I was surprised at the variety of names, but said nothing. I waited for him to continue his explanation.
“And again, as with the first and second core,” he went on, “it could be a story in itself. The story says that after knocking on the door of that man we’ve been talking about, and having no success with him, the spirit used the only means available: trickery. After all, the spirit had resolved previous impasses with trickery. It was obvious that if it wanted to make an impact on this man it had to cajole him. So the spirit began to instruct the man on the mysteries of sorcery. And the sorcery apprenticeship became what it is: a route of artifice and subterfuge.
“The story says that the spirit cajoled the man by making him shift back and forth between levels of awareness to show him how to save energy needed to strengthen his connecting link.”
Don Juan told me that if we apply his story to a modern setting we had the case of the nagual, the living conduit of the spirit, repeating the structure of this abstract core and resorting to artifice and subterfuge in order to teach.
Suddenly he stood and started to walk toward the mountain range. I followed him and we started our climb, side by side.
In the very late afternoon we reached the top of the high mountains. Even at that altitude it was still very warm. All day we had followed a nearly invisible trail. Finally we reached a small clearing, an ancient lookout post commanding the north and west.
We sat there and don Juan returned our conversation to the sorcery stories. He said that now I knew the story of intent manifesting itself to the nagual Elías and the story of the spirit knocking on the nagual Julian’s door. And I knew how he had met the spirit, and I certainly could not forget how I had met it. All these stories, he declared, had the same structure; only the characters differed. Each story was an abstract tragicomedy with one abstract player, intent, and two human actors, the nagual and his apprentice. The script was the abstract core.
I thought I had finally understood what he meant, but I could not quite explain even to myself what it was I understood, nor could I explain it to don Juan. When I tried to put my thoughts into words I found myself babbling.
Don Juan seemed to recognize my state of mind. He suggested that I relax and listen. He told me his next story was about the process of bringing an apprentice into the realm of the spirit, a process sorcerers called the trickery of the spirit, or dusting the connecting link to intent.
“I’ve already told you the story of how the nagual Julian took me to his house after I was shot and tended my wound until I recovered,” don Juan continued. “But I didn’t tell you how he dusted my link, how he taught me to stalk myself.
“The first thing a nagual does with his prospective apprentice is to trick him. That is, he gives him a jolt on his connecting link to the spirit. There are two ways of doing this. One is through seminormal channels, which I used with you, and the other is by means of outright sorcery, which my benefactor used on me.”
Don Juan again told me the story of how his benefactor had convinced the people who had gathered at the road that the wounded man was his son. Then he had paid some men to carry don Juan, unconscious from shock and loss of blood, to his own house. Don Juan woke there, days later, and found a kind old man and his fat wife tending his wound.
The old man said his name was Belisario and that his wife was a famous healer and that both of them were healing his wound. Don Juan told them he had no money, and Belisario suggested that when he recovered, payment of some sort could be arranged.
Don Juan said that he was thoroughly confused, which was nothing new to him. He was just a muscular, reckless twenty-year-old Indian, with no brains, no formal education, and a terrible temper. He had no conception of gratitude. He thought it was very kind of the old man and his wife to have helped him, but his intention was to wait for his wound to heal and then simply vanish in the middle of the night.
When he had recovered enough and was ready to flee, old Belisario took him into a room and in trembling whispers disclosed that the house where they were staying belonged to a monstrous man who was holding him and his wife prisoner. He asked don Juan to help them to regain their freedom, to escape from their captor and tormentor. Before don Juan could reply, a monstrous fish-faced man right out of a horror tale burst into the room, as if he had been listening behind the door. He was greenish-gray, had only one unblinking eye in the middle of his forehead, and was as big as a door. He lurched at don Juan, hissing like a serpent, ready to tear him apart, and frightened him so greatly that he fainted.
“His way of giving me a jolt on my connecting link with the spirit was masterful.” Don Juan laughed. “My benefactor, of course, had shifted me into heightened awareness prior to the monster’s entrance, so that what I actually saw as a monstrous man was what sorcerers call an inorganic being, a formless energy field.”
Don Juan said that he knew countless cases in which his benefactor’s devilishness created hilariously embarrassing situations for all his apprentices, especially for don Juan himself, whose seriousness and stiffness made him the perfect subject for his benefactor’s didactic jokes. He added as an afterthought that it went without saying that these jokes entertained his benefactor immensely.
“If you think I laugh at you—which I do—it’s nothing compared with how he laughed at me,” don Juan continued. “My devilish benefactor had learned to weep to hide his laughter. You just can’t imagine how he used to cry when I first began my apprenticeship.”
Continuing with his story, don Juan stated that his life was never the same after the shock of seeing that monstrous man. His benefactor made sure of it. Don Juan explained that once a nagual has introduced his prospective disciple, especially his nagual disciple, to trickery he must struggle to assure his compliance. This compliance could be of two different kinds. Either the prospective disciple is so disciplined and tuned that only his decision to join the nagual is needed, as had been the case with young Talia. Or the prospective disciple is someone with little or no discipline, in which case a nagual has to expend time and a great deal of labor to convince his disciple.
In don Juan’s case, because he was a wild young peasant without a thought in his head, the process of reeling him in took bizarre turns.
Soon after the first jolt, his benefactor gave him a second one by showing don Juan his ability to transform himself. One day his benefactor became a young man. Don Juan was incapable of conceiving of this transformation as anything but an example of a consummate actor’s art.
“How did he accomplish those changes?” I asked.
“He was both a magician and an artist,” don Juan replied. “His magic was that he transformed himself by moving his assemblage point into the position that would bring on whatever particular change he desired. And his art was the perfection of his transformations.”
“I don’t quite understand what you’re telling me,” I said.
Don Juan said that perception is the hinge for everything man is or does, and that perception is ruled by the location of the assemblage point. Therefore, if that point changes positions, man’s perception of the world changes accordingly. The sorcerer who knew exactly where to place his assemblage point could become anything he wanted.
“The nagual Julian’s proficiency in moving his assemblage point was so magnificent that he could elicit the subtlest transformations,” don Juan continued. “When a sorcerer becomes a crow, for instance, it is definitely a great accomplishment. But it entails a vast and therefore a gross shift of the assemblage point. However, moving it to the position of a fat man, or an old man, requires the minutest shift and the keenest knowledge of human nature.”
“I’d rather avoid thinking or talking about those things as facts,” I said.
Don Juan laughed as if I had said the funniest thing imaginable.
“Was there a reason for your benefactor’s transformations?” I asked. “Or was he just amusing himself?”
“Don’t be stupid. Warriors don’t do anything just to amuse themselves,” he replied. “His transformations were strategical. They were dictated by need, like his transformation from old to young. Now and then there were funny consequences, but that’s another matter.”