Don Juan said that those details of behavior and dozens of others had made Tulio an unforgettable character. In fact, he was so unforgettable that in order to project Tulio on don Juan and the other apprentices as if on a screen, any of the four men needed only to insinuate a feature, and don Juan and the apprentices would automatically supply the rest.
Don Juan said that because of the tremendous consistency of the input, Tulio was for him and the others the essence of a disgusting man. But at the same time, if they searched deep inside themselves, they would have acknowledged that Tulio was haunting. He was nimble, mysterious, and gave, wittingly or unwittingly, the impression of being a shadow.
Don Juan asked Tuliuno how they had called intent. Tuliuno explained that stalkers called intent loudly. Usually intent was called from within a small, dark, isolated room. A candle was placed on a black table with the flame just a few inches before the eyes; then the word intent was voiced slowly, enunciated clearly and deliberately as many times as one felt was needed. The pitch of the voice rose or fell without any thought. Tuliuno stressed that the indispensable part of the act of calling intent was a total concentration on what was intended. In their case, the concentration was on their homogeneity and on Tulio’s appearance. After they had been fused by intent, it still took them a couple of years to build up the certainty that their homogeneity and Tulio’s appearance would be realities to the onlookers.
I asked don Juan what he thought of their way of calling intent. And he said that his benefactor, like the nagual Elías, was a bit more given to ritual than he himself was, therefore, they preferred paraphernalia such as candles, dark closets, and black tables.
I casually remarked that I was terribly attracted to ritual behavior, myself. Ritual seemed to me essential in focusing one’s attention. Don Juan took my remark seriously. He said he had seen that my body, as an energy field, had a feature which he knew all the sorcerers of ancient times had had and avidly sought in others: a bright area in the lower right side of the
luminous cocoon. That brightness was associated with resourcefulness and a bent toward morbidity. The dark sorcerers of those times took pleasure in harnessing that coveted feature and attaching it to man’s dark side.
“Then there is an evil side to man,” I said jubilantly. “You always deny it. You always say that evil doesn’t exist, that only power exists.”
I surprised myself with this outburst. In one instant, all my Catholic background was brought to bear on me and the Prince of Darkness loomed larger than life.
Don Juan laughed until he was coughing.
“Of course, there is a dark side to us,” he said. “We kill wantonly, don’t we? We burn people in the name of God. We destroy ourselves; we obliterate life on this planet; we destroy the earth. And then we dress in robes and the Lord speaks directly to us. And what does the Lord tell us? He says that we should be good boys or he is going to punish us. The Lord has been threatening us for centuries and it doesn’t make any difference. Not because we are evil, but because we are dumb. Man has a dark side, yes, and it’s called stupidity.”
I did not say anything else, but silently I applauded and thought with pleasure that don Juan was a masterful debater. Once again he was turning my words back on me.
After a moment’s pause, don Juan explained that in the same measure that ritual forced the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of morbidity and obsession. As a result, it was the duty of every nagual to guide awareness so it would fly toward the abstract, free of liens and mortgages.
“What do you mean, don Juan, by liens and mortgages?” I asked.
“Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of,” he said, “but it also demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness.”
Don Juan said that human awareness was like an immense haunted house. The awareness of everyday life was like being sealed in one room of that immense house for life. We entered the room through a magical opening: birth. And we exited through another such magical opening: death.
Sorcerers, however, were capable of finding still another opening and could leave that sealed room while still alive. A superb attainment. But their astounding accomplishment was that when they escaped from that sealed room they chose freedom. They chose to leave that immense, haunted house entirely instead of getting lost in other parts of it.
Morbidity was the antithesis of the surge of energy awareness needed to reach freedom. Morbidity made sorcerers lose their way and become trapped in the intricate, dark byways of the unknown.
I asked don Juan if there was any morbidity in the Tulios.
“Strangeness is not morbidity,” he replied. “The Tulios were performers who were being coached by the spirit itself.”
“What was the nagual Elías’s reason for training the Tulios as he did?” I asked.
Don Juan peered at me and laughed loudly. At that instant the lights of the plaza were turned on. He got up from his favorite bench and rubbed it with the palm of his hand, as if it were a pet.
“Freedom,” he said. “He wanted their freedom from perceptual convention. And he taught them to be artists. Stalking is an art. For a sorcerer, since he’s not a patron or a seller of art, the only thing of importance about a work of art is that it can be accomplished.”
We stood by the bench, watching the evening strollers milling around. The story of the four Tulios had left me with a sense of foreboding. Don Juan suggested that I return home; the long drive to L.A., he said, would give my assemblage point a respite from all the moving it had done in the past few days.
“The nagual’s company is very tiring,” he went on. “It produces a strange fatigue; it could even be injurious.”
I assured him that I was not tired at all, and that his company was anything but injurious to me. In fact, his company affected me like a narcotic—I couldn’t do without it. This sounded as if I were flattering him, but I really meant what I said.
We strolled around the plaza three or four times in complete silence.
“Go home and think about the basic cores of the sorcery stories,” don Juan said with a note of finality in his voice. “Or rather, don’t think about them, but make your assemblage point move toward the place of silent knowledge. Moving the assemblage point is everything, but it means nothing if it’s not a sober, controlled movement. So, close the door of self-reflection. Be impeccable and you’ll have the energy to reach the place of silent knowledge.”