“You stated categorically last night that the cave didn’t make you feel ill at ease,” he said. “Well, it obviously did. Last night I didn’t pursue the subject of the cave any further because I was waiting to observe your reaction.”
Eton Juan explained that the cave had been designed by sorcerers in ancient times to serve as a catalyst. Its shape had been carefully constructed to accommodate two people as two fields of energy. The theory of the sorcerers was that the nature of the rock and the manner in which it had been carved allowed the two bodies, the two luminous balls, to intertwine their energy.
“I took you to that cave on purpose,” he continued, “not because I like the place—I don’t—but because it was created as an instrument to push the apprentice deep into heightened awareness. But unfortunately, as it helps, it also obscures issues. The ancient sorcerers were not given to thought. They leaned toward action.’
“You always say that your benefactor was like that,” I said.
“That’s my own exaggeration,” he answered, “very much like when I say you’re a fool. My benefactor was a modern nagual, involved in the pursuit of freedom, but he leaned toward action instead of thoughts. You’re a modern nagual, involved in the same quest, but you lean heavily toward the aberrations of reason.”
He must have thought his comparison was very funny; his laughter echoed in the empty room.
When I brought the conversation back to the subject of the cave, he pretended not to hear me. I knew he was pretending because of the glint in his eyes and the way he smiled.
“Last night, I deliberately told you the first abstract core,” he said, “in the hope that by reflecting on the way I have acted with you over the years you’ll get an idea about the other cores. You’ve been with me for a long time so you know me very well. During every minute of our association I have tried to adjust my actions and thoughts to the patterns of the abstract cores.
“The nagual Elías’s story is another matter. Although it seems to be a story about people, it is really a story about intent. Intent creates edifices before us and invites us to enter them. This is the way sorcerers understand what is happening around them.”
Don Juan reminded me that I had always insisted on trying to discover the underlying order in everything he said to me. I thought he was criticizing me for my attempt to turn whatever he was teaching me into a social science problem. I began to tell him that my outlook had changed under his influence. He stopped me and smiled.
“You really don’t think too well,” he said and sighed. “I want you to understand the underlying order of what I teach you. My objection is to what you think is the underlying order. To you, it means secret procedures or a hidden consistency. To me, it means two things: both the edifice that intent manufactures in the blink of an eye and places in front of us to enter, and the signs it gives us so we won’t get lost once we are inside.
“As you can see, the story of the nagual Elías was more than merely an account of the sequential details that made up the event,” he went on. “Underneath all that was the edifice of intent. And the story was meant to give you an idea of what the naguals of the past were like, so that you would recognize how they acted in order to adjust their thoughts and actions to the edifices of intent.”
There was a prolonged silence. I did not have anything to say. Rather than let the conversation die, I said the first thing that came into my mind. I said that from the stories I had heard about the nagual Elías I had formed a very positive opinion of him. I liked the nagual Elías, but for unknown reasons, everything don Juan had told me about the nagual Julian bothered me.
The mere mention of my discomfort delighted don Juan beyond measure. He had to stand up from his chair lest he choke on his laughter. He put his arm on my shoulder and said that we either loved or hated those who were reflections of ourselves.
Again a silly self-consciousness prevented me from asking him what he meant. Don Juan kept on laughing, obviously aware of my mood. He finally commented that the nagual Julian was like a child whose sobriety and moderation came always from without. He had no inner discipline beyond his training as an apprentice in sorcery.
I had an irrational urge to defend myself. I told don Juan that my discipline came from within me.
“Of course,” he said patronizingly. “You just can’t expect to be exactly like him.” And began to laugh again.
Sometimes don Juan exasperated me so that I was ready to yell. But my mood did not last. It dissipated so rapidly that another concern began to loom. I asked don Juan if it was possible that I had entered into heightened awareness without being conscious of it? Or maybe I had remained in it for days?
“At this stage you enter into heightened awareness all by yourself,” he said. “Heightened awareness is a mystery only for our reason. In practice, it’s very simple. As with everything else, we complicate matters by trying to make the immensity that surrounds us reasonable.”
He remarked that I should be thinking about the abstract core he had given me instead of arguing uselessly about my person.
I told him that I had been thinking about it all morning and had come to realize that the metaphorical theme of the story was the manifestations of the spirit. What I could not discern, however, was the abstract core he was talking about. It had to be something unstated.
“I repeat,” he said, as if he were a schoolteacher drilling his students, “the Manifestations of the Spirit is the name for the first abstract core in the sorcery stories. Obviously, what sorcerers recognize as an abstract core is something that bypasses you at this moment. That part which escapes you sorcerers know as the edifice of intent, or the silent voice of the spirit, or the ulterior arrangement of the abstract.”
I said I understood ulterior to mean something not overtly revealed, as in “ulterior motive.” And he replied that in this case ulterior meant more; it meant knowledge without words, outside our immediate comprehension—especially mine. He allowed that the comprehension he was referring to was merely beyond my aptitudes of the moment, not beyond my ultimate possibilities for understanding.
“If the abstract cores are beyond my comprehension what’s the point of talking about them?” I asked. “The rule says that the abstract cores and the sorcery stories must be told at this point,” he replied. “And some day the ulterior arrangement of the abstract, which is knowledge without words or the edifice of intent inherent in the stories, will be revealed to you by the stories themselves.” I still did not understand.
“The ulterior arrangement of the abstract is not merely the order in which the abstract cores were presented to you,” he explained, “or what they have in common either, nor even the web that joins them. Rather it’s to know the abstract directly, without the intervention of language.”
He scrutinized me in silence from head to toe with the obvious purpose of seeing me. “It’s not evident to you yet,” he declared. He made a gesture of impatience, even short temper, as though he were annoyed at my slowness. And that worried me. Don Juan was not given to expressions of psychological displeasure.
“It has nothing to do with you or your actions,” he said when I asked if he was angry or disappointed with me. “It was a thought that crossed my mind the mo-There is a feature in your luminous being that the old sorcerers would have given anything to have.”
“Tell me what it is,” I demanded.
“I’ll remind you of this some other time,” he said. “Meanwhile, let’s continue with the element that propels us: the abstract. The element without which there could be no warrior’s path, nor any warriors in search of knowledge.”
He said that the difficulties I was experiencing were nothing new to him. He himself had gone through agonies in order to understand the ulterior order of the abstract. And had it not been for the helping hand of the nagual Elías, he would have wound up just like his benefactor, all action and very little understanding.
“What was the nagual Elías like?” I asked, to change the subject.
“He was not like his disciple at all,” don Juan said. “He was an Indian. Very dark and massive. He had rough features, big mouth, strong nose, small black eyes, thick black hair with no gray in it. He was shorter than the nagual Julian and had big hands and feet. He was very humble and very wise, but he had no flare. Compared with my benefactor, he was dull. Always all by himself, pondering questions. The nagual Julian used to joke that his teacher imparted wisdom by the ton. Behind his back he used to call him the nagual Tonnage.