My first contact with thesorcerers' world was not something I planned or sought out: It was rather afortuitous event.  

I met a group of people innorthern Mexico, in July of 1970, and they turned out to be the strictfollowers of a sorcerers' tradition belonging to the Indians of pre-ColumbianMexico.  

That first meeting had along-range, overpowering effect on me.  

It introduced me to another worldthat coexists with ours.  

I have spent twenty years of mylife committed to that world.  

This is the account of how myinvolvement began, and how it was spurred and directed by the sorcerers whowere responsible for my being there.  

The most prominent of them was awoman named Florinda Matus. She was my mentor and guide. She was also the onewho gave me her name, Florinda, as a gift of love and power.  

To call them sorcerers is not mychoice.  

Brujo or bruja, which mean sorcereror witch, are the Spanish terms they themselves use to denote a male or afemale practitioner.  

I have always resented thenegative connotation of those words, but the sorcerers themselves put me atease, once and for all by explaining that what is meant by sorcery is somethingquite abstract; the ability, which some people develop, to expand the limits ofnormal perception.  

The abstract quality of sorceryvoids automatically, then, any positive or negative connotation of terms usedto describe its practitioners.  

Expanding the limits of normalperception is a concept that stems from the sorcerers' belief that our choicesin life are limited, due to the fact that they are defined by the socialorder.  

Sorcerers believe that the socialorder sets up our lists of options, but we do the rest: By accepting only thesechoices, we set a limit to our nearly limitless possibilities.  

This limitation, they say,fortunately applies only to our social side and not to the other side of us; apractically inaccessible side, which is not in the realm of ordinaryawareness.  

Their main endeavor, therefore,is to uncover that side.  

They do this by breaking thefrail, yet resilient, shield of human assumptions about what we are and what weare capable of being.  

Sorcerers acknowledge that in ourworld of daily affairs there are people who probe into the unknown in pursuitof alternative views of reality.  

The sorcerers contend that theideal consequences of such probings should be the capacity to draw from ourfindings the necessary energy to change, and to detach ourselves from ourdefinition of reality.  

But the sorcerers argue thatunfortunately such probings are essentially mental endeavors: New thoughts andnew ideas hardly ever change us.  

One of the things I learned inthe sorcerers' world was that without retreating from the world, and withoutinjuring themselves in the process, sorcerers do accomplish the magnificenttask of breaking the agreement that has defined reality.