Version 2006.05.15

## "The Power of Silence" - ©1987 by Carlos Castaneda
Part 4. The Decent of the Spirit

### Seeing the Spirit

Right after a late lunch while we were still at the table, don Juan announced that the two of us were going to spend the night in the sorcerers' cave and that we had to be on our way. He said that it was imperative that I sit there again in total darkness, to allow the rock formation and the sorcerers' intent to move my assemblage point.

I started to get up from my chair, but he stopped me. He said that there was something he wanted to explain to me first. He stretched out, putting his feet on the seat of a chair, then leaned back into a relaxed, comfortable position.

"As I see you in greater detail," don Juan said, "I notice more and more how similar you and my benefactor are."

I felt so threatened that I did not let him continue. I told him that I could not imagine what those similarities were, but if there were any- a possibility I did not consider reassuring- I would appreciate it if he told me about them; to give me a chance to correct or avoid them.

Don Juan laughed until tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"One of the similarities is that when you act, you act very well," he said, "but when you think, you always trip yourself up. My benefactor was like that. He didn't think too well."

I was just about to defend myself, to say there was nothing wrong with my thinking, when I caught a glint of mischievousness in his eyes. I stopped cold. Don Juan noticed my shift and laughed with a note of surprise. He must have been anticipating the opposite.

"What I mean, for instance, is that you only have problems understanding the spirit when you think about it," he went on with a chiding smile. "But when you act, the spirit easily reveals itself to you. My benefactor was that way.

"Before we leave for the cave, I am going to tell you a story about my benefactor and the fourth abstract core.

"Sorcerers believe that until the very moment of the spirit's descent, any of us could walk away from the spirit; but not afterwards."

Don Juan deliberately stopped to urge me with a movement of his eyebrows, to consider what he was telling me.

"The fourth abstract core is the full brunt of the spirit's descent," he went on. "The fourth abstract core is an act of revelation. The spirit reveals itself to us. Sorcerers describe it as the spirit lying in ambush and then descending on us; its prey. Sorcerers say that the spirit's descent is always shrouded. It happens and yet it seems not to have happened at all."

I became very nervous. Don Juan's tone of voice was giving me the feeling that he was preparing to spring something on me at any moment.

He asked me if I remembered the moment the spirit descended on me; sealing my permanent allegiance [* allegiance- the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action] to the abstract.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"There is a threshold that once crossed permits no retreat," he said. "Ordinarily, from the moment the spirit knocks, it is years before an apprentice reaches that threshold. Sometimes, though, the threshold is reached almost immediately. My benefactor's case is an example."

Don Juan said every sorcerer should have a clear memory of crossing that threshold so he could remind himself of the new state of his perceptual potential. He explained that one did not have to be an apprentice of sorcery to reach this threshold, and that the only difference between an average man and a sorcerer, in such cases, is what each emphasizes. A sorcerer emphasizes crossing this threshold and uses the memory of it as a point of reference. An average man does not cross the threshold and does his best to forget all about it.

I told him that I did not agree with his point, because I could not accept that there was only one threshold to cross.

Don Juan looked heavenward in dismay and shook his head in a joking gesture of despair. I proceeded with my argument, not to disagree with him, but to clarify things in my mind. Yet I quickly lost my impetus. Suddenly I had the feeling I was sliding through a tunnel.

"Sorcerers say that the fourth abstract core happens when the spirit cuts our chains of self-reflection," he said. "Cutting our chains is marvelous, but also very undesirable, for nobody wants to be free."

The sensation of sliding through a tunnel persisted for a moment longer, and then everything became clear to me. And I began to laugh. Strange insights pent up inside me were exploding into laughter.

Don Juan seemed to be reading my mind as if it were a book.

"What a strange feeling: to realize that everything we think, everything we say depends on the position of the assemblage point," he remarked.

And that was exactly what I had been thinking and laughing about.

"I know that at this moment your assemblage point has shifted," he went on, "and you have understood the secret of our chains. They imprison us. But by keeping us pinned down on our comfortable spot of self-reflection, they defend us from the onslaughts of the unknown."

I was having one of those extraordinary moments in which everything about the sorcerers' world was crystal clear. I understood everything.

"Once our chains are cut," don Juan continued, "we are no longer bound by the concerns of the daily world. We are still in the daily world, but we don't belong there anymore. In order to belong we must share the concerns of people, and without chains we can't."

Don Juan said that the nagual Elias had explained to him that what distinguishes us as normal people is that we share a metaphorical dagger: the concerns of our self-reflection. With this dagger, we cut ourselves and bleed; and the job of our chains of self-reflection is to give us the feeling that we are bleeding together; that we are sharing something wonderful: our humanity. But if we were to examine it, we would discover that we are bleeding alone; that we are not sharing anything; that all we are doing is toying with our manageable, unreal, man-made reflection.

"Sorcerers are no longer in the world of daily affairs," don Juan went on, "because they are no longer prey to their self-reflection."

Don Juan then began his story about his benefactor and the descent of the spirit. He said that the story started right after the spirit had knocked on the young actor's door.

I interrupted don Juan and asked him why he consistently used the terms "young man" or "young actor" to refer to the nagual Julian.

"At the time of this story, he wasn't the nagual," don Juan replied. "He was a young actor. In my story, I can't just call him Julian, because to me he was always the nagual Julian. As a sign of deference for his lifetime of impeccabitity, we always prefix 'nagual' to a nagual's name."

Don Juan proceeded with his story. He said that the nagual Elias had stopped the young actor's death by making him shift into heightened awareness, and following hours of struggle, the young actor regained consciousness. The nagual Elias did not mention his name, but he introduced himself as a professional healer who had stumbled onto the scene of a tragedy where two persons had nearly died.

The nagual Elias pointed to the young woman, Talia, stretched out on the ground. The young man was astonished to see her lying unconscious next to him. He remembered seeing her as she ran away. It startled him to hear the old healer explain that doubtlessly God had punished Talia for her sins by striking her with lightning and making her lose her mind.

"But how could there be lightning if it's not even raining?" the young actor asked in a barely audible voice. He was visibly affected when the old Indian replied that God's ways couldn't be questioned.

Again I interrupted don Juan. I was curious to know if the young woman really had lost her mind. He reminded me that the nagual Elias delivered a shattering blow to her assemblage point. He said that she had not lost her mind, but that as a result of the blow she slipped in and out of heightened awareness, creating a serious threat to her health. After a gigantic struggle, however, the nagual Elias helped her to stabilize her assemblage point and she entered permanently into heightened awareness.

Don Juan commented that women are capable of such a master stroke: They can permanently maintain a new position of their assemblage point; and Talia was peerless. As soon as her chains were broken, she immediately understood everything and complied with the nagual's designs.

Don Juan, recounting his story, said that the nagual Elias- who was not only a superb dreamer, but also a superb stalker- had seen that the young actor was spoiled and conceited, but only seemed to be hard and calloused. The nagual knew that if he brought forth the idea of God, sin, and retribution, the actor's religious beliefs would make his cynical attitude collapse.

Upon hearing about God's punishment, the actor's facade began to crumble. He started to express remorse, but the nagual cut him short and forcefully stressed that when death was so near, feelings of guilt no longer mattered.

The young actor listened attentively, but although he felt very ill, he did not believe that he was in danger of dying. He thought that his weakness and fainting had been brought on by his loss of blood.

As if he had read the young actor's mind, the nagual explained to him that those optimistic thoughts were out of place; that his hemorrhaging would have been fatal had it not been for the plug that he, as a healer, had created.

"When I struck your back, I put in a plug to stop the draining of your life force," the nagual said to the skeptical young actor. "Without that restraint, the unavoidable process of your death would continue. If you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you by removing the plug with another blow."

As he spoke, the nagual Elias tapped the young actor on his right side by his ribcage. In a moment the young man was retching and choking. Blood poured out of his mouth as he coughed uncontrollably. Another tap on his back stopped the agonizing pain and retching; but it did not stop the young man's fear, and he passed out.

"I can control your death for the time being," the nagual said when the young actor regained consciousness. "How long I can control it depends on you; on how faithfully you acquiesce to everything I tell you to do."

The nagual Elias said that the first requirements on the young man were total immobility and silence. If he did not want his plug to come out, the nagual added, he had to behave as if he had lost his powers of motion and speech. A single twitch or a single utterance would be enough to restart his dying.

The young actor was not accustomed to complying with suggestions or demands. He felt a surge of anger. As he started to voice his protest, the burning pain and convulsions started up again.

"Stay with it, and I will cure you," the nagual said. "Act like the weak, rotten imbecile you are, and you will die."

The actor, a proud young man, was numbed by the insult. Nobody had ever called him a weak, rotten imbecile. He wanted to express his fury, but his pain was so severe that he could not react to the indignity.

"If you want me to ease your pain, you must obey me blindly," the nagual said with frightening coldness. "Signal me with a nod. But know now that the moment you change your mind and act like the shameful moron you are, I'll immediately pull the plug and leave you to die."

With his last bit of strength the actor nodded his assent. The nagual tapped him on his back and his pain vanished. But along with the searing pain, something else vanished: the fog in his mind. And then the young actor knew everything without understanding anything. The nagual introduced himself again. He told him that his name was Elias, and that he was the nagual. And the actor knew what it all meant.

The nagual Elias then shifted his attention to the semiconscious Talia. He put his mouth to her left ear and whispered commands to her in order to make her assemblage point stop its erratic shifting. He soothed her fear by telling her, in whispers, stories of sorcerers who had gone through the same thing she was experiencing. When she was fairly calm, he introduced himself as the nagual Elias, a sorcerer; and then he attempted with her the most difficult thing in sorcery: moving the assemblage point beyond the sphere of the world we know.

Don Juan remarked that seasoned sorcerers are capable of moving beyond the world we know, but that inexperienced persons are not. The nagual Elias always maintained that ordinarily he would not have dreamed of attempting such a feat, but on that day something other than his knowledge or his volition was making him act. Yet the maneuver worked. Talia moved beyond the world we know and came safely back.

Then the nagual Elias had another insight. The actor was naked; covered only by the nagual Elfas's riding coat. As the nagual Elias sat between the two people stretched out on the ground, he reviewed their situation to them.

He told them they had both, by the force of circumstances, fallen into a trap set by the spirit itself. He, the nagual, was the active part of that trap because by encountering them under the conditions he had, he had been forced to become their temporary protector; and to engage his knowledge of sorcery in order to help them.

As their temporary protector it was his duty to warn them that they were about to reach a unique threshold; and that it was up to them, both individually and together, to attain that threshold by entering a mood of abandon but not recklessness; a mood of caring but not indulgence. He did not want to say more for fear of confusing them or influencing their decision. He felt that if they were to cross that threshold, it had to be with minimal help from him.

The nagual then left them alone in that isolated spot and went to the city to arrange for medicinal herbs, mats, and blankets to be brought to them. His idea was that in solitude they would attain and cross that threshold.

For a long time the two young people lay next to each other, immersed in their own thoughts. The fact that their assemblage points had shifted meant that they could think in greater depth than ordinarily, but it also meant that they worried, pondered, and were afraid in equally greater depth.

Since Talia could talk and was a bit stronger. She broke their silence: She asked the young actor if he was afraid. He nodded affirmatively. She felt a great compassion for him and took off a shawl she was wearing to put over his shoulders, and she held his hand.

The young man did not dare voice what he felt. His fear that his pain would recur if he spoke was too great and too vivid. He wanted to apologize to her; to tell her that his only regret was having hurt her, and that it did not matter that he was going to die- for he knew with certainty that he was not going to survive the day.

Talia's thoughts were on the same subject. She said that she too had only one regret: that she had fought him hard enough to bring on his death. She was very peaceful now, a feeling which, agitated as she always was and driven by her great strength, was unfamiliar to her. She told him that her death was very near, too, and that she was glad it all would end that day.

The young actor, hearing his own thoughts being spoken by Talia, felt a chill. A surge of energy came to him then and made him sit up. He was not in pain, nor was he coughing. He took in great gulps of air, something he had no memory of having done before. He took the girl's hand and they began to talk without vocalizing.

Don Juan said it was at that instant that the spirit came to them. And they 'saw'. They were deeply Catholic, and what they saw was a vision of heaven where everything was alive; bathed in light. They saw a world of miraculous sights.

When the nagual returned, they were exhausted, although not injured. Talia was unconscious, but the young man had managed to remain aware by a supreme effort of self-control. He insisted on whispering something in the nagual's ear.

"We saw heaven," he whispered, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"You saw more than that," the nagual Elfas retorted. "You saw the spirit."

Don Juan said that since the spirit's descent is always shrouded, naturally, Talia and the young actor could not hold onto their vision. They soon forgot it, as anyone would. The uniqueness of their experience was that, without any training and without being aware of it, they had dreamed together and had seen the spirit. For them to have achieved this with such ease was quite out of the ordinary.

"Those two were really the most remarkable beings I have ever met," don Juan added.

I, naturally, wanted to know more about them. But don Juan would not indulge me. He said that this was all there was about his benefactor and the fourth abstract core.

He seemed to remember something he was not telling me and laughed uproariously. Then he patted me on the back and told me it was time to set out for the cave.

When we got to the rock ledge it was almost dark. Don Juan sat down hurriedly, in the same position as the first time. He was to my right, touching me with his shoulder. He immediately seemed to enter into a deep state of relaxation, which pulled me into total immobility and silence. I could not even hear his breathing. I closed my eyes, but he nudged me to warn me to keep them open.

By the time it became completely dark, an immense fatigue had begun to make my eyes sore and itchy. Finally I gave up my resistance and was pulled into the deepest, blackest sleep I have ever had. Yet I was not totally asleep. I could feel the thick blackness around me. I had an entirely physical sensation of wading through blackness. Then it suddenly became reddish, then orange, then glaring white, like a terribly strong neon light.

Gradually I focused my vision until I saw I was still sitting in the same position with don Juan- but no longer in the cave. We were on a mountaintop looking down over exquisite flatlands with mountains in the distance. This beautiful prairie was bathed in a glow that, like rays of light, emanated from the land itself. Wherever I looked, I saw familiar features: rocks, hills, rivers, forests, canyons, enhanced and transformed by their inner vibration; their inner glow. This glow that was so pleasing to my eyes also tingled out of my very being.

"Your assemblage point has moved," don Juan seemed to say to me.

The words had no sound; nevertheless I knew what he had just said to me. My rational reaction was to try to explain to myself that I had no doubt heard him as I would have if he had been talking in a vacuum, probably because my ears had been temporarily affected by what was transpiring.

"Your ears are fine. We are in a different realm of awareness," don Juan again seemed to say to me.

I could not speak. I felt the lethargy [* lethargy- state of deep and usually prolonged unconsciousness with motor and mental inactivity; unable to respond to external stimuli] of deep sleep preventing me from saying a word, yet I was as alert as I could be.

"What's happening?" I thought.

"The cave made your assemblage point move," don Juan thought, and I heard his thoughts as if they were my own words, voiced to myself.

I sensed a command that was not expressed in thoughts. Something ordered me to look again at the prairie.

As I stared at the wondrous sight, filaments of light began to radiate from everything on that prairie. At first it was like the explosion of an infinite number of short fibers, then the fibers became long threadlike strands of luminosity bundled together into beams of vibrating light that reached infinity. There was really no way for me to make sense of what I was seeing, or to describe it, except as filaments of vibrating light. The filaments were not intermingled or entwined. Although they sprang, and continued to spring, in every direction, each one was separate, and yet all of them were inextricably bundled together.

"You are seeing the Eagle's emanations and the force that keeps them apart and bundles them together," don Juan thought.

The instant I caught his thought the filaments of light seemed to consume all my energy. Fatigue overwhelmed me. It erased my vision and plunged me into darkness.

When I became aware of myself again, there was something so familiar around me, although I could not tell what it was, that I believed myself to be back in a normal state of awareness. Don Juan was asleep beside me, his shoulder against mine.

Then I realized that the darkness around us was so intense that I could not even see my hands. I speculated that fog must have covered the ledge and filled the cave; or perhaps it was the wispy low clouds that descended every rainy night from the higher mountains like a silent avalanche.

Yet in spite of the total blackness, somehow I saw that don Juan had opened his eyes immediately after I became aware, although he did not look at me. Instantly I realized that seeing him was not a consequence of light on my retina. It was, rather, a bodily sense.

I became so engrossed in observing don Juan without my eyes that I was not paying attention to what he was telling me. Finally he stopped talking and turned his face to me as if to look me in the eye.

He coughed a couple of times to clear his throat and started to talk in a very low voice. He said that his benefactor used to come to the cave quite often, both with him and with his other disciples, but more often by himself. In that cave his benefactor saw the same prairie we had just seen; a vision that gave him the idea of describing the spirit as the flow of things.

Don Juan repeated that his benefactor was not a good thinker. Had he been, he would have realized in an instant that what he had seen and described as the flow of things was intent; the force that permeates everything. Don Juan added that if his benefactor ever became aware of the nature of his seeing, he didn't reveal it. Don Juan had the idea that his benefactor never knew it. Instead, his benefactor believed that he had seen the flow of things, which was the absolute truth, but not the way he meant it.

Don Juan was so emphatic about this that I wanted to ask him what the difference was, but I could not speak. My throat seemed frozen. We sat there in complete silence and immobility for hours, yet I did not experience any discomfort: my muscles did not get tired, my legs did not fall asleep, my back did not ache.

When don Juan began to talk again, I did not even notice the transition, and I readily abandoned myself to listening to his voice. It was a melodic, rhythmical sound that emerged from the total blackness that surrounded me.

He said that at that very moment I was not in my normal state of awareness nor was I in heightened awareness. I was suspended in a lull, in the blackness of nonperception. My assemblage point had moved away from perceiving the daily world, but it had not moved enough to reach and light a totally new bundle of energy fields. Properly speaking, I was caught between two perceptual possibilities. This in-between state, this lull of perception had been reached through the influence of the cave which was itself guided by the intent of the sorcerers who carved it.

Don Juan asked me to pay close attention to what he was going to say next. He said that thousands of years ago, by means of seeing, sorcerers became aware that the earth was sentient and that its awareness could affect the awareness of humans. They tried to find a way to use the earth's influence on human awareness and they discovered that certain caves were most effective.

Don Juan said that the search for caves became nearly full-time work for those sorcerers; and that through their endeavors they were able to discover a variety of uses for a variety of cave configurations. He added that out of all that work the only result pertinent to us was this particular cave and its capacity to move the assemblage point until it reached a lull of perception.

As don Juan spoke, I had the unsettling sensation that something was clearing in my mind. Something was funneling my awareness into a long narrow channel. All the superfluous [* superfluous- serving no useful purpose] half-thoughts and feelings of my normal awareness were being squeezed out.

Don Juan was thoroughly aware of what was happening to me. I heard his soft chuckle of satisfaction. He said that now we could talk more easily and our conversation would have more depth.

I remembered at that moment scores of things he had explained to me before. For instance, I knew that I was dreaming. I was actually sound asleep yet I was totally aware of myself through my second attention- the counterpart of my normal attentiveness.

I was certain I was asleep because of a bodily sensation plus a rational deduction based on statements that don Juan had made in the past. I had just seen the Eagle's emanations, and don Juan had said that it was impossible for sorcerers to have a sustained view of the Eagle's emanations in any way except in dreaming, therefore I had to be dreaming.

Don Juan had explained that the universe is made up of energy fields which defy description or scrutiny. He had said that they resembled filaments of ordinary light, except that light is lifeless compared to the Eagle's emanations, which exude awareness.

I had never, until this night, been able to see them in a sustained manner, and indeed they were made out of a light that was alive. Don Juan had maintained in the past that my knowledge and control of intent were not adequate to withstand the impact of that sight. He had explained that normal perception occurs when intent, which is pure energy, lights up a portion of the luminous filaments inside our cocoon, and at the same time brightens a long extension of the same luminous filaments extending into infinity outside our cocoon.

Extraordinary perception, 'seeing', occurs when by the force of intent a different cluster of energy fields energizes and lights up. He had said that when a crucial number of energy fields are lit up inside the luminous cocoon, a sorcerer is able to see the energy fields themselves.

On another occasion don Juan had recounted the rational thinking of the early sorcerers. He told me that, through their seeing, they realized that awareness took place when the energy fields inside our luminous cocoon were aligned with the same energy fields outside. They believed they had discovered alignment as the source of awareness.

Upon close examination, however, it became evident that what they had called alignment of the Eagle's emanations did not entirely explain what they were seeing. They had noticed that only a very small portion of the total number of luminous filaments inside the cocoon was energized while the rest remained unaltered. Seeing these few filaments energized had created a false discovery.

The filaments did not need to be aligned to be lit up because the ones inside our cocoon were the same as those outside. Whatever energized them was definitely an independent force. They felt they could not continue to call it awareness, as they had, because awareness was the glow of the energy fields being lit up. So the force that lit up the fields was named will.

Don Juan had said that when their seeing became still more sophisticated and effective, they realized that will was the force that kept the Eagle's emanations separated and was not only responsible for our awareness, but also for everything in the universe.

They saw that this force had total consciousness and that it sprang from the very fields of energy that made the universe. They decided then that intent was a more appropriate name for it than will. In the long run, however, the name proved disadvantageous, because it does not describe its overwhelming importance nor the living connection it has with everything in the universe.

Don Juan had asserted that our great collective flaw is that we live our lives completely disregarding that connection. The busyness of our lives, our relentless interests, concerns, hopes, frustrations, and fears take precedence; and on a day-to-day basis we are unaware of being linked to everything else.

Don Juan had stated his belief that the Christian idea of being cast out from the Garden of Eden sounded to him like an allegory for losing our silent knowledge; our knowledge of intent. Sorcery, then, was a going back to the beginning; a return to paradise.

We stayed seated in the cave in total silence; perhaps for hours, or perhaps it was only a few instants. Suddenly don Juan began to talk, and the unexpected sound of his voice jarred me. I did not catch what he said. I cleared my throat to ask him to repeat what he had said, and that act brought me completely out of my reflectiveness.

I quickly realized that the darkness around me was no longer impenetrable. I could speak now. I felt I was back in my normal state of awareness.

In a calm voice don Juan told me that for the very first time in my life I had seen the spirit; the force that sustains the universe. He emphasized that intent is not something one might use or command or move in any way- nevertheless, one could use it, command it, or move it as one desires.

This contradiction, he said, is the essence of sorcery. To fail to understand it had brought generations of sorcerers unimaginable pain and sorrow. Modern-day naguals, in an effort to avoid paying this exorbitant price in pain, had developed a code of behavior called the warrior's way, or the impeccable action; which prepared sorcerers by enhancing their sobriety and thoughtfulness.

Don Juan explained that at one time in the remote past, sorcerers were deeply interested in the general connecting link that intent has with everything. And by focusing their second attention on that link, they acquired not only direct knowledge but also the ability to manipulate that knowledge and perform astounding deeds. They did not acquire, however, the soundness of mind needed to manage all that power.

So in a judicious mood, sorcerers decided to focus their second attention solely on the connecting link of creatures who have awareness. This included the entire range of existing organic beings; as well as the entire range of what sorcerers call inorganic beings, or allies, which they described as entities with awareness, but no life as we understand life. This solution was not successful either, because it, too, failed to bring them wisdom.

In their next reduction, sorcerers focused their attention exclusively on the link that connects human beings with intent. The end result was very much as before.

Then, sorcerers sought a final reduction. Each sorcerer would be concerned solely with his individual connection. But this proved to be equally ineffective.

Don Juan said that although there were remarkable differences among those four areas of interest, one was as corrupting as another. So in the end, sorcerers concerned themselves exclusively with the capacity that their individual connecting link with intent had to set them free to light the fire from within.

He asserted that all modern-day sorcerers have to struggle fiercely to gain soundness of mind. A nagual has to struggle especially hard because he has more strength; a greater command over the energy fields that determine perception; and more training in and familiarity with the intricacies of silent knowledge- which is nothing but direct contact with intent.

Examined in this way, sorcery becomes an attempt to reestablish our knowledge of intent and regain use of it without succumbing to it. And the abstract cores of the sorcery stories are shades of realization; degrees of our being aware of intent.

I understood don Juan's explanation with perfect clarity. But the more I understood and the clearer his statements became, the greater my sense of loss and despondency. At one moment I sincerely considered ending my life right there. I felt I was damned.

Nearly in tears, I told don Juan that there was no point in his continuing his explanation, for I knew that I was about to lose my clarity of mind, and that when I reverted to my normal state of awareness, I would have no memory of having seen or heard anything. My mundane consciousness would impose its lifelong habit of repetition and the reasonable predictability of its logic. That was why I felt damned. I told him that I resented my fate.

Don Juan responded that even in heightened awareness I thrived on repetition, and that periodically I would insist on boring him by describing my attacks of feeling worthless. He said that if I had to go under it should be fighting, not apologizing or feeling sorry for myself; and that it did not matter what our specific fate was as long as we faced it with ultimate abandon.

His words made me feel blissfully happy. I repeated over and over, tears streaming down my cheeks, that I agreed with him. There was such profound happiness in me that I suspected my nerves were getting out of hand. I called upon all my forces to stop this and I felt the sobering effect of my mental brakes. But as this happened, my clarity of mind began to diffuse. I silently fought- trying to be both less sober and less nervous. Don Juan did not make a sound and left me alone.

By the time I had reestablished my balance, it was almost dawn. Don Juan stood, stretched his arms above his head and tensed his muscles, making his joints crack. He helped me up and commented that I had spent a most enlightening night: I had experienced what the spirit was, and had been able to summon hidden strength to accomplish something, which on the surface amounted to calming my nervousness; but at a deeper level it had actually been a very successful, volitional movement of my assemblage point. He signaled then that it was time to start on our way back.