Since our agreement had been to discuss dreaming only when don Juanconsidered it necessary, I rarely asked him about it and never insisted oncontinuing my questions beyond a certain point. I was more than eager,therefore, to listen to him whenever he decided to take up the subject. Hiscomments or discussions on dreaming were invariably cushioned in other topicsof his teachings, and they were always suddenly and abruptly brought in.

We were engaged in some unrelated conversation once, while I was visitingwith him in his house, when without any preamble he said that, by means oftheir dreaming contacts with inorganic beings, the old sorcerers becameimmensely well-versed in the manipulation of the assemblage point, a vast andominous subject.

I immediately grabbed the opportunity and asked don Juan for an estimateof the time when the old sorcerers might have lived. At various opportunitiesbefore, I had asked the same question, but he never gave me a satisfactoryanswer. I was confident, however, that at the moment, perhaps because he hadbrought up the subject himself, he might be willing to oblige me.

"A most trying subject," he said. The way he said it made mebelieve he was discarding my question. I was quite surprised when he continuedtalking. "It'll tax your rationality as much as the topic of inorganicbeings. By the way, what do you think about them now?"

"I have let my opinions rest," I said. "I can't afford tothink one way or another."

My answer delighted him. He laughed and commented on his own fears of andaversions to the inorganic beings.

"They have never been my cup of tea," he said. "Of course,the main reason was my fear of them. I was unable to get over it when I had to,and then it became fixed."

"Do you fear them now, don Juan?"

"It's not quite fear I feel but revulsion. I don't want any part ofthem."

"Is there any particular reason for this revulsion?"

"The best reason in the world we are antithetical. They love slavery,and I love freedom. They love to buy, and I don't sell."

I became inexplicably agitated and brusquely told him that the subject wasso farfetched for me that I could not take it seriously.

He stared at me, smiling, and said, "The best thing to do withinorganic beings is what you do deny their existence but visit with themregularly and maintain that you are dreaming and in dreaming anything ispossible. This way you don't commit yourself."

I felt strangely guilty, although I could not figure out why. I feltcompelled to ask, "What are you referring to, don Juan?"

"To your visits with the inorganic beings," he replied dryly.

"Are you kidding? What visits?"

"I didn't want to discuss this, but I think it's time I tell you thatthe nagging voice you heard, reminding you to fix your dreaming attention onthe items of your dreams, was the voice of an inorganic being."

I thought don Juan was completely irrational. I became so irritated that Ieven yelled at him. He laughed at me and asked me to tell him about myirregular dreaming sessions. That request surprised me. I had never mentionedto anyone that every so often I used to zoom out of a dream, pulled by a givenitem, but instead of my changing dreams, as I should have, the total mood ofthe dream changed and I would find myself in a dimension unknown to me. Isoared in it, directed by some invisible guide, which made me twirl around andaround. I always awoke from one of these dreams still twirling, and I continuedtossing and turning for a long time before I fully woke up.

"Those are bona fide meetings you are having with your inorganicbeing friends," don Juan said.

I did not want to argue with him, but neither did I want to agree. Iremained silent. I had forgotten my question about the old sorcerers, but donJuan picked up the subject again.

"My understanding is that the old sorcerers existed perhaps as farback as ten thousand years ago," he said, smiling and watching myreaction.

Basing my response on current archaeological data on the migration ofAsiatic nomadic tribes to the Americas, I said that I believed his date wasincorrect. Ten thousand years was too far back.

"You have your knowledge and I have mine," he said. "Myknowledge is that the old sorcerers ruled for four thousand years, from seventhousand to three thousand years ago. Three thousand years ago, they went tonothing. And from then on, sorcerers have been regrouping, restructuring whatwas left of the old ones."

"How can you be so sure about your dates?" I asked.

"How can you be so sure about yours?" he retorted.

I told him that archaeologists have foolproof methods to establish thedate of past cultures. Again he retorted that sorcerers have foolproof methodsof their own.

"I'm not trying to be contrary or argue you down," he continued,"but someday soon you may be able to ask someone who knows for sure."

"No one can know this for sure, don Juan."

"This is another of those impossible things to believe, but there issomebody who can verify all this. You'll meet that person someday."

"Come on, don Juan, you've got to be joking. Who can verify whathappened seven thousand years ago?"

"Very simple, one of the old sorcerers we've been talking about. Theone I met. He's the one who told me all about the old sorcerers. I hope you rememberwhat I am going to tell you about that particular man. He is the key to many ofour endeavors, and he's also the one you have to meet."

I told don Juan that I was hanging on every word he said, even though Idid not understand what he was saying. He accused me of humoring him and notbelieving a word about the old sorcerers. I admitted that in my state of dailyconsciousness, of course, I had not believed those farfetched stories. Butneither had I in the second attention, although there I should have had adifferent reaction.

"Only when you ponder what I said does it become a far-, fetchedstory," he remarked. "If you don't involve your common sense, itremains purely a matter of energy."

"Why did you say, don Juan, that I am going to meet one of the oldsorcerers?"

"Because you are. It is vital that the two of you meet, someday. But,for the moment, just let me tell you another farfetched story about one of thenaguals of my line, the nagual Sebastian."

Don Juan told me then that the nagual Sebastian had been a ; sexton in achurch in southern Mexico around the beginning of the eighteenth century. Inhis account, don Juan stressed how sorcerers, past or present, seek and findrefuge in established I institutions, such as the Church. It was his idea thatbecause of their superior discipline, sorcerers are trustworthy employees andthat they are avidly sought by institutions that are always in dire need ofsuch persons. Don Juan maintained that as long as no one is aware of thesorcerers' doings, their lack of ideological sympathies makes them appear asmodel workers.

Don Juan continued his story and said that one day, while Sebastian wasperforming his duties as a sexton, a strange man came to the church, an oldIndian who seemed to be ill. In a weak voice he told Sebastian that he neededhelp. The nagual thought that the Indian wanted the parish priest, but the man,making a great effort, addressed the nagual. In a harsh and direct tone, hetold him that he knew that Sebastian was not only a sorcerer but a nagual.

Sebastian, quite alarmed by this sudden turn of events, I pulled theIndian aside and demanded an apology. The man replied that he was not there toapologize but to get specialized help. He needed, he said, to receive thenagual's energy in order to maintain his life, which, he assured Sebastian, hadspanned thousands of years but at the moment was ebbing away.

Sebastian, who was a very intelligent man, unwilling to pay I 'attentionto such nonsense, urged the Indian to stop clowning around. The old man becameangry and threatened Sebastian with exposing him and his group to theecclesiastical authorities if he did not comply with his request.

Don Juan reminded me that those were the times when the ecclesiasticalauthorities were brutally and systematically eradicating heretical practicesamong the Indians of the New World. The man's threat was not something to betaken lightly; the nagual and his group were indeed in mortal danger. Sebastianasked the Indian how he could give him energy. The man explained that naguals,by means of their discipline, gain a peculiar energy that they store in theirbodies and that he would get it painlessly from Sebastian's energy center onhis navel. In return for it, Sebastian would get not only the opportunity to continuehis activities unscathed but also a gift of power.

The knowledge that he was being manipulated by the old Indian did not sitright with the nagual, but the man was inflexible and left him no alternativebut to comply with his request.

Don Juan assured me that the old Indian was not exaggerating about hisclaims at all. He turned out to be one of the sorcerers of ancient times, oneof those known as the death defiers. He had apparently survived to the presentby manipulating his assemblage point in ways that only he knew about.

Don Juan said that what transpired between Sebastian and that man laterbecame the ground for an agreement that had bound all six naguals who followedSebastian. The death defier kept his word; in exchange for energy from everyone of those men, he made a donation to the giver, a gift of power. Sebastianhad to accept such a gift, although reluctantly; he had been cornered and hadno other choice. All the other naguals who followed him, however, gladly andproudly accepted their gifts.

Don Juan concluded his story, saying that over time the death defier cameto be known as the tenant. And for over two hundred years, the naguals of donJuan's line honored that binding agreement, creating a symbiotic relationshipthat changed the course and final goal of their lineage.

Don Juan did not care to explain the story any further, and I was leftwith a strange sensation of truthfulness, which was more bothersome to me thanI could have imagined.

"How did he get to live that long?" I asked.

"No one knows," don Juan replied. "All we've known about fhim, for generations, is what he tells us. The death defier is the one I askedabout the old sorcerers, and he told me that they I were at their peak threethousand years ago."

"How do you know he was telling you the truth?" I asked.

Don Juan shook his head in amazement, if not revulsion. "When you'refacing that inconceivable unknown out there," he said, pointing all aroundhim, "you don't fool around with petty lies. Petty lies are only for peoplewho have never witnessed what's out there, waiting for them."

"What's waiting for us out there, don Juan?"

His answer, a seemingly innocuous phrase, was more terrifying to me thanif he had described the most horrendous thing.

"Something utterly impersonal," he said.

He must have noticed that I was coming apart. He made me change levels ofawareness to make my fright vanish.

A few months later, my dreaming practices took a strange turn. I began toget, in my dreams, replies to questions I was 5 planning to ask don Juan. Themost impressive part of this oddity was that it quickly lapsed into my wakinghours. And one day, while I was sitting at my desk, I got a reply to anunvoiced question about the realness of inorganic beings. I had seen inorganicbeings in dreams so many times I had begun to think of them as real. I remindedmyself I had even touched one, in a state of seminormal consciousness in theSonoran desert. And my dreams had been periodically deviated to views of worldsI seriously doubted could have been products of my mentality. I wished to givedon Juan my best shot, in terms of a concise query, so I molded a question inmy mind if one is to accept that inorganic beings are as real as people, where,in the physicality of the universe, is the realm in which they exist?

After formulating the question to myself, I heard a strange laughter, justas I had the day I wrestled with the inorganic being. Then a man's voiceanswered me. "That realm exists in a particular position of the assemblagepoint," it said. "Just like your world exists in the habitualposition of the assemblage point."

The last thing I wanted was to enter into a dialogue with a disembodiedvoice, so I stood up and ran out of my house. The thought occurred to me that Iwas losing my mind. Another worry to add to my collection of worries.

The voice had been so clear and authoritative that it not only intriguedme but terrified me. I waited with great trepidation for oncoming barrages ofthat voice, but the event was never repeated. At the first opportunity I had, Iconsulted with don Juan.

He was not impressed in the least. "You must understand, once and forall, that things like this are very normal in the life of a sorcerer," hesaid. "You are not going mad; you are simply hearing the voice of thedreaming emissary. Upon crossing the first or second gate of dreaming, dreamersreach a threshold of energy and begin to see things or to hear voices. Notreally plural voices, but a singular voice. Sorcerers call it the voice of thedreaming emissary."

"What is the dreaming emissary?"

"Alien energy that has conciseness. Alien energy that purports to aiddreamers by telling them things. The problem with the dreaming emissary is thatit can tell only what the sorcerers already know or should know, were theyworth their salt."

"To say that it's alien energy that has conciseness doesn't help meat all, don Juan. What kind of energy - benign, malignant, right, wrong,what?"

"It's just what I said, alien energy. An impersonal force that weturn into a very personal one because it has a voice. Some sorcerers swear byit. They even see it. Or, as you yourself have done, they simply hear it as aman's or a woman's voice. And the voice can tell them about the state ofthings, which most of the time they take as sacred advice."

"Why do some of us hear it as a voice?"

"We see it or hear it because we maintain our assemblage points fixedon a specific new position; the more intense this fixation, the more intenseour experience of the emissary. Watch out! You may see it and feel it as anaked woman."

Don Juan laughed at his own remark, but I was too scared for levity.

"Is this force capable of materializing itself?" I asked.

"Certainly," he replied. "And it all depends on how fixedthe assemblage point is. But, rest assured, if you are capable of maintaining adegree of detachment, nothing happens. The emissary remains what it is animpersonal force that acts on us because of the fixation of our assemblagepoints."

"Is its advice safe and sound?"

"It cannot be advice. It only tells us what's what, and then we drawthe inferences ourselves."

I told don Juan then about what the voice had said to me.

"It's just like I said," don Juan remarked. "The emissarydidn't tell you anything new. Its statements were correct, but it only seemedto be revealing things to you. What the emissary did was merely repeat what youalready knew."

"I'm afraid I can't claim that I knew all that, don Juan."

"Yes, you can. You know now infinitely more about the mystery of theuniverse than what you rationally suspect. But that's our human malady, to knowmore about the mystery of the universe than we suspect."

Having experienced this incredible phenomenon all by myself, without donJuan's coaching, made me feel elated. I wanted more information about theemissary. I began to ask don Juan whether he also heard the emissary's voice.

He interrupted me and with a broad smile said, "Yes, yes. Theemissary also talks to me. In my youth I used to see it as a friar with a blackcowl. A talking friar who used to scare the daylights out of me, every time.Then, when my fear was more manageable, it became a disembodied voice, whichtells me things to this day."

"What kinds of things, don Juan?"

"Anything I focus my intent on, things I don't want to take thetrouble of following up myself. Like, for example, details about the behaviorof my apprentices. What they do when I am not around. It tells me things aboutyou, in particular. The emissary tells me everything you do."

At that point, I really did not care for the direction our conversationhad taken. I frantically searched my mind for questions about other topicswhile he roared with laughter.

"Is the dreaming emissary an inorganic being?" I asked.

"Let's say that the dreaming emissary is a force that comes from therealm of inorganic beings. This is the reason dreamers always encounterit."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that every dreamer hears or sees theemissary?"

"Everyone hears the emissary; very few see it or feel it."

"Do you have any explanation for this?"

"No. Besides, I really don't care about the emissary. At one point inmy life, I had to make a decision whether to concentrate on the inorganicbeings and follow in the footsteps of the old sorcerers or to refuse it all. Myteacher, the nagual Julian, helped me make up my mind to refuse it. I've neverregretted that decision."

"Do you think I should refuse the inorganic beings myself, donJuan?"

He did not answer me; instead, he explained that the whole realm ofinorganic beings is always poised to teach. Perhaps because inorganic beingshave a deeper consciousness than ours, they feel compelled to take us undertheir wings.

"I didn't see any point in becoming their pupil," he added."Their price is too high." '

"What is their price?"

"Our lives, our energy, our devotion to them. In other words, ourfreedom."

"But what do they teach?"

"Things pertinent to their world. The same way we ourselves wouldteach them, if we were capable of teaching them, things pertinent to our world.Their method, however, is to take our sic self as a gauge of what we need andthen teach us accordingly. A most dangerous affair!" "I don't see whyit would be dangerous." "If someone was going to take your basic selfas a gauge, with all your fears and greed and envy, et cetera, et cetera, andteach you what fulfills that horrible state of being, what do you the resultwould be?"

I had no comeback. I thought I understood perfectly well the Reasons forhis rejection.

"The problem with the old sorcerers was that they learned wonderfulthings, but on the basis of their unadulterated lower selves," don Juanwent on. "The inorganic beings became their allies, and, by means ofdeliberate examples, they taught the old sorcerers marvels. Their alliesperformed the actions, and the old sorcerers were guided step by step to copythose factions, without changing anything about their basic nature.""Do these relationships with inorganic beings exist today?" I "Ican't answer that truthfully All I can say is that I can't conceive of having arelationship like that myself. Involvements of this nature curtail our searchfor freedom by consuming all our I available energy In order to really followtheir allies' example, the old sorcerers had to spend their lives in the realmof the I inorganic beings. The amount of energy needed to accomplish I such asustained journey is staggering."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that the old sorcerers were able to I existin those realms like we exist here?"

"Not quite like we exist here, but certainly they lived they retainedtheir awareness, their individuality. The dreaming emissary became the mostvital entity for those sorcerers. If a sorcerer wants to live in the realm ofthe inorganic beings, the , emissary is the perfect bridge; it speaks, and itsbent is to teach, to guide."

"Have you ever been in that realm, don Juan?"

"Countless times. And so have you. But there is no point in talkingabout it now. You haven't cleared all the debris from your dreaming attentionyet. We'll talk about that realm someday."

"Do I gather, don Juan, that you don't approve of or like theemissary?"

"I neither approve of it nor like it. It belongs to another mood, theold sorcerers' mood. Besides, its teachings and guidance in our world arenonsense. And for that nonsense the emissary charges us enormities in terms ofenergy. One day you will agree with me. You'll see."

In the tone of don Juan's words, I caught a veiled implication of hisbelief that I disagreed with him about the emissary. I was about to confronthim with it when I heard the emissary's voice in my ears. "He'sright," the voice said. "You like me because you find nothing wrongwith exploring all possibilities. You want knowledge; knowledge is power. Youdon't want to remain safe in the routines and beliefs of your daily world."

The emissary said all that in English with a marked Pacific Coastintonation. Then it shifted into Spanish. I heard a slight Argentine accent. Ihad never heard the emissary speaking like this before. It fascinated me. Theemissary told me about fulfillment, knowledge; about how far away I was from mybirthplace; about my craving for adventure and my near obsession with newthings, new horizons. The voice even talked to me in Portuguese, with adefinite inflection from the southern pampas.

To hear that voice pouring out all this flattery not only scared me butnauseated me. I told don Juan, right on the spot, that I had to stop mydreaming training. He looked up at me, caught by surprise. But when I repeatedwhat I had heard, he agreed I should stop, although I sensed he was doing itonly to appease me. A few weeks later, I found my reaction a bit hysterical andmy decision to withdraw unsound. I went back to my dreaming practices. I wassure don Juan was aware that I had canceled out my withdrawal.

On one of my visits to him, quite abruptly, he spoke about dreams."Just because we haven't been taught to emphasize dreams as a genuinefield for exploration doesn't mean they are not one," he began."Dreams are analyzed for their meaning or are taken as portents, but neverare they taken as a realm of real events.

"To my knowledge, only the old sorcerers did that," don Juanwent on, "but at the end they flubbed it. They got greedy, and when theycame to a crucial crossroads, they took the wrong fork. They put all their eggsin one basket the fixation of the assemblage point on the thousands ofpositions it can adopt."

Don Juan expressed his bewilderment at the fact that out of all themarvelous things the old sorcerers learned exploring those thousands of positions,only the art of dreaming and the art of stalking remain. He reiterated that theart of dreaming is concerned with the displacement of the assemblage point.Then he defined stalking as the art that deals with the fixation of theassemblage point on any location to which it is displaced.

"To fixate the assemblage point on any new spot means to acquirecohesion," he said. "You have been doing just that in your dreamingpractices."

"I thought I was perfecting my energy body," I said, somehowsurprised at his statement.

"You are doing that and much more; you are learning to have cohesion.Dreaming does it by forcing dreamers to fixate the assemblage point. Thedreaming attention, the energy body, the second attention, the relationshipwith inorganic beings, the dreaming emissary are but by-products of acquiringcohesion; in other words, they are all by-products of fixating the assemblagepoint on a number of dreaming positions."

"What is a dreaming position, don Juan?"

"Any new position to which the assemblage point has been displacedduring sleep."

"How do we fixate the assemblage point on a dreaming position?"

"By sustaining the view of any item in your dreams, or by changingdreams at will. Through your dreaming practices, you are really exercising yourcapacity to be cohesive; that is to say, you are exercising your capacity tomaintain a new energy shape by holding the assemblage point fixed on theposition of any particular dream you are having."

"Do I really maintain a new energy shape?"

"Not exactly, and not because you can't but only because you areshifting the assemblage point instead of moving it. Shifts of the assemblagepoint give rise to minute changes, which are practically unnoticeable. Thechallenge of shifts is that they are so small and so numerous that to maintaincohesiveness in all of them is a triumph."

"How do we know we are maintaining cohesion?"

"We know it by the clarity of our perception. The clearer the view ofour dreams, the greater our cohesion."

He said then that it was time for me to have a practical application ofwhat I had learned in dreaming. Without giving me a chance to ask anything, heurged me to focus my attention, as if I were in a dream, on the foliage of adesert tree growing nearby a mesquite tree.

"Do you want me to just gaze at it?" I asked.

"I don't want you to just gaze at it; I want you to do something veryspecial with that foliage," he said. "Remember that, in your dreams,once you are able to hold the view of any item, you are really holding thedreaming position of your assemblage point. Now, gaze at those leaves as if youwere in a dream, but with a slight yet most meaningful variation you are goingto hold your dreaming attention on the leaves of the mesquite tree in theawareness of our daily world."

My nervousness made it impossible for me to follow his line of thought. Hepatiently explained that by staring at the foliage, would accomplish a minutedisplacement of my assemblage Dint. Then, by summoning my dreaming attentionthrough staring at individual leaves, I would actually fixate that minuteMisplacement, and my cohesion would make me perceive in terms of the secondattention. He added, with a chuckle, that the process was so simple it wasridiculous.

Don Juan was right. All I needed was to focus my sight on the leaves,maintain it, and in one instant I was drawn into a vortex-like sensation,extremely like the vortexes in my dreams. The foliage of the mesquite treebecame a universe of sensory data. It was as if the foliage had swallowed me,but it was not I only my sight that was engaged; if I touched the leaves, Iactually felt them. I could also smell them. My dreaming attention I wasmultisensorial instead of solely visual, as in my regular ; dreaming.

What had begun as gazing at the foliage of the mesquite tree ' had turnedinto a dream. I believed I was in a dreamt tree, as I had been in trees ofcountless dreams. And, naturally, I 'behaved in this dreamt tree as I hadlearned to behave in my dreams; I moved from item to item, pulled by the forceof a vortex that took shape on whatever part of the tree I focused mymultisensorial dreaming attention. Vortexes were formed not only on gazing butalso on touching anything with any part of my body.

In the midst of this vision or dream, I had an attack of rational doubts.I began to wonder if I had really climbed the tree in a daze and was actuallyhugging the leaves, lost in the foliage, without knowing what I was doing. Orperhaps I had fallen asleep, possibly mesmerized by the fluttering of leaves inthe wind, and was having a dream. But just like in dreaming, I didn't haveenough energy to ponder for too long. My thoughts were fleeting. They lasted aninstant; then the force of direct experience blanketed them out completely.

A sudden motion around me shook everything and virtually made me emergefrom a clump of leaves, as if I had broken away from the tree's magnetic pull.I was facing then, from an elevation, an immense horizon. Dark mountains andgreen vegetation surrounded me. Another jolt of energy made me shake from mybones out; then I was somewhere else. Enormous trees loomed everywhere. Theywere bigger than the Douglas firs of Oregon and Washington State. Never had Iseen a forest like that. The scenery was such a contrast to the arid-ness ofthe Sonoran desert that it left me with no doubt that I was having a dream.

I held on to that extraordinary view, afraid to let go, knowing that itwas indeed a dream and would disappear once I had run out of dreamingattention. But the images lasted, even when I thought I should have run out ofdreaming attention. A horrifying thought crossed my mind then what if this wasneither a dream nor the daily world?

Frightened, as an animal must experience fright, I recoiled into the clumpof leaves I had emerged from. The momentum of my backward motion kept me goingthrough the tree foliage and around the hard branches. It pulled me away fromthe tree, and in one split second I was standing next to don Juan, at the doorof his house, in the desert in Sonora.

I instantly realized I had entered again into a state in which I couldthink coherently, but I could not talk. Don Juan told me not to worry. He saidthat our speech faculty is extremely flimsy and attacks of muteness are commonamong sorcerers who venture beyond the limits of normal perception.

My gut feeling was that don Juan had taken pity on me and had decided togive me a pep talk. But the voice of the dreaming emissary, which I clearlyheard at that instant, said that in a few hours and after some rest I was goingto be perfectly well.

Upon awakening I gave don Juan, at his request, a complete description ofwhat I had seen and done. He warned me that it was hot possible to rely on myrationality to understand my experience, not because my rationality was in anyway impaired but because what had taken place was a phenomenon outside theparameters of reason.

I, naturally, argued that nothing can be outside the limits of reason;things can be obscure, but sooner or later reason always finds a way to shedlight on anything. And I really believed this.

Don Juan, with extreme patience, pointed out that reason is only aby-product of the habitual position of the assemblage point; therefore, knowingwhat is going on, being of sound mind, having our feet on the ground - sourcesof great pride to us and assumed to be a natural consequence of our worth - aremerely the result of the fixation of the assemblage point on its habitualplace. The more rigid and stationary it is, the greater our confidence inourselves, the greater our feeling of knowing the world, of being able topredict.

He added that what dreaming does is give us the fluidity to enter intoother worlds by destroying our sense of knowing this world. He called dreaminga journey of unthinkable dimensions, a journey that, after making us perceiveeverything we can humanly perceive, makes the assemblage point jump outside thehuman domain and perceive the inconceivable.

"We are back again, harping on the most important topic of thesorcerers' world," he went on, "the position of the assemblage point.The old sorcerers' curse, as well as mankind's thorn in the side."

"Why do you say that, don Juan?"

"Because both, mankind in general and the old sorcerers, fell prey tothe position of the assemblage point mankind, because by not knowing that theassemblage point exists we are obliged to take the by-product of its habitualposition as something final and indisputable. And the old sorcerers because,although they knew all about the assemblage point, they fell for its facilityto be manipulated.

"You must avoid falling into those traps," he continued."It'd be really disgusting if you sided with mankind, as if you didn'tknow about the existence of the assemblage point. But it'd be even moreinsidious if you sided with the old sorcerers and cynically manipulate theassemblage point for gain."

"I still don't understand. What is the connection of all this withwhat I experienced yesterday?"

"Yesterday, you were in a different world. But if you ask me wherethat world is, and I tell you that it is in the position of the assemblagepoint, my answer won't make any sense to you."

Don Juan's argument was that I had two choices. One was to followmankind's rationales and be faced with a predicament my experience would tellme that other worlds exist, but my reason would say that such worlds do not andcannot exist. The other choice was to follow the old sorcerers' rationales, inwhich case I would automatically accept the existence of other worlds, and mygreed alone would make my assemblage point hold on to the position that createsthose worlds. The result would be another kind of predicament that of having tomove physically into visionlike realms, driven by expectations of power andgain.

I was too numb to follow his argument, but then I realized I did not haveto follow it because I agreed with him completely, despite the fact that I didnot have a total picture of what I was agreeing about. Agreeing with him wasrather a feeling that came from far away, an ancient certainty I had lost,which was now slowly finding its way back to me.

The return to my dreaming practices eliminated these turmoils, but creatednew ones. For example, after months of hearing it daily, I stopped finding thedreaming emissary's voice an annoyance or a wonder. It became a matter ofcourse for me. And I made so many mistakes influenced by what it said that Ialmost understood don Juan's reluctance to take it seriously. A psychoanalystwould have had a field day interpreting the emissary according to all thepossible permutations of my intrapersonal dynamics.

Don Juan maintained a steadfast view on it is an impersonal but constantforce from the realm of inorganic beings; thus, every dreamer experiences it,in more or less the same terms. And if we choose to take its words as advice,we are incurable fools.

I was definitely one of them. There was no way I could have remainedimpassive being in direct contact with such an extraordinary event a voice thatclearly and concisely told me in three languages hidden things about anythingor anyone I focused my attention on. Its only drawback, which was of noconsequence to me, was that we were not synchronized. The emissary used to tellme things about people or events when I had honestly forgotten I had been interestedin them.

I asked don Juan about this oddity, and he said that it had to do with therigidity of my assemblage point. He explained that I had been reared by oldadults and that they had imbued me with old people's views; therefore, I wasdangerously righteous. His urge to give me potions of hallucinogenic plants wasbut an effort, he said, to shake my assemblage point and allow it to have aminimal margin of fluidity.

"If you don't develop this margin," he went on, "eitheryou'll become more righteous or you'll become a hysterical sorcerer. Myinterest in telling you about the old sorcerers is not to bad-mouth them but topit them against you. Sooner or later, your assemblage point will be morefluid, but not fluid enough to offset your facility to be like them righteousand hysterical."

"How can I avoid all that, don Juan?"

"There is only one way. Sorcerers call it sheer understanding. I callit a romance with knowledge. It's the drive sorcerers use to know, to discover,to be bewildered."

Don Juan changed the subject and continued to explain the fixation of theassemblage point. He said that seeing children's assemblage points constantlyfluttering, as if moved by tremors, changing their place with ease, the oldsorcerers came to the conclusion that the assemblage point's habitual locationis not innate but brought about by habituation. Seeing also that only in adultsis it fixed on one spot, they surmised that the specific location of theassemblage point fosters a specific way of perceiving. Through usage, thisspecific way of perceiving becomes a system of interpreting sensory data.

Don Juan pointed out that, since we are drafted into that system by beingborn into it, from the moment of our birth we imperatively strive to adjust ourperceiving to conform to the demands of this system, a system that rules us forlife. Consequently, the old sorcerers were thoroughly right in believing thatthe act of countermanding it and perceiving energy directly is what transformsa person into a sorcerer.

Don Juan expressed wonder at what he called the greatest accomplishment ofour human upbringing to lock our assemblage point on its habitual position.For, once it is immobilized there, our perception can be coached and guided tointerpret what we perceive. In other words, we can then be guided to perceivemore in terms of our system than in terms of our senses. He assured me thathuman perception is universally homogeneous, because the assemblage points ofthe whole human race are fixed on the same spot.

He went on to say that sorcerers prove all this to themselves when theysee that at the moment the assemblage point is displaced beyond a certainthreshold, and new universal filaments of energy begin to be perceived, thereis no sense to what we perceive. The immediate cause is that new sensory datahas rendered our system inoperative; it can no longer be used to interpret whatwe are perceiving.

"Perceiving without our system is, of course, chaotic," don Juancontinued. "But strangely enough, when we think we have truly lost ourbearings, our old system rallies; it comes to our rescue and transforms our newincomprehensible perception into a thoroughly comprehensible new world. Justlike what happened to you when you gazed at the leaves of the mesquitetree."

"What exactly happened to me, don Juan?"

"Your perception was chaotic for a while; everything came to you atonce, and your system for interpreting the world didn't function. Then, thechaos cleared up, and there you were in front of a new world."

"We are again, don Juan, at the same place we were before. Does thatworld exist, or is it merely my mind that concocted it?"

"We certainly are back, and the answer is still the same. It existsin the precise position your assemblage point was at that moment. In order toperceive it, you needed cohesion, that is, you needed to maintain yourassemblage point fixed on that position, which you did. The result was that youtotally perceived a new world for a while."

"But would others perceive that same world?"

"If they had uniformity and cohesion, they would. Uniformity is tohold, in unison, the same position of the assemblage point. The old sorcererscalled the entire act of acquiring uniformity and cohesion outside the normalworld stalking perception.

"The art of stalking," he continued, "as I have alreadysaid, deals with the fixation of the assemblage point. The old sorcerersdiscovered, through practice, that important as it is to displace theassemblage point, it is even more important to make it stay fixed on its new position,wherever that new position might be."

He explained that if the assemblage point does not become stationary,there is no way that we can perceive coherently. We would experience then akaleidoscope of disassociated images. This is the reason the old sorcerers putas much emphasis on dreaming as they did on stalking. One art cannot existwithout the other, especially for the kinds of activities in which the oldsorcerers were involved.

"What were those activities, don Juan?"

"The old sorcerers called them the intricacies of the secondattention or the grand adventure of the unknown."

Don Juan said that these activities stem from the displacements of theassemblage point. Not only had the old sorcerers learned to displace theirassemblage points to thousands of positions on the surface or on the inside oftheir energy masses but they had also learned to fixate their assemblage pointson those positions, and thus retain their cohesiveness, indefinitely.

"What was the benefit of that, don Juan?"

"We can't talk about benefits. We can talk only about endresults."

He explained that the cohesiveness of the old sorcerers was such that itallowed them to become perceptually and physically everything the specificposition of their assemblage points dictated. They could transform themselvesinto anything for which they had a specific inventory. An inventory is, hesaid, all the details of perception involved in becoming, for example, ajaguar, a bird, an insect, et cetera, et cetera.

"It's very hard for me to believe that this transformation can bepossible," I said.

"It is possible," he assured me. "Not so much for you andme, but for them. For them, it was nothing."

He said that the old sorcerers had superb fluidity. All they needed wasthe slightest shift of their assemblage points, the slightest perceptual cuefrom their dreaming, and they would instantaneously stalk their perception,rearrange their cohesiveness to fit their new state of awareness, and be ananimal, another person, a bird, or anything.

"But isn't that what mentally ill people do? Make up their ownreality as they go along?" I said.

"No, it isn't the same. Insane people imagine a reality of their ownbecause they don't have any preconceived purpose at all. Insane people bringchaos into the chaos. Sorcerers, on the contrary, bring order to the chaos.Their preconceived, transcendental purpose is to free their perception.Sorcerers don't make up the world they are perceiving; they perceive energydirectly, and then they discover that what they are perceiving is an unknownnew world, which can swallow them whole, because it is as real as anything weknow to be real."

Don Juan then gave me a new version of what had happened to me as I gazedat the mesquite tree. He said that I began by perceiving the energy of thetree. On the subjective level, however, I believed I was dreaming because Iemployed dreaming techniques to perceive energy. He asserted that to usedreaming techniques in the world of everyday life was one of the old sorcerers'most effective devices. It made perceiving energy directly dreamlike, insteadof totally chaotic, until a moment when something rearranged perception and thesorcerer found himself facing a new world - the very thing that had happened tome.

I told him about the thought I'd had, which I had barely dared to thinkthat the scenery I was viewing was not a dream, nor was it our daily world.

"It wasn't," he said. "I've been saying this to you overand over, and you think that I am merely repeating myself. I know how difficultit is for the mind to allow mindless possibilities to become real. But newworlds exist! They are wrapped one around the other, like the skins of anonion. The world we exist in is but one of those skins."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that the goal of your teaching is to prepareme to go into those worlds?"

"No. I don't mean that. We go into those worlds only as an exercise.Those journeys are the antecedents of the sorcerers of today. We do the samedreaming that the old sorcerers used to do, but at one moment we deviate intonew ground. The old sorcerers preferred the shifts of the assemblage point, sothey were always on more or less known, predictable ground. We prefer themovements of the assemblage point. The old sorcerers were after the humanunknown. We are after the nonhuman unknown."

"I haven't gotten to that yet, have I?"

"No. You are only beginning. And at the beginning everyone has to gothrough the old sorcerers' steps. After all, they were the ones who inventeddreaming."

"At what point will I then begin to learn the new sorcerers' brand ofdreaming?"

"You have enormous ground yet to cover. Years from now perhaps.Besides, in your case, I have to be extraordinarily careful. In character, youare definitely linked to the old sorcerers. I've said this to you before, butyou always manage to avoid my probes. Sometimes I even think that some alienenergy is advising you, but then I discard the idea. You are not devious."

"What are you talking about, don Juan?"

"You've done, unwittingly, two things that worry the hell out of me.You traveled with your energy body to a place outside this world the first timeyou dreamt. And you walked there! And then you traveled with your energy bodyto another place outside this world, but parting from the awareness of thedaily world."

"Why would that worry you, don Juan?"

"Dreaming is too easy for you. And that is a damnation if we don'twatch it. It leads to the human unknown. As I said to you, modern-day sorcerersstrive to get to the nonhuman unknown."

"What can the nonhuman unknown be?"

"Freedom from being human. Inconceivable worlds that are outside theband of man but that we still can perceive. This is where modern sorcerers takethe side road. Their predilection is what's outside the human domain. And whatare outside that domain are all-inclusive worlds, not merely the realm of birdsor the realm of animals or the realm of man, even if it be the unknown man.What I am talking about are worlds, like the one where we live; total worldswith endless realms."

"Where are those worlds, don Juan? In different positions of theassemblage point?"

"Right. In different positions of the assemblage point, but

positions sorcerers arrive at with a movement of the assemblage point, nota shift. Entering into those worlds is the type of dreaming only sorcerers oftoday do. The old sorcerers stayed away from it, because it requires a greatdeal of detachment and no self-importance whatsoever. A price they couldn'tafford to pay.

"For the sorcerers who practice dreaming today, dreaming is freedomto perceive worlds beyond the imagination."

"But, what's the point of perceiving all that?"

"You already asked me, today, the same question. You speak like atrue merchant. What's the risk? you ask, What's the percentage gain to myinvestment? Is it going to better me?

"There is no way to answer that. The merchant mind does commerce. Butfreedom cannot be an investment. Freedom is an adventure with no end, in whichwe risk our lives and much more for a few moments of something beyond words, beyondthoughts or feelings."

"I didn't ask that question in that spirit, don Juan. What I want toknow is what can be the driving force to do all this for a lazy bum likemyself?"

"To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly offinto that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like theflame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billionstars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is amere candle."