Version 2006.05.15

## "The Power of Silence" - ©1987 by Carlos Castaneda
Part 6. Handling Intent

### Intending Appearances

Don Juan wanted us to make one more trip to the mountains before I went home, but we never made it. Instead, he asked me to drive him to the city. He needed to see some people there.

On the way he talked about every subject but intent. It was a welcome respite.

In the afternoon, after he had taken care of his business, we sat on his favorite bench in the plaza. The place was deserted. I was very tired and sleepy. But then, quite unexpectedly, I perked up. My mind became crystal clear.

Don Juan immediately noticed the change and laughed at my gesture of surprise. He picked a thought right out of my mind; or perhaps it was I who picked that thought out of his.

"If you think about life in terms of hours instead of years, our lives are immensely long," he said. "Even if you think in terms of days, life is still interminable."

That was exactly what I had been thinking.

He told me that sorcerers counted their lives in hours, and that in one hour it was possible for a sorcerer to live the equivalent in intensity of a normal life. This intensity is an advantage when it comes to storing information in the movement of the assemblage point.

I demanded that he explain this to me in more detail. A long time before, because it was so cumbersome to take notes on conversations, he had recommended that I keep all the information I obtained about the sorcerers' world neatly arranged, not on paper nor in my mind, but in the movement of my assemblage point.

"The assemblage point," don Juan said, "with even the most minute shifting, creates totally isolated islands of perception. Information in the form of experiences in the complexity of awareness can be stored there."

I asked, "But how can information be stored in something so vague?"

"The mind is equally vague, and still you trust it because you are familiar with it," he retorted. "You don't yet have the same familiarity with the movement of the assemblage point, but it is just about the same."

"What I mean is, how is information stored?" I insisted.

"The information is stored in the experience itself," he explained. "Later, when a sorcerer moves his assemblage point to the exact spot where it had been, he relives the total experience. This sorcerers' recollection is the way to get back all the information stored in the movement of die assemblage point.

"Intensity is an automatic result of the movement of the assemblage point," he continued. "For instance, you are living these moments more intensely than you ordinarily would, so, properly speaking, you are storing intensity. Some day you'll relive this moment by making your assemblage point return to the precise spot where it is now. That is the way sorcerers store information."

I told don Juan that the intense recollections I had had in the past few days had just happened to me without any special mental process I was aware of.

"How can one deliberately manage to recollect?" I asked.

"Intensity, being an aspect of intent, is connected naturally to the shine of the sorcerers' eyes," he explained. "In order to recall those isolated islands of perception, sorcerers need only intend the particular shine of their eyes associated with whichever spot they want to return to. But I have already explained that."

I must have looked perplexed. Don Juan regarded me with a serious expression. I opened my mouth two or three times to ask him questions, but I could not formulate my thoughts.

"Because his intensity rate is greater than normal," don Juan said, "in a few hours a sorcerer can live the equivalent of a normal lifetime. His assemblage point, by shifting to an unfamiliar position, takes in more energy than usual. That extra flow of energy is called intensity."

I understood what he was saying with perfect clarity, and my rationality staggered under the impact of the tremendous implication.

Don Juan fixed me with his stare and then warned me to beware of a reaction which typically afflicted sorcerers- a frustrating desire to explain the sorcery experience in cogent, well reasoned terms.

"The sorcerers' experience is so outlandish," don Juan went on, "that sorcerers consider it an intellectual exercise, and use it to stalk themselves with. Their trump card as stalkers, though, is that they remain keenly aware that we are perceivers and that perception has more possibilities than the mind can conceive."

As my only comment, I voiced my apprehension about the outlandish possibilities of human awareness.

"In order to protect themselves from that immensity," don Juan said, "sorcerers learn to maintain a perfect blend of ruthlessness, cunning, patience, and sweetness. These four bases are inextricably [* inextricably- in a manner not capable of being untangled] bound together. Sorcerers cultivate these bases by intending them. They are, naturally, positions of the assemblage point."

He went on to say that every act performed by any sorcerer was by definition governed by these four principles. So, properly speaking, every sorcerer's every action is deliberate in thought and realization, and has the specific blend of the four foundations of stalking.

"Sorcerers use the four moods of stalking as guides," he continued. "These are four different frames of mind; four different brands of intensity that sorcerers can use to induce their assemblage points to move to specific positions."

He seemed suddenly annoyed. I asked if it was my insistence on speculating that was bothering him.

"I am just considering how our rationality puts us between a rock and a hard place," he said. "Our tendency is to ponder, to question, to find out. And there is no way to do that from within the discipline of sorcery. Sorcery is the act of reaching the place of silent knowledge, and silent knowledge can't be reasoned out. It can only be experienced."

He smiled, his eyes shining like two spots of light. He said that sorcerers, in an effort to protect themselves from the overwhelming effect of silent knowledge, developed the art of stalking. Stalking moves the assemblage point minutely but steadily, thus giving sorcerers time and therefore the possibility of buttressing themselves.

"Within the art of stalking," don Juan continued, "there is a technique which sorcerers use a great deal: controlled folly. Sorcerers claim that controlled folly is the only way they have of dealing with themselves- in their state of expanded awareness and perception- and with everybody and everything in the world of daily affairs."

Don Juan had explained controlled folly as the art of controlled deception or the art of pretending to be thoroughly immersed in the action at hand- pretending so well no one could tell it from the real thing. Controlled folly is not an outright deception, he had told me, but a sophisticated, artistic way of being separated from everything while remaining an integral part of everything.

"Controlled folly is an art," don Juan continued. "A very bothersome art, and a difficult one to learn. Many sorcerers don't have the stomach for it, not because there is anything inherently wrong with the art, but because it takes a lot of energy to exercise it."

Don Juan admitted that he practiced it conscientiously, although he was not particularly fond of doing so; perhaps because his benefactor had been so adept at it. Or, perhaps it was because his personality- which he said was basically devious and petty- simply did not have the agility needed to practice controlled folly.

I looked at him with surprise. He stopped talking and fixed me with his mischievous eyes.

"By the time we come to sorcery, our personality is already formed," he said, and shrugged his shoulders to signify resignation, "and all we can do is practice controlled folly and laugh at ourselves."

I had a surge of empathy and assured him that to me he was not in any way petty or devious.

"But that's my basic personality," he insisted.

And I insisted that it was not.

"Stalkers who practice controlled folly believe that, in matters of personality, the entire human race falls into three categories," he said, and smiled the way he always did when he was setting me up.

"That's absurd," I protested. "Human behavior is too complex to be categorized so simply."

"Stalkers say that we are not so complex as we think we are," he said, "and that we all belong to one of three categories."

I laughed out of nervousness. Ordinarily I would have taken such a statement as a joke, but this time, because my mind was extremely clear and my thoughts were poignant, I felt he was indeed serious.

"Are you serious?" I asked, as politely as I could.

"Completely serious," he replied, and began to laugh.

His laughter relaxed me a little. And he continued explaining the stalkers' system of classification.

He said that people in the first class are the perfect secretaries, assistants, companions. They have a very fluid personality, but their fluidity is not nourishing. They are, however, serviceable, concerned, totally domestic, resourceful within limits, humorous, well-mannered, sweet, delicate. In other words, they are the nicest people one could find, but they have one huge flaw: they can't function alone. They are always in need of someone to direct them. With direction, no matter how strained or antagonistic that direction might be, they are stupendous. By themselves, they perish.

People in the second class are not nice at all. They are petty, vindictive, envious, jealous, self-centered. They talk exclusively about themselves and usually demand that people conform to their standards. They always take the initiative even though they are not comfortable with it. They are thoroughly ill at ease in every situation and never relax. They are insecure and are never pleased. The more insecure they become, the nastier they are. Their fatal flaw is that they would kill to be leaders.

In the third category are people who are neither nice nor nasty. They serve no one, nor do they impose themselves on anyone. Rather they are indifferent. They have an exalted idea about themselves derived solely from daydreams and wishful thinking. If they are extraordinary at anything, it is at waiting for things to happen. They are waiting to be discovered and conquered and have a marvelous facility for creating the illusion that they have great things in abeyance, which they always promise to deliver but never do because, in fact, they do not have such resources.

Don Juan said that he himself definitely belonged to the second class. He then asked me to classify myself and I became rattled. Don Juan was practically on the ground, bent over with laughter.

He urged me again to classify myself, and reluctantly I suggested I might be a combination of the three.

"Don't give me that combination nonsense," he said, still laughing. "We are simple beings, each of us is one of the three types. And as far as I am concerned, you belong to the second class. Stalkers call them farts."

I began to protest that his scheme of classification was demeaning. But I stopped myself just as I was about to go into a long tirade. [* tirade- a speech of violent accusation or condemnation] Instead I commented that if it were true that there are only three types of personalities, all of us are trapped in one of those three categories for life with no hope of change or redemption.

He agreed that that was exactly the case. Except that one avenue for redemption remained. Sorcerers had long ago learned that only our personal self-reflection fell into one of the categories.

"The trouble with us is that we take ourselves seriously," he said. "Whichever category our self-image falls into only matters because of our self-importance. If we weren't self-important, it wouldn't matter at all which category we fell into.

"I'll always be a fart," he continued, his body shaking with laughter. "And so will you. But now I am a fart who doesn't take himself seriously, while you still do."

I was indignant. I wanted to argue with him, but could not muster the energy for it.

In the empty plaza, the reverberation of his laughter was eerie.

He changed the subject then, and reeled off the basic cores he had discussed with me: the manifestations of the spirit, the knock of the spirit, the trickery of the spirit, the descent of the spirit, the requirement of intent, and handling intent. He repeated them as if he were giving my memory a chance to retain them fully. And then, he succinctly highlighted everything he had told me about them. It was as if he were deliberately making me store all that information in the intensity of that moment.

I remarked that the basic cores were still a mystery to me. I felt very apprehensive about my ability to understand them. He was giving me the impression that he was about to dismiss the topic, and I had not grasped its meaning at all.

I insisted that I had to ask him more questions about the abstract cores.

He seemed to assess what I was saying, then he quietly nodded his head.

"This topic was also very difficult for me," he said. "And I, too, asked many questions. I was perhaps a tinge more self-centered than you. And very nasty. Nagging was the only way I knew of asking questions. You yourself are rather a belligerent inquisitor. At the end, of course, you and I are equally annoying, but for different reasons."

There was only one more thing don Juan added to our discussion of the basic cores before he changed the subject; that they revealed themselves extremely slowly, erratically advancing and retreating.

"I can't repeat often enough that every man whose assemblage point moves can move it further," he began. "And the only reason we need a teacher is to spur us on mercilessly. Otherwise our natural reaction is to stop to congratulate ourselves for having covered so much ground."

He said that we were both good examples of our odious [* odious- singularly offensive] tendency to go easy on ourselves. His benefactor, fortunately, being the stupendous stalker he was, had not spared him.

Don Juan said that in the course of their nighttime journeys in the wilderness, the nagual Julian had lectured him extensively on the nature of self-importance and the movement of the assemblage point.

For the nagual Julian, self-importance was a monster that had three thousand heads. And one could face up to it and destroy it in any of three ways. The first way was to sever each head one at a time; the second was to reach that mysterious state of being called the place of no pity, which destroyed self-importance by slowly starving it; and the third was to pay for the instantaneous annihilation of the three-thousand headed monster with one's symbolic death.

The nagual Julian recommended the third alternative. But he told don Juan that he could consider himself fortunate if he got the chance to choose; because it was the spirit that usually determined which way the sorcerer was to go, and it was the duty of the sorcerer to follow.

Don Juan said that he had guided me as his benefactor had guided him; to cut off the three thousand heads of self-importance, one by one, but that the results had been quite different. While I had responded very well, he had not responded at all.

"Mine was a peculiar condition," he went on. "From the moment my benefactor saw me lying on the road with a bullet hole in my chest, he knew I was the new nagual. He acted accordingly and moved my assemblage point as soon as my health permitted it. And I saw with great ease a field of energy in the form of that monstrous man. But this accomplishment, instead of helping as it was supposed to, hindered any further movement of my assemblage point. And while the assemblage points of the other apprentices moved steadily, mine remained fixed at the level of being able to see the monster."

"But didn't your benefactor tell you what was going on?" I asked, truly baffled by the unnecessary complication.

"My benefactor didn't believe in handing down knowledge," don Juan said. "He thought that knowledge imparted that way lacked effectiveness. It was never there when one needed it. On the other hand, if knowledge was only insinuated, the person who was interested would devise ways to claim that knowledge."

Don Juan said that the difference between his method of teaching and his benefactor's was that he himself believed one should have the freedom to choose. His benefactor did not.

"Didn't your benefactor's teacher, the nagual Elias, tell you what was happening?" I insisted.

"He tried," don Juan said, and sighed, "but I was truly impossible. I knew everything. I just let the two men talk my ear off and never listened to a thing they were saying."

In order to deal with that impasse, the nagual Julian decided to force don Juan to accomplish once again, but in a different way, a free movement of his assemblage point.

I interrupted him to ask whether this had happened before or after his experience at the river. Don Juan's stories did not have the chronological order I would have liked.

"This happened several months afterward," he replied. "And don't you think for an instant that because I experienced that split perception I was really changed; or that I was wiser or more sober. Nothing of the sort.

"Consider what happens to you," he went on. "I have not only broken your continuity time and time again, I have ripped it to shreds; and look at you. You still act as if you were intact. That is a supreme accomplishment of magic; of intending.

"I was the same. For a while, I would reel under the impact of what I was experiencing and then I would forget and tie up the severed ends as if nothing had happened. That was why my benefactor believed that we can only really change if we die."

Returning to his story, don Juan said that the nagual used Tulio, the unsociable member of his household, to deliver a new shattering blow to his psychological continuity.

Don Juan said that all the apprentices, including himself, had never been in total agreement about anything except that Tulio was a contemptibly arrogant little man. They hated Tulio because he either avoided them or snubbed them. He treated them all with such disdain that they felt like dirt. They were all convinced that Tulio never spoke to them because he had nothing to say; and that his most salient [* salient- having a quality that thrusts itself into attention] feature, his arrogant aloofness, was a cover for his timidity.

Yet in spite of his unpleasant personality, to the chagrin of all the apprentices, Tulio had undue influence on the household- especially on the nagual Julian, who seemed to dote [* dote- shower with love; show excessive affection for] on him.

One morning the nagual Julian sent all the apprentices on a day long errand to the city. The only person left in the house, besides the older members of the household, was don Juan.

Around midday the nagual Julian headed for his study to do his daily bookkeeping. As he was going in, he casually asked don Juan to help him with the accounts.

Don Juan began to look through the receipts and soon realized that to continue he needed some information that Tulio, the overseer of the property, had; and had forgotten to note down.

The nagual Julian was definitely angry at Tulio's oversight, which pleased don Juan. The nagual impatiently ordered don Juan to find Tulio, who was out in the fields supervising the workers, and ask him to come to the study.

Don Juan, gloating at the idea of annoying Tulio, ran half a mile to the fields, accompanied, of course, by a field hand to protect him from the monstrous man. He found Tulio supervising the workers from a distance, as always. Don Juan had noticed that Tulio hated to come into direct contact with people and always watched them from afar.

In a harsh voice and with an exaggeratedly imperious [* imperious- able to deal authoritatively with affairs] manner, don Juan demanded that Tulio accompany him to the house because the nagual required his services. Tulio, his voice barely audible, replied that he was too busy at the moment, but that in about an hour he would be free to come.

Don Juan insisted, knowing that Tulio would not bother to argue with him and would simply dismiss him with a turn of his head. He was shocked when Tulio began to yell obscenities at him. The scene was so out of character for Tulio that even the farm workers stopped their labor, and looked at one another questioningly. Don Juan was sure they had never heard Tulio raise his voice, much less yell improprieties.

Don juan's own surprise was so great that he laughed nervously, which made Tulio extremely angry. He even hurled a rock at the frightened don Juan, who fled.

Don Juan and his bodyguard immediately ran back to the house. At the front door they found Tulio. He was quietly talking and laughing with some of the women. As was his custom, he turned his head away, ignoring don Juan. Don Juan began angrily to chastise him for socializing there when the nagual wanted him in his study. Tulio and the women looked at don Juan as if he had gone mad.

But Tulio was not his usual self that day. Instantly he yelled at don Juan to shut his damned mouth and mind his own damned business. He blatantly accused don Juan of trying to put him in a bad light with the nagual Julian.

The women showed their dismay by gasping loudly and looking disapprovingly at don Juan. They tried to calm Tulio. Don Juan ordered Tulio to go to the nagual's study and explain the accounts. Tulio told him to go to hell.

Don Juan was shaking with anger. The simple task of asking for the accounts had turned into a nightmare. He controlled his temper. The women were watching him intently, which angered him all over again. In a silent rage he ran to the nagual's study. Tulio and the women went back to talking and laughing quietly as though they were celebrating a private joke.

Don Juan's surprise was total when he entered the study and found Tulio sitting at the nagual's desk absorbed in his bookkeeping. Don Juan made a supreme effort and controlled his anger. He smiled at Tulio. He no longer had the need to confront Tulio. He had suddenly understood that the nagual Julian was using Tulio to test him, to see if he would lose his temper. He would not give him that satisfaction.

Without looking up from his accounts, Tulio said that if don Juan was looking for the nagual, he would probably find him at the other end of the house.

Don Juan raced to the other end of the house to find the nagual Julian walking slowly around the patio with Tulio at his side. The nagual appeared to be engrossed in his conversation with Tulio. Tulio gently nudged the nagual's sleeve and said in a low voice that his assistant was there.

The nagual matter-of-factly explained to don Juan everything about the account they had been working on. It was a long, detailed, and thorough explanation. He said then that all don Juan had to do was to bring the account book from the study so that they could make the entry and have Tulio sign it.

Don Juan could not understand what was happening. The detailed explanation and the nagual's matter-of-fact tone had brought everything into the realm of mundane affairs. Tulio impatiently ordered don Juan to hurry up and fetch the book, because he was busy. He was needed somewhere else.

By now don Juan had resigned himself to being a clown. He knew that the nagual was up to something. The nagual Julian had that strange look in his eyes which don Juan always associated with his beastly jokes. Besides, Tulio had talked more that day than he had in the entire two years don Juan had been in the house.

Without uttering a word, don Juan went back to the study. And as he had expected, Tulio had gotten there first. He was sitting on the corner of the desk, waiting for don Juan, impatiently tapping the floor with the hard heel of his boot. He held out the ledger don Juan was after, gave it to him, and told him to be on his way.

Despite being prepared, don Juan was astonished. He stared at the man, who became angry and abusive. Don Juan had to struggle not to explode. He kept saying to himself that all this was merely a test of his attitude. He had visions of being thrown out of the house if he failed the test.

In the midst of his turmoil, he was still able to wonder about the speed with which Tulio managed always to be one jump ahead of him.

Don Juan certainly anticipated that Tulio would be waiting with the nagual. Still, when he saw him there, although he was not surprised, he was incredulous. He had raced through the house, following the shortest route. There was no way that Tulio could run faster than he. Furthermore, if Tulio had run, he would have had to run right alongside don Juan.

The nagual Julian took the account book from don Juan with an air of indifference. He made the entry and Tulio signed it. Then they continued talking about the account, disregarding don Juan, whose eyes were fixed on Tulio. Don Juan wanted to figure out what kind of test they were putting him through. It had to be a test of his attitude, he thought. After all, in that house, his attitude had always been the issue.

The nagual dismissed don Juan, saying he wanted to be alone with Tulio to discuss business. Don Juan immediately went looking for the women to find out what they would say about this strange situation. He had only gone ten feet when he encountered two of the women and Tulio. The three of them were caught up in a most animated conversation. He saw them before they had seen him, so he ran back to the nagual. Tulio was there, talking with the nagual.

An incredible suspicion entered don Juan's mind. He ran to the study. Tulio was immersed in his bookkeeping and did not even acknowledge don Juan. Don Juan asked him what was going on. Tulio was his usual self this time: He did not answer or look at don Juan.

Don Juan had at that moment another inconceivable thought. He ran to the stable, saddled two horses and asked his morning bodyguard to accompany him again. They galloped to the place where they had seen Tulio earlier. He was exactly where they had left him. He did not speak to don Juan. He shrugged his shoulders and turned his head when don Juan questioned him.

Don Juan and his companion galloped back to the house. He left the man to care for the horses and rushed into the house. Tulio was lunching with the women. And Tulio was also talking to the nagual. And Tulio was also working on the books.

Don Juan sat down and felt the cold sweat of fear. He knew that the nagual Julian was testing him with one of his horrible jokes. He reasoned that he had three courses of action. He could behave as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, he could figure out the test himself, or, since the nagual had engraved in his mind that he was there to explain anything don Juan wanted, he could confront the nagual and ask for clarification.

He decided to ask. He went to the nagual and asked him to explain what was being done to him. The nagual was alone then, still working on his accounts. He put the ledger aside and smiled at don Juan. He said that the twenty-one not-doings he had taught don Juan to perform were the tools that could sever the three thousand heads of self-importance, but that those tools had not been effective with don Juan at all. Thus, he was trying the second method for destroying self-importance which meant putting don Juan into the state of being called the place of no pity.

Don Juan was convinced then that the nagual Julian was utterly mad. Hearing him talk about not-doings or about monsters with three thousand heads or about places of no pity, don Juan felt almost sorry for him.

The nagual Julian very calmly asked don Juan to go to the storage shed in the back of the house and ask Tulio to come out.

Don Juan sighed and did his best not to burst out laughing. The nagual's methods were too obvious. Don Juan knew that the nagual wanted to continue the test using Tulio.

Don Juan stopped his narration and asked me what I thought about Tulio's behavior. I said that, guided by what I knew about the sorcerers' world, I would say that Tulio was a sorcerer and somehow he was moving his own assemblage point in a very sophisticated manner to give don Juan the impression that he was in four places at the same time.

"So what do you think I found in the shed?" don Juan asked with a big grin.

"I would say either you found Tulio or you didn't find anybody," I replied.

"But if either of these had happened, there would have been no shock to my continuity," don Juan said.

I tried to imagine bizarre things and I proposed that perhaps he found Tulio's dreaming body. I reminded don Juan that he himself had done something similar to me with one of the members of his party of sorcerers.

"No," don Juan retorted. "What I found was a joke that has no equivalent in reality. And yet it was not bizarre: It was not out of this world. What do you think it was?"

I told don Juan I hated riddles. I said that with all the bizarre things he had made me experience, the only things I could conceive would be more bizarreness, and since that was ruled out, I gave up guessing.

"When I went into that shed I was prepared to find that Tulio was hiding," don Juan said. "I was sure that the next part of the test was going to be an infuriating game of hide-and-seek. Tulio was going to drive me crazy hiding inside that shed.

"But nothing I had prepared myself for happened. I walked into that shed and found four Tulios."

"What do you mean, four Tulios?" I asked.

"There were four men in that shed," don Juan replied. "And all of them were Tulio. Can you imagine my surprise? All of them were sitting in the same position with their legs crossed, and pressed tightly together. They were waiting for me. I looked at them and ran away screaming.

"My benefactor held me down on the ground outside the door. And then, truly horrified, I saw how the four Tulios came out of the shed and advanced toward me. I screamed and screamed while the Tulios pecked me with their hard fingers, like huge birds attacking.

I screamed until I felt something give in me and I entered a state of superb indifference. Never in all my life had I felt something so extraordinary. I brushed off the Tulios and got up. They had just been tickling me. I went directly to the nagual and asked him to explain the four men to me."

What the nagual Julian explained to don Juan was that those four men were the paragons of stalking. Their names had been invented by their teacher, the nagual Elias, who, as an exercise in controlled folly, had taken the Spanish numerals uno, dos, tres, cuatro, and added them to the name of Tulio. He obtained in that manner the names Tuliuno, Tuliodo, Tulitre, and Tulicuatro.

The nagual Julian introduced each in turn to don Juan. The four men were standing in a row. Don Juan faced each of them and nodded, and each nodded to him. The nagual said the four men were stalkers of such extraordinary talent, as don Juan had just corroborated, that praise was meaningless.

The Tulios were the nagual Elias's triumph. They were the essence of unobtrusiveness. They were such magnificent stalkers that, for all practical purposes, only one of them existed. Although people saw and dealt with them daily, nobody outside the members of the household knew that there were four Tulios.

Don Juan understood with perfect clarity everything the nagual Julian was saying about the men. Because of his unusual clarity, he knew he had reached the place of no pity. And he understood, all by himself, that the place of no pity was a position of the assemblage point; a position which rendered self-pity inoperative. But don Juan also knew that his insight and wisdom were extremely transitory. Unavoidably, his assemblage point would return to its point of departure.

When the nagual asked don Juan if he had any questions, he realized that he would be better off paying close attention to the nagual's explanation than speculating about his own foresightedness.

Don Juan wanted to know how the Tulios created the impression that there was only one person. He was extremely curious because observing them together he realized they were not really that alike. They wore the same clothes. They were about the same size, age, and configuration. But that was the extent of their similarity. And yet, even as he watched them he could have sworn that there was only one Tulio.

The nagual Julian explained that the human eye was trained to focus only on the most salient features of anything, and that those salient features were known beforehand. Thus, the stalkers' art was to create an impression by presenting the features they chose, features they knew the eyes of the onlooker were bound to notice. By artfully reinforcing certain impressions, stalkers were able to create on the part of the onlooker an unchallengeable conviction as to what their eyes had perceived.

The nagual Julian said that when don Juan first arrived dressed in his woman's clothes, the women of his party were delighted and laughed openly. But the man with them, who happened to be Tulitre, immediately provided don Juan with the first Tulio impression. He half turned away to hide his face, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, as if all of it was boring to him, and walked away- to laugh his head off in private- while the women helped to consolidate that first impression by acting apprehensive, almost annoyed, at the unsociability of the man.

From that moment on, any Tulio who was around don Juan reinforced that impression and further perfected it until don Juan's eye could not catch anything except what was being fed to him.

Tuliuno spoke then and said that it had taken them about three months of very careful and consistent actions to have don Juan blind to anything except what he was guided to expect. After three months, his blindness was so pronounced that the Tulios were no longer even careful. They acted normal in the house. They even ceased wearing identical clothes, and don Juan did not notice the difference.

When other apprentices were brought into the house, however, the Tulios had to start all over again. This time the challenge was hard, because there were many apprentices and they were sharp.

Don Juan asked Tuliuno about Tulio's appearance. Tuliuno answered that the nagual Elfas maintained appearance was the essence of controlled folly, and stalkers created appearance by intending them rather than by producing them with the aid of props. Props created artificial appearances that looked false to the eye. In this respect, intending appearances was exclusively an exercise for stalkers.

Tulitre spoke next. He said appearances were solicited from the spirit. Appearances were asked; were forcefully called on. They were never invented rationally. Tulio's appearance had to be called from the spirit. And to facilitate that, the nagual Elias put all four of them together into a very small, out-of-the-way storage room, and there the spirit spoke to them. The spirit told them that first they had to intend their homogeneity. [* homogeneity- the quality of being similar or comparable in kind or nature]After four weeks of total isolation, homogeneity came to them.

The nagual Elias said that intent had fused them together, and that they had acquired the certainty that their individuality would go undetected. Now they had to call up the appearance that would be perceived by the onlooker. And they got busy, calling intent for the Tulios' appearance don Juan had seen. They had to work very hard to perfect it. They focused, under the direction of their teacher, on all the details that would make it perfect.

The four Tulios gave don Juan a demonstration of Tulio's most salient features. These were: very forceful gestures of disdain and arrogance; abrupt turns of the face to the right as if in anger; twists of their upper bodies as if to hide part of the face with the left shoulder; angry sweeps of a hand over the eyes as if to brush hair off the forehead; and the gait of an agile but impatient person who is too nervous to decide which way to go.

Don Juan said that those details of behavior and dozens of others had made Tulio an unforgettable character. In fact, he was so unforgettable that in order to project Tulio on don Juan and the other apprentices as if on a screen, any of the four men needed only to insinuate a feature, and don Juan and the apprentices would automatically supply the rest.

Don Juan said that because of the tremendous consistency of the input, Tulio was for him and the others the essence of a disgusting man. But at the same time, if they searched deep inside themselves, they would have acknowledged that Tulio was haunting. He was nimble, mysterious, and gave, wittingly or unwittingly, the impression of being a shadow.

Don Juan asked Tuliuno how they had called intent. Tuliuno explained that stalkers called intent loudly. Usually intent was called from within a small, dark, isolated room. A candle was placed on a black table with the flame just a few inches before the eyes; then the word intent was voiced slowly, enunciated clearly and deliberately as many times as one felt was needed. The pitch of the voice rose or fell without any thought.

Tuliuno stressed that the indispensable part of the act of calling intent was a total concentration on what was intended. In their case, the concentration was on their homogeneity and on Tulio's appearance. After they had been fused by intent, it still took them a couple of years to build up the certainty that their homogeneity and Tulio's appearance would be realities to the onlookers.

I asked don Juan what he thought of their way of calling intent. And he said that his benefactor, like the nagual Elias, was a bit more given to ritual than he himself was, therefore, they preferred paraphernalia such as candles, dark closets, and black tables.

I casually remarked that I was terribly attracted to ritual behavior, myself. Ritual seemed to me essential in focusing one's attention. Don Juan took my remark seriously. He said he had seen that my body, as an energy field, had a feature which he knew all the sorcerers of ancient times had had and avidly sought in others: a bright area in the lower right side of the luminous cocoon. That brightness was associated with resourcefulness and a bent toward morbidity. The dark sorcerers of those times took pleasure in harnessing that coveted feature and attaching it to man's dark side.

"Then there is an evil side to man," I said jubilantly. "You always deny it. You always say that evil doesn't exist, that only power exists."

I surprised myself with this outburst. In one instant, all my Catholic background was brought to bear on me and the Prince of Darkness loomed larger than life.

Don Juan laughed until he was coughing.

"Of course, there is a dark side to us," he said. "We kill wantonly, don't we? We burn people in the name of God. We destroy ourselves; we obliterate life on this planet; we destroy the earth. And then we dress in robes and the Lord speaks directly to us. And what does the Lord tell us? He says that we should be good boys or he is going to punish us. The Lord has been threatening us for centuries and it doesn't make any difference. Not because we are evil, but because we are dumb. Man has a dark side, yes, and it's called stupidity."

I did not say anything else, but silently I applauded and thought with pleasure that don Juan was a masterful debater. Once again he was turning my words back on me.

After a moment's pause, don Juan explained that in the same measure that ritual forced the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of morbidity and obsession. As a result, it was the duty of every nagual to guide awareness so it would fly toward the abstract free of liens and mortgages.

"What do you mean, don Juan, by liens and mortgages?" I asked.

"Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of," he said, "but it also demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness."

Don Juan said that human awareness was like an immense haunted house. The awareness of everyday life was like being sealed in one room of that immense house for life. We entered the room through a magical opening: birth. And we exited through another such magical opening: death.

Sorcerers, however, were capable of finding still another opening and could leave that sealed room while still alive. A superb attainment. But their astounding accomplishment was that when they escaped from that sealed room they chose freedom. They chose to leave that immense, haunted house entirely instead of getting lost in other parts of it.

Morbidity was the antithesis of the surge of energy awareness needed to reach freedom. Morbidity made sorcerers lose their way and become trapped in the intricate, dark byways of the unknown.

I asked don Juan if there was any morbidity in the Tulios.

"Strangeness is not morbidity" he replied. "The Tulios were performers who were being coached by the spirit itself."

"What was the nagual Elias's reason for training the Tulios as he did?" I asked.

Don Juan peered at me and laughed loudly. At that instant the lights of the plaza were turned on. He got up from his favorite bench and rubbed it with the palm of his hand, as if it were a pet.

"Freedom," he said. "He wanted their freedom from perceptual convention. And he taught them to be artists. Stalking is an art. For a sorcerer, since he's not a patron or a seller of art, the only thing of importance about a work of art is that it can be accomplished."

We stood by the bench, watching the evening strollers milling around. The story of the four Tulios had left me with a sense of foreboding. Don Juan suggested that I return home. The long drive to L.A., he said, would give my assemblage point a respite from all the moving it had done in the past few days.

"The nagual's company is very tiring," he went on. "It produces a strange fatigue. It could even be injurious."

I assured him that I was not tired at all, and that his company was anything but injurious to me. In fact, his company affected me like a narcotic- I couldn't do without it. This sounded as if I were flattering him, but I really meant what I said.

We strolled around the plaza three or four times in complete silence.

"Go home and think about the basic cores of the sorcery stories," don Juan said with a note of finality in his voice. "Or rather, don't think about them, but make your assemblage point move toward the place of silent knowledge. Moving the assemblage point is everything, but it means nothing if it's not a sober, controlled movement. So, close the door of self-reflection. Be impeccable and you'll have the energy to reach the place of silent knowledge."

### "The Power Of Silence" - Copyright 1987 by Carlos Castaneda - The End ###