ith him and
never  came  back.  Genaro delights  us sometimes, but no one  can  take the
nagual Julian's place. His dramas were always bigger than life. I assure you
we didn't  know what  enjoyment  was until we saw  what he  did when some of
those dramas backfired on him."
     Don Juan rose from his favorite bench. He turned to  me. His eyes  were
brilliant and peaceful.
     "If you are ever  so dumb as to fail in your task," he said, "you  must
have at least enough energy to move your assemblage point in  order to  come
to this bench. Sit down here for an instant, free of thoughts and desires; I
will try to come here from wherever I am and collect you. I promise you that
I will try."
     He  then  broke  into a great laugh, as if the scope of his promise was
too ludicrous to be believed.
     "These words should be  said  in  the late  afternoon," he  said, still
laughing. "Never in the morning.  The  morning makes one feel optimistic and
such words lose their meaning."

     13 The Earth's Boost

     "Let's  walk on  the road to Oaxaca," don Juan  said to  me. "Genaro is
waiting for us somewhere along the way."
     His request took me by surprise.  I had been waiting all day for him to
continue his explanation. We  left  his house and walked in silence  through
the  town to  the  unpaved highway.  We walked  leisurely  for a long  time.
Suddenly don Juan began to talk.
     "I've been telling  you all along about the great findings that the old
seers  made," he said. "Just as they found out that organic life is  not the
only life  present on earth, they also discovered that the earth itself is a
living being."
     He waited a moment before continuing. He smiled at me as if inviting me
to make a comment. I could not think of anything to say.
     "The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon,"  he went on. "They saw
that there is a ball encasing the earth, a luminous cocoon that  entraps the
Eagle's emanations.  The earth is a gigantic sentient being subjected to the
same forces we are."
     He  explained   that   the  old  seers,  on  discovering  this,  became
immediately interested in the practical uses of  that knowledge.  The result
of their interest was  that the most  elaborate categories of their  sorcery
had  to  do with  the earth. They  considered the earth to  be the  ultimate
source of everything we are.
     Don Juan  reaffirmed  that  the old  seers were  not mistaken  in  this
respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source.
     He didn't say anything else  until we  met Genaro  about a mile  up the
road. He was waiting for us, sitting on a rock by the side of the road.
     He greeted me with great warmth. He said to me that we  should climb up
to the top of some small rugged mountains covered with hardy vegetation.
     "The three of us are going to sit against a rock," don Juan said to me,
"and look at the sunlight  as it is reflected on the eastern mountains. When
the  sun  goes  down behind the  western peaks,  the earth  may let  you see
alignment."
     When  we  reached the top of a mountain, we sat down,  as don  Juan had
said, with our backs against a rock. Don Juan made me sit in between the two
of them.
     I asked him what  he was planning to do. His cryptic statements and his
long silences were ominous. I felt terribly apprehensive.
     He didn't answer me. He kept on talking as if I had not spoken at all.
     "it  was  the  old  seers   who,  on  discovering  that  perception  is
alignment," he  said, "stumbled  onto something monumental. The sad part  is
that  their  aberrations  again  kept  them  from  knowing  what  they   had
accomplished."
     He pointed at the  mountain  range  east  of the small valley where the
town is located.
     "There  is  enough glitter in those mountains  to  jolt your assemblage
point," he said to  me.  "Just  before the sun goes down behind  the western
peaks,  you will have a few moments  to  catch all the glitter you need. The
magic  key that opens  the earth's doors is  made of  internal  silence plus
anything that shines."
     "What exactly should I do, don Juan?" I asked.
     Both of  them examined  me. I thought I saw in their  eyes a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion.
     "Just cut off the internal dialogue," don Juan said to me.
     I had an intense pang of anxiety and  doubt; I had no confidence that I
could  do  it at will.  After  an initial  moment of nagging frustration,  I
resigned my self just to relax.
     I looked around. I  noticed that we were high enough to  look down into
the  long,  narrow valley. More  than half  of it  was in the late-afternoon
shadows. The sun was still shining on  the foothills of the eastern range of
mountains, on the other side of the  valley;  the  sunlight made  the eroded
mountains look ocher,  while  the more distant  bluish peaks had  acquired a
purple tone.
     "You do realize that you've done this before, don't you?" don Juan said
to me in a whisper.
     I told him that I had not realized anything.
     "We've  sat here before  on  other occasions," he  insisted, "but  that
doesn't matter, because this occasion is the one that will count.
     "Today, with  the help of  Genaro, you are going to  find the  key that
unlocks everything. You won't be able to use it as yet, but you'll know what
it is and  where  it is.  Seers pay the  heaviest prices to  know that. You,
yourself, have been paying your dues all these years."
     He  explained  that  what  he  called the  key  to everything  was  the
firsthand knowledge that the earth is a sentient being and as such can  give
warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse  that comes from the awareness
of the earth  itself at the instant in which the emanations inside warriors'
cocoons  are  aligned with  the  appropriate  emanations inside  the earth's
cocoon. Since  both the  earth and man are sentient beings, their emanations
coincide, or rather, the earth has all the emanations present in man and all
the  emanations  that  are  present in  all  sentient  beings,  organic  and
inorganic  for that matter. When a moment of alignment takes place, sentient
beings  use that  alignment in  a  limited  way  and  perceive their  world.
Warriors can use that alignment  either to perceive, like everyone else,  or
as a boost that allows them to enter unimaginable worlds.
     "I've been waiting for you to ask  me  the only meaningful question you
can  ask,  but you  never ask  it,"  he continued. "You are hooked on asking
about whether the mystery of  it all is  inside us.  You came close  enough,
though.
     "The unknown  is not  really inside the cocoon of man in the emanations
untouched by  awareness, and yet it is there, in  a manner of speaking. This
is  the point you haven't understood. When I told you that  we can  assemble
seven  worlds besides the  one  we know,  you  took it  as being an internal
affair, because your total  bias is  to  believe that you are only imagining
everything you  do with  us.  Therefore,  you have never asked me  where the
unknown really is.  For  years I  have  circled with  my  hand  to point  to
everything  around  us and I  have  told you that the unknown is there.  You
never made the connection."
     Genaro began to laugh, then coughed and stood up. "He still hasn't made
the connection," he said to don Juan.
     I admitted to them that  if there was a connection to  be  made,  I had
failed to make it.
     Don Juan restated over and over that the portion of  emanations  inside
man's cocoon is in there only for awareness,  and that awareness is matching
that portion  of emanations with the  same portion of  emanations at  large.
They are  called emanations at large because  they are  immense; and to  say
that  outside  man's  cocoon is  the unknowable  is  to say that  within the
earth's cocoon is the unknowable. However, inside the earth's cocoon is also
the unknown, and inside man's cocoon the unknown is the emanations untouched
by awareness. When the  glow of awareness touches them,  they  become active
and  can be aligned  with the corresponding emanations  at  large. Once that
happens the unknown is perceived and becomes the known.
     "I'm  too dumb, don Juan. You have  to break it into smaller pieces for
me," I said.
     "Genaro is going to break it up for you," don Juan retorted.
     Genaro  stood up and started doing the same gait of  power that he  had
done before,  when he circled an enormous flat  rock in a corn field by  his
house,  while  don  Juan  had  watched in fascination.  This  time don  Juan
whispered in my ear that I should try to hear Genaro's movements, especially
the movements of his  thighs as they went up against his chest every time he
stepped.
     I  followed Genaro's  movements with my eyes. In a  few seconds  I felt
that some part of me had gotten  trapped  in Genaro's legs. The  movement of
his thighs would not let me go. I felt as if I were walking with him.  I was
even out of  breath. Then I realized that I was actually following Genaro. I
was in fact walking with him, away from the place where we had been sitting.
     I did  not see don Juan, just Genaro walking ahead of  me  in the  same
strange manner.  We walked  for hours and  hours.  My fatigue was so intense
that  I got a  terrible headache, and  suddenly  I  got sick. Genaro stopped
walking  and  came to my side. There was an intense glare around us, and the
light was reflected in Genaro's features. His eyes glowed.
     "Don't look at Genaro!" a voice ordered me in my ear. "Look around!"
     I obeyed. I thought I was in hell! The shock of seeing the surroundings
was so great that  I screamed in terror, but there was no sound to my voice.
Around me was the most vivid  picture of all the descriptions of  hell in my
Catholic upbringing. I was seeing a  reddish world, hot and oppressive, dark
and  cavernous, with  no  sky,  no light but  the malignant  reflections  of
reddish lights that kept on moving around us, at great speed.
     Genaro started  to walk again, and something pulled  me  with  him. The
force that was making me follow Genaro also kept me  from looking around. My
awareness was glued to Genaro's movements.
     I saw Genaro plop down as if he were  utterly exhausted. The instant he
touched the ground and stretched himself to  rest, something was released in
me  and  I was  able  again  to  look  around.  Don  Juan  was  watching  me
inquisitively. I was standing up facing him. We were at the same place where
we had sat down, a wide rocky ledge on  top of a  small mountain. Genaro was
panting and wheezing, and so was I. I was covered with perspiration. My hair
was dripping  wet.  My  clothes were soaked, as  if I  had been dunked  in a
river.
     "My  God,  what's  going  on!"  I  exclaimed  in utter  seriousness and
concern.
     The exclamation  sounded so silly that don  Juan  and Genaro started to
laugh.
     "We're trying to make you understand alignment," Genaro said.
     Don Juan gently helped me to sit down. He sat by me.
     "Do you remember what happened?" he asked me.
     I  told him that  I did and he insisted that I  tell him exactly what I
had  seen.  His request was  incongruous with what he had told me,  that the
only value of my experiences was the movement of my assemblage point and not
the content of my visions.
     He explained that Genaro  had tried to help me before in very  much the
same fashion as he had just done, but that I could never  remember anything.
He said that Genaro had guided my assemblage point this time, as he had done
before, to assemble a world with another of the great bands of emanations.
     There was a long silence. I was numb, shocked, yet my  awareness was as
keen as it had  ever been. I thought I had finally understood what alignment
was. Something  inside me, which I had  been activating without knowing how,
gave me the certainty that I had comprehended a great truth.
     "I think you're  beginning to gather your own momentum," don Juan  said
to me. "Let's go home. You've had enough for one day."
     "Oh, come on," Genaro said. "He's stronger than a bull. He's got to  be
pushed a little further."
     "No!" don Juan said emphatically. "We've got to save his strength. He's
only got so much of it."
     Genaro insisted that we stay. He looked at me and winked.
     "Look," he said to me, pointing to the eastern range of mountains. "The
sun has  hardly moved an  inch over  those mountains and yet you  plodded in
hell for hours and hours. Don't you find that overwhelming?"
     "Don't scare him unnecessarily!" don Juan protested almost vehemently.
     It was  then that I saw their maneuvers.  At that  moment the  voice of
seeing  told  me  that don  Juan and  Genaro were  a team of superb stalkers
playing with me. It was don Juan who always  pushed me beyond my limits, but
he always let Genaro  be  the heavy.  That  day  at  Genaro's house,  when I
reached a dangerous state of hysterical fright as Genaro questioned don Juan
whether I should be pushed, and don Juan assured me that Genaro was enjoying
himself at my expense, Genaro was actually worrying about me.
     My seeing was so shocking to me that  I  began to laugh. Both don  Juan
and Genaro  looked at me with  surprise. Then don  Juan seemed to realize at
once  what  was going through  my  mind.  He told Genaro,  and both  of them
laughed like children.
     "You're coming  of  age," don Juan said  to  me. "Right on time; you're
neither too stupid nor too bright. Just like me. You're not  like me in your
aberrations. There you  are more  like the nagual Julian, except that he was
brilliant."
     He stood up  and  stretched his  back.  He  looked at me  with the most
piercing, ferocious eyes I had ever seen. I stood up.
     "A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge," he  said to me.
"A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes
him a nagual."
     His eyes  glared for  an instant, and then they were covered by a cloud
of mellowness, kindness, humanness, and they were again don Juan's eyes.
     I  could  hardly  keep  my balance. I  was swooning helplessly.  Genaro
jumped to my side and helped me to sit  down. Both of them sat down flanking
me.
     "You are going to catch a boost from the earth," don Juan said to me in
one ear.
     "Think about the nagual's eyes," Genaro said to me in the other.
     "The boost will come at  the moment you see the glitter on the  top  of
that mountain," don Juan said and pointed to the highest peak on the eastern
range.
     "You'll never see the nagual's eyes again," Genaro whispered.
     "Go with the boost wherever it takes you," don Juan said.
     "If you think of the nagual's eyes, you'll  realize that there are  two
sides to a coin," Genaro whispered.
     I wanted to  think about what both of them were saying, but my thoughts
did not obey me. Something was pressing down  on me. I felt I was shrinking.
I had a sensation of nausea. I saw the  evening shadows advancing rapidly up
the  sides  of those eastern mountains. I had the feeling that I was running
after them.
     "Here we go," Genaro said in my ear.
     "Watch the big peak, watch the glitter," don Juan said in my other ear.
     There  was  indeed a  point  of intense brilliance  where don Juan  had
pointed,  on  the  highest  peak of  the range. I  watched the last  ray  of
sunlight being reflected on it. I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach, just
as if I were on a roller coaster.
     I felt, rather  than heard, a faraway earthquake rumble which  abruptly
overtook me.  The seismic waves were  so loud and so enormous that they lost
all  meaning  for  me. I was  an  insignificant  microbe  being twisted  and
twirled.
     The  motion slowed down  by degrees.  There was  one more  jolt  before
everything  came  to  a halt.  I tried to  look around. I  had  no point  of
reference. I seemed to be planted, like a tree.  Above me there was a white,
shiny,  inconceivably big  dome. Its presence made  me feel elated.  I  flew
toward it, or rather I was ejected like a projectile. I had the sensation of
being comfortable, nurtured, secure; the closer I got to the dome, the  more
intense those  feelings became.  They finally overwhelmed me  and I lost all
sense of myself.
     The next thing I knew, I was rocking slowly in the air like a leaf that
falls. I felt exhausted. A suction force started  to pull me. I went through
a dark hole and then I was with don Juan and Genaro.

     The next day don Juan, Genaro, and I went to Oaxaca. While don Juan and
I  strolled around  the main square,  in the  later afternoon,  he  suddenly
started to talk about what we had  done the day before. He asked me if I had
understood what  he  was referring to  when  he  said that the old seers had
stumbled onto something monumental.
     I told him that I did, but that I couldn't explain it in words.
     "And  what do you think was the main thing we wanted you to find out on
top of that mountain?" he asked.
     "Alignment," a voice said in my ear, at the same time I said it myself.
     I turned around in a reflex action and bumped into Genaro, who was just
behind me, walking  in my tracks.  The speed of my movement startled him. He
broke into a giggle and then embraced me.
     We sat down.  Don Juan  said  that  there were very few  things that he
could say  about the boost I  had gotten from  the  earth, that warriors are
always  alone in  such cases,  and true  realizations come much later, after
years of struggle.
     I told don Juan that my  problem in understanding was magnified by  the
fact that he  and  Genaro were  doing all the work. I  was  simply a passive
subject who could only react to their maneuvers. I could not for the life of
me initiate any action, because I did not know what a  proper action  should
be, nor did I know how to initiate it.
     "That's  precisely the point," don Juan said. "You are  not supposed to
know yet. You are going to be  left  behind,  by yourself,  to reorganize on
your own  everything we are doing to you now.  This is the task every nagual
has to face.
     "The nagual Julian did  the same thing to me, much more ruthlessly than
the  way we do it to  you. He  knew what  he  was doing; he  was a brilliant
nagual who was able to reorganize in a few years everything the nagual Ellas
had  taught  him. He did, in  no  time at all,  something  that would take a
lifetime for you or  for  me. The  difference was that all the nagual Julian
ever needed was a slight insinuation; his awareness would take it from there
and open the only door there is."
     "What do you mean, don Juan, by the only door there is?"
     "I  mean that when man's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit,
the results  are  always  the same for every  man. The techniques to make it
move may  be as different as  they can be, but  the results  are  always the
same, meaning that the assemblage point assembles other worlds, aided by the
boost from the earth."
     "Is the boost from the earth the same for every man, don Juan?"
     "Of  course.  The  difficulty  for  the  average  man  is  the internal
dialogue. Only when a state  of total  silence is  attained can one use  the
boost. You will corroborate that truth  the day you try to use that boost by
yourself."
     "I  wouldn't  recommend that  you try  it," Genaro said  sincerely. "It
takes  years to  become  an  impeccable warrior. In  order  to withstand the
impact of the earth's boost you must be better than you are now."
     "The speed of that boost will dissolve  everything about you," don Juan
said. "Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of individual
existence  don't  go  together. Yesterday  on  the  mountain,  Genaro and  I
supported  you  and served  as  your  anchors;  otherwise  you wouldn't have
returned. You'd be like some men who purposely used that boost and went into
the unknown and are still roaming in some incomprehensible immensity."
     I  wanted  him to  elaborate  on that, but  he refused. He changed  the
subject abruptly.
     "There's one thing you haven't understood yet about the earth's being a
sentient being," he said. "And Genaro, this  awful Genaro, wants to push you
until you understand."
     Both of them laughed. Genaro playfully shoved me and winked at me as he
mouthed the words, "I am awful."
     "Genaro  is  a  terrible  taskmaster,  mean  and  ruthless,"  don  Juan
continued.  "He  doesn't  give  a  hoot  about your  fears  and  pushes  you
mercilessly. If it wasn't for me. . ."
     He  was a perfect  picture  of  a  good,  thoughtful old gentleman.  He
lowered his eyes and sighed. The two of them broke into roaring laughter.
     When they had quieted down, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me
what I  had not understood yet, that the  supreme awareness of the  earth is
what  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  change  into  other  great bands  of
emanations.
     "We living beings are perceivers," he  said. "And  we perceive  because
some  emanations inside man's cocoon  become  aligned  with  some emanations
outside. Alignment, therefore,  is the  secret  passageway, and  the earth's
boost is the key.
     "Genaro wants you to watch the moment of alignment. Watch him!"
     Genaro stood up like a showman and took a bow,  then showed us  that he
had nothing  up  his  sleeves or  inside the legs of his pants. He took  his
shoes  off and shook them to show  that there was  nothing  concealed  there
either.
     Don Juan was laughing with total abandon. Genaro moved his hands up and
down. The  movement created an  immediate fixation in  me. I sensed that the
three of us suddenly got up and walked away from the square, the two of them
flanking me.
     As  we  continued  walking,  I  lost my peripheral  vision.  I did  not
distinguish  any more  houses or streets. I did not notice any mountains  or
any vegetation either. At one moment I realized that I had lost sight of don
Juan and  Genaro; instead  I saw  two  luminous bundles  moving  up and down
beside me.
     I  felt an instantaneous panic, which  I immediately controlled.  I had
the unusual but well-known sensation that I was myself and yet I  was not. I
was aware, however, of everything around me by means of a strange and at the
same time  most familiar capacity. The  sight of the world came to me all at
once. All of me  saw; the entirety of what I in my normal consciousness call
my  body was capable of sensing as if it were an enormous eye  that detected
everything. What I first detected, after seeing the two blobs  of light, was
a  sharp violet-purple world made out of something that looked  like colored
panels and canopies. Flat, screenlike panels of irregular concentric circles
were everywhere.
     I felt a  great pressure  all  over me, and then I heard a  voice in my
ear. I was seeing. The voice  said  that the pressure was due to the  act of
moving. I was moving together with don Juan and Genaro. I felt a faint jolt,
as if I had broken a paper  barrier, and I found myself facing a luminescent
world. Light radiated from everyplace, but  without being glaring. It was as
if the sun were about to erupt from behind some white diaphanous  clouds.  I
was looking down  into the  source of light. It was a beautiful sight. There
were no landmasses, just fluffy white  clouds and light. And we were walking
on the clouds.
     Then something imprisoned me again. I moved at the same pace as the two
blobs of light by my sides.  Gradually they  began to lose their brilliance,
then  became opaque, and finally they were don  Juan  and  Genaro.  We  were
walking on a deserted side street away from the main square. Then we  turned
back.
     "Genaro just  helped you to align your emanations with those emanations
at large that belong to another band," don  Juan said to  me. "Alignment has
to be a very peaceful, unnoticeable act. No flying away, no great fuss."
     He said that  the sobriety  needed to let the assemblage point assemble
other worlds is something that cannot be improvised. Sobriety has  to mature
and  become  a force  in  itself before  warriors can break  the  barrier of
perception with impunity.
     We were  coming closer to the main  square. Genaro had not said a word.
He walked in silence, as  if absorbed in thought.  Just before we came  into
the square, don Juan said that Genaro wanted to show me one more thing: that
the position of  the assemblage point  is everything, and  that the world it
makes us perceive is so real that it does not leave room for anything except
realness.
     "Genaro will let his  assemblage point  assemble another world just for
your  benefit,"  don  Juan  said to me. "And then you'll realize that as  he
perceives it, the force of his perception will leave room for nothing else."
     Genaro walked ahead of us, and don Juan ordered me to roll my eyes in a
counterclockwise direction while I looked at  Genaro, to avoid being dragged
with him. I  obeyed him. Genaro was five  or six feet away from me. Suddenly
his shape became diffuse and in one instant he was gone like a puff of air.
     I thought of the science fiction movies I had seen and wondered whether
we are subliminally aware of our possibilities.
     "Genaro  is  separated  from  us  at   this  moment  by  the  force  of
perception," don  Juan said quietly.  "When the assemblage point assembles a
world, that  world is total.  This is the marvel that the old seers stumbled
upon and never realized what it was: the  awareness of the earth can give us
a boost to align other great bands of emanations, and the  force of that new
alignment makes the world vanish.
     "Every  time the old seers  made a new alignment they believed they had
descended to the  depths' or  ascended to the heavens above. They never knew
that the  world  disappears like a puff of  air when  a  new total alignment
makes us perceive another total world."

     14 The Rolling Force

     Don  Juan  was  about  to  start  his  explanation  of  the mastery  of
awareness, but he changed his mind and stood up.  We had been sitting in the
big room, observing a moment of quiet.
     "I want you to try seeing  the Eagle's  emanations," he said. "For that
you must first move your assemblage point until you see the cocoon of man."
     We  walked from  the  house to the  center of town. We sat  down on art
empty, worn park bench  in front of  the  church, it  was early afternoon; a
sunny, windy day with lots of people milling around.
     He repeated, as if he were trying to drill  it into me,  that alignment
is  a unique force because it either helps the assemblage point shift, or it
keeps it glued to its customary position. The aspect of alignment that keeps
the point  stationary, he said, is will; and the  aspect that makes it shift
is intent. He remarked that one  of the most haunting mysteries is how will,
the impersonal force  of  alignment, changes  into intent,  the personalized
force, which is at the service of each individual.
     "The strangest  part of this mystery is  that the change is  so easy to
accomplish," he went  on.  "But what is not so easy is to convince ourselves
that it is  possible. There, right there, is our safety catch. We have to be
convinced. And none of us wants to be."
     He told me then that I  was in my  keenest state of awareness, and that
it was possible for me to infend my assemblage point to shift deeper into my
left side,  to  a  dreaming  position.  He  said that warriors  should never
attempt seeing unless  they are  aided by dreaming.  I  argued  that to fall
asleep  in  public was not one  of my fortes.  He  clarified  his statement,
saying that to  move the assemblage point away from its natural  setting and
to  keep it  fixed at a new  location is to  be asleep; with practice, seers
learn to be asleep and yet behave as if nothing is happening to them.
     After a moment's pause he  added that for purposes of seeing the cocoon
of man, one has to  gaze  at people from  behind, as  they walk  away. It is
useless  to  gaze at people face to face, because the front  of  the egglike
cocoon  of man has a protective shield, which seers call the front plate, it
is an almost  impregnable, unyielding shield that protects us throughout our
lives against  the  onslaught  of  a  peculiar  force that  stems  from  the
emanations themselves.
     He also told me not to be surprised if my body was stiff,  as though it
were  frozen;  he said that  I  was  going  to feel very  much  like someone
standing in the middle of a room looking at the street through a window, and
that  speed was of the essence, as people were going to  move extremely fast
by  my  seeing window.  He  told me then  to relax  my muscles,  shut off my
internal dialogue, and let my assemblage point drift away under the spell of
inner silence. He urged  me to smack  myself  gently  but firmly on my right
side, between my hipbone and my ribcage.
     I did that three times and I was  sound asleep. It was a most  peculiar
state of sleep. My body was dormant, but I was perfectly aware of everything
that  was  taking place. I  could hear don  Juan  talking  to me and I could
follow every one of his  statements as if I were awake, yet I could not move
my body at all.
     Don Juan said that a man was going to walk by my seeing window and that
I should try to see him. I unsuccessfully attempted to move my head and then
a shiny egglike  shape appeared, it was resplendent. I was awed by the sight
and  before I could recover from my surprise,  it was gone. It floated away,
bobbing up and down.
     Everything had been so sudden  and fast that it made me feel frustrated
and impatient. I felt that I was beginning to wake up. Don Juan talked to me
again and urged me  to relax. He said that I had no right and no time to  be
impatient.  Suddenly,  another luminous being  appeared  and  moved away. It
seemed to be made of a white fluorescent shag.
     Don Juan whispered in my  ear that if I wanted to, my eyes were capable
of slowing down everything they focused on.  Then he warned  me that another
man was coming. I realized  at that instant that there  were two voices. The
one I had just heard was the same one that had admonished  me to be patient.
That was don Juan's. The other, the one that told  me to use my eyes to slow
down movement, was the voice of seeing.
     That afternoon, I saw ten luminous beings in  slow motion. The voice of
seeing guided  me to witness  in them everything don  Juan had told me about
the glow of awareness. There was a vertical band with a stronger  amber glow
on the right side of those egglike luminous creatures, perhaps one-tenth  of
the total volume of the cocoon. The  voice said that that was man's band  of
awareness. The voice pointed out a dot on man's band,  a dot with an intense
shine; it was high on the oblong shapes, almost on the crest of them, on the
surface of the cocoon; the voice said that it was the assemblage point.
     When I saw each luminous creature in profile, from the point of view of
its body, its egglike shape was  like a gigantic  asymmetrical yoyo that was
standing edgewise, or like an  almost round pot that was resting on its side
with its lid on. The part that looked like a lid was the front plate; it was
perhaps one-fifth the thickness of the total cocoon.
     I would have gone on seeing those  creatures, but don  Juan said that I
should  now gaze  at  people face to face  and sustain my  gaze until  I had
broken the barrier and I was seeing the emanations.
     I followed  his command. Almost instantaneously, I saw a most brilliant
array of live, compelling  fibers  of  light. It  was a dazzling  sight that
immediately shattered my balance. I fell down on the cement walk on my side.
From  there, I saw the compelling fibers of light  multiply themselves. They
burst open and myriads of other fibers  came out of  them.  But  the fibers,
compelling as  they were, somehow  did not  interfere with my ordinary view.
There were scores of people going into church. I was no  longer seeing them.
There  were quite  a few women and  men  just around the bench. I wanted  to
focus  my  eyes on them, but instead I  noticed how  one of those  fibers of
light bulged suddenly. It became like a ball of fire that was perhaps  seven
feet  in diameter, it rolled  on me. My first impulse was to roll out of its
way.  Before I could even move  a muscle the ball  had hit me.  I felt it as
clearly as if someone had punched me gently in the stomach. An instant later
another ball of fire  hit me, this time with considerably more strength, and
then  don  Juan whacked me really hard on the cheek with  his  open  hand. I
jumped  up involuntarily  and  lost  sight of  the  fibers  of light and the
balloons that were hitting me.

     Don Juan said that I had successfully endured my  first brief encounter
with  the Eagle's emanations,  but that a  couple of shoves from the tumbler
had  dangerously opened up my gap. He added that  the  balls that had hit me
were called the rolling force, or the tumbler.
     We  had returned to his house, although I did not remember how or when.
! had spent hours  in a sort of  semisleeping state. Don  Juan and the other
seers of his group  had given me large  amounts of water to drink. They  had
also submerged me in an ice-cold tub of water for short periods of time.
     "Were those fibers I saw the Eagle's emanations?" I asked don Juan.
     "Yes.  But you didn't really see them," he  replied. "No sooner had you
begun to see  than the tumbler stopped  you. If  you had remained  a  moment
longer it would have blasted you."
     "What exactly is the tumbler?" I asked.
     "It  is a force  from the  Eagle's  emanations," he  said. "A ceaseless
force that strikes us every instant of  our lives, it  is  lethal when seen,
but otherwise we are oblivious to it, in our ordinary lives, because we have
protective  shields.  We  have  consuming  interests  that  engage  all  our
awareness.  We are permanently  worried about our station,  our possessions.
These shields, however, do  not keep the  tumbler away, they simply keep  us
from  seeing it directly, protecting us in this way from getting hurt by the
fright  of seeing the balls of fire hitting us. Shields are a great help and
a great hindrance to us. They  pacify  us and at the same time fool us. They
give us a false sense of security."
     He  warned  me that a moment would  come  in my life when  I  would  be
without  any shields, uninterruptedly  at the mercy  of the tumbler. He said
that it is an obligatory stage in the life of a warrior, known as losing the
human form.
     I asked him to explain to  me  once and for all  what the human form is
and what it means to lose it.
     He replied  that  seers describe the human form as the compelling force
of alignment of  the  emanations lit by the glow of awareness on the precise
spot on which normally man's assemblage point is  fixated.  It is  the force
that  makes us into persons.  Thus, to be a person  is  to  be compelled  to
affiliate  with that force  of  alignment and consequently to be  affiliated
with the precise spot where it originates.
     By reason of  their activities, at a given moment the assemblage points
of warriors drift toward the left.  It is a permanent move, which results in
an uncommon sense of aloofness,  or control, or  even abandon. That drift of
the assemblage point  entails  a  new alignment  of emanations.  It  is  the
beginning of  a  series  of greater  shifts.  Seers very  aptly  called this
initial shift losing the human form, because it marks an inexorable movement
of the  assemblage  point  away from its original setting, resulting  in the
irreversible loss of our affiliation to the force that makes us persons.
     He asked me then to describe all the details I could remember about the
balls of fire. I told him that I had seen them so briefly  I  was not sure I
could describe them in detail.
     He pointed out  that seeing is  a  euphemism  for moving the assemblage
point, and that if I moved mine  a fraction more to the left I would have  a
clear picture of the balls of fire, a picture  which  I could interpret then
as having remembered them.
     I tried to have a clear picture, but I couldn't,  so I described what I
remembered.
     He listened attentively and then urged me to recall if they were  balls
or circles of fire. I told him I didn't remember.
     He explained that  those balls  of fire are  of  crucial importance  to
human beings because they are the expression of a force that pertains to all
details  of life  and death,  something that the  new seers call the rolling
force.
     I asked him to clarify what he  meant  by all the details of  life  and
death.
     "The  rolling force is the  means through which  the  Eagle distributes
life  and  awareness  for  safekeeping," he  said. "But it also is the force
that, let's say, collects the rent. It makes all living beings die. What you
saw today was called by the ancient seers the tumbler."
     He said  that seers describe it as an eternal line of iridescent rings,
or balls of fire, that roll onto living beings ceaselessly. Luminous organic
beings meet the rolling  force head on, until the day when  the force proves
to  be too much for them and the creatures  finally collapse. The  old seers
were mesmerized by seeing how the tumbler then tumbles them into the beak of
the Eagle to be devoured. That was the reason they called it the tumbler.
     "You said that  it  is a mesmerizing  sight. Have you yourself  seen it
rolling human beings?" I asked.
     "Certainly I've seen it," he replied, and after a pause he added,  "You
and I saw it only a short while ago in Mexico City."
     His assertion was so farfetched that I felt obliged  to tell  him  that
this time he was wrong. He laughed  and reminded me  that on that  occasion,
while both of us were sitting on a bench in the Alameda Park in Mexico City,
we  had witnessed the death of a man. He said that I had recorded  the event
in my everyday-life memory as well as in my left-side emanations.
     As don  Juan  spoke  to me  I had the sensation of  something inside me
becoming lucid by  degrees, and I could visualize with uncanny  clarity  the
whole scene in the park. The man was lying on the grass with three policemen
standing by him  to keep  onlookers away. I  distinctly  remembered don Juan
hitting me on my back to make me change levels of awareness. And then I saw.
My seeing was imperfect. I was unable to shake off the sight of the world of
everyday life. What I ended up with was a composite of filaments of the most
gorgeous colors superimposed on the buildings and the traffic. The filaments
were  actually lines of colored  light that came from  above. They had inner
life; they were bright and bursting with energy.
     When I looked at the dying man, I saw what don  Juan was talking about;
something that was at  once like circles of fire, or iridescent tumbleweeds,
was  rolling everywhere  I  focused  my eyes.  The circles  were rolling  on
people, on don Juan, on me. I felt them in my stomach and became ill.
     Don Juan  told me  to focus my eyes on the  dying man. I saw him at one
moment curling up,  just as a sowbug curls itself up upon being touched. The
incandescent circles pushed him away, as if they were casting him aside, out
of their majestic, inalterable path.
     I had not liked  the feeling.  The circles of fire  had  not scared me;
they were not awesome,  or sinister. I  did not feel morbid or  somber.  The
circles rather had nauseated me. I'd felt them in  the pit of my stomach. It
was a revulsion that I'd felt that day.
     Remembering them conjured up again  the  total feeling  of discomfort I
had  experienced  on that occasion. As I got ill, don Juan laughed  until he
was out of breath.
     "You're such an exaggerated fellow." he said. "The rolling force is not
that  bad.  It's lovely, in fact.  The  new  seers  recommend that  we  open
ourselves to it. The old seers also opened themselves to it, but for reasons
and purposes guided mostly by self-importance and obsession.
     "The  new  seers, on the other hand, make friends with  it. They become
familiar with that  force by handling  it  without  any self-importance. The
result is staggering in its consequences."
     He said that a shift of the  assemblage point is all that is  needed to
open  oneself to the rolling force. He added that if  the force is seen in a
deliberate  manner, there is  minimal danger. A situation that is  extremely
dangerous, however, is an involuntary shift  of the assemblage point  owing,
perhaps, to  physical  fatigue, emotional exhaustion, disease,  or simply  a
min