I was dreaming an utterly nonsensical dream. Carol Tiggs was by my side.She was speaking to me, although I could not understand what she said. Don Juanwas also in my dream, as were all the members of his party. They seemed to betrying to drag me out of a foggy, yellowish world.

After a serious effort, during which I lost and regained sight of themvarious times, they succeeded in extricating me from that place. Since I couldnot conceive the sense of all that endeavor, I finally figured that I washaving a normal, incoherent dream.

My surprise was staggering when I woke up and found myself in bed, in donJuan's house. I was incapable of moving. I had no energy at all. I did not knowwhat to think, although I immediately sensed the gravity of my situation. I hadthe vague feeling that I had lost my energy because of fatigue caused bydreaming.

Don Juan's companions seemed to be extremely affected by whatever washappening to me. They kept on coming into my room, one at a time. Each stayedfor a moment, in complete silence, until someone else showed up. It appeared tome that they were taking turns watching over me. I was too weak to ask them toexplain their behavior.

During the subsequent days, I began to feel better, and they started totalk to me about my dreaming. At first, I did not know what they wanted of me.Then it dawned on me, because of their questions, that they were obsessed withthe shadow beings. Every one of them appeared to be scared and said to me moreor less the same thing. They insisted that they had never been in the shadows'world. Some of them even claimed that they did not know it existed. Theirclaims and reactions increased my sense of bewilderment and my fear.

The questions everyone asked were, "Who took you into that world? Orhow did you even begin to know how to get there?" When I told them thatthe scouts had shown me that world, they could not believe me. Obviously, theyhad surmised that I had been there, but since it was not possible for them touse their personal experience as a reference point, they were unable to fathomwhat I was saying. Yet they still wanted to know all I could tell them aboutthe shadow beings and their realm. I obliged them. All of them, with theexception of don Juan, sat by my bed, hanging on every word I said. However,every time I asked them about my situation, they scurried away, just like theshadow beings.

Another disturbing reaction, which they never had before, was that theyfrantically avoided any physical contact with me. They kept their distance, asif I were carrying the plague. Their reaction worried me so much that I feltobliged to ask them about it. They denied it. They seemed insulted and evenwent so far as to insist on proving to me that I was wrong. I laughed heartilyat the tense situation that ensued. Their bodies went rigid every time theytried to embrace me.

Florinda Grau, don Juan's closest cohort, was the only member of his partywho lavished physical attention on me and tried to explain to me what was goingon. She told me that I had been discharged of energy in the inorganic beings' worldand charged again, but that my new energetic charge was a bit disturbing to themajority of them.

Florinda used to put me to bed every night, as if I were an invalid. Sheeven spoke to me in baby talk, which all of them celebrated with gales oflaughter. But regardless of how she made fun of me, I appreciated her concern,which seemed to be real.

I have written about Florinda before in connection with my meeting her.She was by far the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Once I said to her, andI really meant it, that she could have been a fashion magazine model. "Ofa magazine of nineteen ten," she retorted.

Florinda, although she was old, was not old at all. She was young andvibrant. When I asked don Juan about her unusual youthfulness, he replied thatsorcery kept her in a vital state. Sorcerers' energy, he remarked, was seen bythe eye as youth and vigor.

After satisfying their initial curiosity about the shadows' world, donJuan's companions stopped coming into my room, and their conversation remainedat the level of casual inquiries about my health. Every time I tried to get up,however, there was someone around who gently put me back to bed. I did not wanttheir ministrations, yet it seemed that I needed them; I was weak. I acceptedthat. But what really took its toll on me was not having anyone explain to mewhat I was doing in Mexico when I had gone to bed to dream in Los Angeles. Iasked them repeatedly. Every one of them gave me the same answer, the nagual.He's the only one who can explain it." I Finally, Florinda broke the ice."You were lured into a trap; that's what happened to you," she said."Where was I lured into a trap?"

"In the world of the inorganic beings, of course. That has been heworld you've been dealing with for years. Isn't that so?"

"Most definitely, Florinda. But can you tell me about the kind oftrap it was?"

"Not really. All I can tell you is that you lost all your energy Ithere. But you fought very well." "Why am I sick, Florinda?"

"You are not sick with an illness; you were energetically wounded.You were critical, but now you are only gravely I wounded."

"How did all this happen?"

"You entered into a mortal combat with the inorganic beings, and youwere defeated."

"I don't remember fighting anyone, Florinda." "Whether youremember or not is immaterial. You fought and were outclassed. You didn't havea chance against those masterful manipulators."

"I fought the inorganic beings?"

"Yes. You had a mortal encounter with them. I really don't know howyou have survived their death blow."

She refused to tell me anything else and hinted that the nagual was comingto see me any day.

The next day don Juan showed up. He was very jovial and supportive. Hejokingly announced that he was paying me a visit in his capacity of energy doctor.He examined me by gazing at me from head to toe. "You're almostcured," he concluded.

"What happened to me, don Juan?" I asked. "You fell into atrap the inorganic beings set for you," he answered.

"How did I end up here?"

"Right there is the big mystery, for sure," he said and smiledjovially, obviously trying to make light of a serious matter. "Theinorganic beings snatched you, body and all. First they took your energy bodyinto their realm, when you followed one of their scouts, and then they took yourphysical body."

Don Juan's companions seemed to be in a state of shock. One of them askeddon Juan whether the inorganic beings could abduct anyone. Don Juan answeredthat they certainly could. He reminded them that the nagual Elias was takeninto that universe, and he definitely did not intend to go there.

All of them assented with a nod. Don Juan continued speaking to them,referring to me in the third person. He said that the combined awareness of agroup of inorganic beings had first consumed my energy body by forcing anemotional outburst from me to free the blue scout. Then the combined awarenessof the same group of inorganic beings had pulled my inert physical mass intotheir world. Don Juan added that without the energy body one is merely a lumpof organic matter that can be easily manipulated by awareness.

"The inorganic beings are glued together, like the cells of thebody," don Juan went on. "When they put their awareness together,they are unbeatable. It's nothing for them to yank us out of our moorings andplunge us into their world. Especially if we make ourselves conspicuous andavailable, like he did."

Their sighs and gasps echoed against the walls. All of them seemed to begenuinely frightened and concerned.

I wanted to whine and blame don Juan for not stopping me, but I rememberedhow he had tried to warn me, to deviate me, time and time again, to no avail.Don Juan was definitely aware of what was going on in my mind. He gave aknowing smile.

"The reason you think you're sick," he said, addressing me,"is that the inorganic beings discharged your energy and gave you theirs.That should have been enough to kill anyone. As the nagual, you have extraenergy; therefore, you barely survived."

I mentioned to don Juan that I remembered bits and pieces of quite anincoherent dream, in which I was in a yellow-fogged world. He, Carol Tiggs, andhis companions were pulling me out.

"The inorganic beings' realm looks like a yellow-fog world to thephysical eye," he said. "When you thought you were having anincoherent dream, you were actually looking with your physical eyes, for thefirst time, at the inorganic beings' universe. And, strange as it may seem toyou, it was also the first time for us. We knew about the fog only throughsorcerers' stories, not through experience."

Nothing of what he was saying made sense to me. Don Juan assured me that,because of my lack of energy, a more complete explanation was impossible; I hadto be satisfied, he said, with what he was telling me and how I understood it."I don't understand it at all," I insisted. "Then you haven'tlost anything," he said. "When you get stronger, you yourself willanswer your questions."

I confessed to don Juan that I was having hot flashes. My temperature rosesuddenly, and, while I felt hot and sweaty, I had extraordinary but disturbinginsights into my situation.

Don Juan scanned my entire body with his penetrating gaze. He said that Iwas in a state of energetic shock. Losing energy had temporarily affected me,and what I interpreted as hot flashes were, in essence, blasts of energy duringwhich I momentarily regained control of my energy body and knew everything thathad happened to me.

"Make an effort, and tell me yourself what happened to you in theinorganic beings' world," he ordered me.

I told him that the clear sensation I got, from time to time, was that heand his companions had gone into that world with their physical bodies and hadsnatched me out of the inorganic beings' clutches.

"Right!" he exclaimed. "You're doing fine. Now, turn thatsensation into a view of what happened."

I was unable to do what he wanted, hard as I tried. Failing made meexperience an unusual fatigue, which seemed to dry up the inside of my body.Before don Juan left the room, I remarked to him that I was suffering fromanxiety.

"That means nothing," he said, unconcerned. "Gain back yourenergy, and don't worry about nonsense."

More than two weeks went by, during which I slowly gained back my energy.However, I kept on worrying about everything. I worried mainly about beingunknown to myself, especially about a streak of coldness in me that I had notnoticed before, a sort of indifference, a detachment that I had attributed tomy lack of energy until I regained it. Then I realized that it was a new featureof my being, a feature that had me permanently out of synchronization. Toelicit the feelings I was accustomed to, I had to summon them up and actuallywait a moment until they made their appearance in my mind.

Another new feature of my being was a strange longing that took hold of mefrom time to time. I longed for someone I did not know; it was such anoverpowering and consuming feeling that, when I experienced it, I had to movearound the room incessantly to alleviate it. The longing remained with me untilI made use of another newcomer in my life a rigid control of myself, so new andpowerful that it only added more fuel to my worrying.

By the end of the fourth week, everybody felt that I was finally cured.They cut down their visits drastically. I spent much of the time alone,sleeping. The rest and relaxation I was getting was so complete that my energybegan to increase remarkably. I felt like my old self again. I even began toexercise.

One day around noon, after a light lunch, I returned to my room to take anap. Just before I sank into a deep sleep, I was tossing in my bed, trying tofind a more comfortable spot, when a strange pressure on my temples made meopen my eyes. The little girl of the inorganic beings' world was standing bythe foot of my bed, peering at me with her cold, steel blue eyes.

I jumped out of bed and screamed so loudly that three of don Juan'scompanions were in the room before I had stopped my scream. They were aghast.They watched in horror as the little girl came to me and was stopped by theboundaries of my luminous physical being. We looked at each other for aneternity. She was telling me something, which I could not comprehend at firstbut which in the next moment became as clear as a bell. She said that for me tounderstand what she was saying, my awareness had to be transferred from myphysical body into my energy body.

Don Juan came into the room at that moment. The little girl and don Juanstared at each other. Without a word, don Juan turned around and walked out of theroom. The little girl swished past the door after him.

The commotion this scene created among don Juan's companions wasindescribable. They lost all their composure. Apparently, all of them had seenthe little girl as she left the room with the nagual.

I myself seemed to be on the verge of exploding. I felt faint and had tosit down. I had experienced the presence of the little girl as a blow on mysolar plexus. She bore an astonishing likeness to my father. Waves of sentimenthit me. I wondered about the meaning of this until I was actually sick.

When don Juan returned to the room, I had gained minimal control overmyself. The expectation of hearing what he had to say about the little girl wasmaking my breathing very difficult. Everybody was as excited as I was. They alltalked to don Juan at once and laughed when they realized what they were doing.Their main interest was to find out whether there was any uniformity in the waythey had perceived the scout's appearance. Everybody was in agreement that theyhad seen a little girl, six to seven years old, very thin, with angular,beautiful features. They also agreed that her eyes were steel blue and burningwith a mute emotion; her eyes, they said, expressed gratitude and loyalty.

Every detail they described about the little girl I corroborated myself.Her eyes were so bright and overpowering that they had actually caused mesomething like pain. I had felt the weight of her look on my chest.

A serious query, which don Juan's companions had and which I echoedmyself, was about the implications of this event. All agreed that the scout wasa portion of foreign energy that had filtered through the walls separating thesecond attention and the attention of the daily world. They asserted that sincethey were not dreaming and yet all of them had seen the alien energy projectedinto the figure of a human child; that child had existence.

They argued that there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of casesin which foreign energy slips unnoticed through natural barriers into our humanworld, but that in the history of their lineage there was no mention whatsoeverof an event of this nature. What worried them the most was that there were nosorcerers' stories about it.

"Is this the first time in the history of mankind that this hashappened?" one of them asked don Juan.

"I think it happens all the time," he replied, "but it hasnever happened in such an overt, volitional way."

"What does it mean to us?" another one of them asked don Juan.

"Nothing to us, but everything to him," he said and pointed atme.

All of them then entered into a most disturbing silence. Don Juan pacedback and forth for a moment. Then he stopped in front of me and peered at me,giving all the indications of someone who cannot find words to express anoverwhelming realization.

"I can't even begin to assess the scope of what you've done,"don Juan finally said to me in a tone of bewilderment. "You fell ino apitfall, but it wasn't the kind of pitfall I was worrying about. Your pitfallwas designed for you alone, and it was deadlier than anything I could havethought of. I worried about your falling prey to flattery and being served.What I never counted on was that the shadow beings would set a trap using yourinherent aversion to chains."

Don Juan had once made a comparison of his reaction and mine, in thesorcerers' world, to the things that pressed us the most. He said, withoutmaking it sound like a complaint, that although he wanted and tried to, he hadnever been able to inspire the kind of affection his teacher, the nagualJulian, inspired in people.

"My unbiased reaction, which I am putting on the table for I you toexamine, is to be able to say, and mean it it's not my fate to evoke blind andtotal affection. So be it!

"Your unbiased reaction," he went on, "is that you can'tstand chains, and you would forfeit your life to break them."

I sincerely disagreed with him and told him that he was exaggerating. Myviews were not that clear.

"Don't worry," he said laughing, "sorcery is action. When thetime comes, you'll act your passion the same way I act mine. Mine is toacquiesce to my fate, not passively, like an idiot, but actively, like awarrior. Yours is to jump without either capriciousness or premeditation to cutsomeone else's chains."

Don Juan explained that upon merging my energy with the scout I hadtruthfully ceased to exist. All my physicalness had then been transported intothe inorganic beings' realm and, had it not been for the scout who guided donJuan and his companions to where I was, I would have died or remained in thatworld, inextricably lost.

"Why did the scout guide you to where I was?" I asked. "Thescout is a sentient being from another dimension," he said. "It's alittle girl now, and as such she told me that in order I to get the necessaryenergy to break the barrier that had trapped her in the inorganic beings'world, she had to take all of yours. That's her human part now. Somethingresembling gratitude drove her to me. When I saw her, I knew instantly that youwere done for."

"What did you do then, don Juan?"

"I rounded up everyone I could get hold of, especially Carol Tiggs,and off we went into the inorganic beings' realm."

"Why Carol Tiggs?"

"In the first place, because she has endless energy, and, in thesecond place, because she had to familiarize herself with the scout. All of usgot something invaluable out of this experience. You and Carol Tiggs got thescout. And the rest of us got a reason to round up our physicality and place iton our energy bodies; we became energy."

"How did all of you do that, don Juan?"

"We displaced our assemblage points, in unison. Our impeccable intentto save you did the work. The scout took us, in the blink of an eye, to whereyou were lying, half dead, and Carol dragged you out."

His explanation made no sense to me. Don Juan laughed when I tried toraise that point.

"How can you understand this when you don't even have enough energyto get out of your bed?" he retorted.

I confided to him that I was certain I knew infinitely more than Irationally admitted but that something was keeping a tight lid on my memory.

"Lack of energy is what has put a tight lid on your memory," hesaid. "When you have sufficient energy, your memory will work fine."

"Do you mean that I can remember everything if I want to?"

"Not quite. You may want as much as you like, but if your energylevel is not on a par with the importance of what you know, you might as wellkiss your knowledge good-bye it'll never be available to you."

"So what's the thing to do, don Juan?"

"Energy tends to be cumulative; if you follow the warrior's wayimpeccably, a moment will come when your memory I opens up."

I confessed that hearing him talk gave me the absurd sensation that I wasindulging in feeling sorry for myself, that there was nothing wrong with me.

"You are not just indulging," he said. "You were actually Ienergetically dead four weeks ago. Now you are merely stunned. Being stunnedand lacking energy is what makes you hide your knowledge. You certainly knowmore than any of us about the inorganic beings' world. That world was theexclusive concern of the old sorcerers. All of us have told you that I onlythrough sorcerers' stories do we know about it. I sincerely say that it is morethan strange to me that you've become, in your own right, another source ofsorcerers' stories for us."

I reiterated that it was impossible for me to believe I had done somethinghe had not. But I could not believe either that he was merely humoring me.

"I am not flattering or humoring you," he said, visibly annoyed."I am stating a sorcery fact. Knowing more than any of us about that worldshouldn't be a reason for feeling pleased. There's no advantage in thatknowledge; in fact, in spite of all you know, you couldn't save yourself. Wesaved you, because we found you. But without the aid of the scout, there was nopoint in even trying to find you. You were so infinitely lost in that worldthat I shudder at the mere thought."

In my state of mind, I did not find it strange in the least that Iactually saw a ripple of emotion going through all of don Juan's companions andapprentices. The only one who remained unaltered was Carol Tiggs. She seemed tohave fully accepted her role. She was one with me.

"You did free the scout," don Juan continued, "but you gaveup your life. Or, worse yet, you gave up your freedom. The inorganic beings letthe scout go, in exchange for you."

"I can hardly believe that, don Juan. Not that I doubt you, youunderstand, but you describe such an underhanded maneuver that I am stunned."

"Don't consider it underhanded and you have the whole thing in anutshell. The inorganic beings are forever in search of awareness and energy;if you supply them with the possibility of both, what do you think they'll do?Blow you kisses from across the street?"

I knew that don Juan was right. However, I could not hold that certaintyfor too long; clarity kept drifting away from me.

Don Juan's companions continued asking him questions. They wanted to knowif he had given any thought to what to do with the scout.

"Yes, I have. It is a most serious problem, which the nagual here hasto resolve," he said, pointing at me. "He and Carol Tiggs are theonly ones who can free the scout. And he knows it too."

Naturally, I asked him the only possible question, "How can I freeit?"

"Instead of my telling you how, there is a much better and more justway of finding out," don Juan said with a big smile. "Ask theemissary. The inorganic beings cannot lie, you know."