too
numb to follow his argument, but then I realized I did not have to follow it
because I agreed with him completely, despite the fact that I did not have a
total picture of what I was agreeing about. Agreeing with him was rather 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 created new
ones. For example, after months of hearing it daily, I stopped finding the dreaming emissary's voice an annoyance or a wonder. It became a matter of course for me.
And I made so many mistakes influenced by what it said that I almost understood
don Juan's reluctance to take it seriously. A psychoanalyst would have had a
field day interpreting the emissary according to all the possible permutations
of my intrapersonal dynamics.
Don Juan
maintained a steadfast view on it: it is an impersonal but constant force 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 remained impassive being
in direct contact with such an extraordinary event: a voice that clearly and
concisely told me in three languages hidden things about anything or anyone I
focused my attention on. Its only drawback, which was of no consequence to me,
was that we were not synchronized. The emissary used to tell me things about
people or events when I had honestly forgotten I had been interested in them.
I asked don
Juan about this oddity, and he said that it had to do with the rigidity of my
assemblage point. He explained that I had been reared by old adults and that
they had imbued me with old people's views; therefore, I was dangerously
righteous. His urge to give me potions of hallucinogenic plants was but an
effort, he said, to shake my assemblage point and allow it to have a minimal
margin of fluidity.
"If
you don't develop this margin," he went on, "either you'll become
more righteous or you'll become a hysterical sorcerer. My interest in telling
you about the old sorcerers is not to badmouth them but to pit them against
you. Sooner or later, your assemblage point will be more fluid, but not fluid
enough to offset your facility to be like them: righteous and hysterical."
"How can
I avoid all that, don Juan?"
"There
is only one way. Sorcerers call it sheer understanding. I call it 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 the assemblage
point. He said that seeing children's assemblage points constantly fluttering,
as if moved by tremors, changing their place with ease, the old sorcerers came
to the conclusion that the assemblage point's habitual location is not innate
but brought about by habituation. Seeing also that only in adults is it fixed
on one spot, they surmised that the specific location of the assemblage point
fetters a specific way of perceiving. Through usage, this specific way of
perceiving becomes a system of interpreting sensory data.
Don Juan
pointed out that, since we are drafted into that system by being born into it,
from the moment of our birth we imperatively strive to adjust our perceiving to
conform to the demands of this system, a system that rules us for life.
Consequently, the old sorcerers were thoroughly right in believing that the act
of countermanding it and perceiving energy directly is what transforms a person
into a sorcerer.
Don Juan
expressed wonder at what he called the greatest accomplishment of our human
upbringing: to lock our assemblage point on its habitual position. For, once it
is immobilized there, our perception can be coached and guided to interpret
what we perceive. In other words, we can then be guided to perceive more in
terms of our system than in terms of our senses. He assured me
numb to follow his argument, but then I realized I did not have to follow it
because I agreed with him completely, despite the fact that I did not have a
total picture of what I was agreeing about. Agreeing with him was rather 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 created new
ones. For example, after months of hearing it daily, I stopped finding the dreaming emissary's voice an annoyance or a wonder. It became a matter of course for me.
And I made so many mistakes influenced by what it said that I almost understood
don Juan's reluctance to take it seriously. A psychoanalyst would have had a
field day interpreting the emissary according to all the possible permutations
of my intrapersonal dynamics.
Don Juan
maintained a steadfast view on it: it is an impersonal but constant force 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 remained impassive being
in direct contact with such an extraordinary event: a voice that clearly and
concisely told me in three languages hidden things about anything or anyone I
focused my attention on. Its only drawback, which was of no consequence to me,
was that we were not synchronized. The emissary used to tell me things about
people or events when I had honestly forgotten I had been interested in them.
I asked don
Juan about this oddity, and he said that it had to do with the rigidity of my
assemblage point. He explained that I had been reared by old adults and that
they had imbued me with old people's views; therefore, I was dangerously
righteous. His urge to give me potions of hallucinogenic plants was but an
effort, he said, to shake my assemblage point and allow it to have a minimal
margin of fluidity.
"If
you don't develop this margin," he went on, "either you'll become
more righteous or you'll become a hysterical sorcerer. My interest in telling
you about the old sorcerers is not to badmouth them but to pit them against
you. Sooner or later, your assemblage point will be more fluid, but not fluid
enough to offset your facility to be like them: righteous and hysterical."
"How can
I avoid all that, don Juan?"
"There
is only one way. Sorcerers call it sheer understanding. I call it 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 the assemblage
point. He said that seeing children's assemblage points constantly fluttering,
as if moved by tremors, changing their place with ease, the old sorcerers came
to the conclusion that the assemblage point's habitual location is not innate
but brought about by habituation. Seeing also that only in adults is it fixed
on one spot, they surmised that the specific location of the assemblage point
fetters a specific way of perceiving. Through usage, this specific way of
perceiving becomes a system of interpreting sensory data.
Don Juan
pointed out that, since we are drafted into that system by being born into it,
from the moment of our birth we imperatively strive to adjust our perceiving to
conform to the demands of this system, a system that rules us for life.
Consequently, the old sorcerers were thoroughly right in believing that the act
of countermanding it and perceiving energy directly is what transforms a person
into a sorcerer.
Don Juan
expressed wonder at what he called the greatest accomplishment of our human
upbringing: to lock our assemblage point on its habitual position. For, once it
is immobilized there, our perception can be coached and guided to interpret
what we perceive. In other words, we can then be guided to perceive more in
terms of our system than in terms of our senses. He assured me
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