Version 2007.11.06

## "Encounters With The Nagual" - ©2004 by Armando Torres
Part II. Warriors' Dialogue

### Power Plants

A man was sitting on a bench, almost hidden behind a newspaper stand. I noticed him, but in such a subconscious way that I had walked some twenty meters past him before it struck me. I turned: The man looked at me smiling. It was Carlos.

He hugged me effusively and remarked that an encounter of that nature had to be taken as an omen.

"Now, I am all yours," he exclaimed. "Ask!"

I saw my opportunity.

In various conversations, Carlos had categorically stated that hallucinogenic plants are not advisable for a seeker of knowledge. However, in his first books he had written exactly the opposite, and he even gave extensive exercises on their use, presenting himself as an example of the power of those plants.

This was a matter that interested me intensely, I had never experienced in my own body the incredible forms of perception that he described and I felt a great curiosity. So, taking advantage of his good mood, I asked him to clear up the contradiction.

When he heard my question, his enthusiasm cooled down. The topic seemed to affect him deeply. After a few seconds of reflection he told me that a sign from the spirit had determined the change in his perspective.

"In 1971, after publishing my second book, I received an uncomfortable visit. United States government agents came to one of my presentations and they informed me that I was becoming an idol of juvenile drug addicts, and that they would expel me from the country unless I modified my attitude.

"At first I didn't see any reason to concern myself with these threats. But later I investigated a little, and the situation made an impression on me. Many students were taking Don Juan's teachings as an academic permission to get high. My name was mentioned everywhere as an authority on drugs. But I didn't want to be the patron saint of anything!

"I took my dilemma to Don Juan, who laughed at the whole thing and told me that a principle of stalkers is not to confront anybody, and certainly not people more powerful than themselves. 'You have blundered in among the hooves of horses, and you have to get yourself out of there. I suggest you take care of your learning: The rest, what does it matter?' That advice made me decide to have a more cautious-attitude in my next publications.

"Personally, I neither approve nor disapprove of anything, since I am not one to judge in the matter and, also, my learning was a result of such techniques. However, in public I cannot encourage use of the plants, because my books are read by all kinds of people and everyone interprets them in their own way.

"Without qualified supervision, power plants can produce regrettable results, since they move the assemblage point abruptly and erratically, and in the long term, they take their toll on a person's health and sanity; and sometimes they will take a practitioner's life. On one occasion, they warned me that the father of a student was looking for me with a gun to kill me, because he blamed me for his son's death after experimenting with drugs.

"It is a very delicate matter, all this about power plants. If you want to understand it, you have to abandon the folkloric vision that almost everybody has of sorcerers. True Toltec warriors are not fanatical about dope or about anything else. Their behavior is strictly dictated by impeccability.

"I have already explained to you that Don Juan only used plants with me in the beginning of my apprenticeship, and only because I was exceptionally fixed in my routines. The more obstinate I got, the more plants he gave me. In that way he was able to loosen my assemblage point the minimum necessary for me to grasp the premises of his teachings. However, in spite of his careful conduct, it had a high cost for me and it's one of the main reasons why today my health is so deteriorated.

"Power plants have a limit and a sorcerer finds it very soon. They are an initial stimulus, but they cannot become a base to work from, because they don't have the capacity to take us to complete worlds, which is what a seer looks for."

"Do you mean that the movement they induce in the assemblage point is not sufficiently great?"

"It's the opposite, they produce a deep and unpredictable shake. A real sorcerer can manage that, but not an apprentice. If he uses them to break his perceptual limits, the beginner will be tempted to classify everything he is witnessing as hallucinations: After all, everything started from a plant! In that way, he will never reach the degree of commitment needed to fix his assemblage point in a new position. Plants take you quickly and easily to another world, but they don't allow you to stalk it: That is their limitation.

"The best way of deploying our perception is through dreaming. As a method, dreaming is just as simple but less risky, more comprehensive and, above all, much more natural.

"The goal of an apprentice is to take the reins of his assemblage point. Once he is able to displace it, he has to repeat those movements without external help; by force of discipline and impeccability. Then we can say the warrior has found an ally."