world  of  everyday  life.  Thus  they  were  always  about  tested
procedures,  steps  to  be followed,  and rules of  meticulousness, but  had
nothing to do with the premises of sorcery. He pointed out that  the flaw in
my reasoning was  that  I  always failed  to include my  experiences in  the
sorcerers' world.
     I  argued that very few of  my experiences in the  sorcerers' world had
continuity, and therefore  I  could  not make use of those experiences in my
present day-to-day life. Very  few times, and only  when I  was in states of
profound heightened awareness,  had I remembered everything. At the level of
heightened  awareness  I  usually  reached,  the  only experience  that  had
continuity between past and present was that of knowing him.
     He  responded  cuttingly  that  I was perfectly capable of  engaging in
sorcerers'  reasonings because I had experienced the sorcery premises  in my
normal state of awareness.  In a more  mellow  tone he added that heightened
awareness  did not  reveal  everything  until the  whole edifice  of sorcery
knowledge was completed.
     Then  he answered  my  question about  whether or  not  sorcerers could
misinterpret omens. He explained that when a sorcerer interpreted an omen he
knew its exact meaning without having any notion of how he knew it. This was
one of the bewildering effects of the connecting link with intent. Sorcerers
had a sense  of knowing things directly.  How sure they were depended on the
strength and clarity of their connecting link.
     He  said  that  the  feeling  everyone  knows  as  "intuition"  is  the
activation of our link with intent.  And since sorcerers deliberately pursue
the understanding and strengthening of that link, it could be said that they
intuit everything unerringly  and  accurately.  Reading omens is commonplace
for sorcerers  -  mistakes happen only when personal  feelings intervene and
cloud the  sorcerers' connecting link  with intent.  Otherwise  their direct
knowledge is totally accurate and functional.
     We remained quiet for a while.
     All of a sudden  he said,  "I am going  to tell you  a  story about the
nagual Elias  and  the  manifestation of the  spirit.  The spirit  manifests
itself to a sorcerer, especially to  a nagual,  at every turn. However, this
is not the entire truth. The entire truth is that  the spirit reveals itself
to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only sorcerers, and
naguals in particular, are attuned to such revelations."
     Don Juan began his story. He said that the nagual Elias had been riding
his horse  to  the  city one  day, taking  him  through  a  shortcut by some
cornfields when suddenly his horse  shied, frightened by the low, fast sweep
of a falcon that missed  the  nagual's straw  hat  by only a few inches. The
nagual immediately dismounted and  began to look around. He  saw  a  strange
young  man  among  the tall,  dry  cornstalks.  The man  was  dressed in  an
expensive dark suit and  appeared alien there.  The nagual Elias was used to
the sight of peasants or landowners in the fields, but he had never seen  an
elegantly dressed city man moving through the fields with apparent disregard
for his expensive shoes and clothes.
     The  nagual  tethered  his  horse and walked  toward the young  man. He
recognized  the  flight of  the  falcon, as well as the  man's  apparel,  as
obvious  manifestations of  the spirit which he could  not disregard. He got
very close to the young man and saw what was going on. The man was chasing a
peasant woman who was running a few yards ahead of him, dodging and laughing
with him.
     The contradiction was quite apparent  to  the nagual.  The  two  people
cavorting in the cornfield  did not belong together. The nagual thought that
the man must be the landowner's son and the woman a servant in the house. He
felt embarrassed to be observing them  and  was about to turn and leave when
the falcon again  swept over  the cornfield and this time brushed the  young
man's head. The falcon  alarmed the couple and they  stopped and  looked up,
trying to anticipate another sweep. The nagual noticed that the man was thin
and handsome, and had haunting, restless eyes.
     Then  the  couple became bored watching for the falcon, and returned to
their play.  The man caught the woman,  embraced her and gently  laid her on
the ground. But instead of trying to make love to her, as the nagual assumed
he would do next, he removed his  own clothes and  paraded naked in front of
the woman.
     She  did  not  shyly  close her eyes or  scream  with  embarrassment or
fright. She giggled, mesmerized by  the prancing naked man, who moved around
her  like a satyr, making lewd  gestures  and laughing.  Finally, apparently
overpowered by the sight, she  uttered  a wild cry, rose, and  threw herself
into the young man's arms.
     Don  Juan  said  that  die  nagual Elias  confessed  to  him  that  the
indications  of the spirit on that  occasion had been most  baffling. It was
clearly evident that  the man was insane. Otherwise, knowing how  protective
peasants were  of their women, he would not have considered seducing a young
peasant woman in broad daylight a few  yards  from the  road - and  naked to
boot.
     Don Juan  broke into a laugh and told me that in those days to take off
one's clothes and engage in  a sexual act in  broad daylight in such a place
meant one had to be  either  insane or blessed by the spirit. He added  that
what the man had done might not seem remarkable nowadays. But then, nearly a
hundred years ago, people were infinitely more inhibited.
     All of this convinced the nagual Elias from  the moment he laid eyes on
the man that he was both  insane and blessed by the spirit.  He worried that
peasants might happen by, become enraged and lynch the man  on the spot. But
no one did. It felt to the nagual as if time had been suspended.
     When the  man finished  making love, he put  on his clothes, took out a
handkerchief,  meticulously dusted his shoes and, all  the while making wild
promises  to the girl, went on  his way. The nagual  Elias  followed him. In
fact,  he followed  him for several days  and found  out that his  name  was
Julian and that he was an actor.
     Subsequently  the nagual saw him  on the stage often  enough to realize
that the actor had  a great  deal of charisma.  The audience, especially the
women, loved him. And he had no scruples about making use of his charismatic
gifts to seduce female admirers.  As the  nagual followed the actor,  he was
able to witness his seduction technique more than once. It  entailed showing
himself naked to his adoring fans as soon as he got them alone, then waiting
until the  women,  stunned by his display, surrendered. The technique seemed
extremely effective for him. The nagual had to  admit that the  actor was  a
great success, except on one count. He was mortally ill. The nagual had seen
the black shadow of death that followed him everywhere.
     Don Juan explained again something  he had told me years before  - that
our  death was a black spot right  behind  the left  shoulder. He said  that
sorcerers knew when a  person was close to dying because they  could see the
dark  spot,  which became a moving shadow the  exact size  and  shape of the
person to whom it belonged.
     As he  recognized the imminent presence of death the nagual was plunged
into a numbing perplexity.  He wondered why the spirit was singling out such
a sick person. He had been taught that in a  natural  state replacement, not
repair, prevailed.  And  the nagual doubted that he  had the ability  or the
strength to heal this young man, or resist the black shadow of his death. He
even doubted if he would be able to discover why the spirit had involved him
in a display of such obvious waste.
     The nagual could do nothing but stay with the actor, follow him around,
and  wait  for the opportunity  to see  in greater depth. Don Juan explained
that a nagual's first reaction, upon being faced with the manifestations  of
the spirit, is  to see the  persons involved.  The  nagual  Elias  had  been
meticulous about  seeing the man the moment he laid eyes on him. He had also
seen  the peasant woman who was part of the  spirit's manifestation, but  he
had seen nothing  that, in his judgment, could have  warranted the  spirit's
display.
     In the course  of witnessing  another seduction, however,  the nagual's
ability to see took on a new depth. This time
     the actor's adoring fan was the daughter of a rich landowner. And  from
the  start she  was  in complete  control. The  nagual found out about their
rendezvous because he overheard  her daring the  actor to meet her the  next
day. The  nagual was hiding  across the street at dawn when  the young woman
left her  house,  and  instead of going to early mass she went  to  join the
actor. The actor was waiting for her and she coaxed him  into  following her
to the open fields.  He appeared to hesitate, but she taunted him  and would
not allow him to withdraw.
     As the nagual watched them sneaking away, he had an absolute conviction
that something was going to happen on that day which  neither of the players
was  anticipating. He saw that the actor's black shadow had grown  to almost
twice  his height. The  nagual deduced from the mysterious hard  look in the
young  woman's eyes that she too had felt the black  shadow of  death at  an
intuitive level. The actor seemed preoccupied. He did not laugh as he had on
other occasions.
     They walked quite  a  distance.  At one point, they spotted  the nagual
following them, but he instantly pretended to be working the land, a peasant
who  belonged there. That made  the couple  relax and allowed the nagual  to
come closer.
     Then the moment  came when the actor tossed off his clothes and  showed
himself to the girl. But  instead of swooning and falling  into his arms  as
his other conquests had, this girl began to  hit him. She kicked and punched
him mercilessly and stepped on his bare toes, making him cry out with pain.
     The  nagual  knew the man had not threatened or harmed the young woman.
He had  not  laid a  finger on her. She was the  only  one  fighting. He was
merely trying to parry the blows, and persistently, but without  enthusiasm,
trying to entice her by showing her his genitals.
     The  nagual  was  filled with  both revulsion and admiration.  He could
perceive  that  the actor  was  an irredeemable libertine, but he could also
perceive equally easily that there was something unique, although revolting,
about him. It baffled the nagual to see that the man's connecting link  with
the spirit was extraordinarily clear.
     Finally the attack ended.  The  woman stopped  beating the  actor.  But
then, instead of running away, she surrendered,  lay down and told the actor
he could now have his way with her.
     The nagual  observed  that the man was so exhausted he was  practically
unconscious. Yet despite his fatigue he went right ahead and consummated his
seduction.
     The nagual was laughing and pondering that useless  man's great stamina
and determination  when the woman screamed and the actor  began to gasp. The
nagual  saw how  the black shadow  struck the  actor. It went like a dagger,
with pinpoint accuracy into his gap.
     Don Juan made a digression at this  point to elaborate on  something he
had explained before: he had described  the gap, an opening in  our luminous
shell at  the height  of  the navel, where the  force  of  death ceaselessly
struck. What don Juan now explained was that when  death hit  healthy beings
it was with a ball-like blow  -  like the punch of a  fist. But when  beings
were dying, death struck them with a dagger-like thrust.
     Thus  the nagual  Elias knew without any question that the actor was as
good as dead, and his death  automatically finished his own interest in  the
spirit's designs. There were no designs left; death had leveled everything.
     He  rose from his hiding place and started to leave when something made
him  hesitate. It was  the  young woman's  calmness.  She  was  nonchalantly
putting on the  few pieces of clothing she had  taken off  and was whistling
tunelessly as if nothing had happened.
     And  then  the nagual  saw  that in relaxing to accept the presence  of
death, the man's  body had released a protecting  veil and revealed his true
nature. He was a double man of tremendous  resources, capable  of creating a
screen  for  protection  or disguise  -  a  natural sorcerer and  a  perfect
candidate for a nagual apprentice, had  it not been for the  black shadow of
death.
     The nagual  was completely taken aback by that sight. He now understood
the designs of the spirit, but failed  to comprehend how such a  useless man
could fit in the sorcerers' scheme of things.
     The woman in the meantime had stood up and without so much as  a glance
at the man, whose body was contorting with death spasms, walked away.
     The  nagual then  saw her  luminosity and  realized  that  her  extreme
aggressiveness was the  result of an enormous flow of superfluous energy. He
became convinced that if she did not put that energy  to sober use, it would
get the best of her and there was no telling what misfortunes it would cause
her.
     As the  nagual watched  the  unconcern  with which she  walked away, he
realized  that the  spirit had given him another manifestation. He needed to
be calm, nonchalant. He needed  to  act as if  he  had nothing  to lose  and
intervene for  the  hell of it. In true nagual  fashion he decided to tackle
the impossible, with no one except the spirit as witness.
     Don Juan commented  that it took  incidents like this to test whether a
nagual is the real thing or  a fake.  Naguals make decisions. With no regard
for the consequences they take action or choose not to. Imposters ponder and
become paralyzed. The nagual  Elias* having made his decision, walked calmly
to the side of the dying man and did the first thing his body, not his mind,
compelled him  to do:  he struck the man's assemblage point to  cause him to
enter into heightened  awareness. He  struck him frantically again and again
until his  assemblage point moved. Aided by the  force  of death itself, the
nagual's  blows sent the man's assemblage point to a  place where  death  no
longer mattered, and there he stopped dying.
     By the time the actor was breathing  again, the nagual had become aware
of the magnitude of his responsibility. If the man was to fend off the force
of his  death, it would be  necessary for him  to  remain in deep heightened
awareness  until death  had  been  repelled.  The  man's  advanced  physical
deterioration  meant he  could  not  be  moved from the  spot  or  he  would
instantly   die.   The   nagual  did  the  only  thing  possible  under  the
circumstances: he built a shack around the body.  There, for three months he
nursed the totally immobilized man.
     My rational thoughts took over, and instead of just listening, I wanted
to know how the nagual Elias could  build a shack  on someone else's land. I
was aware  of  the  rural  peoples'  passion  about land  ownership  and its
accompanying feelings of territoriality.
     Don Juan  admitted that he had asked the same question himself. And the
nagual Elias had said  that the spirit itself had made it possible. This was
the case with  everything  a  nagual  undertook, providing  he  followed the
spirit's manifestations.
     The first thing  the nagual Elias  did, when  the  actor  was breathing
again, was  to run  after the young woman. She was an important  part of the
spirit's  manifestation.  He  caught up with her not too far from  the  spot
where the actor lay barely alive. Rather than talking to her about the man's
plight and trying  to convince  her  to help him,  he  again  assumed  total
responsibility for  his actions and jumped on her like a lion, striking  her
assemblage point a mighty blow. Both  she  and  the  actor  were  capable of
sustaining life  or  death blows. Her assemblage point  moved, but  began to
shift erratically once it was loose.
     The nagual  carried the  young  woman  to where the actor lay.  Then he
spent  the entire day trying to keep her  from losing her mind  and the  man
from losing  his  life. . When he was  fairly  certain  he had  a  degree of
control he went to the  woman's father and told him that lightning must have
struck his daughter  and made her temporarily  mad. He  took the  father  to
where she lay and said that  the young man, whoever  he was, had  taken  the
whole  charge  of  the lightning with his  body, thus saving the  girl  from
certain death, but injuring himself to the point that he could not be moved.
     The grateful father  helped the  nagual build the shack for the man who
had  saved his  daughter.  And in three  months the nagual accomplished  the
impossible. He healed the young man.
     When the time came for the nagual to leave, his sense of responsibility
and  his  duty required him  both to  warn the young woman about her  excess
energy  and  the injurious  consequences it would have on her life  and well
being, and  to ask  her to  join  the sorcerers' world, as that would be the
only defense against her self-destructive strength.
     The woman did not respond. And the nagual Elias was obliged to tell her
what every nagual has said to a prospective apprentice throughout  the ages:
that  sorcerers  speak of  sorcery as a magical, mysterious  bird which  has
paused in  its  flight for a moment in order  to give man hope and  purpose;
that sorcerers live under the wing of that bird, which they call the bird of
wisdom, the bird of freedom; that they nourish it  with their dedication and
impeccability.  He told her  that sorcerers knew the  flight of the bird  of
freedom was always a straight line, since it had no way of making a loop, no
way  of circling back and returning; and that the  bird  of freedom could do
only two things, take sorcerers along, or leave them behind.
     The nagual  Elias  could  not talk to the young actor,  who  was  still
mortally ill, in the same way. The young man did not have much of a  choice.
Still, the nagual told him that  if he wanted  to be cured, he would have to
follow the nagual unconditionally. The actor accepted the terms instantly.
     The  day the nagual Elias and the  actor started  back home,  the young
woman was waiting silently at  the edge  of town. She carried no  suitcases,
not  even a basket.  She seemed to  have  come merely  to see  them off. The
nagual kept walking without looking at her, but  the actor, being carried on
a stretcher, strained to  say goodbye to  her. She  laughed  and  wordlessly
merged into  the nagual's  party. She  had no  doubts and  no problem  about
leaving everything behind.  She had  understood perfectly that  there was no
second chance for her, that the bird  of freedom either took sorcerers along
or left them behind.
     Don Juan commented  that  that was  not surprising.  The  force  of the
nagual's personality was  always  so overwhelming  that  he was  practically
irresistible, and the nagual Elias had affected  those two people deeply. He
had  had  three  months  of  daily  interaction  to  accustom  them  to  his
consistency,  his  detachment, his objectivity. They had become enchanted by
his sobriety and,  above all, by  his  total dedication to them. Through his
example and his actions, the nagual Elfas had given them a sustained view of
the sorcerers'  world: supportive and nurturing, yet  utterly  demanding. It
was a world that admitted very few mistakes.
     Don Juan reminded me then of something  he had repeated to me often but
which  I had always managed not to  think about. He  said that  I should not
forget,  even for  an instant, that  the  bird  of  freedom  had very little
patience with indecision, and when it flew away, it never returned.
     The chilling resonance of his voice made the surroundings, which only a
second  before  had been peacefully dark, burst  with  immediacy.  Don  Juan
summoned the peaceful darkness back as fast as  he had summoned urgency.  He
punched me lightly on the arm. "That  woman was so powerful  that  she could
dance circles around anyone," he said. "Her name was Talia."

     THE KNOCK OF THE SPIRIT

     The Abstract

     We returned to don Juan's  house in the early hours  of the morning. It
took us a  long time to climb down the mountain, mainly because I was afraid
of stumbling into a precipice in the dark, and don Juan had to keep stopping
to catch the breath he lost laughing at me.
     I was dead tired, but I could not fall asleep. Before noon, it began to
rain. The sound of the heavy downpour on the tile roof, instead of making me
feel drowsy, removed every trace of sleepiness.
     I  got up and went to look for don Juan. I found him dozing in a chair.
The moment I approached him he was wide-awake. I said good morning.
     "You seem to be having no trouble falling asleep," I commented.
     "When you have been afraid or upset, don't lie down  to sleep," he said
without looking at me. "Sleep sitting up on a soft chair as I'm doing."
     He had suggested once that if I wanted to give  my body healing  rest I
should take long naps,  lying on my stomach with my face turned to the  left
and  my  feet  over  the foot of the bed. In order to avoid  being  cold, he
recommended I
     put a soft pillow over my  shoulders, away from my neck, and wear heavy
socks, or just leave my shoes on.
     When  I first heard his suggestion, I thought he  was  being funny, but
later  changed  my  mind.   Sleeping  in   that  position   helped  me  rest
extraordinarily well. When I commented on the surprising results, he advised
that I follow his suggestions to the letter without bothering to believe  or
disbelieve him.
     I  suggested to don Juan that he  might have told me the  night  before
about the sleeping in a  sitting position. I explained to him that the cause
of my sleeplessness, besides my extreme fatigue, was a strange concern about
what he had told me in the sorcerer's cave.
     "Cut  it out!"  he  exclaimed. "You've  seen  and heard infinitely more
distressing  things  without  losing  a moment's  sleep.  Something else  is
bothering you."
     For a moment I thought he meant I was not being truthful with him about
my real preoccupation. I began  to explain, but he kept talking  as if I had
not spoken.
     "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."
     Don 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 Elias'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 Elias 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 Elfas I had
formed a  very positive opinion of  him. I liked  the nagual  Elfas, 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 moment I saw  you. 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 Elias, he would  have wound up just  like his benefactor, all  action
and very little understanding.
     "What was the nagual Elias 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.
     "I never saw the reason for his jokes,"  don Juan went on.  "To me  the
nagual  Elias  was  like a breath of fresh  air. He would patiently  explain
everything to me. Very much as I  explain  things to you, but perhaps with a
bit more of something. I wouldn't call it compassion,  but rather,  empathy.
Warriors are incapable of  feeling compassion because  they  no longer  feel
sorry for themselves. Without the driving force of  self-pity, compassion is
meaningless."
     "Are you saying, don Juan, that a warrior is all for himself?"
     "In  a way, yes. For a warrior everything begins and ends with himself.
However, his contact with the abstract causes him to overcome his feeling of
self-importance. Then the self becomes abstract and impersonal.
     "The nagual Elias felt that our lives and our personalities were  quite
similar," don Juan continued. "For this reason, he  felt obliged to help me.
I  don't feel that similarity with you, so  I suppose I regard you very much
the way the nagual Julian used to regard me."
     Don Juan said  that the  nagual Elias took him under his  wing from the
very  first  day   he  arrived  at  his  benefactor's  house  to  start  his
apprenticeship  and began to  explain what was taking place in his training,
regardless  of whether don  Juan was capable  of understanding. His urge  to
help  don  Juan was so  intense  that  he  practically held him prisoner. He
protected him in this manner from the nagual Julian's harsh onslaughts.
     "At the beginning, I used  to  stay at the nagual Elfas's house all the
time," don Juan continued. "And  I loved it. In  my benefactor's house I was
always on  the  lookout, on guard,  afraid of what he was going to do  to me
next. But in the Nagual Elias's home I felt confident, at ease.
     "My benefactor used to press me mercilessly. And I couldn't figure  out
why he was pressuring me so hard. I thought that the man was plain crazy."
     Don  Juan  said that the nagual Elias was an Indian from  the  state of
Oaxaca, who had been taught by another  nagual named  Rosendo, who came from
the  same  area.  Don  Juan  described  the  nagual Elias  as  being a  very
conservative man who cherished his privacy. And  yet he was a  famous healer
and  sorcerer,  not   only  in  Oaxaca,  but  in  all  of  southern  Mexico.
Nonetheless, in spite of his occupation  and notoriety, he lived in complete
isolation at the opposite end of the country, in northern Mexico.
     Don Juan  stopped talking. Raising  his eyebrows, he fixed  me  with  a
questioning look. But all I wanted was for him to continue his story.
     "Every single time I  think you should ask  questions,  you don't,"  he
said. "I'm sure you heard me say that the nagual Elias was a famous sorcerer
who dealt with people daily in southern Mexico, and at the  same time he was
a hermit in northern Mexico. Doesn't that arouse your curiosity?"
     I felt abysmally  stupid. I told him  that the  thought  had crossed my
mind, as he was  telling me those facts, that the man must have had terrible
difficulty commuting.
     Don Juan laughed, and,  since he had  made me aware of  the question, I
asked how it had been possible for the nagual Elias to  be in  two places at
once.
     "Dreaming is a  sorcerer's  jet plane," he said. The nagual Elias was a
dreamer as my benefactor was a  stalker.  He was able  to create and project
what  sorcerers  know as the dreaming body, or the  Other, and to  be in two
distant places  at  the same time. With his dreaming body, he could carry on
his business as a sorcerer, and with his natural self be a recluse."
     I remarked that it amazed me that I could  accept so easily the premise
that  the  nagual Elias had the ability to project a solid three-dimensional
image  of himself, and yet  could not  for  the  life of  me understand  the
explanations about the abstract cores.
     Don Juan said that I could accept the idea of  the nagual Elfas's  dual
life  because  the spirit was making  final adjustments in  my  capacity for
awareness. And I exploded into a barrage of protests at the obscurity of his
statement.
     "It isn't obscure," he said.  "It's a statement of fact. You could  say
that  it's  an  incomprehensible  fact for the moment,  but the  moment will
change."
     Before I could reply, he began to talk again about the nagual Elias. He
said that the nagual Elias had a  very inquisitive  mind and could work well
with  his hands. In his journeys as a dreamer he saw many  objects, which he
copied in wood  and  forged iron. Don Juan  assured  me  that  some of those
models were of a haunting, exquisite beauty.
     "What kind of objects were the originals?" I asked.
     "There's no  way of knowing,"  don  Juan said. "You've got  to consider
that  because he  was  an  Indian the nagual  Elias went  into his  dreaming
journeys the way a wild animal prowls for food.  An animal never shows up at
a  site when there are signs of  activity.  He comes  only  when  no one  is
around. The  nagual Elias,  as a solitary  dreamer, visited,  let's say, the
junkyard of  infinity, when  no one was around - and copied whatever he saw,
but never knew what those things were used for, or their source."
     Again, I had  no trouble accepting what he was saying. The idea did not
appear  to  me  farfetched in  any way.  I was  about  to  comment  when  he
interrupted me with a gesture of his eyebrows. He then continued his account
about the nagual Elias.
     "Visiting  him  was   for  me  the  ultimate  treat,"   he  said,  "and
simultaneously, a source  of  strange guilt. I  used to  get bored  to death
there.  Not  because  die nagual Elfas  was boring,  but because the  nagual
Julian had no peers and he spoiled anyone for life."
     "But  I thought  you were confident and  at  ease in the nagual Elias's
house," I said.
     "I was,  and that was  the  source of my guilt and my imagined problem.
Like you, I loved to torment myself.  I  think at the very beginning I found
peace  in the  nagual Elias's  company, but later on, when I understood  the
nagual Julian better, I went his way."
     He told me that the nagual Elias's house had an open, roofed section in
the front, where he had a forge and a
     carpentry bench and tools. The  tiled-roof adobe house consisted  of  a
huge room with a  dirt floor where he lived  with five women seers, who were
actually  his wives. There were also four  men, sorcerer-seers of his  party
who lived in small houses around  the nagual's house. They were  all Indians
from different parts of the country who had migrated to northern Mexico.
     "The nagual Elias had great respect for sexual  energy," don Juan said.
"He believed  it  has been  given to us so we can use  it  in  dreaming.  He
believed dreaming had fallen into disuse because it can upset the precarious
mental balance of susceptible people.
     "I've taught you dreaming the same way he taught me," he continued. "He
taught me that while we  dream the assemblage point moves  very  gently  and
naturally. Mental balance is nothing but the fixing  of the assemblage point
on one  spot  we're  accustomed  to.  If  dreams make that  point move,  and
dreaming  is used to  control that  natural  movement,  and sexual energy is
needed  for dreaming, the result is sometimes disastrous when sexual  energy
is  dissipated  in  sex  instead  of  dreaming.  Then  dreamers  move  their
assemblage point erratically and lose their minds."
     "What are you trying to tell me, don Juan?" I asked because I felt that
the subject of dreaming had not been a natural drift in the conversation.
     "You are a  dreamer"  he said. "If you're not careful  with your sexual
energy, you might as well  get  used to the  idea of erratic  shifts of your
assemblage point. A moment ago you were bewildered by  your reactions. Well,
your assemblage point  moves almost erratically, because  your sexual energy
is not in balance." I made a stupid and inappropriate comment  about the sex
life of adult males.
     "Our sexual energy is what governs dreaming," he explained. "The nagual
Elfas taught me - and I  taught you -  that  you either make love  with your
sexual  energy or  you dream with it. There is no other  way.  The  reason I
mention it  at all  is because you are having great difficulty shifting your
assemblage point to grasp our last topic: the abstract.
     "The same thing happened to me," don Juan went on. "It was only when my
sexual  energy was freed from the world that everything fit into place. That
is the  rule for dreamers. Stalkers are the opposite. My benefactor was, you
could say, a sexual libertine both as an average man and as a nagual."
     Don  Juan  seemed  to be  on the  verge  of  revealing his benefactor's
doings, but he obviously changed his mind. He shook his head and said that I
was way too stiff for such revelations. I did not insist.
     He  said that  the  nagual  Elfas had  the  sobriety that only dreamers
acquired after  inconceivable battles with themselves. H