The Power of Silence (36 page)

When the
nagual asked don Juan if he had any questions, he realized that he would be
better off paying close attention to the nagual's explanation than speculating
about his own foresightedness.

Don Juan
wanted to know how the Tulios created the impression that there was only one
person. He was extremely curious, because observing them together he realized
they were not really that alike. They wore the same clothes. They were about
the same size, age, and configuration. But that was the extent of their
similarity. And yet, even as he watched them he could have sworn that there was
only one Tulio.

The nagual
Julian explained that the human eye was trained to focus only on the most
salient features of anything, and that those salient features were known
beforehand. Thus, the stalkers' art was to create an impression by presenting
the features they chose, features they knew the eyes of the onlooker were bound
to notice. By artfully reinforcing certain impressions, stalkers were able to
create on the part of the onlooker an unchallengeable conviction as to what
their eyes had perceived.

The nagual
Julian said that when don Juan first arrived dressed in his woman's clothes,
the women of his party were delighted and laughed openly. But the man with
them, who happened to be Tulitre, immediately provided don Juan with the first
Tulio impression. He half turned away to hide his face, shrugged his shoulders
disdainfully, as if all of it was boring to him, and walked away - to laugh his
head off in private - while the women helped to consolidate that first impression
by acting apprehensive, almost annoyed, at the unsociability of the man.

From that
moment on, any Tulio who was around don Juan reinforced that impression and
further perfected it until don Juan's eye could not catch anything except what
was being fed to him.

Tuliuno
spoke then and said that it had taken them about three months of very careful
and consistent actions to have don Juan blind to anything except what he was
guided to expect. After three months, his blindness was so pronounced that the
Tulios were no longer even careful. They acted normal in the house. They even
ceased wearing identical clothes, and don Juan did not notice the difference.

When other
apprentices were brought into the house, however, the Tulios had to start all
over again. This time the challenge was hard, because there were many
apprentices and they were sharp.

Don Juan
asked Tuliuno about Tulio's appearance. Tuliuno answered that the nagual Elias
maintained appearance was the essence of controlled folly, and stalkers created
appearance by intending them, rather than by producing them with the aid of
props. Props created artificial appearances that looked false to the eye. In
this respect, intending appearances was exclusively an exercise for stalkers.

Tulitre
spoke next. He said appearances were solicited from the spirit. Appearances
were asked, were forcefully called on; they were never invented rationally.
Tulio's appearance had to be called from the spirit. And to facilitate that the
nagual Elias put all four of them together into a very small, out-of-the-way
storage room, and there the spirit spoke to them. The spirit told them that
first they had to intend their homogeneity. After four weeks of total
isolation, homogeneity came to them.

The nagual
Elias said that intent had fused them together and that they had acquired the
certainty that their individuality would go undetected. Now they had to call up
the appearance that would be perceived by the onlooker. And they got busy,
calling intent for the Tulios' appearance don Juan had seen. They had to work
very hard to perfect it. They focused, under the direction of their teacher, on
all the details that would make it perfect.

The four
Tulios gave don Juan a demonstration of Tulio's most salient features. These
were: very forceful gestures of disdain and arrogance; abrupt turns of the face
to the right as if in anger; twists of their upper bodies as if to hide part of
the face with the left shoulder; angry sweeps of a hand over the eyes as if to
brush hair off the forehead; and the gait of an agile but impatient person who
is too nervous to decide which way to go.

Don Juan
said that those details of behavior and dozens of others had made Tulio an
unforgettable character. In fact, he was so unforgettable that in order/to
project Tulio on don Juan and the other apprentices as if on a screen, any of
the four men needed only to insinuate a feature, and don Juan and the
apprentices would automatically supply the rest.

Don Juan
said that because of the tremendous consistency of the input, Tulio was for him
and the others the essence of a disgusting man. But at the same time, if they
searched deep inside themselves, they would have acknowledged that Tulio was
haunting. He was nimble, mysterious, and gave, wittingly or unwittingly, the impression
of being a shadow.

Don Juan
asked Tuliuno how they had called intent. Tuliuno explained that stalkers
called intent loudly. Usually intent was called from within a small, dark,
isolated room. A candle was placed on a black table with the flame just a few
inches before the eyes; then the word intent was voiced slowly, enunciated
clearly and deliberately as many times as one felt was needed. The pitch of the
voice rose or fell without any thought.

Tuliuno
stressed that the indispensable part of the act of calling intent was a total
concentration on what was intended. In their case, the concentration was on
their homogeneity and on Tulio's appearance. After they had been fused by
intent, it still took them a couple of years to build up the certainty that
their homogeneity and Tulio's appearance would be realities to the onlookers.

I asked don
Juan what he thought of their way of calling intent. And he said that his
benefactor, like the nagual Elias, was a bit more given to ritual than he
himself was, therefore, they preferred paraphernalia such as candles, dark
closets, and black tables.

I casually
remarked that I was terribly attracted to ritual behavior, myself. Ritual
seemed to me essential in focusing one's attention. Don Juan took my remark
seriously. He said he had seen that my body, as an energy field, had a feature
which he knew all the sorcerers of ancient times had had and avidly sought in
others: a bright area in the lower right side of the luminous cocoon. That
brightness was associated with resourcefulness and a bent toward morbidity. The
dark sorcerers of those times took pleasure in harnessing that coveted feature
and attaching it to man's dark side.

"Then
there is an evil side to man," I said jubilantly. "You always deny
it. You always say that evil doesn't exist, that only power exists."

I surprised
myself with this outburst. In one instant, all my Catholic background was
brought to bear on me and the Prince of Darkness loomed larger than life.

Don Juan
laughed until he was coughing.

"Of course,
there is a dark side to us," he said. "We kill wantonly, don't we? We
burn people in the name of God. We destroy ourselves; we obliterate life on
this planet; we destroy the earth. And then we dress in robes and the Lord
speaks directly to us. And what does the Lord tell us? He says that we should
be good boys or he is going to punish us. The Lord has been threatening us for
centuries and it doesn't make any difference. Not because we are evil, but
because we are dumb. Man has a dark side, yes, and it's called stupidity."

I did not
say anything else, but silently I applauded and thought with pleasure that don
Juan was a masterful debater. Once again he was turning my words back on me.

After a
moment's pause, don Juan explained that in the same measure that ritual forced
the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to
self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of
morbidity and obsession. As a result, it was the duty of every nagual to guide
awareness so it would fly toward the abstract, free of liens and mortgages.

"What
do you mean, don Juan, by liens and mortgages?" I asked.

"Ritual
can trap our attention better than anything I can think of," he said,
"but it also demands a very high price.

That high
price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages
on our awareness."

Don Juan
said that human awareness was like an immense haunted house. The awareness of
everyday life was like being sealed in one room of that immense house for life.
We entered the room through a magical opening: birth. And we exited through
another such magical opening: death.

Sorcerers,
however, were capable of finding still another opening and could leave that
sealed room while still alive. A superb attainment. But their astounding
accomplishment was that when they escaped from that sealed room they chose
freedom. They chose to leave that immense, haunted house entirely instead of
getting lost in other parts of it.

Morbidity
was the antithesis of the surge of energy awareness needed to reach freedom.
Morbidity made sorcerers lose their way and become trapped in the intricate,
dark byways of the unknown.

I asked don
Juan if there was any morbidity in the Tulios.

"Strangeness
is not morbidity" he replied. "The Tulios were performers who were
being coached by the spirit itself."

"What
was the nagual Elias's reason for training the Tulios as he did?" I asked.

Don Juan
peered at me and laughed loudly. At that instant the lights of the plaza were
turned on. He got up from his favorite bench and rubbed it with the palm of his
hand, as if it were a pet.

"Freedom,"
he said. "He wanted their freedom from perceptual convention. And he
taught them to be artists. Stalking is an art. For a sorcerer, since he's not a
patron or a seller of art, the only thing of importance about a work of art is
that it can be accomplished."

We stood by
the bench, watching the evening strollers milling around. The story of the four
Tulios had left me with a sense of foreboding. Don Juan suggested that I return
home; the long drive to L.A., he said, would give my assemblage point a respite
from all the moving it had done in the past few days.

"The
nagual's company is very tiring," he went on. "It produces a strange
fatigue; it could even be injurious."

I assured
him that I was not tired at all, and that his company was anything but
injurious to me. In fact, his company affected me like a narcotic - I couldn't
do without it. This sounded as if I were flattering him, but I really meant
what I said.

We strolled
around the plaza three or four times in complete silence.

"Go
home and think about the basic cores of the sorcery stories," don Juan
said with a note of finality in his voice. "Or rather, don't think about
them, but make your assemblage point move toward the place of silent knowledge.
Moving the assemblage point is everything, but it means nothing if it's not a
sober, controlled movement. So, close the door of self-reflection. Be
impeccable and you'll have the energy to reach the place of silent knowledge."