I told him that my mind was grasping everything he was telling me, that the only part of his explanation still unclear to me was why two sets of teachings were needed. I could understand everything he was saying about his world easily, and yet he had described the process of understanding as very difficult.
“You will need a lifetime to remember the insights you’ve had today,” he said, “because most of them were silent knowledge. A few moments from now you will have forgotten them. That’s one of the unfathomable mysteries of awareness.”
Don Juan then made me shift levels of consciousness by striking me on my left side, at the edge of my ribcage.
Instantly I lost my extraordinary clarity of mind and could not remember having ever had it. …
Don Juan himself set me the task of writing about the premises of sorcery. Once, very casually in the early stages of my apprenticeship, he suggested that I write a book in order to make use of the notes I had always taken. I had accumulated reams of notes and never considered what to do with them.
I argued that the suggestion was absurd because I was not a writer.
“Of course, you’re not a writer,” he said, “so you will have to use sorcery. First, you must visualize your experiences as if you were reliving them, and then you must see the text in your dreaming. For you, writing should not be a literary exercise, but rather an exercise in sorcery.”
I have written in that manner about the premises of sorcery just as don Juan explained them to me, within the context of his teaching.
In his teaching scheme, which was developed by sorcerers of ancient times, there were two categories of instruction. One was called “teachings for the right side,” carried out in the ordinary state of awareness. The other was called “teachings for the left side,” put into practice solely in states of heightened awareness.
These two categories allowed teachers to school their apprentices toward three areas of expertise: the mastery of awareness, the art of stalking, and the mastery of intent.
These three areas of expertise are the three riddles sorcerers encounter in their search for knowledge.
The mastery of awareness is the riddle of the mind; the perplexity sorcerers experience when they recognize the astounding mystery and scope of awareness and perception.
The art of stalking is the riddle of the heart; the puzzlement sorcerers feel upon becoming aware of two things: first that the world appears to us to be unalterably objective and factual, because of peculiarities of our awareness and perception; second, that if different peculiarities of perception come into play, the very things about the world that seem so unalterably objective and factual change.
The mastery of intent is the riddle of the spirit, or the paradox of the abstract—sorcerers’ thoughts and actions projected beyond our human condition.
Don Juan’s instruction on the art of stalking and the mastery of intent depended upon his instruction on the mastery of awareness, which was the cornerstone of his teachings, and which consist of the following basic premises:
1. The universe is an infinite agglomeration of energy fields, resembling threads of light.
2. These energy fields, called the Eagle’s emanations, radiate from a source of inconceivable proportions metaphorically called the Eagle.
3. Human beings are also composed of an incalculable number of the same threadlike energy fields. These Eagle’s emanations form an encased agglomeration that manifests itself as a ball of light the size of the person’s body with the arms extended laterally, like a giant luminous egg.
4. Only a very small group of the energy fields inside this luminous ball are lit up by a point of intense brilliance located on the ball’s surface.
5. Perception occurs when the energy fields in that small group immediately surrounding the point of brilliance extend their light to illuminate identical energy fields outside the ball. Since the only energy fields perceivable are those lit by the point of brilliance, that point is named “the point where perception is assembled” or simply “the assemblage point.”
6. The assemblage point can be moved from its usual position on the surface of the luminous ball to another position on the surface, or into the interior. Since the brilliance of the assemblage point can light up whatever energy field it conies in contact with, when it moves to a new position it immediately brightens up new energy fields, making them perceivable. This perception is known as seeing.
7. When the assemblage point shifts, it makes possible the perception of an entirely different world—as objective and factual as the one we normally perceive. Sorcerers go into that other world to get energy, power, solutions to general and particular problems, or to face the unimaginable.
8. Intent is the pervasive force that causes us to perceive. We do not become aware because we perceive; rather, we perceive as a result of the pressure and intrusion of intent.
9. The aim of sorcerers is to reach a state of total awareness in order to experience all the possibilities of perception available to man. This state of awareness even implies an alternative way of dying.
A level of practical knowledge was included as part of teaching the mastery of awareness. On that practical level don Juan taught the procedures necessary to move the assemblage point. The two great systems devised by the sorcerer seers of ancient times to accomplish this were: dreaming, the control and utilization of dreams; and stalking, the control of behavior.
Moving one’s assemblage point was an essential maneuver that every sorcerer had to learn. Some of them, the naguals, also learned to perform it for others. They were able to dislodge the assemblage point from its customary position by delivering a hard slap directly to the assemblage point. This blow, which was experienced as a smack on the right shoulder blade—although the body was never touched—resulted in a state of heightened awareness.
In compliance with his tradition, it was exclusively in these states of heightened awareness that don Juan carried out the most important and dramatic part of his teachings: the instructions for the left side. Because of the extraordinary quality of these states, don Juan demanded that I not discuss them with others until we had concluded everything in the sorcerers’ teaching scheme. That demand was not difficult for me to accept. In those unique states of awareness my capabilities for understanding the instruction were unbelievably enhanced, but at the same time my capabilities for describing or even remembering it were impaired. I could function in those states with proficiency and assuredness, but I could not recollect anything about them once I returned to my normal consciousness.
It took me years to be able to make the crucial conversion of my enhanced awareness into plain memory. My reason and common sense delayed this moment because they were colliding head-on with the preposterous, unthinkable reality of heightened awareness and direct knowledge. For years the resulting cognitive disarrangement forced me to avoid the issue by not thinking about it.
Whatever I have written about my sorcery apprenticeship, up to now, has been a recounting of how don Juan taught me the mastery of awareness. I have not yet described the art of stalking or the mastery of intent.
Don Juan taught me their principles and applications with the help of two of his companions: a sorcerer named Vicente Medrano and another named Silvio Manuel, but whatever I learned from them still remains clouded in what don Juan called the intricacies of heightened awareness. Until now it has been impossible for me to write or even to think coherently about the art of stalking and the mastery of intent. My mistake has been to regard them as subjects for normal memory and recollection. They are, but at the same time they are not. In order to resolve this contradiction, I have not pursued the subjects directly —a virtual impossibility—but have dealt with them indirectly through the concluding topic of don Juan’s instruction: the stories of the sorcerers of the past.
He recounted these stories to make evident what he called the abstract cores of his lessons. But I was incapable of grasping the nature of the abstract cores despite his comprehensive explanations, which, I know now, were intended more to open my mind than to explain anything in a rational manner. His way of talking made me believe for many years that his explanations of the abstract cores were like academic dissertations; and all I was able to do, under these circumstances, was to take his explanations as given. They became part of my tacit acceptance of his teachings, but without the thorough assessment on my part that was essential to understanding them.
Don Juan presented three sets of six abstract cores each, arranged in an increasing level of complexity. I have dealt here with the first set, which is composed of the following: the manifestations of the spirit, the knock of the spirit, the trickery of the spirit, the descent of the spirit, the requirements of intent, and handling intent.