‘ Do you know anyone who ever experienced that?’
‘Yes. / did. Without the wisdom of the lizards I went mad.’
‘What did you see, don Juan?’
‘A bunch of nonsense. What else could I have seen without direction?’
Monday, 28 December 1964
‘You told me, don Juan, that the devil’s weed tests men. What
did you mean by that?’
‘The devil’s weed is like a woman, and like a woman she flatters men. She sets traps for them at every turn. She did it to you when she forced you to rub the paste on your forehead. She will try it again, and you will probably fall for it. I warn you against it. Don’t take her with passion; the devil’s weed is only one path to the secrets of a man of knowledge. There are other paths. But her trap is to make you believe that hers is the only way. I say it is useless to waste your life on one path, especially if that path has no heart.’
‘But how do you know when a path has no heart, don Juan?’
‘ Before you embark on it you ask the question: Does this path have a heart ? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path.’
‘ But how will I know for sure whether a path has a heart or not?’
‘Anybody would know that. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path.’
‘How should I proceed to ask the question properly, don Juan?’
‘Just ask it.’
‘ I mean, is there a proper method, so I would not lie to myself and believe the answer is yes when it really is no?’
‘ Why would you lie ?’
‘Perhaps because at the moment the path is pleasant and enjoyable.’
‘That is nonsense. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.’
Don Juan suddenly changed the direction of the conversation and bluntly confronted me with the idea that I liked the devil’s weed. I had to admit that I had at least a preference for it. He asked me how I felt about his ally, the smoke, and I had to tell him that just the idea of it frightened me out of my senses.
‘I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from fear and ambition. But the smoke blinds you with fear, and the devil’s weed blinds you with ambition.’
I argued that one needs ambition even to embark on any path, and that his statement that one had to be free from ambition did not make sense. A person has to have ambition in order to learn.
‘The desire to learn is not ambition,’ he said. ‘It is our lot as men to want to know, but to seek the devil’s weed is to bid for power, and that is ambition, because you are not bidding to know. Don’t let the devil’s weed blind you. She has hooked you already. She entices men and gives them a sense of power; she makes them feel they can do things that no ordinary man can. But that is her trap. And, the next thing, the path without a heart will turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing.’
10
In the month of December 1964 don Juan and I went to collect the different plants needed to make the smoking mixture. It was the fourth cycle. Don Juan merely supervised my actions. He urged me to take time, to watch, and to deliberate before I picked any of the plants. As soon as the ingredients had been gathered and stored, he prompted me to meet with his ally again.
Thursday, 31 December 1964
‘Now that you know a bit more about the devil’s weed and the smoke, you can tell more clearly which of the two you like better,’ don Juan said.
‘The smoke really terrifies me, don Juan. I don’t know exactly why, but I don’t have a good feeling about it.’
‘You like flattery, and the devil’s weed flatters you. Like a woman, she makes you feel good. The smoke, on the other hand, is the most noble power; he has the purest heart. He does not entice men or make them prisoners, nor does he love or hate. All he requires is strength. The devil’s weed also requires strength, but of a different kind. It is closer to being virile with women. On the other hand, the strength required by the smoke is strength of the heart. You don’t have that! But very few men have it. That is why I recommend that you learn more about the smoke. He reinforces the heart. He is not like the devil’s weed, full of passions, jealousies, and violence. The smoke is constant. You don’t have to worry about forgetting something along the line.’
Wednesday, 27 January 1965
On Tuesday 19 January, I smoked again the hallucinogenic mixture. I had told don Juan I felt very apprehensive about the smoke, and that it frightened me. He said I had to try it again to evaluate it with justice.
We walked into his room. It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon. He brought out the pipe. I got the charcoals, then we sat facing each other. He said he was going to warm up the pipe and awaken her, and if I watched carefully I would see how she glowed. He put the pipe to his lips three or four times, and sucked through it. He rubbed it tenderly. Suddenly he nodded, almost imperceptibly, to signal me to look at the pipe’s awakening. I looked, but I couldn’t see it.
He handed the pipe to me. I filled the bowl with my own mixture, and then picked a burning charcoal with a pair of tweezers I had made from a wooden clothespin and had been saving for this occasion. Don Juan looked at my tweezers and began to laugh. I vacillated for a moment, and the charcoal stuck to the tweezers. I was afraid to tap them against the pipe bowl, and I had to spit on the charcoal to put it out.
Don Juan turned his head away and covered his face with his arm. His body shook. For a moment I thought he was crying, but he was laughing silently.
The action was interrupted for a long time; then he swiftly picked up a charcoal himself, put it in the bowl, and ordered me to smoke. It required quite an effort to suck through the mixture; it seemed to be very compact. After the first try I felt I had sucked the fine powder into my mouth. It numbed my mouth immediately. I saw the glow in the bowl, but I never felt the smoke as the smoke of a cigarette is felt. Yet I had the sensation of inhaling something, something that filled my lungs first and then pushed itself down to fill the rest of my body.
I counted twenty inhalations, and then the count did not matter any longer. I began to sweat; don Juan looked at me fixedly and told me not to be afraid and to do exactly as he said. I tried to say ‘all right’, but instead I made a weird, howling sound. It went on resounding after I had closed my mouth. The sound startled don Juan, who had another attack of laughter. I wanted to say ‘yes’ with my head, but I couldn’t move.
Don Juan opened my hands gently and took the pipe away. He ordered me to lie down on the floor, but not to fall asleep. I wondered if he was going to help me lie down but he did not. He just stared at me uninterruptedly. All of a sudden I saw the room tumbling, and I was looking at don Juan from a position on my side. From that point on the images became strangely blurry, as in a dream. I can vaguely recall hearing don Juan talk to me a great deal during the time I was immobilized.
I did not experience fear, or unpleasantness, during the state itself, nor was I sick upon awakening the next day. The only thing out of the ordinary was that I could not think clearly for some time after waking up. Then gradually, in a period of four or five hours, I became myself again.
Wednesday, 20 January 1965
Don Juan did not talk about my experience, nor did he ask me to relate it to him. His sole comment was that I had fallen asleep too soon.