.
     "The only  way  to know intent" he replied,  "is  to  know it  directly
through a  living  connection that  exists between intent  and all  sentient
beings. Sorcerers call intent  the indescribable, the  spirit, the abstract,
the nagual.  I would prefer to call it nagual, but it overlaps with the name
for the leader, the benefactor, who is also  called nagual,  so I have opted
for calling it the spirit, intent, the abstract."
     Don Juan stopped abruptly and  recommended  that I keep quiet and think
about what  he had  told me.  By then it was very dark.  The  silence was so
profound  that instead of lulling me into a restful state, it agitated me. I
could  not maintain order in my thoughts. I  tried to focus my  attention on
the story he had  told  me,  but instead I thought of everything else, until
finally I fell asleep.

     The Impeccability Of The Nagual Elias

     I had no way of telling how long I slept in that cave. Don Juan's voice
startled me  and  I  awoke.  He  was  saying that  the  first  sorcery story
concerning  the  manifestations  of  the  spirit  was   an  account  of  the
relationship between intent and the nagual.  It was  the  story  of  how the
spirit set up a lure for the nagual,  a prospective disciple, and of how the
nagual had to evaluate the lure before making  his decision either to accept
or  reject  it. It  was  very dark  in the  cave, and  the  small space  was
confining.  Ordinarily  an  area   of   that   size  would  have   made   me
claustrophobic, but  the  cave kept soothing  me, dispelling my feelings  of
annoyance. Also,  something in the configuration of the  cave  absorbed  the
echoes of don Juan's words.
     Don Juan explained that every act performed by sorcerers, especially by
the naguals, was either  performed as a way to  strengthen  their  link with
intent  or  as a  response triggered  by  the link  itself.  Sorcerers,  and
specifically the naguals,  therefore  had to be actively and  permanently on
the lookout  for  manifestations  of  the spirit. Such  manifestations  were
called gestures of the spirit or, more simply, indications or omens.
     He repeated a story he had already told me; the story of how he had met
his benefactor, the nagual Julian.
     Don  Juan  had been  cajoled  by  two crooked men to take  a job on  an
isolated hacienda. One of the men, the foreman of the hacienda,  simply took
possession of don Juan and in effect made him a slave.
     Desperate and  with  no other  course  of action, don Juan escaped. The
violent foreman chased him and caught him on  a  country  road where he shot
don Juan in the chest and left him for dead.
     Don Juan was lying unconscious in the road, bleeding to death, when the
nagual  Julian  came  along.  Using  his  healer's knowledge, he stopped the
bleeding, took don Juan, who was still unconscious, home and cured him.
     The indications the spirit gave  the nagual Julian about don Juan were,
first,  a small  cyclone that lifted a  cone of dust on the road a couple of
yards from where he lay. The second omen was the thought which  had  crossed
the nagual Julian's  mind  an instant before he had heard  the report of the
gun a few yards away: that it was time to have an apprentice nagual. Moments
later,  the spirit  gave him the third  omen, when he ran to take cover  and
instead collided with the gunman,  putting him to flight, perhaps preventing
him from  shooting don Juan  a second time. A collision with someone was the
type of blunder which no sorcerer, much less a nagual, should ever make.
     The nagual Julian  immediately  evaluated the opportunity. When he  saw
don Juan he understood the reason for the spirit's manifestation: here was a
double man, a perfect candidate to be his apprentice nagual.
     This brought up a nagging rational concern for  me. I wanted to know if
sorcerers  could  interpret  an  omen  erroneously.  Don Juan  replied  that
although my question sounded perfectly legitimate, it was inapplicable, like
the majority  of my  questions, because I asked them based on my experiences
in  the  world  of  everyday  life.  Thus  they  were  always  about  tested
procedures,  steps  to  be followed,  and rules of  meticulousness, but  had
nothing to do with the premises of sorcery. He pointed out that  the flaw in
my reasoning was  that  I  always failed  to include my  experiences in  the
sorcerers' world.
     I  argued that very few of  my experiences in the  sorcerers' world had
continuity, and therefore  I  could  not make use of those experiences in my
present day-to-day life. Very  few times, and only  when I  was in states of
profound heightened awareness,  had I remembered everything. At the level of
heightened  awareness  I  usually  reached,  the  only experience  that  had
continuity between past and present was that of knowing him.
     He  responded  cuttingly  that  I was perfectly capable of  engaging in
sorcerers'  reasonings because I had experienced the sorcery premises  in my
normal state of awareness.  In a more  mellow  tone he added that heightened
awareness  did not  reveal  everything  until the  whole edifice  of sorcery
knowledge was completed.
     Then  he answered  my  question about  whether or  not  sorcerers could
misinterpret omens. He explained that when a sorcerer interpreted an omen he
knew its exact meaning without having any notion of how he knew it. This was
one of the bewildering effects of the connecting link with intent. Sorcerers
had a sense  of knowing things directly.  How sure they were depended on the
strength and clarity of their connecting link.
     He  said  that  the  feeling  everyone  knows  as  "intuition"  is  the
activation of our link with intent.  And since sorcerers deliberately pursue
the understanding and strengthening of that link, it could be said that they
intuit everything unerringly  and  accurately.  Reading omens is commonplace
for sorcerers  -  mistakes happen only when personal  feelings intervene and
cloud the  sorcerers' connecting link  with intent.  Otherwise  their direct
knowledge is totally accurate and functional.
     We remained quiet for a while.
     All of a sudden  he said,  "I am going  to tell you  a  story about the
nagual Elias  and  the  manifestation of the  spirit.  The spirit  manifests
itself to a sorcerer, especially to  a nagual,  at every turn. However, this
is not the entire truth. The entire truth is that  the spirit reveals itself
to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only sorcerers, and
naguals in particular, are attuned to such revelations."
     Don Juan began his story. He said that the nagual Elias had been riding
his horse  to  the  city one  day, taking  him  through  a  shortcut by some
cornfields when suddenly his horse  shied, frightened by the low, fast sweep
of a falcon that missed  the  nagual's straw  hat  by only a few inches. The
nagual immediately dismounted and  began to look around. He  saw  a  strange
young  man  among  the tall,  dry  cornstalks.  The man  was  dressed in  an
expensive dark suit and  appeared alien there.  The nagual Elias was used to
the sight of peasants or landowners in the fields, but he had never seen  an
elegantly dressed city man moving through the fields with apparent disregard
for his expensive shoes and clothes.
     The  nagual  tethered  his  horse and walked  toward the young  man. He
recognized  the  flight of  the  falcon, as well as the  man's  apparel,  as
obvious  manifestations of  the spirit which he could  not disregard. He got
very close to the young man and saw what was going on. The man was chasing a
peasant woman who was running a few yards ahead of him, dodging and laughing
with him.
     The contradiction was quite apparent  to  the nagual.  The  two  people
cavorting in the cornfield  did not belong together. The nagual thought that
the man must be the landowner's son and the woman a servant in the house. He
felt embarrassed to be observing them  and  was about to turn and leave when
the falcon again  swept over  the cornfield and this time brushed the  young
man's head. The falcon  alarmed the couple and they  stopped and  looked up,
trying to anticipate another sweep. The nagual noticed that the man was thin
and handsome, and had haunting, restless eyes.
     Then  the  couple became bored watching for the falcon, and returned to
their play.  The man caught the woman,  embraced her and gently  laid her on
the ground. But instead of trying to make love to her, as the nagual assumed
he would do next, he removed his  own clothes and  paraded naked in front of
the woman.
     She  did  not  shyly  close her eyes or  scream  with  embarrassment or
fright. She giggled, mesmerized by  the prancing naked man, who moved around
her  like a satyr, making lewd  gestures  and laughing.  Finally, apparently
overpowered by the sight, she  uttered  a wild cry, rose, and  threw herself
into the young man's arms.
     Don  Juan  said  that  die  nagual Elias  confessed  to  him  that  the
indications  of the spirit on that  occasion had been most  baffling. It was
clearly evident that  the man was insane. Otherwise, knowing how  protective
peasants were  of their women, he would not have considered seducing a young
peasant woman in broad daylight a few  yards  from the  road - and  naked to
boot.
     Don Juan  broke into a laugh and told me that in those days to take off
one's clothes and engage in  a sexual act in  broad daylight in such a place
meant one had to be  either  insane or blessed by the spirit. He added  that
what the man had done might not seem remarkable nowadays. But then, nearly a
hundred years ago, people were infinitely more inhibited.
     All of this convinced the nagual Elias from  the moment he laid eyes on
the man that he was both  insane and blessed by the spirit.  He worried that
peasants might happen by, become enraged and lynch the man  on the spot. But
no one did. It felt to the nagual as if time had been suspended.
     When the  man finished  making love, he put  on his clothes, took out a
handkerchief,  meticulously dusted his shoes and, all  the while making wild
promises  to the girl, went on  his way. The nagual  Elias  followed him. In
fact,  he followed  him for several days  and found  out that his  name  was
Julian and that he was an actor.
     Subsequently  the nagual saw him  on the stage often  enough to realize
that the actor had  a great  deal of charisma.  The audience, especially the
women, loved him. And he had no scruples about making use of his charismatic
gifts to seduce female admirers.  As the  nagual followed the actor,  he was
able to witness his seduction technique more than once. It  entailed showing
himself naked to his adoring fans as soon as he got them alone, then waiting
until the  women,  stunned by his display, surrendered. The technique seemed
extremely effective for him. The nagual had to  admit that the  actor was  a
great success, except on one count. He was mortally ill. The nagual had seen
the black shadow of death that followed him everywhere.
     Don Juan explained again something  he had told me years before  - that
our  death was a black spot right  behind  the left  shoulder. He said  that
sorcerers knew when a  person was close to dying because they  could see the
dark  spot,  which became a moving shadow the  exact size  and  shape of the
person to whom it belonged.
     As he  recognized the imminent presence of death the nagual was plunged
into a numbing perplexity.  He wondered why the spirit was singling out such
a sick person. He had been taught that in a  natural  state replacement, not
repair, prevailed.  And  the nagual doubted that he  had the ability  or the
strength to heal this young man, or resist the black shadow of his death. He
even doubted if he would be able to discover why the spirit had involved him
in a display of such obvious waste.
     The nagual could do nothing but stay with the actor, follow him around,
and  wait  for the opportunity  to see  in greater depth. Don Juan explained
that a nagual's first reaction, upon being faced with the manifestations  of
the spirit, is  to see the  persons involved.  The  nagual  Elias  had  been
meticulous about  seeing the man the moment he laid eyes on him. He had also
seen  the peasant woman who was part of the  spirit's manifestation, but  he
had seen nothing  that, in his judgment, could have  warranted the  spirit's
display.
     In the course  of witnessing  another seduction, however,  the nagual's
ability to see took on a new depth. This time
     the actor's adoring fan was the daughter of a rich landowner. And  from
the  start she  was  in complete  control. The  nagual found out about their
rendezvous because he overheard  her daring the  actor to meet her the  next
day. The  nagual was hiding  across the street at dawn when  the young woman
left her  house,  and  instead of going to early mass she went  to  join the
actor. The actor was waiting for her and she coaxed him  into  following her
to the open fields.  He appeared to hesitate, but she taunted him  and would
not allow him to withdraw.
     As the nagual watched them sneaking away, he had an absolute conviction
that something was going to happen on that day which  neither of the players
was  anticipating. He saw that the actor's black shadow had grown  to almost
twice  his height. The  nagual deduced from the mysterious hard  look in the
young  woman's eyes that she too had felt the black  shadow of  death at  an
intuitive level. The actor seemed preoccupied. He did not laugh as he had on
other occasions.
     They walked quite  a  distance.  At one point, they spotted  the nagual
following them, but he instantly pretended to be working the land, a peasant
who  belonged there. That made  the couple  relax and allowed the nagual  to
come closer.
     Then the moment  came when the actor tossed off his clothes and  showed
himself to the girl. But  instead of swooning and falling  into his arms  as
his other conquests had, this girl began to  hit him. She kicked and punched
him mercilessly and stepped on his bare toes, making him cry out with pain.
     The  nagual  knew the man had not threatened or harmed the young woman.
He had  not  laid a  finger on her. She was the  only  one  fighting. He was
merely trying to parry the blows, and persistently, but without  enthusiasm,
trying to entice her by showing her his genitals.
     The  nagual  was  filled with  both revulsion and admiration.  He could
perceive  that  the actor  was  an irredeemable libertine, but he could also
perceive equally easily that there was something unique, although revolting,
about him. It baffled the nagual to see that the man's connecting link  with
the spirit was extraordinarily clear.
     Finally the attack ended.  The  woman stopped  beating the  actor.  But
then, instead of running away, she surrendered,  lay down and told the actor
he could now have his way with her.
     The nagual  observed  that the man was so exhausted he was  practically
unconscious. Yet despite his fatigue he went right ahead and consummated his
seduction.
     The nagual was laughing and pondering that useless  man's great stamina
and determination  when the woman screamed and the actor  began to gasp. The
nagual  saw how  the black shadow  struck the  actor. It went like a dagger,
with pinpoint accuracy into his gap.
     Don Juan made a digression at this  point to elaborate on  something he
had explained before: he had described  the gap, an opening in  our luminous
shell at  the height  of  the navel, where the  force  of  death ceaselessly
struck. What don Juan now explained was that when  death hit  healthy beings
it was with a ball-like blow  -  like the punch of a  fist. But when  beings
were dying, death struck them with a dagger-like thrust.
     Thus  the nagual  Elias knew without any question that the actor was as
good as dead, and his death  automatically finished his own interest in  the
spirit's designs. There were no designs left; death had leveled everything.
     He  rose from his hiding place and started to leave when something made
him  hesitate. It was  the  young woman's  calmness.  She  was  nonchalantly
putting on the  few pieces of clothing she had  taken off  and was whistling
tunelessly as if nothing had happened.
     And  then  the nagual  saw  that in relaxing to accept the presence  of
death, the man's  body had released a protecting  veil and revealed his true
nature. He was a double man of tremendous  resources, capable  of creating a
screen  for  protection  or disguise  -  a  natural sorcerer and  a  perfect
candidate for a nagual apprentice, had  it not been for the  black shadow of
death.
     The nagual  was completely taken aback by that sight. He now understood
the designs of the spirit, but failed  to comprehend how such a  useless man
could fit in the sorcerers' scheme of things.
     The woman in the meantime had stood up and without so much as  a glance
at the man, whose body was contorting with death spasms, walked away.
     The  nagual then  saw her  luminosity and  realized  that  her  extreme
aggressiveness was the  result of an enormous flow of superfluous energy. He
became convinced that if she did not put that energy  to sober use, it would
get the best of her and there was no telling what misfortunes it would cause
her.
     As the  nagual watched  the  unconcern  with which she  walked away, he
realized  that the  spirit had given him another manifestation. He needed to
be calm, nonchalant. He needed  to  act as if  he  had nothing  to lose  and
intervene for  the  hell of it. In true nagual  fashion he decided to tackle
the impossible, with no one except the spirit as witness.
     Don Juan commented  that it took  incidents like this to test whether a
nagual is the real thing or  a fake.  Naguals make decisions. With no regard
for the consequences they take action or choose not to. Imposters ponder and
become paralyzed. The nagual  Elias* having made his decision, walked calmly
to the side of the dying man and did the first thing his body, not his mind,
compelled him  to do:  he struck the man's assemblage point to  cause him to
enter into heightened  awareness. He  struck him frantically again and again
until his  assemblage point moved. Aided by the  force  of death itself, the
nagual's  blows sent the man's assemblage point to a  place where  death  no
longer mattered, and there he stopped dying.
     By the time the actor was breathing  again, the nagual had become aware
of the magnitude of his responsibility. If the man was to fend off the force
of his  death, it would be  necessary for him  to  remain in deep heightened
awareness  until death  had  been  repelled.  The  man's  advanced  physical
deterioration  meant he  could  not  be  moved from the  spot  or  he  would
instantly   die.   The   nagual  did  the  only  thing  possible  under  the
circumstances: he built a shack around the body.  There, for three months he
nursed the totally immobilized man.
     My rational thoughts took over, and instead of just listening, I wanted
to know how the nagual Elias could  build a shack  on someone else's land. I
was aware  of  the  rural  peoples'  passion  about land  ownership  and its
accompanying feelings of territoriality.
     Don Juan  admitted that he had asked the same question himself. And the
nagual Elias had said  that the spirit itself had made it possible. This was
the case with  everything  a  nagual  undertook, providing  he  followed the
spirit's manifestations.
     The first thing  the nagual Elias  did, when  the  actor  was breathing
again, was  to run  after the young woman. She was an important  part of the
spirit's  manifestation.  He  caught up with her not too far from  the  spot
where the actor lay barely alive. Rather than talking to her about the man's
plight and trying  to convince  her  to help him,  he  again  assumed  total
responsibility for  his actions and jumped on her like a lion, striking  her
assemblage point a mighty blow. Both  she  and  the  actor  were  capable of
sustaining life  or  death blows. Her assemblage point  moved, but  began to
shift erratically once it was loose.
     The nagual  carried the  young  woman  to where the actor lay.  Then he
spent  the entire day trying to keep her  from losing her mind  and the  man
from losing  his  life. . When he was  fairly  certain  he had  a  degree of
control he went to the  woman's father and told him that lightning must have
struck his daughter  and made her temporarily  mad. He  took the  father  to
where she lay and said that  the young man, whoever  he was, had  taken  the
whole  charge  of  the lightning with his  body, thus saving the  girl  from
certain death, but injuring himself to the point that he could not be moved.
     The grateful father  helped the  nagual build the shack for the man who
had  saved his  daughter.  And in three  months the nagual accomplished  the
impossible. He healed the young man.
     When the time came for the nagual to leave, his sense of responsibility
and  his  duty required him  both to  warn the young woman about her  excess
energy  and  the injurious  consequences it would have on her life  and well
being, and  to ask  her to  join  the sorcerers' world, as that would be the
only defense against her self-destructive strength.
     The woman did not respond. And the nagual Elias was obliged to tell her
what every nagual has said to a prospective apprentice throughout  the ages:
that  sorcerers  speak of  sorcery as a magical, mysterious  bird which  has
paused in  its  flight for a moment in order  to give man hope and  purpose;
that sorcerers live under the wing of that bird, which they call the bird of
wisdom, the bird of freedom; that they nourish it  with their dedication and
impeccability.  He told her  that sorcerers knew the  flight of the bird  of
freedom was always a straight line, since it had no way of making a loop, no
way  of circling back and returning; and that the  bird  of freedom could do
only two things, take sorcerers along, or leave them behind.
     The nagual  Elias  could  not talk to the young actor,  who  was  still
mortally ill, in the same way. The young man did not have much of a  choice.
Still, the nagual told him that  if he wanted  to be cured, he would have to
follow the nagual unconditionally. The actor accepted the terms instantly.
     The  day the nagual Elias and the  actor started  back home,  the young
woman was waiting silently at  the edge  of town. She carried no  suitcases,
not  even a basket.  She seemed to  have  come merely  to see  them off. The
nagual kept walking without looking at her, but  the actor, being carried on
a stretcher, strained to  say goodbye to  her. She  laughed  and  wordlessly
merged into  the nagual's  party. She  had no  doubts and  no problem  about
leaving everything behind.  She had  understood perfectly that  there was no
second chance for her, that the bird  of freedom either took sorcerers along
or left them behind.
     Don Juan commented  that  that was  not surprising.  The  force  of the
nagual's personality was  always  so overwhelming  that  he was  practically
irresistible, and the nagual Elias had affected  those two people deeply. He
had  had  three  months  of  daily  interaction  to  accustom  them  to  his
consistency,  his  detachment, his objectivity. They had become enchanted by
his sobriety and,  above all, by  his  total dedication to them. Through his
example and his actions, the nagual Elfas had given them a sustained view of
the sorcerers'  world: supportive and nurturing, yet  utterly  demanding. It
was a world that admitted very few mistakes.
     Don Juan reminded me then of something  he had repeated to me often but
which  I had always managed not to  think about. He  said that  I should not
forget,  even for  an instant, that  the  bird  of  freedom  had very little
patience with indecision, and when it flew away, it never returned.
     The chilling resonance of his voice made the surroundings, which only a
second  before  had been peacefully dark, burst  with  immediacy.  Don  Juan
summoned the peaceful darkness back as fast as  he had summoned urgency.  He
punched me lightly on the arm. "That  woman was so powerful  that  she could
dance circles around anyone," he said. "Her name was Talia."

     THE KNOCK OF THE SPIRIT

     The Abstract

     We returned to don Juan's  house in the early hours  of the morning. It
took us a  long time to climb down the mountain, mainly because I was afraid
of stumbling into a precipice in the dark, and don Juan had to keep stopping
to catch the breath he lost laughing at me.
     I was dead tired, but I could not fall asleep. Before noon, it began to
rain. The sound of the heavy downpour on the tile roof, instead of making me
feel drowsy, removed every trace of sleepiness.
     I  got up and went to look for don Juan. I found him dozing in a chair.
The moment I approached him he was wide-awake. I said good morning.
     "You seem to be having no trouble falling asleep," I commented.
     "When you have been afraid or upset, don't lie down  to sleep," he said
without looking at me. "Sleep sitting up on a soft chair as I'm doing."
     He had suggested once that if I wanted to give  my body healing  rest I
should take long naps,  lying on my stomach with my face turned to the  left
and  my  feet  over  the foot of the bed. In order to avoid  being  cold, he
recommended I
     put a soft pillow over my  shoulders, away from my neck, and wear heavy
socks, or just leave my shoes on.
     When  I first heard his suggestion, I thought he  was  being funny, but
later  changed  my  mind.   Sleeping  in   that  position   helped  me  rest
extraordinarily well. When I commented on the surprising results, he advised
that I follow his suggestions to the letter without bothering to believe  or
disbelieve him.
     I  suggested to don Juan that he  might have told me the  night  before
about the sleeping in a  sitting position. I explained to him that the cause
of my sleeplessness, besides my extreme fatigue, was a strange concern about
what he had told me in the sorcerer's cave.
     "Cut  it out!"  he  exclaimed. "You've  seen  and heard infinitely more
distressing  things  without  losing  a moment's  sleep.  Something else  is
bothering you."
     For a moment I thought he meant I was not being truthful with him about
my real preoccupation. I began  to explain, but he kept talking  as if I had
not spoken.
     "You stated categorically last night that the cave didn't make you feel
ill at  ease," he said. "Well, it obviously did. Last night  I didn't pursue
the subject of  the cave any  further  because I was waiting to observe your
reaction."
     Don Juan  explained that  the  cave had been designed  by sorcerers  in
ancient times  to  serve  as  a  catalyst.  Its  shape  had  been  carefully
constructed to accommodate two people as two fields of energy. The theory of
the sorcerers was that the nature of the rock and the manner in which it had
been carved allowed the two  bodies,  the  two luminous balls, to intertwine
their energy.
     "I took you to that cave on purpose," he continued, "not because I like
the place  - I don't - but because  it was created as an instrument to  push
the apprentice  deep  into  heightened  awareness. But unfortunately, as  it
helps, it also obscures  issues. The  ancient  sorcerers  were not given  to
thought. They leaned toward action."
     "You always say that your benefactor was like that," I said.
     "That's  my own exaggeration," he answered, "very much like when I  say
you're a fool. My benefactor was a modern nagual, involved in the pursuit of
freedom, but he leaned  toward  action instead  of thoughts. You're a modern
nagual,  involved  in  the same quest,  but  you  lean  heavily  toward  the
aberrations of reason."
     He must have thought his comparison was very funny; his laughter echoed
in the empty room.
     When I  brought the conversation  back to the subject of  the cave,  he
pretended  not to hear me. I knew he was pretending because of the glint  in
his eyes and the way he smiled.
     "Last night, I deliberately told you the first abstract core," he said,
"in the hope that by reflecting on the way  I  have acted with you  over the
years you'll get an idea about the other cores. You've  been  with me for  a
long time so you know me very well. During every minute of our association I
have tried to adjust my actions and thoughts to the patterns of the abstract
cores.
     "The nagual Elias's story is another matter. Although it seems to  be a
story  about  people,  it is  really  a story about  intent.  Intent creates
edifices before  us and invites us to enter them.  This is the way sorcerers
understand what is happening around them."
     Don Juan reminded me that I had  always  insisted on trying to discover
the  underlying  order in  everything  he  said  to  me. I  thought  he  was
criticizing me for my attempt to turn whatever  he  was teaching  me into  a
social science problem.  I began to tell him  that  my  outlook had  changed
under his influence. He stopped me and smiled.
     "You really don't think too well," he  said and  sighed. "I want you to
understand the underlying order of what I teach you. My objection is to what
you think is the underlying order.  To you,  it means secret procedures or a
hidden consistency. To me, it means two things: both the edifice that intent
manufactures in the blink of an eye and places in  front of us to enter, and
the signs it gives us so we won't get lost once we are inside.
     "As you can  see, the story of the nagual Elias was more than merely an
account of  the sequential  details that  made up the  event,"  he went  on.
"Underneath all that  was the edifice  of intent. And the story was meant to
give  you an  idea of  what  the  naguals of the past were like, so that you
would recognize how they acted in order to adjust their thoughts and actions
to the edifices of intent"
     There was a prolonged silence. I did  not have anything to say.  Rather
than  let the conversation die, I said  the first  thing that came  into  my
mind. I said that from the stories I had heard about  the nagual Elfas I had
formed a  very positive opinion of  him. I liked  the nagual  Elfas, but for
unknown  reasons, everything don Juan  had told  me about  the nagual Julian
bothered me.
     The mere mention of my discomfort delighted don Juan beyond measure. He
had to stand up from his chair lest he choke on his laughter. He put his arm
on  my shoulder and said that  we  either  loved  or  hated  those who  were
reflections of ourselves.
     Again a silly  self-consciousness prevented me from asking him  what he
meant. Don  Juan  kept  on  laughing, obviously aware of my mood. He finally
commented  that the  nagual Julian  was  like  a  child  whose sobriety  and
moderation  came always from without. He had no inner  discipline beyond his
training as an apprentice in sorcery.
     I had  an irrational urge to  defend myself.  I told  don  Juan that my
discipline came from within me.
     "Of  course,"  he  said  patronizingly.  "You  just can't expect to  be
exactly like him." And began to laugh again.
     Sometimes  don Juan exasperated me so that I was ready to  yell. But my
mood  did not  last. It dissipated so rapidly that another  concern began to
loom. I asked don Juan if it Was possible that I had entered into heightened
awareness Without being conscious of it? Or maybe I had  remained in  it for
days?
     "At this stage you enter into heightened awareness all by yourself," he
said.  "Heightened awareness is a mystery Only for our reason.  In practice,
it's very simple. As with everything else, we  complicate matters  by trying
to make the immensity that surrounds us reasonable."
     He  remarked  that I should be thinking about the abstract core he  had
given me instead of arguing uselessly about my person.
     I told him that I had been thinking about  it all morning  and had come
to realize that the metaphorical theme of the story  was the  manifestations
of the spirit. What I could not  discern, however, was the abstract  core he
was talking
     about. It had to be something unstated.
     "I  repeat," he  said,  as if  he  were  a schoolteacher  drilling  his
students, "the Manifestations  of  the  Spirit  is the  name  for  the first
abstract core in the sorcery stories. Obviously, what sorcerers recognize as
an abstract core is something that bypasses  you  at this moment.  That part
Which escapes  you sorcerers know as the edifice of  intent,  or the  silent
voice of the spirit, or the ulterior arrangement of the abstract."
     I said I understood ulterior to mean something not Overtly revealed, as
in "ulterior motive." And  he replied that in this case ulterior meant more;
it  meant  knowledge without words,  outside  our immediate  comprehension -
especially mine. He  allowed  that the comprehension he was referring to was
merely  beyond  my  aptitudes  of  the   moment,  not   beyond  my  ultimate
possibilities for understanding.
     "If the abstract cores are beyond my comprehension  what's the point of
talking about them?" I asked.
     "The rule says that the abstract  cores and the sorcery stories must be
told at  this point," he replied. "And some  day the ulterior arrangement of
the abstract, which is knowledge without  words  or  the edifice  of  intent
inherent in the stories, will be revealed to you by the stories themselves."
     I still did not understand.
     "The ulterior arrangement of  the  abstract is not  merely the order in
which the abstract cores were presented to you," he explained, "or what they
have in common either, nor even the web that joins them. Rather it's to know
the abstract directly, without the intervention of language."
     He scrutinized me in silence from head to  toe with the obvious purpose
of seeing me.
     "It's not evident to you yet," he declared.
     He made a gesture of impatience,  even short temper,  as though he were
annoyed  at  my  slowness. And that worried me. Don  Juan  was not  given to
expressions of psychological displeasure.
     "It has nothing to do  with you or your actions,"  he said when I asked
if he was angry or  disappointed with me.  "It was a thought that crossed my
mind  the moment I saw  you. There is a feature in your luminous  being that
the old sorcerers would have given anything to have."
     "Tell me what it is," I demanded.
     "I'll remind you of this some other time," he said.
     "Meanwhile,  let's  continue  with the  element  that propels  us:  the
abstract.  The element without which  there could be no  warrior's path, nor
any warriors in search of knowledge."
     He said  that the difficulties I was experiencing were  nothing  new to
him. He himself had gone through agonies in order to understand the ulterior
order  of  the  abstract.  And had it not been for the helping  hand of  the
nagual Elias, he would  have wound up just  like his benefactor, all  action
and very little understanding.
     "What was the nagual Elias like?" I asked, to change the subject.
     "He  was  not like his disciple at  all,"  don  Juan said.  "He  was an
Indian.  Very  dark  and  massive. He had rough features, big  mouth, strong
nose, small black eyes, thick black hair with no gray in  it. He was shorter
than  the  nagual Julian and had big hands and  feet. He was very humble and
very wise, but he had  no flare.  Compared with my benefactor, he was  dull.
Always all by himself, pondering questions.  The nagual Julian  used to joke
that his teacher imparted wisdom by the ton. Behind his back he used to call
him the nagual Tonnage.
     "I never saw the reason for his jokes,"  don Juan went on.  "To me  the
nagual  Elias  was  like a breath of fresh  air. He would patiently  explain
everything to me. Very much as I  explain  things to you, but perhaps with a
bit more of something. I wouldn't call it compassion,  but rather,  empathy.
Warriors are incapable of  feeling compassion because  they  no longer  feel
sorry for themselves. Without the driving force of  self-pity, compassion is
meaningless."
     "Are you saying, don Juan, that a warrior is all for himself?"
     "In  a way, yes. For a warrior everything begins and ends with himself.
However, his contact with the abstract causes him to overcome his feeling of
self-importance. Then the self becomes abstract and impersonal.
     "The nagual Elias felt that our lives and our personalities were  quite
similar," don Juan continued. "For this reason, he  felt obliged to help me.
I  don't feel that similarity with you, so  I suppose I regard you very much
the way the nagual Julian used to regard me."
     Don Juan said  that the  nagual Elias took him under his  wing from the
very  first  day   he  arrived  at  his  benefactor's  house  to  start  his
apprenticeship  and began to  explain what was taking place in his training,
regardless  of whether don  Juan was capable  of understanding. His urge  to
help  don  Juan was so  intense  that  he  practically held him prisoner. He
protected him in this manner from the nagual Julian's harsh onslaughts.
     "At the beginning, I used  to  stay at the nagual Elfas's house all the
time," don Juan continued. "And  I loved it. In  my benefactor's house I was
always on  the  lookout, on guard,  afraid of what he was going to do  to me
next. But in the Nagual Elias's home I felt confident, at ease.
     "My benefactor used to press me mercilessly. And I couldn't figure  out
why he was pressuring me so hard. I thought that the man was plain crazy."
     Don  Juan  said that the nagual Elias was an Indian from  the  state of
Oaxaca, who had been taught by another  nagual named  Rosendo, who came from
the  same  area.  Don  Juan  described  the  nagual Elias  as  being a  very
conservative man who cherished his privacy. And  yet he was a  famous healer
and  sorcerer,  not   only  in  Oaxaca,  but  in  all  of  southern  Mexico.
Nonetheless, in spite of his occupation  and notoriety, he lived in complete
isolation at the opposite end of the country, in northern Mexico.
     Don Juan  stopped talking. Raising  his eyebrows, he fixed  me  with  a
questioning look. But all I wanted was for him to continue his story.
     "Every single time I  think you should ask  questions,  you don't,"  he
said. "I'm sure you heard me say that the nagual Elias was a famous sorcerer
who dealt with people daily in southern Mexico, and at the  same time he was
a hermit in northern Mexico. Doesn't that arouse your curiosity?"
     I felt abysmally  stupid. I told him  that the  thought  had crossed my
mind, as he was  telling me those facts, that the man must have had terrible
difficulty commuting.
     Don Juan laughed, and,  since he had  made me aware of  the question, I
asked how it had been possible for the nagual Elias to  be in  two places at
once.
     "Dreaming is a  sorcerer's  jet plane," he said. The nagual Elias was a
dreamer as my benefactor was a  stalker.  He was able  to create and project
what  sorcerers  know as the dreaming body, or the  Other, and to  be in two
distant places  at  the same time. With his dreaming body, he could carry on
his business as a sorcerer, and with his natural self be a recluse."
     I remarked that it amazed me that I could  accept so easily the premise
that  the  nagual Elias had the ability to project a solid three-dimensional
image  of himself, and yet  could not  for  the  life of  me understand  the
explanations about the abstract cores.
     Don Juan said that I could accept the idea of  the nagual Elfas's  dual
life  because  the spirit was making  final adjustments in  my  capacity for
awareness. And I exploded into a barrage of protests at the obscurity of his
statement.
     "It isn't obscure," he said.  "It's a statement of fact. You could  say
that  it's  an  incomprehensible  fact for the moment,  but the  moment will
change."
     Before I could reply, he began to talk again about the nagual Elias. He
said that the nagual Elias had a  very inquisitive  mind and could work well
with  his hands. In his journeys as a dreamer he saw many  objects, which he
copied in wood  and  forged iron. Don Juan  assured  me  that  some of those
models were of a haunting, exquisite beauty.
     "What kind of objects were the originals?" I asked.
     "There's no  way of knowing,"  don  Juan said. "You've got  to consider
that  because he  was  an  Indian the nagual  Elias went  into his  dreaming
journeys the way a wild animal prowls for food.  An animal never shows up at
a  site when there are signs of  activity.  He comes  only  when  no one  is
around. The  nagual Elias,  as a solitary  dreamer, visited,  let's say, the
junkyard of  infinity, when  no one was around - and copied whatever he saw,
but never knew what those things were used for, or their source."
     Again, I had  no trouble accepting what he was saying. The idea did not
appear  to  me  farfetched in  any way.  I was  about  to  comment  when  he
interrupted me with a gesture of his eyebrows. He then continued his account
about the nagual Elias.
     "Visiting  him  was   for  me  the  ultimate  treat,"   he  said,  "and
simultaneously, a source  of  strange guilt. I  used to  get bored  to death
there.  Not  because  die nagual Elfas  was boring,  but because the  nagual
Julian had no peers and he spoiled anyone for life."
     "But  I thought  you were confident and  at  ease in the nagual Elias's
house," I said.
     "I was,  and that was  the  source of my guilt and my imagined problem.
Like you, I loved to torment myself.  I  think at the very beginning I found
peace  in the  nagual Elias's  company, but later on, when I understood  the
nagual Julian better, I went his way."
     He told me that the nagual Elias's house had an open, roofed section in
the front, where he had a forge and a
     carpentry bench and tools. The  tiled-roof adobe house consisted  of  a
huge room with a  dirt floor where he lived  with five women seers, who were
actually  his wives. There were also four  men, sorcerer-seers of his  party
who lived in small houses around  the nagual's house. They were  all Indians
from different parts of the country who had migrated to northern Mexico.
     "The nagual Elias had great respect for sexual  energy," don Juan said.
"He believed  it  has been  given to us so we can use  it  in  dreaming.  He
believed dreaming had fallen into disuse because it can upset the precarious
mental balance of susceptible people.
     "I've taught you dreaming the same way he taught me," he continued. "He
taught me that while we  dream the assemblage point moves  very  gently  and
naturally. Mental balance is nothing but the fixing  of the assemblage point
on one  spot  we're  accustomed  to.  If  dreams make that  point move,  and
dreaming  is used to  control that  natural  movement,  and sexual energy is
needed  for dreaming, the result is sometimes disastrous when sexual  energy
is  dissipated  in  sex  instead  of  dreaming.  Then  dreamers  move  their
assemblage point erratically and lose their minds."
     "What are you trying to tell me, don Juan?" I asked because I felt that
the subject of dreaming had not been a natural drift in the conversation.
     "You are a  dreamer"  he said. "If you're not careful  with your sexual
energy, you might as well  get  used to the  idea of erratic  shifts of your
assemblage point. A moment ago you were bewildered by  your reactions. Well,
your assemblage point  moves almost erratically, because  your sexual energy
is not in balance." I made a stupid and inappropriate comment  about the sex
life of adult males.
     "Our sexual energy is what governs dreaming," he explained. "The nagual
Elfas taught me - and I  taught you -  that  you either make love  with your
sexual  energy or  you dream with it. There is no other  way.  The  reason I
mention it  at all  is because you are having great difficulty shifting your
assemblage point to grasp our last topic: the abstract.
     "The same thing happened to me," don Juan went on. "It was only when my
sexual  energy was freed from the world that everything fit into place. That
is the  rule for dreamers. Stalkers are the opposite. My benefactor was, you
could say, a sexual libertine both as an average man and as a nagual."
     Don  Juan  seemed  to be  on the  verge  of  revealing his benefactor's
doings, but he obviously changed his mind. He shook his head and said that I
was way too stiff for such revelations. I did not insist.
     He  said that  the  nagual  Elfas had  the  sobriety that only dreamers
acquired after  inconceivable battles with themselves. He used his  sobriety
to plunge himself into the task of answering don Juan's questions.
     "The nagual  Elfas explained that my  difficulty  in  understanding the
spirit was  the same as his own," don Juan continued. "He thought there were
two different issues. One, the need to understand indirectly what the spirit
is, and the other, to understand the spirit directly.
     "You're  having problems with  the  first. Once you understand what the
spirit is, the second issue will be  resolved automatically, and vice versa.
If the spirit speaks to you, using its silent words, you will certainly know
immediately what the spirit is."
     He  said that the nagual  Elfas  believed  that  the difficulty was our
reluctance to accept the idea that  knowledge could  exist without  words to
explain it.
     "But I have no difficulty accepting that," I said.
     "Accepting  this proposition is not as  easy as  saying you accept it,"
don Juan said. "The nagual Elfas  used to tell me that the whole of humanity
has moved away from  the  abstract, although at one time we must  have  been
close to  it. It  must  have been our  sustaining force. And  then something
happened and pulled us away from the abstract.  Now we can't get back to it.
He used to  say that it takes years for an apprentice to be able to  go back
to  the  abstract, that  is, to know that  knowledge and language  can exist
independent of each other."
     Don Juan repeated that the crux of our difficulty in going  back to the
abstract was our refusal to accept that we could know without words  or even
without thoughts.
     I was going to argue that he was talking nonsense when I got the strong
feeling I was missing something and that his point was of crucial importance
to me. He  was really trying to tell me  something, something I either could
not grasp or which could not be told completely.
     "Knowledge and language are separate," he repeated softly.
     And I was just about to  say, "I know it," as if indeed I knew it, when
I caught myself.
     "I told you there is no way  to talk about  the  spirit," he continued,
"because the  spirit can only  be experienced. Sorcerers try to explain this
condition when they  say that the spirit is nothing you can see or feel. But
it's there looming over us always. Sometimes it comes to some of us. Most of
the time it seems indifferent."
     I  kept quiet. And he continued to explain. He said that the spirit  in
many ways was a sort of  wild animal. It  kept its distance from  us until a
moment when  something  enticed it  forward. It  was then  that  the  spirit
manifested itself.
     I raised the  point that if the spirit wasn't an entity, or a presence,
and had no essence, how could anyone entice it?
     "Your problem," he said,  "is that you consider only your own  idea  of
what's abstract. For instance, the  inner essence of man, or the fundamental
principle,  are abstracts  for  you. Or  perhaps something a bit less vague,
such as character, volition, courage, dignity, honor. The spirit, of course,
can be  described in terms of all of these. And that's what's so confusing -
that it's all these and none of them."
     He  added that what I considered abstractions were either the opposites
of all the practicalities I could think  of or things  I had decided did not
have concrete existence.
     "Whereas for  a sorcerer an abstract is something with  no  parallel in
the human condition," he said.
     "But they're the same thing," I shouted. "Don't you see that we're both
talking about the same thing?"
     "We are  not," he insisted. "For a sorcerer, the spirit is  an abstract
simply because he knows it without words or even thoughts.  It's an abstract
because  he  can't conceive what the  spirit is. Yet without  the  slightest
chance  or  desire  to  understand  it, a  sorcerer handles  the  spirit. He
recognizes  it,  beckons  it, entices  it,  becomes  familiar with  it,  and
expresses it with his acts."
     I shook my head in despair. I could not see the difference.
     "The root of your misconception is that I have used the term 'abstract'
to describe  the  spirit,"  he said.  "For  you, abstracts are  words  which
describe states of intuition. An example is the word 'spirit,' which doesn't
describe reason or pragmatic experience, and which, of course, is  of no use
to you other than to tickle your fancy."
     I  was furious with don Juan. I called him obstinate  and he laughed at
me. He suggested that if I would think  about the proposition that knowledge
might  be independent  of  language,  without  bothering to  understand  it,
perhaps I could see the light.
     "Consider this," he  said.  "It  was  not  the  act of  meeting me that
mattered  to  you. The day  I  met you, you met the abstract. But since  you
couldn't talk  about  it, you didn't notice it. Sorcerers meet  the abstract
without  thinking about  it  or seeing  it or touching  it  or  feeling  its
presence."
     I remained quiet because I did not  enjoy arguing with him. At  times I
considered him  to  be quite willfully abstruse.  But don  Juan seemed to be
enjoying himself immensely.

     The Last Seduction Of Nagual Julian

     It was as cool and  quiet in the patio of don  Juan's house as  in  the
cloister of a  convent.  There were a number  of large fruit  trees  planted
extremely  close together,  which  seemed  to regulate  the  temperature and
absorb  all  noises.  When I first came to  his  house, I had made  critical
remarks about the illogical  way the fruit  trees had been planted. I  would
have  given them more space. His answer  was that  those trees  were not his
property, they were free and independent warrior trees that  had joined  his
party of warriors, and  that my comments -  which applied to regular trees -
were not  relevant. His reply sounded metaphorical to me. What I didn't know
then was that don Juan meant everything he said literally.
     Don Juan and I were sitting  in  cane armchairs facing  the fruit trees
now.  The trees were all bearing  fruit. I commented  that it was not only a
beautiful  sight but  an extremely intriguing one, for it  was not the fruit
season.
     "There is an  interesting story  about it," he  admitted. "As you know,
these trees  are warriors of my party. They are bearing now because  all the
members of  my party  have been  talking and expressing  feelings about  our
definitive journey, here in front of  them. And the trees know now that when
we embark on our definitive journey, they will accompany us."
     I looked at him, astonished.
     "I can't leave them behind," he explained. "They are warriors too. They
have thrown their lot in with the nagual's party. And they know  how  I feel
about  them. The assemblage  point  of trees is  located  very low in  their
enormous luminous  shell, and that  permits  them to know our  feelings, for
instance,  the feelings  we  are having now  as  we  discuss  my  definitive
journey."
     I remained quiet, for I  did not want to dwell on the subject. Don Juan
spoke and dispelled my mood.
     "The second abstract core of the sorcery stories is called the Knock of
the  Spirit," he said. "The first core, the Manifestations of the Spirit, is
the edifice  that intent builds and places  before  a sorcerer, then invites
him to  enter. It is the edifice  of intent seen by a sorcerer. The Knock of
the Spirit  is the same  edifice  seen  by the beginner who is invited  - or
rather forced - to enter.
     "This second abstract core could  be a story in itself. The  story says
that after the spirit had manifested itself to that man we have talked about
and had gotten no response, the  spirit laid  a  trap for  the man. It was a
final  subterfuge,  not  because  the  man  was  special,  but  because  the
incomprehensible  chain  of events of the spirit made that man available  at
the very moment that the spirit knocked on the door.
     "It goes without  saying that whatever the spirit  revealed to that man
made no sense to him. In fact,  it  went against  everything  the man  knew,
everything  he was.  The  man,  of  course,  refused on the  spot, and in no
uncertain terms, to have anything to  do with the spirit. He wasn't going to
fall for such preposterous nonsense. He knew better. The result was a  total
stalemate.
     "I  can say  that this is an idiotic story," he  continued. "I  can say
that what  I've  given  you is the pacifier for those who  are uncomfortable
with the silence of the abstract."
     He peered at me for a moment and then smiled.
     "You  like  words,"  he  said  accusingly.  "The  mere idea  of  silent
knowledge  scares you.  But stories, no matter how  stupid, delight you  and
make you feel secure."
     His smile was so mischievous that I couldn't help laughing.
     Then he  reminded me  that I had already heard his  detailed account of
the first time the spirit had knocked on his  door. For a moment I could not
figure out what he was talking about.
     "It was not just my benefactor who stumbled upon me as I was dying from
the gunshot," he explained. "The spirit also found me and knocked on my door
that day. My benefactor understood that he was there to be a conduit for the
spirit. Without the spirit's intervention, meeting  my benefactor would have
meant nothing."
     He  said that  a  nagual  can be a  conduit  only after  the spirit has
manifested its willingness to be used -  either almost imperceptibly or with
outright commands. It was therefore not possible for a nagual to choose  his
apprentices according to his own volition, or his own calculations. But once
the- willingness of the spirit was revealed through omens, the nagual spared
no effort to satisfy it.
     "After a lifetime of practice,"  he  continued,  "sorcerers, naguals in
particular,  know if the  spirit is inviting them to enter the edifice being
flaunted before them. They have learned to discipline their connecting links
to intent. So they are always forewarned, always know what the spirit has in
store for them."
     Don Juan said that progress along the sorcerers' path was,  in general,
a drastic process the  purpose of which was to bring this connecting link to
order.  The average man's connecting link with intent  is  practically dead,
and sorcerers begin with a link that is useless, because it does not respond
voluntarily.
     He  stressed  that  in  order to revive  that link sorcerers  needed  a
rigorous, fierce purpose - a special state of  mind called unbending intent.
Accepting that the nagual was the only being capable of  supplying unbending
intent  was  the  most difficult part  of the sorcerer's  apprenticeship.  I
argued that I could not see the difficulty.
     "An  apprentice is  someone  who is striving  to  clear  and revive his
connecting  link with the spirit," he explained. "Once the link  is revived,
he is no longer an apprentice, but until  that time, in order to  keep going
he  needs a fierce purpose, which, of course, he doesn't have. So he  allows
the nagual to provide the purpose and  to  do  that he has to relinquish his
individuality. That's the difficult part."
     He reminded me of something he had told me  often: that volunteers were
not welcome in  the sorcerers' world, because they already had a purpose  of
their  own,  which made  it particularly hard for them  to  relinquish their
individuality. If the sorcerers' world  demanded ideas and  actions contrary
to the volunteers' purpose, the volunteers simply refused to change.
     "Reviving  an apprentice's  link  is a  nagual's most  challenging  and
intriguing work," don Juan continued, "and one of his biggest headaches too.
Depending,  of  course, on the  apprentice's personality, the designs of the
spirit are either sublimely simple or the most complex labyrinths."
     Don Juan  assured me  that,  although I  might have had notions  to the
contrary, my apprenticeship had not been as  onerous to him as his must have
been to his  benefactor. He admitted that I had a modicum of self-discipline
that came in very handy, while he had had none whatever. And his benefactor,
in turn, had had even less.
     "The difference is discernible in the manifestations of the spirit," he
continued. "In some cases, they are barely noticeable; in my case, they were
commands. I had been shot.  Blood was pouring out of a hole  in my chest. My
benefactor had  to act with speed  and sureness, just as his own  benefactor
had for him. Sorcerers know that the more difficult the command is, the more
difficult the disciple turns out to be."
     Don Juan explained that  one of  the most  advantageous aspects of  his
association with  two  naguals was that  he could hear the same stories from
two opposite  points of view. For instance, the story about the nagual Elias
and the manifestations of the spirit, from the apprentice's perspective, was
the story of the spirit's difficult knock on his benefactor's door.
     "Everything connected with  my benefactor was very difficult,"  he said
and  began to laugh. "When he was  twenty-four years old, the spirit  didn't
just knock on his door, it nearly banged it down."
     He  said  that  the  story  had  really begun  years  earlier, when his
benefactor had been a handsome adolescent from a good family in Mexico City.
He was wealthy, educated, charming, and had a charismatic personality. Women
fell in love-with him at first sight. But he was already  self-indulgent and
undisciplined,  lazy  about  anything  that  did  not   give  him  immediate
gratification.
     Don Juan said  that with that personality and his type  of upbringing -
he was the only son of a wealthy widow who,
     together  with his four  adoring sisters, doted on  him - he could only
behave one way. He indulged  in  every impropriety  he could  think of. Even
among his equally self-indulgent friends, he  was seen as a moral delinquent
who lived to do anything that the world considered morally wrong.
     In  the  long  run,  his excesses weakened him  physically  and he fell
mortally ill with tuberculosis -  the dreaded disease  of  the time. But his
illness,  instead of restraining him, 'created a physical condition in which
he  felt  more  sensual  than  ever.  Since  he did  not have  one  iota  of
self-control,  he  gave  himself over fully  to debauchery,  and  his health
deteriorated until there was no hope.
     The saying that it never rains but it pours was certainly true  for don
Juan's benefactor then. As his health declined, his mother, who was his only
source  of  support  and the only restraint  on  him, died. She  left  him a
sizable inheritance, which should  have  supported him adequately for  life,
but undisciplined as he was, in a  few months he had  spent every cent. With
no  profession  or  trade to  fall  back on, he was  left  to scrounge for a
living.
     Without  money he  no longer had friends; and  even  the women who once
loved him turned their  backs.  For the  first time  in his  life, he  found
himself confronting a harsh reality. Considering the state of his health, it
should  have been the end.  But he was  resilient. He  decided to work for a
living.
     His sensual habits,  however, could not be changed, and they forced him
to seek  work  in  the  only place  he  felt  comfortable: the theater.  His
qualifications were  that he was a born ham and had spent most  of his adult
life in the  company of  actresses. He  joined a  theatrical  troupe in  the
provinces, away from his familiar circle of friends and
     acquaintances, and became a very intense actor, the consumptive hero in
religious and morality plays.
     Don  Juan commented on  the strange  irony that had  always marked  his
benefactor's life. There  he was, a perfect reprobate, dying as a  result of
his dissolute  ways and playing  the roles of  saints and  mystics.  He even
played Jesus in the Passion Play during Holy Week.
     His  health lasted through one theatrical  tour of the northern states.
Then two things happened in the city of Durango: his life came to an end and
the spirit knocked on his door.
     Both his death and the spirit's knock came at the same time -  in broad
daylight  in the bushes. His death caught him in the act of seducing a young
woman. He was already extremely weak, and that day  he overexerted  himself.
The young  woman, who was vivacious and  strong and madly infatuated, had by
promising to make  love  induced him  to  walk to a secluded spot miles from
nowhere.  And  there  she  had  fought him off for  hours.  When she finally
submitted, he was completely worn out, and  coughing so  badly that he could
hardly breathe.
     During  his last  passionate outburst  he  felt a searing  pain  in his
shoulder.  His chest felt as if  it were  being ripped  apart and a coughing
spell made  him retch uncontrollably. Hut his compulsion  to  seek  pleasure
kept him going until his death came in the form of a hemorrhage. It was then
that  the spirit made  its entry,  borne by an Indian  who  came to his aid.
Earlier he had noticed the Indian  following them around, but  had not given
him a second thought, absorbed as he was in the seduction.
     He saw,  as in a dream, the girl.  She was not scared nor  did she lose
her composure. Quietly and efficiently she put her clothes back on and  took
off as fast as a rabbit chased by hounds.
     He also saw the  Indian rushing to him  trying to  make him  sit up. He
heard him saying idiotic things. He heard him pledging himself to the spirit
and mumbling incomprehensible words  in a foreign language. Then the  Indian
acted very quickly. Standing  behind him, he gave him a smacking blow on the
back.
     Very rationally,  the dying  man  deduced  that  the Indian was  trying
either to dislodge the blood clot or to kill him.
     As the Indian struck  him repeatedly on the back, the dying man  became
convinced that the Indian was the woman's lover or husband and was murdering
him. But seeing the intensely brilliant eyes of that Indian,  he changed his
mind. He knew that the  Indian was simply crazy  and was not  connected with
the woman. With his  last bit of consciousness,  he focused his attention on
the man's  mumblings. What  he was saying  was  that  the  power  of man was
incalculable, that death  existed only  because we had intended it since the
moment of  our birth, that the intent of death could be suspended by  making
the assemblage point change positions.
     He then knew that the Indian was  totally insane. His situation  was so
theatrical - dying at the hands of a crazy  Indian mumbling gibberish - that
he vowed he would be  a ham actor to the bitter end, and he promised himself
not to die of either the  hemorrhaging or the blows, but to die of laughter.
And he laughed until he was dead.
     Don Juan remarked that naturally his benefactor could not possibly have
taken the  Indian seriously.  No one could  take such  a  person  seriously,
especially  not  a  prospective  apprentice  who  was  not  supposed  to  be
volunteering for the sorcery task.
     Don Juan then said that he had given me different versions of what that
sorcery  task consisted. He  said  it would not be presumptuous  of  him  to
disclose  that, from  the  spirit's point  of view, the  task  consisted  of
clearing our connecting link with it. The edifice that intent flaunts before
us  is,  then,  a  clearinghouse,  within which  we  find  not so  much  the
procedures to clear our connecting link as the silent knowledge  that allows
the clearing process to take place. Without that silent knowledge no process
could work, and all we would have would  be  an indefinite sense  of needing
something.
     He explained  that the  events unleashed  by sorcerers  as  a result of
silent  knowledge  were so  simple  and yet so abstract that  sorcerers  had
decided  long  ago  to  speak of those  events only in  symbolic  terms. The
manifestations and the knock of the spirit were examples.
     Don Juan said  that, for  instance, a  description of what  took  place
during  the  initial meeting between a  nagual and a prospective  apprentice
from the sorcerers' point of view, would be  absolutely incomprehensible. It
would be nonsense  to  explain that  the nagual,  by  virtue of his lifelong
experience, was focusing something we couldn't imagine, his second attention
- the increased awareness gained throug