There were no more dreaming practices for me, as I was accustomed tohaving them. The next time I saw don Juan, he put me under the guidance of twowomen of his party Florinda and Zuleica, his two closest cohorts. Theirinstruction was not at all about the gates of dreaming but about different waysto use the energy body, and it did not last long enough to be influential. Theygave me the impression that they were more interested in checking me out thanin teaching me anything.

"There is nothing else I can teach you about dreaming," don Juansaid when I questioned him about this state of affairs.

"My time on this earth is up. But Florinda will stay. She's the onewho will direct, not only you but all my other apprentices."

"Will she continue my dreaming practices?"

"I don't know that, and neither does she. It's all up to the Spirit.The real player. We are not players ourselves. We are mere pawns in its hands.Following the commands of the Spirit, I have to tell you what the fourth gateof dreaming is, although I can't guide you anymore."

"What's the point of whetting my appetite? I'd rather not know."

"The spirit is not leaving that up to me or to you. I have to outlinethe fourth gate of dreaming for you, whether I like it or not."

Don Juan explained that, at the fourth gate of dreaming, the energy bodytravels to specific, concrete places and that there are three ways of using thefourth gate one, to travel to concrete places in this world; two, to travel toconcrete places out of this world; and, three, to travel to places that existonly in the intent of others. He stated that the last one is the most difficultand dangerous of the three and was, by far, the old sorcerers' predilection.

"What do you want me to do with this knowledge?" I asked.

"Nothing for the moment. File it away until you need it."

"Do you mean that I can cross the fourth gate by myself, withouthelp?"

"Whether or not you can do that is up to the spirit."

He abruptly dropped the subject, but he did not leave me with thesensation that I should try to reach and cross the fourth gate by myself.

Don Juan then made one last appointment with me to give me, he said, asorcerers' send-off the concluding touch of my dreaming practices. He told meto meet him in the small town in southern Mexico where he and his sorcerercompanions lived.

I arrived there in the late afternoon. Don Juan and I sat in the patio ofhis house on some uncomfortable wicker chairs fitted with thick, oversizepillows. Don Juan laughed and winked at me. The chairs were a gift from one ofthe women members of his party, and we simply had to sit as if nothing wasbothering us, especially him. The chairs had been bought for him in Phoenix,Arizona, and with great difficulty brought into Mexico.

Don Juan asked me to read to him a poem by Dylan Thomas, which he said hadthe most pertinent meaning for me at that point in time.

I have longed to move away From the hissing of the spent lie And the oldterrors' continual cry Growing more terrible as the day Goes over the hill intothe deep sea....

I have longed to move away but am afraid; Some life, yet unspent, mightexplode Out of the old lie burning on the ground, And, crackling into the air,leave me half-blind.

Don Juan stood up and said that he was going for a walk in the plaza, inthe center of town. He asked me to come along. I immediately assumed that thepoem had evoked a negative response in him and he needed to dispel it.

We reached the square plaza without having said a word. We walked aroundit a couple of times, still not talking. There were quite a number of people,milling around the stores on the streets facing the east and north sides of thepark. All the streets around the plaza were unevenly paved. The houses weremassive, one-story adobe buildings, with tiled roofs, whitewashed walls, andblue or brown painted doors. On a side street, a block away from the plaza, thehigh walls of the enormous colonial church, which looked like a Moorish mosque,loomed ominously over the roof of the only hotel in town. On the south side,there were two restaurants, which inexplicably coexisted side by side, doinggood business, serving practically the same menu at the same prices.

I broke the silence and asked don Juan whether he also found it odd thatboth restaurants were just about the same.

"Everything is possible in this town," he replied.

The way he said it made me feel uneasy.

"Why are you so nervous?" he asked, with a serious expression."Do you know something you're not telling me?"

"Why am I nervous? That's a laugh. I am always nervous around you,don Juan. Sometimes more so than others."

He seemed to be making a serious effort not to laugh. "Naguals arenot really the most friendly beings on earth," he said in a tone ofapology. "I learned this the hard way, being pitted against my teacher,the terrible nagual Julian. His mere presence used to scare the daylights outof me. And when he used to zero in on me, I always thought my life wasn't wortha plug nickel."

"Unquestionably, don Juan, you have the same effect on me."

He laughed openly. "No, no. You are definitely exaggerating. I'm anangel in comparison."

"You may be an angel in comparison, except that I don't have thenagual Julian to compare you with."

He laughed for a moment, then became serious again.

"I don't know why, but I definitely feel scared," I explained.

"Do you feel you have reason to be scared?" he asked and stoppedwalking to peer at me.

His tone of voice and his raised eyebrows gave me the impression hesuspected that I knew something I was not revealing to him. He was clearlyexpecting a disclosure on my part.

"Your insistence makes me wonder," I said. "Are you sureyou are not the one who has something up his sleeve?"

"I do have something up my sleeve," he admitted and grinned."But that's not the issue. The issue is that there is something in thistown awaiting you. And you don't quite know what it is or you do know what itis but don't dare to tell me, or you don't know anything about it at all."

"What's waiting for me here?"

Instead of answering me, don Juan briskly resumed his walking, and we keptgoing around the plaza in complete silence. We circled it quite a few times,looking for a place to sit. Then, a group of young women got up from a benchand left.

"For years now, I have been describing to you the aberrant practicesof the sorcerers of ancient Mexico," don Juan said as he sat down on thebench and gestured for me to sit by him.

With the fervor of someone who has never said it before, he began to tellme again what he had told me many times, that those sorcerers, guided byextremely selfish interests, put all their efforts into perfecting practicesthat pushed them further and further away from sobriety or mental balance, andthat they were finally exterminated when their complex edifices of beliefs andpractices became so cumbersome that they could no longer support them.

"The sorcerers of antiquity, of course, lived and proliferated inthis area," he said, watching my reaction. "Here in this town. Thistown was built on the actual foundations of one of their towns. Here in thisarea, the sorcerers of antiquity carried on all their dealings."

"Do you know this for a fact, don Juan?"

"I do, and so will you, very soon."

My mounting anxiety was forcing me to do something I detested to focus onmyself. Don Juan, sensing my frustration, egged me on.

"Very soon, we'll know whether or not you're really like the oldsorcerers or like the new ones," he said.

"You are driving me nuts with all this strange and ominoustalk," I protested.

Being with don Juan for thirteen years had conditioned me, aboveeverything else, to conceive of panic as something that was just around thecorner at all times, ready to be released.

Don Juan seemed to vacillate. I noticed his furtive glances in thedirection of the church. He was even distracted. When I talked to him, he wasnot listening. I had to repeat my question. "Are you waiting forsomeone?"

"Yes, I am," he said. "Most certainly I am. I was justsensing the surroundings. You caught me in the act of scanning the area with myenergy body."

"What did you sense, don Juan?"

"My energy body senses that everything is in place. The play is ontonight. You are the main protagonist. I am a character actor with a small butmeaningful role. I exit in the first act."

"What in the world are you talking about?"

He did not answer me. He smiled knowingly. "I'm preparing theground," he said. "Warming you up, so to speak, harping on the ideathat modern-day sorcerers have learned a hard lesson. They have realized thatonly if they remain totally detached can they have the energy to be free.Theirs is a peculiar type of detachment, which is born not out of fear orindolence but out of conviction."

Don Juan paused and stood up, stretched his arms in front of him, to hissides, and then behind him. "Do the same," he advised me. "Itrelaxes the body, and you have to be very relaxed to face what's coming to youtonight." He smiled broadly. "Either total detachment or utterindulging is coming to you tonight. It is a choice that every nagual in my linehas to make." He sat down again and took a deep breath. What he had saidseemed to have taken all his energy.

"I think I can understand detachment and indulging," he went on,"because I had the privilege of knowing two naguals my benefactor, the nagualJulian, and his benefactor, the nagual Elias. I witnessed the differencebetween the two. The nagual Elias was detached to the point that he could putaside a gift of power. The nagual Julian was also detached, but not enough toput aside such a gift."

"Judging by the way you're talking," I said, "I would saythat you are going to spring some sort of test on me tonight. Is thattrue?"

"I don't have the power to spring tests of any sort on you, but thespirit does." He said this with a grin, then added, "I am merely itsagent."

"What is the spirit going to do to me, don Juan?"

"All I can say is that tonight you're going to get a lesson indreaming, the way lessons in dreaming used to be, but you are not going to getthat lesson from me. Someone else is going to be your teacher and guide youtonight."

"Who is going to be my teacher and guide?"

"A visitor, who might be a horrendous surprise to you or no surpriseat all."

"And what's the lesson in dreaming I am going to get?"

"It's a lesson about the fourth gate of dreaming. And it is in twoparts. The first part I'll explain to you presently. The second part nobody canexplain to you, because it is something that pertains only to you. All thenaguals of my line got this two-part lesson, but no two of those lessons werealike; they were tailored to fit those naguals' personal bents ofcharacter."

"Your explanation doesn't help me at all, don Juan. I am getting moreand more nervous."

We remained quiet for a long moment. I was shaken up and fidgety and didnot know what else to say without actually nagging.

"As you already know, for modern-day sorcerers to perceive energydirectly is a matter of personal attainment," don Juan said. "Wemaneuver the assemblage point through self-discipline. For the old sorcerers, thedisplacement of the assemblage point was a consequence of their subjugation toothers, their teachers, who accomplished those displacements through darkoperations and gave them to their disciples as gifts of power.

"It's possible for someone with greater energy than ours to doanything to us," he went on. "For example, the nagual Julian couldhave turned me into anything he wanted, a fiend or a saint. But he was animpeccable nagual and let me be myself. The old sorcerers were not that impeccable,and, by means of their ceaseless efforts to gain control over others, theycreated a situation of darkness and terror that was passed on from teacher todisciple."

He stood up and swept his gaze all around us. "As you can see, thistown isn't much," he continued, "but it has a unique fascination forthe warriors of my line. Here lies the source of what we are and the source ofwhat we don't want to be.

"Since I am at the end of my time, I must pass on to you certainideas, recount to you certain stories, put you in touch with certain beings,right here in this town, exactly as my benefactor did with me."

Don Juan said that he was reiterating something I already was familiarwith, that whatever he was and everything he knew were a legacy from histeacher, the nagual Julian. He in turn inherited everything from his teacher,the nagual Elias. The nagual Elias from the nagual Rosendo; he from the nagualLujan; the nagual Lujan from the nagual Santisteban; and the nagual Santistebanfrom the nagual Sebastian.

He told me again, in a very formal tone, something he had explained to memany times before, that there were eight naguals before the nagual Sebastian,but that they were quite different. They had a different attitude towardsorcery, a different concept of it, although they were still directly relatedto his sorcery lineage.

"You must recollect now, and repeat to me, everything I've told youabout the nagual Sebastian," he demanded.

His request seemed odd to me, but I repeated everything I had been told byhim or by any of his companions about the nagual Sebastian and the mythical oldsorcerer, the death defier, known to them as the tenant.

"You know that the death defier makes us gifts of power everygeneration," don Juan said. "And the specific nature of those giftsof power is what changed the course of our lineage."

He explained that the tenant, being a sorcerer from the old school, hadlearned from his teachers all the intricacies of shifting his assemblage point.Since he had perhaps thousands of years of strange life and awareness - ampletime to perfect anything - he knew now how to reach and hold hundreds, if notthousands, of positions of the assemblage point. His gifts were like both mapsfor shifting the assemblage point to specific spots and manuals on how toimmobilize it on any of those positions and thus acquire cohesion.

Don Juan was at the peak of his raconteur's form. I had never seen himmore dramatic. If I had not known him better, I would have sworn that his voicehad the deep and worried inflection of someone gripped by fear orpreoccupation. His gestures gave me the impression of a good actor portrayingnervousness and concern to perfection.

Don Juan peered at me, and, in the tone and manner of someone making apainful revelation, he said that, for instance, the nagual Lujan received fromthe tenant a gift of fifty positions. He shook his head rhythmically, as if hewere silently asking me to consider what he had just said. I kept quiet.

"Fifty positions!" he exclaimed in wonder. "For a gift, oneor, at the most, two positions of the assemblage point should be more thanadequate."

He shrugged his shoulders, gesturing bewilderment. "I was told thatthe tenant liked the nagual Lujan immensely," he continued. "Theystruck up such .a close friendship that they were practically inseparable. Iwas told that the nagual Lujan and the tenant used to stroll into the churchover there every morning for early mass."

"Right here, in this town?" I asked, in total surprise.

"Right here," he replied. "Possibly they sat down on thisvery spot, on another bench, over a hundred years ago."

"The nagual Lujan and the tenant really walked in this plaza?" Iasked again, unable to overcome my surprise.

"You bet!" he exclaimed. "I brought you here tonightbecause the poem you were reading to me cued me that it was time for you tomeet the tenant."

Panic overtook me with the speed of wildfire. I had to breathe through mymouth for a moment.

"We have been discussing the strange accomplishments of the sorcerersof ancient times," don Juan continued. "But it's always hard when onehas to talk exclusively in idealities, without any firsthand knowledge. I canrepeat to you from now until doomsday something that is crystal clear to me butimpossible for you to understand or believe, because you don't have anypractical knowledge of it."

He stood up and gazed at me from head to toe. "Let's go tochurch," he said. "The tenant likes the church and its surroundings.I'm positive this is the moment to go there."

Very few times in the course of my association with don Juan had I feltsuch apprehension. I was numb. My entire body trembled when I stood up. Mystomach was tied in knots, yet I followed him without a word when he headed forthe church, my knees wobbling and sagging involuntarily every time I took astep. By the time we had walked the short block from the plaza to the limestonesteps of the church portico, I was about to faint. Don Juan put his arm aroundmy shoulders to prop me up.

"There's the tenant," he said as casually as if he had justspotted an old friend.

I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a group of five womenand three men at the far end of the portico. My fast and panicked glance didnot register anything unusual about those people. I couldn't even tell whetherthey were going into the church or coming out of it. I noticed, though, thatthey seemed to be congregated there accidentally. They were not together.

By the time don Juan and I reached the small door, cut out in the church'smassive wooden portals, three women had entered the church. The three men andthe other two women were walking away. I experienced a moment of confusion andlooked at don Juan for directions. He pointed with a movement of his chin tothe holy water font.

"We must observe the rules and cross ourselves," he whispered.

"Where's the tenant?" I asked, also in a whisper.

Don Juan dipped the tips of his fingers in the basin and made the sign ofthe cross. With an imperative gesture of the chin, he urged me to do the same.

"Was the tenant one of the three men who left?" I whisperednearly in his ear.

"No," he whispered back. "The tenant is one of the threewomen who stayed. The one in the back row."

At that moment, a woman in the back row turned her head toward me, smiled,and nodded at me.

I reached the door in one jump and ran out.

Don Juan ran after me. With incredible agility, he overtook me and held meby the arm.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his face and body contortingwith laughter.

He held me firmly by the arm as I took big gulps of air. I was veritablychoking. Peals of laughter came out of him, like ocean waves. I forcefullypulled away and walked toward the plaza. He followed me.

"I never imagined you were going to get so upset," he said, asnew waves of laughter shook his body.

"Why didn't you tell me that the tenant is a woman?"

"That sorcerer in there is the death defier," he said solemnly."For such a sorcerer, so versed in the shifts of the assemblage point, tobe a man or a woman is a matter of choice or convenience. This is the firstpart of the lesson in dreaming I said you were going to get. And the deathdefier is the mysterious visitor who's going to guide you through it."

He held his sides as laughter made him cough. I was speechless. Then asudden fury possessed me. I was not mad at don Juan or myself or anyone inparticular. It was a cold fury, which made me feel as if my chest and all myneck muscles were going to explode.

"Let's go back to the church," I shouted, and I didn't recognizemy own voice.

"Now, now," he said softly. "You don't have to jump intothe fire just like that. Think. Deliberate. Measure things up. Cool that mindof yours. Never in your life have you been put to such a test. You needcalmness now.

"I can't tell you what to do," he continued. "I can only,like any other nagual, put you in front of your challenge, after telling you,in quite oblique terms, everything that is pertinent. This is another of thenagual's maneuvers to say everything without saying it or to ask withoutasking."

I wanted to get it over with quickly. But don Juan said that a moment'spause would restore whatever was left of my self-assurance. My knees were aboutto give in. Solicitously, don Juan made me sit down on the curb. He sat next tome.

"The first part of the dreaming lesson in question is that malenessand femaleness are not final states but are the result of a specific act ofpositioning the assemblage point," he said. "And this act is,naturally, a matter of volition and training. Since it was a subject close to theold sorcerers' hearts, they are the only ones who can shed light on it."

Perhaps because it was the only rational thing to do, I began to arguewith don Juan. "I can't accept or believe what you are saying," Isaid. I felt heat rising to my face.

"But you saw the woman," don Juan retorted. "Do you thinkthat all of this is a trick?"

"I don't know what to think."

"That being in the church is a real woman," he said forcefully."Why should that be so disturbing to you? The fact that she was born a manattests only to the power of the old sorcerers' machinations. This shouldn'tsurprise you. You have already embodied all the principles of sorcery."

My insides were about to burst with tension. In an accusing tone, don Juansaid that I was just being argumentative. With forced patience but realpomposity, I explained to him the biological foundation of maleness andfemaleness.

"I understand all that," he said. "And you're right in whatyou're saying. Your flaw is to try to make your assessments universal."

"What we're talking about are basic principles," I shouted."They'll be pertinent to man here or in any other place in theuniverse."

"True. True," he said in a quiet voice. "Everything you sayis true as long as our assemblage point remains on its habitual position. Butthe moment it is displaced beyond certain boundaries and our daily world is nolonger in function, none of the principles you cherish has the total valueyou're talking about.

"Your mistake is to forget that the death defier has transcended thoseboundaries thousands upon thousands of times. It doesn't take a genius torealize that the tenant is no longer bound by the same forces that bind younow."

I told him that my quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was not withhim but with accepting the practical side of sorcery, which, up to that moment,had been so farfetched that it had never posed a real problem to me. Ireiterated that, as a dreamer, it was within my experience to attest that indreaming anything is possible. I reminded him that he himself had sponsored andcultivated this conviction, together with the ultimate necessity for soundnessof mind. What he was proposing as the tenant's case was not sane. It was asubject only for dreaming, certainly not for the daily world. I let him knowthat to me it was an abhorrent and untenable proposition.

"Why this violent reaction?" he asked with a smile.

His question caught me off guard. I felt embarrassed. "I think itthreatens me at the core," I admitted. And I meant it. To think that thewoman in the church was a man was somehow nauseating to me.

A thought played in my mind perhaps the tenant is a transvestite. Iqueried don Juan, in earnest, about this possibility. He laughed so hard heseemed about to get ill.

"That's too mundane a possibility," he said. "Maybe yourold friends, would do such a thing. Your new ones are more resourceful and lessmasturbatory. I repeat. That being in the church is a woman. It is a she. Andshe has all the organs and attributes of a female." He smiled maliciously."You've always been attracted to women, haven't you? It seems that thissituation has been tailored just for you."

His mirth was so intense and childlike that it was contagious. We bothlaughed. He, with total abandon. I, with total apprehension.

I came to a decision then. I stood up and said out loud that I had nodesire to deal with the tenant in any form or shape. My choice was to bypassall this business and go back to don Juan's house and then home.

Don Juan said that my decision was perfectly all right with him, and westarted back to his house. My thoughts raced wildly. Am I doing the rightthing? Am I running away out of fear? Of course, I immediately rationalized mydecision as the right and unavoidable one. After all, I assured myself, I was notinterested in acquisitions, and the tenant's gifts were like acquiringproperty. Then doubt and curiosity hit me. There were so many questions I couldhave asked the death defier.

My heart began to pound so intensely I felt it beating against my stomach.The pounding suddenly changed into the emissary's voice. It broke its promisenot to interfere and said that an incredible force was accelerating my heartbeat in order to drive me back to the church; to walk toward don Juan's housewas to walk toward my death.

I stopped walking and hurriedly confronted don Juan with the emissary'swords. "Is this true?" I asked.

"I am afraid it is," he admitted sheepishly.

"Why didn't you tell me yourself, don Juan? Were you going to let medie because you think I am a coward?" I asked in a furious mood.

"You were not going to die just like that. Your energy body hasendless resources. And it had never occurred to me to think you're a coward. Irespect your decisions, and I don't give a damn about what motivates them.

"You are at the end of the road, just like me. So be a true nagual.Don't be ashamed of what you are. If you were a coward, I think you would havedied of fright years ago. But if you're too afraid to meet the death defier,then die rather than face him. There is no shame in that."

"Let's go back to the church," I said, as calmly as I could.

"Now we're getting to the crux of the matter!" don Juanexclaimed. "But first, let's go back to the park and sit down on a benchand carefully consider your options. We can spare the time; besides, it's tooearly for the business at hand."

We walked back to the park and immediately found an unoccupied bench andsat down.

"You have to understand that only you, yourself, can make thedecision to meet or not to meet the tenant or to accept or reject his gifts ofpower," don Juan said. "But your decision has to be voiced to thewoman in the church, face to face and alone; otherwise it won't be valid."

Don Juan said that the tenant's gifts were extraordinary but that theprice for them was tremendous. And that he himself did not approve of either,the gifts or the price.

"Before you make your real decision," don Juan continued,"you have to know all the details of our transactions with thatsorcerer."

"I'd rather not hear about this anymore, don Juan," I pleaded.

"It's your duty to know," he said. "How else are you goingto make up your mind?"

"Don't you think that the less I know about the tenant the better offI'll be?"

"No. This is not a matter of hiding until the danger is over. This isthe moment of truth. Everything you've done and experienced in the sorcerers'world has channeled you to this spot. I didn't want to say it, because I knewyour energy body was going to tell you, but there is no way to get out of thisappointment. Not even by dying. Do you understand?" He shook me by theshoulders. "Do you understand?" he repeated.

I understood so well that I asked him if it would be possible for him tomake me change levels of awareness in order to alleviate my fear anddiscomfort. He nearly made me jump with the explosion of his no.

"You must face the death defier in coldness and with ultimatepremeditation," he went on. "And you can't do this by proxy."

Don Juan calmly began to repeat everything he had already told me aboutthe death defier. As he talked, I realized that part of my confusion was theresult of his use of words. He rendered "death defier" in Spanish asel desafiante de la muerte, and "tenant" as el inquilino, both ofwhich automatically denote a male. But in describing the relationship betweenthe tenant and the naguals of his line, don Juan kept on mixing theSpanish-language male and female gender denotation, creating a great confusionin me.

He said that the tenant was supposed to pay for the energy he took from thenaguals of our lineage, but that whatever he paid has bound those sorcerers forgenerations. As payment for the energy taken from all those naguals, the womanin the church taught them exactly what to do to displace their assemblage pointto some specific positions, which she herself had chosen. In other words, shebound every one of those men with a gift of power consisting of a preselected,specific position of the assemblage point and all its implications.

"What do you mean by 'all its implications,' don Juan?"

"I mean the negative results of those gifts. The woman in the churchknows only of indulging. There is no frugality, no temperance in that woman.For instance, she taught the nagual Julian how to arrange his assemblage pointto be, just like her, a woman. Teaching this to my benefactor, who was anincurable voluptuary, was like giving booze to a drunkard."

"But isn't it up to each one of us to be responsible for what wedo?"

"Yes, indeed. However, some of us have more difficulty than others inbeing responsible. To augment that difficulty deliberately, as that woman does,is to put too much unnecessary pressure on us."

"How do you know the woman in the church does thisdeliberately?"

"She has done it to every one of the naguals of my line. If we lookat ourselves fairly and squarely, we have to admit that the death defier hasmade us, with his gifts, into a line of very indulging, dependentsorcerers."

I could not overlook his inconsistency of language usage any longer, and Icomplained to him. "You have to speak about that sorcerer as either a maleor a female, but not as both," I said harshly. "I'm too stiff, andyour arbitrary use of gender makes me all the more uneasy."

"I am very uneasy myself," he confessed. "But the truth isthat the death defier is both male and female. I've never been able to takethat sorcerer's change with grace. I was sure you would feel the same way,having seen him as a man first."

Don Juan reminded me of a time, years before, when he took me to meet thedeath defier and I met a man, a strange Indian who was not old but not youngeither and was very slightly built. I remember mostly his strange accent andhis use of one odd metaphor when describing things he allegedly had seen. Hesaid, mis ojos se pasearon, my eyes walked on. For instance, he said, "Myeyes walked on the helmets of the Spanish conquerors."

The event was so fleeting in my mind that I had always thought the meetinghad lasted only a few minutes. Don Juan later told me that I had been gone withthe death defier for a whole day.

"The reason I was trying to find out from you earlier whether youknew what was going on," don Juan continued, "was because I thoughtthat years ago you had made an appointment with the death defieryourself."

"You were giving me undue credit, don Juan. In this instance, Ireally don't know whether I am coming or going. But what gave you the idea thatI knew?"

"The death defier seemed to have taken a liking to you. And thatmeant to me that he might have already given you a gift of power, although youdidn't remember it. Or he might have set up your appointment with him, as awoman. I even suspected she had given you precise directions."

Don Juan remarked that the death defier, being definitely a creature ofritual habits, always met the naguals of his line first as a man, as it hadhappened with the nagual Sebastian, and subsequently as a woman.

"Why do you call the death defier's gifts, gifts of power? And whythe mystery?" I asked. "You yourself can displace your assemblagepoint to whatever spot you want, isn't that so?"

"They are called gifts of power because they are products of thespecialized knowledge of the sorcerers of antiquity," he said. "Themystery about the gifts is that no one on this earth, with the exception of thedeath defier, can give us a sample of that knowledge. And, of course, I candisplace my assemblage point to whatever spot I want, inside or outside man'senergy shape. But what I can't do, and only the death defier can, is to knowwhat to do with my energy body in each one of those spots in order to get totalperception, total cohesion."

He explained, then, that modern-day sorcerers do not know the details ofthe thousands upon thousands of possible positions of the assemblage point.

"What do you mean by details?" I asked.

"Particular ways of treating the energy body in order to maintain theassemblage point fixed on specific positions," he replied.

He took himself as an example. He said that the death defier's gift ofpower to him had been the position of the assemblage point of a crow and theprocedures to manipulate his energy body to get the total perception of a crow.Don Juan explained that total perception, total cohesion was what the oldsorcerers sought at any cost, and that, in the case of his own gift of power,total perception came to him by means of a deliberate process he had to learn,step by step, as one learns to work a very complex machine.

Don Juan further explained that most of the shifts modern-day sorcerersexperience are mild shifts within a thin bundle of energetic luminous filamentsinside the luminous egg, a bundle called the band of man, or the purely humanaspect of the universe's energy. Beyond that band, but still within theluminous egg, lies the realm of the grand shifts. When the assemblage pointshifts to any spot on that area, perception is still comprehensible to us, butextremely detailed procedures are required for perception to be total.

"The inorganic beings tricked you and Carol Tiggs in your lastjourney by helping you two to get total cohesion on a grand shift," donJuan said. "They displaced your assemblage points to the farthest possiblespot, then helped you perceive there as if you were in your daily world. Anearly impossible thing. To do that type of perceiving a sorcerer needspragmatic knowledge, or influential friends.

"Your friends would have betrayed you in the end and left you andCarol to fend for yourselves and learn pragmatic measures in order to survivein that world. You two would have ended filled to the brim with pragmaticprocedures, just like those most knowledgeable old sorcerers.

"Every grand shift has different inner workings," he continued,"which modern sorcerers could learn if they knew how to fixate theassemblage point long enough at any grand shift. Only the sorcerers of ancienttimes had the specific knowledge required to do this."

Don Juan went on to say that the knowledge of specific procedures involvedin shifts was not available to the eight naguals who preceded the nagualSebastian, and that the tenant showed the nagual Sebastian how to achieve totalperception on ten new positions of the assemblage point. The nagual Santistebanreceived seven, the nagual Lujan fifty, the nagual Rosendo six, the nagualElias four, the nagual Julian sixteen, and he was shown two; that made a totalof ninety-five specific positions of the assemblage point that his lineage knewabout. He said that if I asked him whether he considered this an advantage tohis lineage, he would have to say no, because the weight of those gifts putthem closer to the old sorcerers' mood.

"Now it's your turn to meet the tenant," he continued."Perhaps the gifts he will give you will offset our total balance and ourlineage will plunge into the darkness that finished off the old sorcerers."

"This is so horribly serious, it's sickening," I said.

"I most sincerely sympathize with you," he retorted with aserious expression. "I know it's no consolation to you if I say that thisis the toughest trial of a modern nagual. To face something so old andmysterious as the tenant is not awe-inspiring but revolting. At least it was tome, and still is."

"Why do I have to continue with it, don Juan?"

"Because, without knowing it, you accepted the death defier'schallenge. I drew an acceptance from you in the course of your apprenticeship,in the same manner my teacher drew one from me, surreptitiously.

"I went through the same horror, only a little more brutally thanyou." He began to chuckle. "The nagual Julian was given to playinghorrendous jokes. He told me that there was a very beautiful and passionatewidow who was madly in love with me. The nagual used to take me to churchoften, and I had seen the woman staring at me. I thought she was a good-lookingwoman. And I was a horny young man. When the nagual said that she liked me, Ifell for it. My awakening was very rude."

I had to fight not to laugh at don Juan's gesture of lost innocence. Thenthe idea of his predicament hit me, as being not funny but ghastly.

"Are you sure, don Juan, that that woman is the tenant?" Iasked, hoping that perhaps it was a mistake or a bad joke.

"I am very, very sure," he said. "Besides, even if I wereso dumb as to forget the tenant, my seeing can't fail me."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that the tenant has a different type ofenergy?"

"No, not a different type of energy, but certainly different energyfeatures than a normal person."

"Are you absolutely sure, don Juan, that that woman is thetenant?" I insisted, driven by a strange revulsion and fear.

"That woman is the tenant!" don Juan exclaimed in a voice thatadmitted no doubts.

We remained quiet. I waited for the next move in the midst of a panicbeyond description.

"I have already said to you that to be a natural man or a naturalwoman is a matter of positioning the assemblage point," don Juan said."By natural I mean someone who was born either male or female. To a seer,the shiniest part of the assemblage point faces outward, in the case of femalesand inward, in the case of males. The tenant's assemblage point was originallyfacing inward, but he changed it by twisting it around and making his egglikeenergy shape look like a shell that has curled up on itself."