Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

This is another of the sorcerers’ contradictions: it’s very difficult and yet it’s the simplest thing in the world. I’ve told you already that a high fever could move the assemblage point. Hunger or fear or love or hate could do it; mysticism too, and also unbending intent , which is the preferred method of sorcerers.

Unbending intent is a sort of single-mindedness human beings exhibit; an extremely well-defined purpose not countermanded by any conflicting interests or desires; unbending intent is also the force engendered when the assemblage point is maintained fixed in a position which is not the usual one.

The distinction between a movement and a shift of the assemblage point is that a movement is a profound change of position, so extreme that the assemblage point might even reach other bands of energy within our total luminous mass of energy fields. Each band of energy represents a completely different universe to be perceived. A shift, however, is a small movement within the band of energy fields we perceive as the world of everyday life.

Sorcerers see unbending intent as the catalyst to trigger their unchangeable decisions, or as the converse: their unchangeable decisions are the catalyst that propels their assemblage points to new positions, positions which in turn generate unbending intent .

Trying to reason out the sorcerers’ metaphorical descriptions is as useless as trying to reason out silent knowledge.

The world of daily life consists of two points of reference. We have for example, here and there, in and out, up and down, good and evil, and so on and so forth. So, properly speaking, our perception of our lives is two-dimensional. None of what we perceive ourselves doing has depth.

A sorcerer perceives his actions with depth. His actions are tridimensional for him. They have a third point of reference.

Our points of reference are obtained primarily from our sense perception. Our senses perceive and differentiate what is immediate to us from what is not. Using that basic distinction we derive the rest.

In order to reach the third point of reference one must perceive two places at once.

Normal perception has an axis. “Here and there” are the perimeters of that axis, and we are partial to the clarity of “here.” In normal perception, only “here” is perceived completely, instantaneously, and directly. Its twin referent, “there,” lacks immediacy. It is inferred, deduced, expected, even assumed, but it is not apprehended directly with all the senses. When we perceive two places at once, total clarity is lost, but the immediate perception of “there” is gained.

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A sorcerer, because he has a connecting link with intent , sees an oddity as a vehicle to perceiving–not an oddity, but a source of awe.

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Only sorcerers can turn their feelings into intent . Intent is the spirit, so it is the spirit which moves their assemblage points.

The misleading part of all this is that I am saying only sorcerers know about the spirit, that intent is the exclusive domain of sorcerers. This is not true at all, but it is the situation in the realm of practicality. The real condition is that sorcerers are more aware of their connection with the spirit than the average man and strive to manipulate it. That’s all. I’ve already told you, the connecting link with intent is the universal feature shared by everything there is.

Being in two places at once is a milestone sorcerers use to mark the moment the assemblage point reaches the place of silent knowledge. Split perception, if accomplished by one’s own means, is called the free movement of the assemblage point.

Every apprentice must consistently do everything within his power to encourage the free movement of his assemblage point. This all-out effort is cryptically called “reaching out for the third point.”

The third point of reference is freedom of perception; it is intent ; it is the spirit; the somersault of thought into the miraculous; the act of reaching beyond our boundaries and touching the inconceivable.

To discover the possibility of being in two places at once is very exciting to the mind. Since our minds are our rationality, and our rationality is our self-reflection, anything beyond our self-reflection either appalls us or attracts us, depending on what kind of persons we are.

In terms of his connection with intent , a warrior goes through four stages. The first is when he has a rusty, untrustworthy link with intent . The second is when he succeeds in cleaning it. The third is when he learns to manipulate it. And the fourth is when he learns to accept the designs of the abstract.

Your disadvantage in the sorcerers’ world is your lack of familiarity with it. In that world you have to relate yourself to everything in a new way, which is infinitely more difficult, because it has very little to do with your everyday life continuity.

The specific problem of sorcerers is two-fold. One is the impossibility of restoring a shattered continuity; the other is the impossibility of using the continuity dictated by the new position of their assemblage points. That new continuity is always too tenuous, too unstable, and does not offer sorcerers the assuredness they need to function as if they were in the world of everyday life.

Sorcerers don’t resolve this problem. The spirit either resolves it for us or it doesn’t. If it does, a sorcerer finds himself acting in the sorcerers’ world, but without knowing how. This is the reason why I have insisted from the day I found you that impeccability is all that counts. A sorcerer lives an impeccable life, and that seems to beckon the solution. Why? No one knows.

Impeccability, as I have told you so many times, is not morality, it only resembles morality. Impeccability is simply the best use of our energy level. Naturally, it calls for frugality, thoughtfulness, simplicity, innocence; and above all, it calls for lack of self-reflection. All this makes it sound like a manual for monastic life, but it isn’t.

Sorcerers say that in order to command the spirit, and by that they mean to command the movement of the assemblage point, one needs energy. The only thing that stores energy for us is our impeccability.

We do not have to be students of sorcery to move our assemblage point. Sometimes, due to natural although dramatic circumstances, such as war, deprivation, stress, fatigue, sorrow, helplessness, men’s assemblage points undergo profound movements. If the men who find themselves in such circumstances are able to adopt a sorcerer’s ideology, they would be able to maximize that natural movement with no trouble. And they would seek and find extraordinary things instead of doing what men do in such circumstances: crave the return to normalcy.

When a movement of the assemblage point is maximized, both the average man or the apprentice in sorcery becomes a sorcerer, because by maximizing that movement, continuity is shattered beyond repair.

You maximize that movement by curtailing self-reflection. Moving the assemblage point or breaking one’s continuity is not the real difficulty. The real difficulty is having energy. If one has energy, once the assemblage point moves, inconceivable things are there for the asking.

Man’s predicament is that he intuits his hidden resources, but he does not dare use them. This is why sorcerers say that man’s plight is the counterpoint between his stupidity and his ignorance. Man needs now, more so than ever, to be taught new ideas that have to do exclusively with his inner world–sorcerers’ ideas, not social ideas, ideas pertaining to man facing the unknown, facing his personal death. Now, more than anything else, he needs to be taught the secrets of the assemblage point.

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The spirit is indefinable. One cannot even feel it, much less talk about it. One can only beckon it by acknowledging its existence.

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The position of silent knowledge is called the third point because in order to get to it one has to pass the second point, the place of no pity.

Every human being has a capacity for that fluidity. For most of us, however, it is stored away and we never use it, except on rare occasions which are brought about by sorcerers, or by dramatic natural circumstances, such as a life-or-death struggle.

Only a human being who is a paragon of reason can move his assemblage point easily and be a paragon of silent knowledge. Only those who are squarely in either position can see the other position clearly. That was the way the age of reason came to being. The position of reason was clearly seen from the position of silent knowledge.

The one-way bridge from silent knowledge to reason is called “concern.” That is, the concern that true men of silent knowledge have about the source of what they know. And the other one-way bridge, from reason to silent knowledge, is called “pure understanding.” That is, the recognition that tells the man of reason that reason is only one island in an endless sea of islands.