The Power of Silence (9 page)

"We
are going to talk now about the third abstract core," don Juan said.
"It is called the trickery of the spirit, or the trickery of the abstract,
or stalking oneself, or dusting the link."

I was
surprised at the variety of names, but said nothing. I waited for him to
continue his explanation.

"And
again, as with the first and second core," he went on, "it could be a
story in itself. The story says that after knocking on the door of that man
we've been talking about, and having no success with him, the spirit used the
only means available: trickery. After all, the spirit had resolved previous
impasses with trickery. It was obvious that if it wanted to make an impact on
this man it had to cajole him. So the spirit began to instruct the man on the
mysteries of sorcery. And the sorcery apprenticeship became what it is: a route
of artifice and subterfuge.

"The
story says that the spirit cajoled the man by making him shift back and forth
between
levels of awareness to show him how to save energy needed to strengthen his
connecting link."

Don Juan
told me that if we apply his story to a modern netting we had the case of the
nagual, the living conduit of the spirit, repeating the structure of this
abstract core and resorting to artifice and subterfuge in order to teach.

Suddenly he
stood and started to walk toward the mountain range. I followed him and we
started our climb, side by side.

In the very
late afternoon we reached the top of the high mountains. Even at that altitude
it was still very warm. All day we had followed a nearly invisible trail.
Finally we reached a small clearing, an ancient lookout post commanding the
north and west.

We sat
there and don Juan returned our conversation to the sorcery stories. He said
that now I knew the story of intent manifesting itself to the nagual Elias and
the story of the spirit knocking on the nagual Julian's door. And I knew how he
had met the spirit, and I certainly could not forget how I had met it. All
these stories, he declared, had the same structure; only the characters
differed. Each story was an abstract tragicomedy with one abstract player,
intent, and two human actors, the nagual and his apprentice. The script was the
abstract core.

I thought I
had finally understood what he meant, but I could not quite explain even to
myself what it was I understood, nor could I explain it to don Juan. When I
tried to put my thoughts into words I found myself babbling.

Don Juan
seemed to recognize my state of mind. He suggested that I relax and listen. He told
me his next story was about the process of bringing an apprentice into the
realm of the spirit, a process sorcerers called the trickery of the spirit, or
dusting the connecting link to intent.

"I've
already told you the story of how the nagual Julian took me to his house after
I was shot and tended my wound until I recovered," don Juan continued.
"But I didn't tell you how he dusted my link, how he taught me to stalk
myself.

"The
first thing a nagual does with his prospective apprentice is to trick him. That
is, he gives him a jolt on his connecting link to the spirit. There are two
ways of doing this. One is through seminormal channels, which I used with you,
and the other is by means of outright sorcery, which my benefactor used on
me."

Don Juan
again told me the story of how his benefactor had convinced the people who had
gathered at the road that the wounded man was his son. Then he had paid some
men to carry don Juan, unconscious from shock and loss of blood, to his own
house. Don Juan woke there, days later, and found a kind old man and his fat
wife tending his wound.

The old man
said his name was Belisario and that his wife was a famous healer and that both
of them were healing his wound. Don Juan told them he had no money, and
Belisario suggested that when he recovered, payment of some sort could be
arranged.

Don Juan
said that he was thoroughly confused, which was nothing new to him. He was just
a muscular, reckless twenty-year-old Indian, with no brains, no formal
education, and a terrible temper. He had no conception of gratitude. He thought
it was very kind of the old man and his wife to have helped him, but his
intention was to wait for his wound to heal and then simply vanish in the
middle of the night.

When he had
recovered enough and was ready to flee, old Belisario took him into a room and
in trembling whispers disclosed that the house where they were staying belonged
to a monstrous man who was holding him and his wife prisoner. He asked don Juan
to help them to regain their freedom, to escape from their captor and
tormentor. Before don Juan could reply, a monstrous fish-faced man right out of
a horror tale burst into the room, as if he had been listening behind the door.
He was greenish-gray, had only one unblinking eye in the middle of his forehead,
and was as big as a door. He lurched at don Juan, hissing like a serpent, ready
to tear him apart, and frightened him so greatly that he fainted.

"His
way of giving me a jolt on my connecting link with the spirit was
masterful." Don Juan laughed. "My benefactor, of course, had shifted
me into heightened awareness prior to the monster's entrance, so that what I
actually saw as a monstrous man was what sorcerers call an inorganic being, a
formless energy field."

Don Juan
said that he knew countless cases in which his benefactor's devilishness
created hilariously embarrassing situations for all his apprentices, especially
for don Juan himself, whose seriousness and stiffness made him the perfect
subject for his benefactor's didactic jokes. He added as an afterthought that
it went without saying that these jokes entertained his benefactor immensely.

"If
you think I laugh at you - which I do - it's nothing compared with how he
laughed at me," don Juan continued. "My devilish benefactor had
learned to weep to hide his laughter. You just can't imagine how he used to cry
when I first began my apprenticeship."

Continuing
with his story, don Juan stated that his life was never the same after the
shock of seeing that monstrous man. His benefactor made sure of it. Don Juan
explained that once a nagual has introduced his prospective disciple,
especially his nagual disciple, to trickery he must struggle to assure his
compliance. This compliance could be of two different kinds. Either the
prospective disciple is so disciplined and tuned that only his decision to join
the nagual is needed, as had been the case with young Talia. Or the prospective
disciple is someone with little or no discipline, in which case a nagual has to
expend time and a great deal of labor to convince his disciple.

In don
Juan's case, because he was a wild young peasant without a thought in his head,
the process of reeling him in took bizarre turns.

Soon after
the first jolt, his benefactor gave him a second one by showing don Juan his
ability to transform himself. One day his benefactor became a young man. Don
Juan was incapable of conceiving of this transformation as anything but an
example of a consummate actor's art.

"How
did he accomplish those changes?" I asked.

"He
was both a magician and an artist," don Juan replied. "His magic was
that he transformed himself by moving his assemblage point into the position
that would bring on whatever particular change he desired. And his art was the
perfection of his transformations."

"I
don't quite understand what you're telling me," I said.

Don Juan
said that perception is the hinge for everything man is or does, and that
perception is ruled by the location of the assemblage point. Therefore, if that
point changes positions, man's perception of the world changes accordingly. The
sorcerer who knew exactly where to place his assemblage point could become
anything he wanted.

"The
nagual Julian's proficiency in moving his assemblage point was so magnificent
that he could elicit the subtlest transformations," don Juan continued.
"When a sorcerer becomes a crow, for instance, it is definitely a great
accomplishment. But it entails a vast and therefore a gross shift of the
assemblage point. However, moving it to the position of a fat man, or an old
man, requires the minutest shift and the keenest knowledge of human
nature."

"I'd
rather avoid thinking or talking about those things as facts," I said.

Don Juan
laughed as if I had said the funniest thing imaginable.

"Was
there a reason for your benefactor's transformations?" I asked. "Or
was he just amusing himself?"

"Don't
be stupid. Warriors don't do anything just to amuse themselves," he
replied. "His transformations were strategical. They were dictated by
need, like his transformation from old to young. Now and then there were funny
consequences, but that's another matter."

I reminded
him that I had asked before how his benefactor learned those transformations.
He had told me then that his benefactor had a teacher, but would not tell me
who.

"That
very mysterious sorcerer who is our ward taught him," don Juan replied
curtly. "What mysterious sorcerer is that?" I asked.

"The
death defier," he said and looked at me questioningly.

For all the
sorcerers of don Juan's party the death defier was a most vivid character. According
to them, the death defier was a sorcerer of ancient times. He had succeeded in
surviving to the present day by manipulating his assemblage point, making it
move in specific ways to specific locations within his total energy field. Such
maneuvers had permitted his awareness and life force to persist.

Don Juan
had told me about the agreement that the seers of his lineage had entered into
with the death defier centuries before. He made gifts to them in exchange for
vital energy. Because of this agreement, they considered him their ward and
called him "the tenant."

Don Juan
had explained that sorcerers of ancient times were expert at making the
assemblage point move. In doing so they had discovered extraordinary things
about perception, but they had also discovered how easy it was to get lost in
aberration. The death defier's situation was for don Juan a classic example of
an aberration.

Don Juan
used to repeat every chance he could that if the assemblage point was pushed by
someone who not only
saw
it but also had enough energy to move it, it
slid, within the luminous ball, to whatever location the pusher directed. Its
brilliance was enough to light up the threadlike energy fields it touched. The
resulting perception of the world was as complete as, but not the same as, our
normal perception of everyday life, therefore, sobriety was crucial to dealing
with the moving of the assemblage point.

Continuing
his story, don Juan said that he quickly became accustomed to thinking of the
old man who had saved his life as really a young man masquerading as old. But
one day the young man was again the old Belisario don Juan had first met. He
and the woman don Juan thought was his wife packed their bags, and two smiling
men with a team of mules appeared out of nowhere.

Don Juan
laughed, savoring his story. He said that while the muleteers packed the mules,
Belisario pulled him aside and pointed out that he and his wife were again
disguised.

He was
again an old man, and his beautiful wife was a fat irascible Indian.

"I was
so young and stupid that only the obvious had value for me," don Juan
continued. "Just a couple of days before, I had seen his incredible
transformation from a feeble man in his seventies to a vigorous young man in
his mid-twenties, and I took his word that old age was just a disguise. His
wife had also changed from a sour, fat Indian to a beautiful slender young
woman. The woman, of course, hadn't transformed herself the way my benefactor
had. He had simply changed the woman. Of course, I could have seen everything
at that time, but wisdom always comes to us painfully and in driblets."

Don Juan
said that the old man assured him that his wound was healed although he did not
feel quite well yet. He then embraced don Juan and in a truly sad voice
whispered, "the monster has liked you so much that he has released me and
my wife from bondage and taken you as his sole servant."

"I
would have laughed at him," don Juan went on, "had it not been for a
deep animal growling and a frightening rattle that came from the monster's
rooms."

Don Juan's
eyes were shining with inner delight. I wanted to remain serious, but could not
help laughing.

Belisario,
aware of don Juan's fright, apologized profusely for the twist of fate that had
liberated him and imprisoned don Juan. He clicked his tongue in disgust and
cursed the monster. He had tears in his eyes when he listed all the chores the
monster wanted done daily. And when don Juan protested, he confided, in low
tones, that there was no way to escape, because the monster's knowledge of
witchcraft was unequaled.

Don Juan
asked Belisario to recommend some line of action. And Belisario went into a
long explanation about plans of action being appropriate only if one were
dealing with average human beings. In the human context, we can plan and plot
and, depending on luck, plus our cunning and dedication, can succeed. But in
the face of the unknown, specifically don Juan's situation, the only hope of
survival was to acquiesce and understand.