Don Juan laughed until he was out of breath.
“I really don’t know whether you’re worse in your normal state of awareness or in a heightened one,” he said. “In your normal state you’re not suspicious, but boringly reasonable. I think I like you best when you are way inside the left side, in spite of the fact that you are terribly afraid of everything, as you were yesterday.”
Before I had time to say anything at all, he stated that he was pitting what the old seers did against the accomplishments of the new seers, as a sort of coun-terpoint, with which he intended to give me a more inclusive view of the odds I was up against.
He continued then with his elucidation of the practices of the old seers. He said that another of their great findings had to do with the next category of se-cret knowledge: fire and water. They discovered that flames have a most peculiar quality; they can transport man bodily, just as water does.
Don Juan called it a brilliant discovery. I remarked that there are basic laws of physics that would prove that to be impossible. He asked me to wait until he had explained everything before drawing any conclusions. He remarked that I had to check my excessive rationality, because it constantly affected my states of heightened awareness. It was not a case of reacting every which way to external influences, but of succumbing to my own devices.
He went on explaining that the ancient Toltecs, although they obviously saw, did not understand what they saw. They merely used their findings without bothering to relate them to a larger picture. In the case of their category of fire and water, they divided fire into heat and flame, and water into wetness and fluidity. They correlated heat and wetness and called them lesser properties. They considered flames and fluidity to be higher, magical properties, and they used them as a means for bodily transportation to the realm of nonorganic life. Between their knowledge of that kind of life and their fire and water practices, the ancient seers became bogged down in a quagmire with no way out.
Don Juan assured me that the new seers agreed that the discovery of nonorganic living beings was indeed extraordinary, but not in the way the old seers believed it to be. To find themselves in a one-to-one relation with another kind of life gave the ancient seers a false feeling of invulnerability, which spelled their doom.
I wanted him to explain the fire and water techniques in greater detail. He said that the old seers’ knowledge was as intricate as it was useless and that he was only going to outline it.
Then he summarized the practices of the above and the below. The above dealt with secret knowledge about wind, rain, sheets of lightning, clouds, thunder, daylight, and the sun. The knowledge of the below had to do with fog, water of underground springs, swamps, lightning bolts, earthquakes, the night, moonlight, and the moon.
The loud and the silent were a category of secret knowledge that had to do with the manipulation of sound and quiet. The moving and the stationary were practices concerned with mysterious aspects of mo-tion and motionlessness.
I asked him if he could give me an example of any of the techniques he had outlined. He replied that he had already given me dozens of demonstrations over the years. I insisted that I had rationally explained away everything he had done to me.
He did not answer. He seemed to be either angry at me for asking questions or seriously involved in searching for a good example. After a while he smiled and said that he had visualized the proper example.
“The technique I have in mind has to be put in action in the shallow depths of a stream,” he said. “There is one near Genaro’s house.”
“What will I have to do?”
“You’ll have to get a medium-size mirror.”
I was surprised at his request. I remarked that the ancient Toltecs did not know about mirrors.
“They didn’t,” he admitted, smiling. “This is my benefactor’s addition to the technique. All the ancient seers needed was a reflecting surface.”
He explained that the technique consisted of submerging a shiny surface into the shallow water of a stream. The surface could be any flat object that had some capacity to reflect images.
“I want you to construct a solid frame made of sheet metal for a medium-size mirror,” he said. “it has to be waterproof, so you must seal it with tar. You must make it yourself with your own hands. When you have made it, bring it over and we’ll proceed.”
“What’s going to happen, don Juan?”
“Don’t be apprehensive. You yourself have asked me to give you an example of an ancient Toltec practice. I asked the same thing of my benefactor. I think everybody asks for one at a certain moment. My benefactor said that he did the same thing himself. His benefactor, the nagual Ellas, gave him an example; my benefactor in turn gave the same one to me, and now I am going to give it to you.
“At the time my benefactor gave me the example I didn’t know how he did it. I know now. Someday you yourself will also know how the technique works; you will understand what’s behind all this.”
I thought that don Juan wanted me to go back home to Los Angeles and construct the frame for the mirror there. I commented that it would be impossible for me to remember the task if I did not remain in heightened awareness.
“There are two things out of kilter with your comment,” he said. “One is that there is no way for you to remain in heightened awareness, because you won’t be able to function unless I or Genaro or any of the warriors in the nagual’s party nurse you every minute of the day, as I do now. The other is that Mexico is not the moon. There are hardware stores here. We can go to Oaxaca and buy anything you need.”
We drove to the city the next day and I bought all the pieces for the frame. I assembled it myself in a mechanic’s shop for a minimal fee. Don Juan told me to put it in the trunk of my car. He did not so much as glance at it.
We drove back to Genaro’s house in the late afternoon and arrived there in the early morning. I looked for Genaro. He was not there. The house seemed deserted.
“Why does Genaro keep this house?” I asked don Juan. “He lives with you, doesn’t he?”
Don Juan did not answer. He gave me a strange look and went to light the kerosene lantern. I was alone in the room in total darkness. I felt a great tiredness that I attributed to the long, tortuous drive up the mountains. I wanted to lie down. In the darkness, I could not see where Genaro had put the mats. I stumbled over a pile of them. And then I knew why Genaro kept that house; he took care of the male apprentices Pablito, Nestor, and Benigno, who lived there when they were in their state of normal awareness.
I felt exhilarated; I was no longer tired. Don Juan came in with a lantern. I told him about my realization, but he said that it did not matter, that I would not remember it for too long.
He asked me to show him the mirror. He seemed pleased and remarked about its being light yet solid. He noticed that I had used metal screws to affix an aluminum frame to a piece of sheet metal that I had used as a backing for a mirror eighteen inches long by fourteen inches wide.
“I made a wooden frame for my mirror,” he said. “This looks much better than mine. My frame was too cumbersome and at the same time frail.
“Let me explain what we’re going to do,” he continued after he had finished examining the mirror. “Or perhaps I should say, what we’re going to attempt to do. The two of us together are going to place this mirror on the surface of the stream near the house. It is wide enough and shallow enough to serve our purposes.
“The idea is to let the fluidity of the water exert pressure on us and transport us away.”
Before I could make any remarks or ask any questions, he reminded me that in the past I had utilized the water of a similar stream and accomplished extraordinary feats of perception. He was referring to the aftereffects of ingesting hallucinogenic plants, which I had experienced various times while being submerged in the irrigation ditch behind his house in northern Mexico.
“Save any questions until I explain to you what the seers knew about awareness,” he said. “Then you’ll understand everything we’re doing in a different light. But first let’s go on with our procedure.”