a man's body and three times its width. Those are power plants. They share
the largest amount of emanations with man, not the emanations of awareness,
but other emanations in general.
"Another thing unique about plants is that their luminosities have
different casts. They are pinkish in general, because their awareness is
pink. Poisonous plants are a pale yellow pink and medicinal plants are a
bright violet pink. The only ones that are white pink are power plants; some
are murky white, others are brilliant white.
"But the real difference between plants and other organic beings is the
location of their assemblage points. Plants have it on the lower part of
their cocoon, while other organic beings have it on the upper part of their
cocoon."
"What about the inorganic beings?" I asked. "Where do they have their
assemblage points?"
"Some have it on the lower part of their containers," he said. "Those
are thoroughly alien to man, but akin to plants. Others have it anywhere on
the upper part of their containers. Those are close to man and other organic
creatures."
He added that the old seers were convinced that plants have the most
intense communication with inorganic beings. They believed that the lower
the assemblage point, the easier for plants to break the barrier of
perception; very large trees and very small plants have their assemblage
points extremely low in their cocoon. Because of this, a great number of the
old seers' sorcery techniques were means to harness the awareness of trees
and small plants in order to use them as guides to descend to what they
called the deepest levels of the dark regions.
"You understand, of course," don Juan went on, "that when they thought
they were descending to the depths, they were, in fact, pushing their
assemblage points to assemble other perceivable worlds with those seven
great bands.
"They taxed their awareness to the limit and assembled worlds with five
great bands that are accessible to seers only if they undergo a dangerous
transformation."
"But did the old seers succeed in assembling those worlds?" I asked.
"They did," he said. "In their aberration they believed it was worth
their while to break all the barriers of perception, even if they had to
become trees to do that."
11 Stalking, Intent and the Dreaming Position
The next day, in the early evening again, don Juan came to the room
where I was talking with Genaro. He took me by the arm and walked me through
the house to the back patio. It was already fairly dark. We started to walk
around in the corridor that encircled the patio.
As we walked, don Juan told me that he wanted to warn me once again
that it is very easy in the path of knowledge to get lost in intricacies and
morbidity. He said that seers are up against great enemies that can destroy
their purpose, muddle their aims, and make them weak; enemies created by the
warriors' path itself together with the sense of indolence, laziness, and
self-importance that are integral parts of the daily world.
He remarked that the mistakes the ancient seers made as a result of
indolence, laziness, and self-importance were so enormous and so grave that
the new seers had no option but to scorn and reject their own tradition.
"The most important thing the new seers needed," don Juan continued,
"was practical steps in order to make their assemblage points shift. Since
they had none, they began by developing a keen interest in seeing the glow
of awareness, and as a result they worked out three sets of techniques that
became their cornerstone."
Don Juan said that with these three sets, the new seers accomplished a
most extraordinary and difficult feat. They succeeded in systematically
making the assemblage point shift away from its customary position. He
acknowledged that the old seers had also accomplished that feat, but by
means of capricious, idiosyncratic maneuvers.
He explained that what the new seers saw in the glow of awareness
resulted in the sequence in which they arranged the old seers' truths about
awareness. This is known as the mastery of awareness. From that, they
developed the three sets of techniques. The first is the mastery of
stalking, the second is the mastery of intent, and the third is the mastery
of dreaming. He maintained that he had taught me these three sets from the
very first day we met.
He told me that he had taught me the mastery of awareness in two ways,
just as the new seers recommend. In his teachings for the right side, which
he had done in normal awareness, he accomplished two goals: he taught me the
warriors' way, and he loosened my assemblage point from its original
position. In his teachings for the left side, which he had done in
heightened awareness, he also accomplished two goals: he had made my
assemblage point shift to as many positions as I was capable of sustaining,
and he had given me a long series of explanations.
Don Juan stopped talking and stared at me fixedly. There was an awkward
silence; then he started to talk about stalking. He said that it had very
humble and fortuitous origins. It started from an observation the new seers
made that when warriors steadily behave in ways not customary for them, the
unused emanations inside their cocoons begin to glow. And their assemblage
points shift in a mild, harmonious, barely noticeable fashion.
Stimulated by this observation, the new seers began to practice the
systematic control of their behavior. They called this practice the art of
stalking. Don Juan remarked that the name, although objectionable, was
appropriate, because stalking entailed a specific kind of behavior with
people, behavior that could be categorized as surreptitious.
The new seers, armed with this technique, tackled the known in a sober
and fruitful way. By continual practice, they made their assemblage points
move steadily.
"Stalking is one of the two greatest accomplishments of the new seers."
he said. "The new seers decided that it should be taught to a modern-day
nagual when his assemblage point has moved quite deep into the left side.
The reason for this decision is that a nagual must learn the principles of
stalking without the encumbrance of the human inventory. After all, the
nagual is the leader of a group, and to lead them he has to act quickly
without first having to think about it.
"Other warriors can learn stalking in their normal awareness, although
it is advisable that they do it in heightened awareness-- not so much
because of the value of heightened awareness, but because it imbues stalking
with a mystery that it doesn't really have; stalking is merely behavior with
people."
He said that I could now understand that shifting the assemblage point
was the reason why the new seers placed such a high value on the interaction
with petty tyrants. Petty tyrants forced seers to use the principles of
stalking and, in doing so, helped seers to move their assemblage points.
I asked him if the old seers knew anything at all about the principles
of stalking.
'"Stalking belongs exclusively to the new seers," he said, smiling.
"They are the only seers who had to deal with people. The old ones were so
wrapped up in their sense of power that they didn't even know that people
existed, until people started clobbering them on the head. But you already
know all this."
Don Juan said next that the mastery of intent together with the mastery
of stalking are the new seers' two masterpieces, which mark the arrival of
the modern-day seers. He explained that in their efforts to gain an
advantage over their oppressors the new seers pursued every possibility.
They knew that
describe as power. The new seers had very little information about that
force, so they were obliged to examine it systematically through seeing.
Their efforts were amply rewarded when they discovered that the energy of
alignment is that force.
They began by seeing how the glow of awareness increases in size and
intensity as the emanations inside the cocoon are aligned with the
emanations at large. They used that observation as a springboard, just as
they had done with stalking, and went on to develop a complex series of
techniques to handle that alignment of emanations.
At first they referred to those techniques as the mastery of alignment.
Then they realized that what was involved was much more than alignment; what
was involved was the energy that comes out of the alignment of emanations.
They called that energy will.
Will became the second basis. The new seers understood it as a blind,
impersonal, ceaseless burst of energy that makes us behave in the ways we
do. Will accounts for our perception of the world of ordinary affairs, and
indirectly, through the force of that perception, it accounts for the
placement of the assemblage point in its customary position.
Don Juan said that the new seers examined how the perception of the
world of everyday life takes place and saw the effects of will. They saw
that alignment is ceaselessly renewed in order to imbue perception with
continuity. To renew alignment every time with the freshness that it needs
to make up a living world, the burst of energy that comes out of those very
alignments is automatically rerouted to reinforce some choice alignments.
This new observation served the new seers as another springboard that
helped them reach the third basis of the set. They called it intent, and
they described it as the purposeful guiding of will, the energy of
alignment.
"Silvio Manuel, Genaro, and Vicente were pushed by the nagual Julian to
learn those three aspects of the seers' knowledge," he went on. "Genaro is
the master of handling awareness, Vicente is the master of stalking, and
Silvio Manuel is the master of intent.
"We are now doing a final explanation of the mastery of awareness; this
is why Genaro is helping you."
Don Juan talked to the female apprentices for a long time. The women
listened with serious expressions on their faces. I felt sure he was giving
them detailed instructions about difficult procedures, judging from the
women's fierce concentration.
I had been barred from their meeting, but I had watched them as they
talked in the front room of Genaro's house. I sat at the kitchen table,
waiting until they were through.
Then the women got up to leave, but before they did, they came to the
kitchen with don Juan. He sat down facing me while the women talked to me
with awkward formality. They actually embraced me. All of them were
unusually friendly, even talkative. They said that they were going to join
the male apprentices, who had gone with Genaro hours earlier. Genaro was
going to show all of them his dreaming body.
As soon as the women left, don Juan quite abruptly resumed his
explanation. He said that as time passed and the new seers established their
practices, they realized that under the prevailing conditions of life,
stalking only moved the assemblage points minimally. For maximum effect,
stalking needed an ideal setting; it needed petty tyrants in positions of
great authority and power. It became increasingly difficult for the new
seers to place themselves in such situations; the task of improvising them
or seeking them out became an unbearable burden.
The new seers deemed it imperative to see the Eagle's emanations in
order to find a more suitable way to move the assemblage point. As they
tried to see the emanations they were faced with a very serious problem.
They found out that there is no way to see them without running a mortal
risk, and yet they had to see them. That was the time when they used the old
seers' technique of dreaming as a shield to protect themselves from the
deadly blow of the Eagle's emanations. And in doing so, they realized that
dreaming was in itself the most effective way to move the assemblage point.
"One of the strictest commands of the new seers," don Juan continued,
"was that warriors have to learn dreaming while they are in their normal
state of awareness. Following that command, I began teaching you dreaming
almost from the first day we met."
"Why do the new seers command that dreaming has to be taught in normal
awareness?" I asked.
"Because dreaming is so dangerous and dreamers so vulnerable," he said.
"It is dangerous because it has inconceivable power; it makes dreamers
vulnerable because it leaves them at the mercy of the incomprehensible force
of alignment.
"The new seers realized that in our normal state of awareness, we have
countless defenses that can safeguard us against the force of unused
emanations that suddenly become aligned in dreaming."
Don Juan explained that dreaming, like stalking, began with a simple
observation. The old seers became aware that in dreams the assemblage point
shifts slightly to the left side in a most natural manner. That point indeed
relaxes when man sleeps and all kinds of unused emanations begin to glow.
The old seers became immediately intrigued with that observation and
began to work with that natural shift until they were able to control it.
They called that control dreaming, or the art of handling the dreaming body.
He remarked that there is hardly a way of describing the immensity of
their knowledge about dreaming. Very little of it, however, was of any use
to the new seers. So when the time of reconstruction came, the new seers
took for themselves only the bare essentials of dreaming to aid them in
seeing the Eagle's emanations and to help them move their assemblage points.
He said that seers, old and new, understand dreaming as being the
control of the natural shift that the assemblage point undergoes in sleep.
He stressed that to control that shift does not mean in any way to direct
it, but to keep the assemblage point fixed at the position where it
naturally moves in sleep, a most difficult maneuver that took the old seers
enormous effort and concentration to accomplish.
Don Juan explained that dreamers have to strike a very subtle balance,
for dreams cannot be interfered with, nor can they be commanded by the
conscious effort of the dreamer, and yet the shift of the assemblage point
must obey the dreamer's command-- a contradiction that cannot be
rationalized but must be resolved in practice.
After observing dreamers while they slept, the old seers hit upon the
solution of letting dreams follow their natural course. They had seen that
in some dreams, the assemblage point of the dreamer would drift considerably
deeper into the left side than in other dreams. This observation posed to
them the question of whether the content of the dream makes the assemblage
point move, or the movement of the assemblage point by itself produces the
content of the dream by activating unused emanations.
They soon realized that the shifting of the assemblage point into the
left side is what produces dreams. The farther the movement, the more vivid
and bizarre the dream. Inevitably, they attempted to command their dreams,
aiming to make their assemblage points move deeply into the left side. Upon
trying it, they discovered that when dreams are consciously or
semiconsciously manipulated, the assemblage point immediately returns to its
usual place. Since what they wanted was for that point to move, they reached
the unavoidable conclusion that interfering with dreams was interfering with
the natural shift of the assemblage point.
Don Juan said that from there the old seers went on to develop their
astounding knowledge on the subject -- a knowledge which had a tremendous
bearing on what the new seers aspired to do with dreaming, but was of little
use to them in its original form.
He told me that thus far I had understood dreaming as being the control
of dreams, and that every one of the exercises he had given me to perform,
such as finding my hands in my dreams, was not, although it might seem to
be, aimed at teaching me to command my dreams. Those exercises were designed
to keep my assemblage point fixed at the place where it had moved in my
sleep. It is here that the dreamers have to strike a subtle balance. All
they can direct is the fixation of their assemblage points. Seers are like
fishermen equipped with a line that casts itself wherever it may; the only
thing they can do is keep the line anchored at the place where it sinks.
"Wherever the assemblage point moves in dreams is called the dreaming
position,"' he went on. "The old seers became so expert at keeping their
dreaming position that they were even able to wake up while their assemblage
points were anchored there.
"The old seers called that state the dreaming body, because they
controlled it to the extreme of creating a temporary new body every time
they woke up at a new dreaming position.
"I have to make it clear to you that dreaming has a terrible drawback,"
he went on. "It belongs to the old seers. It's tainted with their mood. I've
been very careful in guiding you through it, but still there is no way to
make sure."
"What are you warning me about, don Juan?" I asked.
"I'm warning you about the pitfalls of dreaming, which are truly
stupendous," he replied. "In dreaming, there is really no way of directing
the movement of the assemblage point; the only thing that dictates that
shift is the inner strength or weakness of dreamers. Right there we have the
first pitfall."
He said that at first the new seers were hesitant to use dreaming. It
was their belief that dreaming, instead of fortifying, made warriors weak,
compulsive, capricious. The old seers were all like that. In order to offset
the nefarious effect of dreaming, since they had no other option but to use
it, the new seers developed a complex and rich system of behavior called the
warriors' way, or the warriors' path.
With that system, the new seers fortified themselves and acquired the
internal strength they needed to guide the shift of the assemblage point in
dreams. Don Juan stressed that the strength that he was talking about was
not conviction alone. No one could have had stronger convictions than the
old seers, and yet they were weak to the core. Internal strength meant a
sense of equanimity, almost of indifference, a feeling of being at ease,
but, above all, it meant a natural and profound bent for examination, for
understanding. The new seers called all these traits of character sobriety.
"The conviction that the new seers have," he continued, "is that a life
of impeccability by itself leads unavoidably to a sense of sobriety, and
this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point.
"I've said that the new seers believed that the assemblage point can be
moved from within. They went one step further and maintained that impeccable
men need no one to guide them, that by themselves, through saving their
energy, they can do everything that seers do. All they need is a minimal
chance, just to be cognizant of the possibilities that seers have
unraveled."
I told him that we were back in the same position we had been in in my
normal state of awareness. I was still convinced that impeccability or
saving energy was something so vague that it could be interpreted by anyone
in whatever whimsical way he wanted.
I wanted to say more to build my argument, but a strange feeling
overtook me. It was an actual physical sensation that I was rushing through
something. And then I rebuffed my own argument. I knew without any doubt
whatsoever that don Juan was right. All that is required is impeccability,
energy, and that begins with a single act that has to be deliberate,
precise, and sustained. If that act is repeated long enough, one acquires a
sense of unbending intent, which can be applied to anything else. If that is
accomplished the road is clear. One thing will lead to another until the
warrior realizes his full potential.
When I told don Juan what I had just realized, he laughed with apparent
delight and exclaimed that this was indeed a godsent example of the strength
that he was talking about. He explained that my assemblage point had
shifted, and that it had been moved by sobriety to a position that fostered
understanding. It could have as well been moved by capriciousness to a
position that only enhances self-importance, as had been the case many times
before.
"Let's talk now about the dreaming body."' he went on. "The old seers
concentrated all their efforts on exploring and exploiting the dreaming
body. And they succeeded in using it as a more practical body, which is
tantamount to saying they recreated themselves in increasingly weird ways."
Don Juan maintained that it is common knowledge among the new seers
that flocks of the old sorcerers never came back after waking up at a
dreaming position of their liking. He said that chances are they all died in
those inconceivable worlds, or they may still be alive today in who knows
what kind of contorted shape or manner.
He stopped and looked at me and broke into a great laugh.
"You're dying to ask me what the old seers did with the dreaming body,
aren't you?" he asked, and urged me with a movement of his chin to ask the
question.
Don Juan stated that Genaro, being the indisputable master of
awareness, had shown me the dreaming body many times while I was in a state
of normal awareness. The effect that Genaro was after with his
demonstrations was to make my assemblage point move, not from a position of
heightened awareness, but from its normal setting.
Don Juan told me then, as if he were letting a secret be known, that
Genaro was waiting for us in some fields near the house to show me his
dreaming body. He repeated over and over that I was now in the perfect state
of awareness to see and understand what the dreaming body really is. Then he
had me get up, and we walked through the front room to reach the door to the
outside. As I was about to open the door, I noticed that someone was lying
on the pile of floor mats that the apprentices used as beds. I thought that
one of the apprentices must have returned to the house while don Juan and I
were talking in the kitchen.
I went up to him, and then I realized that it was Genaro. He was sound
asleep, snoring peacefully, lying face down.
"Wake him up," don Juan said to me. "We've got to be going. He must be
dead tired."
I gently shook Genaro. He slowly turned around, made the sounds of
someone waking up from a deep slumber. He stretched his arms, and then he
opened his eyes. I screamed involuntarily and jumped back.
Genaro's eyes were not human eyes at all. They were two points of
intense amber light. The jolt of my fright had been so intense that I became
dizzy. Don Juan tapped my back and restored my equilibrium.
Genaro stood up and smiled at me. His features were rigid. He moved as
if he were drunk or physically impaired. He walked by me and headed directly
for the wall. I winced at the imminent crash, but he went through the wall
as if it were not there at all. He came back into the room through the
kitchen doorway. And then, as I looked in true horror, Genaro walked on the
walls, with his body parallel to the ground, and on the ceiling, with his
head upside down.
I fell backwards as I tried to follow his movements. From that position
I didn't see Genaro anymore; instead I was looking at a blob of light that
moved on the ceiling above me and on the walls, circling the room. It was as
if someone with a giant flashlight was shining the beam on the ceiling and
the walls. The beam of light was finally turned off. It disappeared from
view by vanishing against a wall.
Don Juan remarked that my animal fright was always out of measure, that
I had to struggle to bring it under control, but that all in all, I had
behaved very well. I had seen Genaro's dreaming body as it really is, a blob
of light.
I asked him how he was so sure I had done that. He replied that he had
seen my assemblage point first move toward its normal setting in order to
compensate for my fright, then move deeper into the left, beyond the point
where there are no doubts.
"At that position there is only one thing one can see: blobs of
energy," he went on. "But from heightened awareness to that other point
deeper into the left side, it is only a short hop. The real feat is to make
the assemblage point shift from its normal setting to the point of no
doubt."
He added that we still had an appointment with Genaro's dreaming body
in the fields around the house, while I was in normal awareness.
When we were back in Silvio Manuel's house, don Juan said that Genaro's
proficiency with the dreaming body was a very minor affair compared with
what the old seers did with it.
"You'll see that very soon," he said with an ominous tone, then
laughed.
I questioned him about it with mounting fear, and that only evoked more
laughter. He finally stopped and said that he was going to talk about the
way the new seers got to the dreaming body and the way they used it.
"The old seers were after a perfect replica of the body," he continued,
"and they nearly succeeded in getting one. The only thing they never could
copy was the eyes. Instead of eyes, the dreaming body has just the glow of
awareness. You never realized that before, when Genaro used to show you his
dreaming body.
"The new seers could not care less about a perfect replica of the body;
in fact, they are not even interested in copying the body at all. But they
have kept just the name dreaming body to mean a feeling, a surge of energy
that is transported by the movement of the assemblage point to any place in
this world, or to any place in the seven worlds available to man."
Don Juan then outlined the procedure for getting to the dreaming body.
He said that it starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being
sustained breeds unbending intent. Unbending intent leads to internal
silence, and internal silence to the inner strength needed to make the
assemblage point shift in dreams to suitable positions.
He called this sequence the groundwork. The development of control
comes after the groundwork has been completed; it consists of systematically
maintaining the dreaming position by doggedly holding on to the vision of
the dream. Steady practice results in a great facility to hold new dreaming
positions with new dreams, not so much because one gains deliberate control
with practice, but because every time this control is exercised the inner
strength gets fortified. Fortified inner strength in turn makes the
assemblage point shift into dreaming positions, which are more and more
suitable to fostering sobriety; in other words, dreams by themselves become
more and more manageable, even orderly.
"The development of dreamers is indirect," he went on. "That's why the
new seers believed we can do dreaming by ourselves, alone. Since dreaming
uses a natural, built-in shift of the assemblage point, we should need no
one to help us.
"What we badly need is sobriety, and no one can give it to us or help
us get it except ourselves. Without it, the shift of the assemblage point is
chaotic, as our ordinary dreams are chaotic.
"So, all in all, the procedure to get to the dreaming body is
impeccability in our daily life."
Don Juan explained that once sobriety is acquired and the dreaming
positions become increasingly stronger, the next step is to wake up at any
dreaming position. He remarked that the maneuver, although made to sound
simple, was really a very complex affair-- so complex that it requires not
only sobriety but all the attributes of warriorship as well, especially
intent.
I asked him how intent helps seers wake up at a dreaming position. He
replied that intent, being the most sophisticated control of the force of
alignment, is what maintains, through the dreamer's sobriety, the alignment
of whatever emanations have been lit up by the movement of the assemblage
point.
Don Juan said that there is one more formidable pitfall of dreaming:
the very strength of the dreaming body. For example, it is very easy for the
dreaming body to gaze at the Eagle's emanations uninterruptedly for long
periods of time, but it is also very easy in the end for the dreaming body
to be totally consumed by them. Seers who gazed at the Eagle's emanations
without their dreaming bodies died, and those who gazed at them with their
dreaming bodies burned with the fire from within. The new seers solved the
problem by seeing in teams. While one seer gazed at the emanations, others
stood by ready to end the seeing.
"How did the new seers see in teams?" I asked.
"They dreamed together, '" he replied. "As you yourself know, it's
perfectly possible for a group of seers to activate the same unused
emanations. And in this case also, there are no known steps, it just
happens; there is no technique to follow."
He added that in dreaming together, something in us takes the lead and
suddenly we find ourselves sharing the same view with other dreamers. What
happens is that our human condition makes us focus the glow of awareness
automatically on the same emanations that other human beings are using; we
adjust the position of our assemblage points to fit the others around us. We
do that on the right side, in our ordinary perception, and we also do it on
the left side, while dreaming together.
12 The Nagual Julian
There was a strange excitement in the house. All the seers of don
Juan's party seemed to be so elated that they were actually absentminded, a
thing that I had never witnessed before. Their usual high level of energy
appeared to have increased. I became very apprehensive. I asked don Juan
about it. He took me to the back patio. We walked in silence for a moment.
He said that the time was getting closer for all of them to leave. He was
pressing his explanation in order to finish it in time.
"How do you know that you are closer to leaving?" I asked.
"It is an internal knowledge," he said. "You'll know it someday
yourself. You see, the nagual Julian made my assemblage point shift
countless times, just as I have made yours shift. Then he left me the task
of realigning all those emanations which he had helped me align through
these shifts. That is the task that every nagual is left to do.
"At any rate, the job of realigning all those emanations paves the way
for the peculiar maneuver of lighting up all the emanations inside the
cocoon. I have nearly done that. I am about to reach my maximum. Since I am
the nagual, once I do light up all the emanations inside my cocoon we will
all be gone in an instant."
I felt I should be sad and weep, but something in me was so overjoyed
to hear that the nagual Juan Matus was about to be free that I jumped and
yelled with sheer delight. I knew that sooner or later I would reach another
state of awareness and I would weep with sadness. But that day I was filled
with happiness and optimism.
I told don Juan how I felt. He laughed and patted my back.
"Remember what I've told you," he said. "Don't count on emotional
realizations. Let your assemblage point move first, then years later have
the realization."
We walked to the big room and sat down to talk. Don Juan hesitated for
a moment. He looked out of the window. From my chair I could see the patio.
It was early afternoon; a cloudy day. It looked like rain. Thunderhead
clouds were moving in from the west. I liked cloudy days. Don Juan did not.
He seemed restless as he tried to find a more comfortable sitting position.
Don Juan began his elucidation by commenting that the difficulty in
remembering what takes place in heightened awareness is due to the
infinitude of positions that the assemblage point can adopt after being
loosened from its normal setting. Facility in remembering everything that
takes place in normal awareness, on the other hand, has to do with the
fixity of the assemblage point on one spot, the spot where it normally sets.
He told me that he commiserated with me. He suggested that I accept the
difficulty of recollecting and acknowledge that I might fail in my task and
never be able to realign all the emanations that he had helped me align.
"Think of it this way," he said, smiling. "You may never be able to
remember this very conversation that we are having now, which at this moment
seems to you so commonplace, so taken for granted.
"This indeed is the mystery of awareness. Human beings reek of that
mystery; we reek of darkness, of things which are inexplicable. To regard
ourselves in any other terms is madness. So don't demean the mystery of man
in you by feeling sorry for yourself or by trying to rationalize it. Demean
the stupidity of man in you by understanding it. But don't apologize for
either; both are needed.
"One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against
the stupidity in each of us."
He explained that stalking practices are not something one can rejoice
in; in fact, they are downright objectionable. Knowing this, the new seers
realize that it would be against everybody's interest to discuss or practice
the principles of stalking in normal awareness.
I pointed out to him an incongruity. He had said that there is no way
for warriors to act in the world while they are in heightened awareness, and
he had also said that stalking is simply behaving with people in specific
ways. The two statements contradicted each other.
"By not teaching it in normal awareness I was referring only to
teaching it to a nagual," he said. "The purpose of stalking is twofold:
first, to move the assemblage point as steadily and safely as possible, and
nothing can do the job as well as stalking: second, to imprint its
principles at such a deep level that the human inventory is bypassed, as is
the natural reaction of refusing and judging something that may be offensive
to reason."
I told him that I sincerely doubted I could judge or refuse anything
like that. He laughed and said that I could not be an exception, that I
would react like everyone else once I heard about the deeds of a master
stalker, such as his benefactor, the nagual Julian.
"I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the nagual Julian was the
most extraordinary stalker I have ever met," don Juan said. "You have
already heard about his stalking skills from everybody else. But I've never
told you what he did to me."
I wanted to make it clear to him that I had not heard anything about
the nagual Julian from anyone, but just before I voiced my protest a strange
feeling of uncertainty swept over me. Don Juan seemed to know instantly what
I was feeling. He chuckled with delight.
"You can't remember, because will is not available to you yet," he
said. "You need a life of impeccability and a great surplus of energy, and
then will might release those memories.
"I am going to tell you the story of how the nagual Julian behaved with
me when I first met him. If you judge him and find his behavior
objectionable while you are in heightened awareness, think of how revolted
you might be with him in normal awareness."
I protested that he was setting me up. He assured me that all he wanted
to do with his story was to illustrate the manner in which stalkers operate
and the reasons why they do it.
"The nagual Julian was the last of the old-time stalkers," he went on.
"He was a stalker not so much because of the circumstances of his life but
because that was the bent of his character."
Don Juan explained that the new seers saw that there are two main
groups of human beings: those who care about others and those who do not. In
between these two extremes they saw an endless mixture of the two. The
nagual Julian belonged to the category of men who do not care; don Juan
classified himself as belonging to the opposite category.
"But didn't you tell me that the nagual Julian was generous, that he
would give you the shirt off his back?" I asked.
"He certainly was," don Juan replied. "Not only was he generous; he was
also utterly charming, winning. He was always deeply and sincerely
interested in everybody around him. He was kind and open and gave away
everything he had to anyone who needed it, or to anyone he happened to like.
He was in turn loved by everyone, because being a master stalker, he
conveyed to them his true feelings: he didn't give a plugged nickel for any
of them."
I did not say anything, but don Juan was aware of my sense of disbelief
or even distress at what he was saying. He chuckled and shook his head from
side to side.
"That's stalking," he said. "You see, I haven't even begun my story of
the nagual Julian and you are already annoyed."
He exploded into a giant laugh as I tried to explain what I was
feeling.
"The nagual Julian didn't care about anyone," he continued. "That's why
he could help people. And he did; he gave them the shirt off his back,
because he didn't give a fig about them."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that the only ones who help their fellow men
are those who don't give a damn about them?" I asked, truly miffed.
"That's what stalkers say," he said with a beaming smile. "The nagual
Julian, for instance, was a fabulous curer. He helped thousands and
thousands of people, but he never took credit for it. He let people believe
that a woman seer of his party was the curer.
"Now, if he had been a man who cared for his fellow men, he would've
demanded acknowledgment. Those who care for others care for themselves and
demand recognition where recognition is due."
Don Juan said that he, since he belonged to the category of those who
care for their fellow men, had never helped anyone: he felt awkward with
generosity; he could not even conceive being loved as the nagual Julian was,
and he would certainly feel stupid giving anyone the shirt off his back.
"I care so much for my fellow man," he continued, "that I don't do
anything for him. I wouldn't know what to do. And I would always have the
nagging sense that I was imposing my will on him with my gifts.
"Naturally, I have overcome all these feelings with the warriors' way.
Any warrior can be successful with people, as the nagual Julian was,
provided he moves his assemblage point to a position where it is immaterial
whether people like him, dislike him, or ignore him. But that's not the
same."
Don Juan said that when he first became aware of the stalkers'
principles, as I was then doing, he was as distressed as he could be. The
nagual Elias, who was very much like don Juan, explained to him that
stalkers like the nagual Julian are natural leaders of people. They can help
people do anything.
"The nagual Elias said that these warriors can help people to get
cured," don Juan went on, "or they can help them to get ill. They can help
them to find happiness or they can help them to find sorrow. I suggested to
the nagual Elias that instead of saying that these warriors help people, we
should say that they affect people. He said that they don't just affect
people, but that they actively herd them around."
Don Juan chuckled and looked at me fixedly. There was a mischievous
glint in his eyes.
"Strange, isn't it?" he asked. "The way stalkers arranged what they see
about people?"
Then don Juan started his story about the nagual Julian. He said that
the nagual Julian spent many, many years waiting for an apprentice nagual.
He stumbled on don Juan one day while returning home after a short visit
with acquaintances in a nearby village. He was, in fact, thinking about an
apprentice nagual as he walked on the road when he heard a loud gunshot and
saw people scrambling in every direction. He ran with them into the bushes
by the side of the road and only came out from his hiding place at the sight
of a group of people gathered around someone wounded, lying on the ground.
The wounded person was, of course, don Juan, who had been shot by the
tyrannical foreman. The nagual Julian saw instantly that don Juan was a
special man whose cocoon was divided into four sections instead of two; he
also realized that don Juan was badly wounded. He knew that he had no time
to waste. His wish had been fulfilled, but he had to work fast, before
anyone sensed what was going on. He held his head and cried, "They've shot
my son!"
He was traveling with one of the female seers of his party, a husky
Indian woman, who always officiated publicly as his mean shrewish wife. They
were an excellent team of stalkers. He cued the woman seer, and she also
started weeping and wailing for their son, who was unconscious and bleeding
to death. The nagual Julian begged the onlookers not to call the authorities
but rather to help him move his son to his house in the city, which was some
distance away. He offered money to some strong young men if they would carry
his wounded, dying son.
The men carried don Juan to the nagual Julian's house. The nagual was
very generous with them and paid them handsomely. The men were so touched by
the grieving couple, who had cried all the way to the house, that they
refused to take the money, but the nagual Julian insisted that they take it
to give his son luck.
For a few days, don Juan did not know what to think about the kind
couple who had taken him into their home. He said that to him, the nagual
Julian appeared as an almost senile old man. He was not an Indian, but was
married to a young, irascible, fat Indian wife, who was as physically strong
as she was ill-tempered. Don Juan thought that she was definitely a curer,
judging by the way she treated his wound and by the quantities of medicinal
plants stashed away in the room where they had put him.
The woman also dominated the old man and made him tend to don Juan's
wound every day. They had made a bed for don Juan out of a thick floor mat,
and the old man had a terrible time kneeling down to reach him. Don Juan had
the largest amount of emanations with man, not the emanations of awareness,
but other emanations in general.
"Another thing unique about plants is that their luminosities have
different casts. They are pinkish in general, because their awareness is
pink. Poisonous plants are a pale yellow pink and medicinal plants are a
bright violet pink. The only ones that are white pink are power plants; some
are murky white, others are brilliant white.
"But the real difference between plants and other organic beings is the
location of their assemblage points. Plants have it on the lower part of
their cocoon, while other organic beings have it on the upper part of their
cocoon."
"What about the inorganic beings?" I asked. "Where do they have their
assemblage points?"
"Some have it on the lower part of their containers," he said. "Those
are thoroughly alien to man, but akin to plants. Others have it anywhere on
the upper part of their containers. Those are close to man and other organic
creatures."
He added that the old seers were convinced that plants have the most
intense communication with inorganic beings. They believed that the lower
the assemblage point, the easier for plants to break the barrier of
perception; very large trees and very small plants have their assemblage
points extremely low in their cocoon. Because of this, a great number of the
old seers' sorcery techniques were means to harness the awareness of trees
and small plants in order to use them as guides to descend to what they
called the deepest levels of the dark regions.
"You understand, of course," don Juan went on, "that when they thought
they were descending to the depths, they were, in fact, pushing their
assemblage points to assemble other perceivable worlds with those seven
great bands.
"They taxed their awareness to the limit and assembled worlds with five
great bands that are accessible to seers only if they undergo a dangerous
transformation."
"But did the old seers succeed in assembling those worlds?" I asked.
"They did," he said. "In their aberration they believed it was worth
their while to break all the barriers of perception, even if they had to
become trees to do that."
11 Stalking, Intent and the Dreaming Position
The next day, in the early evening again, don Juan came to the room
where I was talking with Genaro. He took me by the arm and walked me through
the house to the back patio. It was already fairly dark. We started to walk
around in the corridor that encircled the patio.
As we walked, don Juan told me that he wanted to warn me once again
that it is very easy in the path of knowledge to get lost in intricacies and
morbidity. He said that seers are up against great enemies that can destroy
their purpose, muddle their aims, and make them weak; enemies created by the
warriors' path itself together with the sense of indolence, laziness, and
self-importance that are integral parts of the daily world.
He remarked that the mistakes the ancient seers made as a result of
indolence, laziness, and self-importance were so enormous and so grave that
the new seers had no option but to scorn and reject their own tradition.
"The most important thing the new seers needed," don Juan continued,
"was practical steps in order to make their assemblage points shift. Since
they had none, they began by developing a keen interest in seeing the glow
of awareness, and as a result they worked out three sets of techniques that
became their cornerstone."
Don Juan said that with these three sets, the new seers accomplished a
most extraordinary and difficult feat. They succeeded in systematically
making the assemblage point shift away from its customary position. He
acknowledged that the old seers had also accomplished that feat, but by
means of capricious, idiosyncratic maneuvers.
He explained that what the new seers saw in the glow of awareness
resulted in the sequence in which they arranged the old seers' truths about
awareness. This is known as the mastery of awareness. From that, they
developed the three sets of techniques. The first is the mastery of
stalking, the second is the mastery of intent, and the third is the mastery
of dreaming. He maintained that he had taught me these three sets from the
very first day we met.
He told me that he had taught me the mastery of awareness in two ways,
just as the new seers recommend. In his teachings for the right side, which
he had done in normal awareness, he accomplished two goals: he taught me the
warriors' way, and he loosened my assemblage point from its original
position. In his teachings for the left side, which he had done in
heightened awareness, he also accomplished two goals: he had made my
assemblage point shift to as many positions as I was capable of sustaining,
and he had given me a long series of explanations.
Don Juan stopped talking and stared at me fixedly. There was an awkward
silence; then he started to talk about stalking. He said that it had very
humble and fortuitous origins. It started from an observation the new seers
made that when warriors steadily behave in ways not customary for them, the
unused emanations inside their cocoons begin to glow. And their assemblage
points shift in a mild, harmonious, barely noticeable fashion.
Stimulated by this observation, the new seers began to practice the
systematic control of their behavior. They called this practice the art of
stalking. Don Juan remarked that the name, although objectionable, was
appropriate, because stalking entailed a specific kind of behavior with
people, behavior that could be categorized as surreptitious.
The new seers, armed with this technique, tackled the known in a sober
and fruitful way. By continual practice, they made their assemblage points
move steadily.
"Stalking is one of the two greatest accomplishments of the new seers."
he said. "The new seers decided that it should be taught to a modern-day
nagual when his assemblage point has moved quite deep into the left side.
The reason for this decision is that a nagual must learn the principles of
stalking without the encumbrance of the human inventory. After all, the
nagual is the leader of a group, and to lead them he has to act quickly
without first having to think about it.
"Other warriors can learn stalking in their normal awareness, although
it is advisable that they do it in heightened awareness-- not so much
because of the value of heightened awareness, but because it imbues stalking
with a mystery that it doesn't really have; stalking is merely behavior with
people."
He said that I could now understand that shifting the assemblage point
was the reason why the new seers placed such a high value on the interaction
with petty tyrants. Petty tyrants forced seers to use the principles of
stalking and, in doing so, helped seers to move their assemblage points.
I asked him if the old seers knew anything at all about the principles
of stalking.
'"Stalking belongs exclusively to the new seers," he said, smiling.
"They are the only seers who had to deal with people. The old ones were so
wrapped up in their sense of power that they didn't even know that people
existed, until people started clobbering them on the head. But you already
know all this."
Don Juan said next that the mastery of intent together with the mastery
of stalking are the new seers' two masterpieces, which mark the arrival of
the modern-day seers. He explained that in their efforts to gain an
advantage over their oppressors the new seers pursued every possibility.
They knew that
describe as power. The new seers had very little information about that
force, so they were obliged to examine it systematically through seeing.
Their efforts were amply rewarded when they discovered that the energy of
alignment is that force.
They began by seeing how the glow of awareness increases in size and
intensity as the emanations inside the cocoon are aligned with the
emanations at large. They used that observation as a springboard, just as
they had done with stalking, and went on to develop a complex series of
techniques to handle that alignment of emanations.
At first they referred to those techniques as the mastery of alignment.
Then they realized that what was involved was much more than alignment; what
was involved was the energy that comes out of the alignment of emanations.
They called that energy will.
Will became the second basis. The new seers understood it as a blind,
impersonal, ceaseless burst of energy that makes us behave in the ways we
do. Will accounts for our perception of the world of ordinary affairs, and
indirectly, through the force of that perception, it accounts for the
placement of the assemblage point in its customary position.
Don Juan said that the new seers examined how the perception of the
world of everyday life takes place and saw the effects of will. They saw
that alignment is ceaselessly renewed in order to imbue perception with
continuity. To renew alignment every time with the freshness that it needs
to make up a living world, the burst of energy that comes out of those very
alignments is automatically rerouted to reinforce some choice alignments.
This new observation served the new seers as another springboard that
helped them reach the third basis of the set. They called it intent, and
they described it as the purposeful guiding of will, the energy of
alignment.
"Silvio Manuel, Genaro, and Vicente were pushed by the nagual Julian to
learn those three aspects of the seers' knowledge," he went on. "Genaro is
the master of handling awareness, Vicente is the master of stalking, and
Silvio Manuel is the master of intent.
"We are now doing a final explanation of the mastery of awareness; this
is why Genaro is helping you."
Don Juan talked to the female apprentices for a long time. The women
listened with serious expressions on their faces. I felt sure he was giving
them detailed instructions about difficult procedures, judging from the
women's fierce concentration.
I had been barred from their meeting, but I had watched them as they
talked in the front room of Genaro's house. I sat at the kitchen table,
waiting until they were through.
Then the women got up to leave, but before they did, they came to the
kitchen with don Juan. He sat down facing me while the women talked to me
with awkward formality. They actually embraced me. All of them were
unusually friendly, even talkative. They said that they were going to join
the male apprentices, who had gone with Genaro hours earlier. Genaro was
going to show all of them his dreaming body.
As soon as the women left, don Juan quite abruptly resumed his
explanation. He said that as time passed and the new seers established their
practices, they realized that under the prevailing conditions of life,
stalking only moved the assemblage points minimally. For maximum effect,
stalking needed an ideal setting; it needed petty tyrants in positions of
great authority and power. It became increasingly difficult for the new
seers to place themselves in such situations; the task of improvising them
or seeking them out became an unbearable burden.
The new seers deemed it imperative to see the Eagle's emanations in
order to find a more suitable way to move the assemblage point. As they
tried to see the emanations they were faced with a very serious problem.
They found out that there is no way to see them without running a mortal
risk, and yet they had to see them. That was the time when they used the old
seers' technique of dreaming as a shield to protect themselves from the
deadly blow of the Eagle's emanations. And in doing so, they realized that
dreaming was in itself the most effective way to move the assemblage point.
"One of the strictest commands of the new seers," don Juan continued,
"was that warriors have to learn dreaming while they are in their normal
state of awareness. Following that command, I began teaching you dreaming
almost from the first day we met."
"Why do the new seers command that dreaming has to be taught in normal
awareness?" I asked.
"Because dreaming is so dangerous and dreamers so vulnerable," he said.
"It is dangerous because it has inconceivable power; it makes dreamers
vulnerable because it leaves them at the mercy of the incomprehensible force
of alignment.
"The new seers realized that in our normal state of awareness, we have
countless defenses that can safeguard us against the force of unused
emanations that suddenly become aligned in dreaming."
Don Juan explained that dreaming, like stalking, began with a simple
observation. The old seers became aware that in dreams the assemblage point
shifts slightly to the left side in a most natural manner. That point indeed
relaxes when man sleeps and all kinds of unused emanations begin to glow.
The old seers became immediately intrigued with that observation and
began to work with that natural shift until they were able to control it.
They called that control dreaming, or the art of handling the dreaming body.
He remarked that there is hardly a way of describing the immensity of
their knowledge about dreaming. Very little of it, however, was of any use
to the new seers. So when the time of reconstruction came, the new seers
took for themselves only the bare essentials of dreaming to aid them in
seeing the Eagle's emanations and to help them move their assemblage points.
He said that seers, old and new, understand dreaming as being the
control of the natural shift that the assemblage point undergoes in sleep.
He stressed that to control that shift does not mean in any way to direct
it, but to keep the assemblage point fixed at the position where it
naturally moves in sleep, a most difficult maneuver that took the old seers
enormous effort and concentration to accomplish.
Don Juan explained that dreamers have to strike a very subtle balance,
for dreams cannot be interfered with, nor can they be commanded by the
conscious effort of the dreamer, and yet the shift of the assemblage point
must obey the dreamer's command-- a contradiction that cannot be
rationalized but must be resolved in practice.
After observing dreamers while they slept, the old seers hit upon the
solution of letting dreams follow their natural course. They had seen that
in some dreams, the assemblage point of the dreamer would drift considerably
deeper into the left side than in other dreams. This observation posed to
them the question of whether the content of the dream makes the assemblage
point move, or the movement of the assemblage point by itself produces the
content of the dream by activating unused emanations.
They soon realized that the shifting of the assemblage point into the
left side is what produces dreams. The farther the movement, the more vivid
and bizarre the dream. Inevitably, they attempted to command their dreams,
aiming to make their assemblage points move deeply into the left side. Upon
trying it, they discovered that when dreams are consciously or
semiconsciously manipulated, the assemblage point immediately returns to its
usual place. Since what they wanted was for that point to move, they reached
the unavoidable conclusion that interfering with dreams was interfering with
the natural shift of the assemblage point.
Don Juan said that from there the old seers went on to develop their
astounding knowledge on the subject -- a knowledge which had a tremendous
bearing on what the new seers aspired to do with dreaming, but was of little
use to them in its original form.
He told me that thus far I had understood dreaming as being the control
of dreams, and that every one of the exercises he had given me to perform,
such as finding my hands in my dreams, was not, although it might seem to
be, aimed at teaching me to command my dreams. Those exercises were designed
to keep my assemblage point fixed at the place where it had moved in my
sleep. It is here that the dreamers have to strike a subtle balance. All
they can direct is the fixation of their assemblage points. Seers are like
fishermen equipped with a line that casts itself wherever it may; the only
thing they can do is keep the line anchored at the place where it sinks.
"Wherever the assemblage point moves in dreams is called the dreaming
position,"' he went on. "The old seers became so expert at keeping their
dreaming position that they were even able to wake up while their assemblage
points were anchored there.
"The old seers called that state the dreaming body, because they
controlled it to the extreme of creating a temporary new body every time
they woke up at a new dreaming position.
"I have to make it clear to you that dreaming has a terrible drawback,"
he went on. "It belongs to the old seers. It's tainted with their mood. I've
been very careful in guiding you through it, but still there is no way to
make sure."
"What are you warning me about, don Juan?" I asked.
"I'm warning you about the pitfalls of dreaming, which are truly
stupendous," he replied. "In dreaming, there is really no way of directing
the movement of the assemblage point; the only thing that dictates that
shift is the inner strength or weakness of dreamers. Right there we have the
first pitfall."
He said that at first the new seers were hesitant to use dreaming. It
was their belief that dreaming, instead of fortifying, made warriors weak,
compulsive, capricious. The old seers were all like that. In order to offset
the nefarious effect of dreaming, since they had no other option but to use
it, the new seers developed a complex and rich system of behavior called the
warriors' way, or the warriors' path.
With that system, the new seers fortified themselves and acquired the
internal strength they needed to guide the shift of the assemblage point in
dreams. Don Juan stressed that the strength that he was talking about was
not conviction alone. No one could have had stronger convictions than the
old seers, and yet they were weak to the core. Internal strength meant a
sense of equanimity, almost of indifference, a feeling of being at ease,
but, above all, it meant a natural and profound bent for examination, for
understanding. The new seers called all these traits of character sobriety.
"The conviction that the new seers have," he continued, "is that a life
of impeccability by itself leads unavoidably to a sense of sobriety, and
this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point.
"I've said that the new seers believed that the assemblage point can be
moved from within. They went one step further and maintained that impeccable
men need no one to guide them, that by themselves, through saving their
energy, they can do everything that seers do. All they need is a minimal
chance, just to be cognizant of the possibilities that seers have
unraveled."
I told him that we were back in the same position we had been in in my
normal state of awareness. I was still convinced that impeccability or
saving energy was something so vague that it could be interpreted by anyone
in whatever whimsical way he wanted.
I wanted to say more to build my argument, but a strange feeling
overtook me. It was an actual physical sensation that I was rushing through
something. And then I rebuffed my own argument. I knew without any doubt
whatsoever that don Juan was right. All that is required is impeccability,
energy, and that begins with a single act that has to be deliberate,
precise, and sustained. If that act is repeated long enough, one acquires a
sense of unbending intent, which can be applied to anything else. If that is
accomplished the road is clear. One thing will lead to another until the
warrior realizes his full potential.
When I told don Juan what I had just realized, he laughed with apparent
delight and exclaimed that this was indeed a godsent example of the strength
that he was talking about. He explained that my assemblage point had
shifted, and that it had been moved by sobriety to a position that fostered
understanding. It could have as well been moved by capriciousness to a
position that only enhances self-importance, as had been the case many times
before.
"Let's talk now about the dreaming body."' he went on. "The old seers
concentrated all their efforts on exploring and exploiting the dreaming
body. And they succeeded in using it as a more practical body, which is
tantamount to saying they recreated themselves in increasingly weird ways."
Don Juan maintained that it is common knowledge among the new seers
that flocks of the old sorcerers never came back after waking up at a
dreaming position of their liking. He said that chances are they all died in
those inconceivable worlds, or they may still be alive today in who knows
what kind of contorted shape or manner.
He stopped and looked at me and broke into a great laugh.
"You're dying to ask me what the old seers did with the dreaming body,
aren't you?" he asked, and urged me with a movement of his chin to ask the
question.
Don Juan stated that Genaro, being the indisputable master of
awareness, had shown me the dreaming body many times while I was in a state
of normal awareness. The effect that Genaro was after with his
demonstrations was to make my assemblage point move, not from a position of
heightened awareness, but from its normal setting.
Don Juan told me then, as if he were letting a secret be known, that
Genaro was waiting for us in some fields near the house to show me his
dreaming body. He repeated over and over that I was now in the perfect state
of awareness to see and understand what the dreaming body really is. Then he
had me get up, and we walked through the front room to reach the door to the
outside. As I was about to open the door, I noticed that someone was lying
on the pile of floor mats that the apprentices used as beds. I thought that
one of the apprentices must have returned to the house while don Juan and I
were talking in the kitchen.
I went up to him, and then I realized that it was Genaro. He was sound
asleep, snoring peacefully, lying face down.
"Wake him up," don Juan said to me. "We've got to be going. He must be
dead tired."
I gently shook Genaro. He slowly turned around, made the sounds of
someone waking up from a deep slumber. He stretched his arms, and then he
opened his eyes. I screamed involuntarily and jumped back.
Genaro's eyes were not human eyes at all. They were two points of
intense amber light. The jolt of my fright had been so intense that I became
dizzy. Don Juan tapped my back and restored my equilibrium.
Genaro stood up and smiled at me. His features were rigid. He moved as
if he were drunk or physically impaired. He walked by me and headed directly
for the wall. I winced at the imminent crash, but he went through the wall
as if it were not there at all. He came back into the room through the
kitchen doorway. And then, as I looked in true horror, Genaro walked on the
walls, with his body parallel to the ground, and on the ceiling, with his
head upside down.
I fell backwards as I tried to follow his movements. From that position
I didn't see Genaro anymore; instead I was looking at a blob of light that
moved on the ceiling above me and on the walls, circling the room. It was as
if someone with a giant flashlight was shining the beam on the ceiling and
the walls. The beam of light was finally turned off. It disappeared from
view by vanishing against a wall.
Don Juan remarked that my animal fright was always out of measure, that
I had to struggle to bring it under control, but that all in all, I had
behaved very well. I had seen Genaro's dreaming body as it really is, a blob
of light.
I asked him how he was so sure I had done that. He replied that he had
seen my assemblage point first move toward its normal setting in order to
compensate for my fright, then move deeper into the left, beyond the point
where there are no doubts.
"At that position there is only one thing one can see: blobs of
energy," he went on. "But from heightened awareness to that other point
deeper into the left side, it is only a short hop. The real feat is to make
the assemblage point shift from its normal setting to the point of no
doubt."
He added that we still had an appointment with Genaro's dreaming body
in the fields around the house, while I was in normal awareness.
When we were back in Silvio Manuel's house, don Juan said that Genaro's
proficiency with the dreaming body was a very minor affair compared with
what the old seers did with it.
"You'll see that very soon," he said with an ominous tone, then
laughed.
I questioned him about it with mounting fear, and that only evoked more
laughter. He finally stopped and said that he was going to talk about the
way the new seers got to the dreaming body and the way they used it.
"The old seers were after a perfect replica of the body," he continued,
"and they nearly succeeded in getting one. The only thing they never could
copy was the eyes. Instead of eyes, the dreaming body has just the glow of
awareness. You never realized that before, when Genaro used to show you his
dreaming body.
"The new seers could not care less about a perfect replica of the body;
in fact, they are not even interested in copying the body at all. But they
have kept just the name dreaming body to mean a feeling, a surge of energy
that is transported by the movement of the assemblage point to any place in
this world, or to any place in the seven worlds available to man."
Don Juan then outlined the procedure for getting to the dreaming body.
He said that it starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being
sustained breeds unbending intent. Unbending intent leads to internal
silence, and internal silence to the inner strength needed to make the
assemblage point shift in dreams to suitable positions.
He called this sequence the groundwork. The development of control
comes after the groundwork has been completed; it consists of systematically
maintaining the dreaming position by doggedly holding on to the vision of
the dream. Steady practice results in a great facility to hold new dreaming
positions with new dreams, not so much because one gains deliberate control
with practice, but because every time this control is exercised the inner
strength gets fortified. Fortified inner strength in turn makes the
assemblage point shift into dreaming positions, which are more and more
suitable to fostering sobriety; in other words, dreams by themselves become
more and more manageable, even orderly.
"The development of dreamers is indirect," he went on. "That's why the
new seers believed we can do dreaming by ourselves, alone. Since dreaming
uses a natural, built-in shift of the assemblage point, we should need no
one to help us.
"What we badly need is sobriety, and no one can give it to us or help
us get it except ourselves. Without it, the shift of the assemblage point is
chaotic, as our ordinary dreams are chaotic.
"So, all in all, the procedure to get to the dreaming body is
impeccability in our daily life."
Don Juan explained that once sobriety is acquired and the dreaming
positions become increasingly stronger, the next step is to wake up at any
dreaming position. He remarked that the maneuver, although made to sound
simple, was really a very complex affair-- so complex that it requires not
only sobriety but all the attributes of warriorship as well, especially
intent.
I asked him how intent helps seers wake up at a dreaming position. He
replied that intent, being the most sophisticated control of the force of
alignment, is what maintains, through the dreamer's sobriety, the alignment
of whatever emanations have been lit up by the movement of the assemblage
point.
Don Juan said that there is one more formidable pitfall of dreaming:
the very strength of the dreaming body. For example, it is very easy for the
dreaming body to gaze at the Eagle's emanations uninterruptedly for long
periods of time, but it is also very easy in the end for the dreaming body
to be totally consumed by them. Seers who gazed at the Eagle's emanations
without their dreaming bodies died, and those who gazed at them with their
dreaming bodies burned with the fire from within. The new seers solved the
problem by seeing in teams. While one seer gazed at the emanations, others
stood by ready to end the seeing.
"How did the new seers see in teams?" I asked.
"They dreamed together, '" he replied. "As you yourself know, it's
perfectly possible for a group of seers to activate the same unused
emanations. And in this case also, there are no known steps, it just
happens; there is no technique to follow."
He added that in dreaming together, something in us takes the lead and
suddenly we find ourselves sharing the same view with other dreamers. What
happens is that our human condition makes us focus the glow of awareness
automatically on the same emanations that other human beings are using; we
adjust the position of our assemblage points to fit the others around us. We
do that on the right side, in our ordinary perception, and we also do it on
the left side, while dreaming together.
12 The Nagual Julian
There was a strange excitement in the house. All the seers of don
Juan's party seemed to be so elated that they were actually absentminded, a
thing that I had never witnessed before. Their usual high level of energy
appeared to have increased. I became very apprehensive. I asked don Juan
about it. He took me to the back patio. We walked in silence for a moment.
He said that the time was getting closer for all of them to leave. He was
pressing his explanation in order to finish it in time.
"How do you know that you are closer to leaving?" I asked.
"It is an internal knowledge," he said. "You'll know it someday
yourself. You see, the nagual Julian made my assemblage point shift
countless times, just as I have made yours shift. Then he left me the task
of realigning all those emanations which he had helped me align through
these shifts. That is the task that every nagual is left to do.
"At any rate, the job of realigning all those emanations paves the way
for the peculiar maneuver of lighting up all the emanations inside the
cocoon. I have nearly done that. I am about to reach my maximum. Since I am
the nagual, once I do light up all the emanations inside my cocoon we will
all be gone in an instant."
I felt I should be sad and weep, but something in me was so overjoyed
to hear that the nagual Juan Matus was about to be free that I jumped and
yelled with sheer delight. I knew that sooner or later I would reach another
state of awareness and I would weep with sadness. But that day I was filled
with happiness and optimism.
I told don Juan how I felt. He laughed and patted my back.
"Remember what I've told you," he said. "Don't count on emotional
realizations. Let your assemblage point move first, then years later have
the realization."
We walked to the big room and sat down to talk. Don Juan hesitated for
a moment. He looked out of the window. From my chair I could see the patio.
It was early afternoon; a cloudy day. It looked like rain. Thunderhead
clouds were moving in from the west. I liked cloudy days. Don Juan did not.
He seemed restless as he tried to find a more comfortable sitting position.
Don Juan began his elucidation by commenting that the difficulty in
remembering what takes place in heightened awareness is due to the
infinitude of positions that the assemblage point can adopt after being
loosened from its normal setting. Facility in remembering everything that
takes place in normal awareness, on the other hand, has to do with the
fixity of the assemblage point on one spot, the spot where it normally sets.
He told me that he commiserated with me. He suggested that I accept the
difficulty of recollecting and acknowledge that I might fail in my task and
never be able to realign all the emanations that he had helped me align.
"Think of it this way," he said, smiling. "You may never be able to
remember this very conversation that we are having now, which at this moment
seems to you so commonplace, so taken for granted.
"This indeed is the mystery of awareness. Human beings reek of that
mystery; we reek of darkness, of things which are inexplicable. To regard
ourselves in any other terms is madness. So don't demean the mystery of man
in you by feeling sorry for yourself or by trying to rationalize it. Demean
the stupidity of man in you by understanding it. But don't apologize for
either; both are needed.
"One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against
the stupidity in each of us."
He explained that stalking practices are not something one can rejoice
in; in fact, they are downright objectionable. Knowing this, the new seers
realize that it would be against everybody's interest to discuss or practice
the principles of stalking in normal awareness.
I pointed out to him an incongruity. He had said that there is no way
for warriors to act in the world while they are in heightened awareness, and
he had also said that stalking is simply behaving with people in specific
ways. The two statements contradicted each other.
"By not teaching it in normal awareness I was referring only to
teaching it to a nagual," he said. "The purpose of stalking is twofold:
first, to move the assemblage point as steadily and safely as possible, and
nothing can do the job as well as stalking: second, to imprint its
principles at such a deep level that the human inventory is bypassed, as is
the natural reaction of refusing and judging something that may be offensive
to reason."
I told him that I sincerely doubted I could judge or refuse anything
like that. He laughed and said that I could not be an exception, that I
would react like everyone else once I heard about the deeds of a master
stalker, such as his benefactor, the nagual Julian.
"I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the nagual Julian was the
most extraordinary stalker I have ever met," don Juan said. "You have
already heard about his stalking skills from everybody else. But I've never
told you what he did to me."
I wanted to make it clear to him that I had not heard anything about
the nagual Julian from anyone, but just before I voiced my protest a strange
feeling of uncertainty swept over me. Don Juan seemed to know instantly what
I was feeling. He chuckled with delight.
"You can't remember, because will is not available to you yet," he
said. "You need a life of impeccability and a great surplus of energy, and
then will might release those memories.
"I am going to tell you the story of how the nagual Julian behaved with
me when I first met him. If you judge him and find his behavior
objectionable while you are in heightened awareness, think of how revolted
you might be with him in normal awareness."
I protested that he was setting me up. He assured me that all he wanted
to do with his story was to illustrate the manner in which stalkers operate
and the reasons why they do it.
"The nagual Julian was the last of the old-time stalkers," he went on.
"He was a stalker not so much because of the circumstances of his life but
because that was the bent of his character."
Don Juan explained that the new seers saw that there are two main
groups of human beings: those who care about others and those who do not. In
between these two extremes they saw an endless mixture of the two. The
nagual Julian belonged to the category of men who do not care; don Juan
classified himself as belonging to the opposite category.
"But didn't you tell me that the nagual Julian was generous, that he
would give you the shirt off his back?" I asked.
"He certainly was," don Juan replied. "Not only was he generous; he was
also utterly charming, winning. He was always deeply and sincerely
interested in everybody around him. He was kind and open and gave away
everything he had to anyone who needed it, or to anyone he happened to like.
He was in turn loved by everyone, because being a master stalker, he
conveyed to them his true feelings: he didn't give a plugged nickel for any
of them."
I did not say anything, but don Juan was aware of my sense of disbelief
or even distress at what he was saying. He chuckled and shook his head from
side to side.
"That's stalking," he said. "You see, I haven't even begun my story of
the nagual Julian and you are already annoyed."
He exploded into a giant laugh as I tried to explain what I was
feeling.
"The nagual Julian didn't care about anyone," he continued. "That's why
he could help people. And he did; he gave them the shirt off his back,
because he didn't give a fig about them."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that the only ones who help their fellow men
are those who don't give a damn about them?" I asked, truly miffed.
"That's what stalkers say," he said with a beaming smile. "The nagual
Julian, for instance, was a fabulous curer. He helped thousands and
thousands of people, but he never took credit for it. He let people believe
that a woman seer of his party was the curer.
"Now, if he had been a man who cared for his fellow men, he would've
demanded acknowledgment. Those who care for others care for themselves and
demand recognition where recognition is due."
Don Juan said that he, since he belonged to the category of those who
care for their fellow men, had never helped anyone: he felt awkward with
generosity; he could not even conceive being loved as the nagual Julian was,
and he would certainly feel stupid giving anyone the shirt off his back.
"I care so much for my fellow man," he continued, "that I don't do
anything for him. I wouldn't know what to do. And I would always have the
nagging sense that I was imposing my will on him with my gifts.
"Naturally, I have overcome all these feelings with the warriors' way.
Any warrior can be successful with people, as the nagual Julian was,
provided he moves his assemblage point to a position where it is immaterial
whether people like him, dislike him, or ignore him. But that's not the
same."
Don Juan said that when he first became aware of the stalkers'
principles, as I was then doing, he was as distressed as he could be. The
nagual Elias, who was very much like don Juan, explained to him that
stalkers like the nagual Julian are natural leaders of people. They can help
people do anything.
"The nagual Elias said that these warriors can help people to get
cured," don Juan went on, "or they can help them to get ill. They can help
them to find happiness or they can help them to find sorrow. I suggested to
the nagual Elias that instead of saying that these warriors help people, we
should say that they affect people. He said that they don't just affect
people, but that they actively herd them around."
Don Juan chuckled and looked at me fixedly. There was a mischievous
glint in his eyes.
"Strange, isn't it?" he asked. "The way stalkers arranged what they see
about people?"
Then don Juan started his story about the nagual Julian. He said that
the nagual Julian spent many, many years waiting for an apprentice nagual.
He stumbled on don Juan one day while returning home after a short visit
with acquaintances in a nearby village. He was, in fact, thinking about an
apprentice nagual as he walked on the road when he heard a loud gunshot and
saw people scrambling in every direction. He ran with them into the bushes
by the side of the road and only came out from his hiding place at the sight
of a group of people gathered around someone wounded, lying on the ground.
The wounded person was, of course, don Juan, who had been shot by the
tyrannical foreman. The nagual Julian saw instantly that don Juan was a
special man whose cocoon was divided into four sections instead of two; he
also realized that don Juan was badly wounded. He knew that he had no time
to waste. His wish had been fulfilled, but he had to work fast, before
anyone sensed what was going on. He held his head and cried, "They've shot
my son!"
He was traveling with one of the female seers of his party, a husky
Indian woman, who always officiated publicly as his mean shrewish wife. They
were an excellent team of stalkers. He cued the woman seer, and she also
started weeping and wailing for their son, who was unconscious and bleeding
to death. The nagual Julian begged the onlookers not to call the authorities
but rather to help him move his son to his house in the city, which was some
distance away. He offered money to some strong young men if they would carry
his wounded, dying son.
The men carried don Juan to the nagual Julian's house. The nagual was
very generous with them and paid them handsomely. The men were so touched by
the grieving couple, who had cried all the way to the house, that they
refused to take the money, but the nagual Julian insisted that they take it
to give his son luck.
For a few days, don Juan did not know what to think about the kind
couple who had taken him into their home. He said that to him, the nagual
Julian appeared as an almost senile old man. He was not an Indian, but was
married to a young, irascible, fat Indian wife, who was as physically strong
as she was ill-tempered. Don Juan thought that she was definitely a curer,
judging by the way she treated his wound and by the quantities of medicinal
plants stashed away in the room where they had put him.
The woman also dominated the old man and made him tend to don Juan's
wound every day. They had made a bed for don Juan out of a thick floor mat,
and the old man had a terrible time kneeling down to reach him. Don Juan had