“That was the omen,” don Juan said. “Hardness and transformation were the indication of the spirit.” He said that his first act of the day, as a nagual, was to let me know his intentions. To that end, he told me in very plain language, but in a surreptitious manner, that he was going to give me a lesson in ruthlessness. “Do you remember now?” he asked. “I talked to the waitress and to an old lady at the next table.”
Guided by him in this fashion, I did remember don Juan practically flirting with an old lady and the ill-mannered waitress. He talked to them for a long time while I ate. He told them idiotically funny stories about graft and corruption in government, and jokes about manners in the city. Then he asked the waitress if she was an American. She said no and laughed at the question. Don Juan said that that was good, because I was a Mexican-American in search of love. And I might as well start here, after eating such a good breakfast.
The women laughed. I thought they laughed at my being embarrassed. Don Juan said to them that, seriously speaking, I had come to Mexico to find a wife. He asked if they knew of any honest, modest, chaste woman who wanted to get married and was not too demanding in matters of male beauty. He referred to himself as my spokesman.
The women were laughing very hard. I was truly chagrined. Don Juan turned to the waitress and asked her if she would marry me. She said that she was engaged. It looked to me as though she was taking don Juan seriously.
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself?” the old lady asked don Juan.
“Because he has a speech impediment,” he said. “He stutters horribly.”
The waitress said that I had been perfectly normal when I ordered my food.
“Oh! You’re so observant,” don Juan said. “Only when he orders food can he speak like anyone else. I’ve told him time and time again that if he wants to learn to speak normally, he has to be ruthless. I brought him here to give him some lessons in ruthlessness.”
“Poor man,” the old woman said.
“Well, we’d better get going if we are going to find love for him today,” don Juan said as he stood to leave.
“You’re serious about this marriage business,” the young waitress said to don Juan.
“You bet,” he replied. “I’m going to help him get what he needs so he can cross the border and go to the place of no pity.”
I thought don Juan was calling either marriage or the U.S.A. the place of no pity. I laughed at the metaphor and stuttered horribly for a moment, which scared the women half to death and made don Juan laugh hysterically.
“It was imperative that I state my purpose to you then,” don Juan said, continuing his explanation. “I did, but it bypassed you completely, as it should have.”
He said that from the moment the spirit manifested itself, every step was carried to its satisfactory completion with absolute ease. And my assemblage point reached the place of no pity, when, under the stress of his transformation, it was forced to abandon its customary place of self-reflection.
“The position of self-reflection,” don Juan went on, “forces the assemblage point to assemble a world of sham compassion, but of very real cruelty and self-centeredness. In that world the only real feelings are those convenient for the one who feels them.
“For a sorcerer, ruthlessness is not cruelty. Ruthlessness is the opposite of self-pity or self-importance. Ruthlessness is sobriety.”
5
The Requirements of Intent
BREAKING THE MIRROR OF SELF-REFLECTION
We spent a night at the spot where I had recollected my experience in Guaymas. During that night, because my assemblage point was pliable, don Juan helped me to reach new positions, which immediately became blurry non-memories.
The next day I was incapable of remembering what had happened or what I had perceived; I had, nonetheless, the acute sensation of having had bizarre experiences. Don Juan agreed that my assemblage point had moved beyond his expectations, yet he refused to give me even a hint of what I had done. His only comment had been that some day I would recollect everything.
Around noon, we continued on up the mountains. We walked in silence and without stopping until late in the afternoon. As we slowly climbed a mildly steep mountain ridge, don Juan suddenly spoke. I did not understand any of what he was saying. He repeated it until I realized he wanted to stop on a wide ledge, visible from where we were. He was telling me that we would be protected there from the wind by the boulders and large, bushy shrubs.
“Tell me, which spot on the ledge would be the best for us to sit out all night?” he asked.
Earlier, as we were climbing, I had spotted the almost unnoticeable ledge. It appeared as a patch of darkness on the face of the mountain. I had identified it with a very quick glance. Now that don Juan was asking my opinion, I detected a spot of even greater darkness, one almost black, on the south side of the ledge. The dark ledge and the almost black spot in it did not generate any feeling of fear or anxiety. I felt that I liked that ledge. And I liked its dark spot even more.
“That spot there is very dark, but Hike it,” I said, when we reached the ledge.
He agreed that that was the best place to sit all night. He said it was a place with a special level of energy, and that he, too, liked its pleasing darkness.
We headed toward some protruding rocks. Don Juan cleared an area by the boulders and we sat with our backs against them.
I told him that on the one hand I thought it had been a lucky guess on my part to choose that very spot, but on the other I could not overlook the fact that I had perceived it with my eyes.
“I wouldn’t say that you perceived it exclusively with your eyes,” he said. “It was a bit more complex than that.”
“What do you mean by that, don Juan?” I asked.
“I mean that you have possibilities you are not yet aware of,” he replied. “Since you’re quite careless, you may think that all of what you perceive is simply average sensory perception.”
He said that if I doubted him, he dared me to go down to the base of the mountain again and corroborate what he was saying. He predicted that it would be impossible for me to see the dark ledge merely by looking at it.
I stated vehemently that I had no reason to doubt him. I was not going to climb down that mountain.
He insisted that we climb down. I thought he was doing it just to tease me. I got nervous, though, when it occurred to me that he might be serious. He laughed so hard he choked.
He commented on the fact that all animals could detect, in their surroundings, areas with special levels of energy. Most animals were frightened of these spots and avoided them. The exceptions were mountain lions and coyotes, which lay and even slept on such spots whenever they happened upon them. But, only sorcerers deliberately sought such spots for their effects.
I asked him what the effects were. He said that they gave out imperceptible jolts of invigorating energy, and he remarked that average men living in natural settings could find such spots, even though they were not conscious about having found them nor aware of their effects.
“How do they know they have found them?” I asked.
“They never do,” he replied. “Sorcerers watching men travel on foot trails notice right away that men always become tired and rest right on the spot with a positive level of energy. If, on the other hand, they are going through an area with an injurious flow of energy, they become nervous and rush. If you ask them about it they will tell you they rushed through that area because they felt energized. But it is the opposite—the only place that energizes them is the place where they feel tired.”
He said that sorcerers are capable of finding such spots by perceiving with their entire bodies minute surges of energy in their surroundings. The sorcerers’ increased energy, derived from the curtailment of their self-reflection, allows their senses a greater range of perception.
“I’ve been trying to make clear to you that the only worthwhile course of action, whether for sorcerers or average men, is to restrict our involvement with our self-image,” he continued. “What a nagual aims at with his apprentices is the shattering of their mirror of self-reflection.”
He added that each apprentice was an individual case, and that the nagual had to let the spirit decide about the particulars.