Version 2006.05.15

## "The Power of Silence" - ©1987 by Carlos Castaneda
Part 2. The Knock of the Spirit

### The Last Seduction of the Nagual Julian

It was as cool and quiet in the patio of don Juan's house as in the cloister of a convent. There were a number of large fruit trees planted extremely close together, which seemed to regulate the temperature and absorb all noises. When I first came to his house, I had made critical remarks about the illogical way the fruit trees had been planted. I would have given them more space.

His answer was that those trees were not his property, they were free and independent warrior trees that had joined his party of warriors; and that my comments- which applied to regular trees- were not relevant. His reply sounded metaphorical to me. What I didn't know then was that don Juan meant everything he said literally.

Don Juan and I were sitting in cane armchairs facing the fruit trees now. The trees were all bearing fruit. I commented that it was not only a beautiful sight but an extremely intriguing one, for it was not the fruit season.

"There is an interesting story about it," he admitted. "As you know, these trees are warriors of my party. They are bearing now because all the members of my party have been talking and expressing feelings about our definitive journey, here in front of them. And the trees know now that when we embark on our definitive journey, they will accompany us."

I looked at him, astonished.

"I can't leave them behind," he explained. "They are warriors too. They have thrown their lot in with the nagual's party. And they know how I feel about them. The assemblage point of trees is located very low in their enormous luminous shell, and that permits them to know our feelings; for instance, the feelings we are having now as we discuss my definitive journey."

I remained quiet, for I did not want to dwell on the subject. Don Juan spoke and dispelled my mood.

"The second abstract core of the sorcery stories is called the Knock of the Spirit," he said. "The first core, the Manifestations of the Spirit, is the edifice that intent builds and places before a sorcerer, then invites him to enter. It is the edifice of intent seen by a sorcerer. The Knock of the Spirit is the same edifice seen by the beginner who is invited- or rather forced- to enter.

"This second abstract core could be a story in itself. The story says that after the spirit had manifested itself to that man we have talked about and had gotten no response, the spirit laid a trap for the man. It was a final subterfuge, not because the man was special, but because the incomprehensible chain of events of the spirit made that man available at the very moment that the spirit knocked on the door.

"It goes without saying that whatever the spirit revealed to that man made no sense to him. In fact, it went against everything the man knew; everything he was. The man of course- in no uncertain terms- refused on the spot to have anything to do with the spirit. He wasn't going to fall for such preposterous nonsense. He knew better. The result was a total stalemate. [* stalemate- a situation in which no progress can be made or no advancement is possible]

"I can say that this is an idiotic story," he continued. "I can say that what I've given you is the pacifier [* pacifier- someone or something intended to bring peace] for those who are uncomfortable with the silence of the abstract."

He peered at me for a moment and then smiled.

"You like words," he said accusingly. "The mere idea of silent knowledge scares you. But stories, no matter how stupid, delight you and make you feel secure."

His smile was so mischievous that I couldn't help laughing.

Then he reminded me that I had already heard his detailed account of the first time the spirit had knocked on his door. For a moment I could not figure out what he was talking about.

"It was not just my benefactor who stumbled upon me as I was dying from the gunshot," he explained. "The spirit also found me and knocked on my door that day. My benefactor understood that he was there to be a conduit for the spirit. Without the spirit's intervention, meeting my benefactor would have meant nothing."

He said that a nagual can be a conduit only after the spirit has manifested its willingness to be used- either almost imperceptibly or with outright commands. It was therefore not possible for a nagual to choose his apprentices according to his own volition, or his own calculations. But once the willingness of the spirit was revealed through omens, the nagual spared no effort to satisfy it.

"After a lifetime of practice," he continued, "sorcerers and naguals in particular know if the spirit is inviting them to enter the edifice being flaunted before them. They have learned to discipline their connecting links to intent. So they are always forewarned; always know what the spirit has in store for them."

Don Juan said that progress along the sorcerers' path was, in general, a drastic process the purpose of which was to bring this connecting link to order. The average man's connecting link with intent is practically dead, and sorcerers begin with a link that is useless because it does not respond voluntarily.

He stressed that in order to revive that link sorcerers needed a rigorous, fierce purpose- a special state of mind called unbending intent. Accepting that the nagual was the only being capable of supplying unbending intent was the most difficult part of the sorcerer's apprenticeship. I argued that I could not see the difficulty.

"An apprentice is someone who is striving to clear and revive his connecting link with the spirit," he explained. "Once the link is revived, he is no longer an apprentice; but until that time, in order to keep going he needs a fierce purpose, which of course he doesn't have. So he allows the nagual to provide the purpose, and to do that he has to relinquish his individuality. That's the difficult part."

He reminded me of something he had told me often: that volunteers were not welcome in the sorcerers' world because they already had a purpose of their own- which made it particularly hard for them to relinquish their individuality. If the sorcerers' world demanded ideas and actions contrary to the volunteers' purpose, the volunteers simply refused to change.

"Reviving an apprentice's link is a nagual's most challenging and intriguing work," don Juan continued, "and one of his biggest headaches too. Depending, of course, on the apprentice's personality, the designs of the spirit are either sublimely simple or the most complex labyrinths." [* labyrinth- complex system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost]

Don Juan assured me that, although I might have had notions to the contrary, my apprenticeship had not been as onerous to him as his must have been to his benefactor. He admitted that I had a modicum of self-discipline that came in very handy, while he had had none whatever. And his benefactor, in turn, had had even less.

"The difference is discernible in the manifestations of the spirit," he continued. "In some cases, they are barely noticeable. In my case, they were commands. I had been shot. Blood was pouring out of a hole in my chest. My benefactor had to act with speed and sureness, just as his own benefactor had for him. Sorcerers know that the more difficult the command is, the more difficult the disciple turns out to be."

Don Juan explained that one of the most advantageous aspects of his association with two naguals was that he could hear the same stories from two opposite points of view. For instance, the story about the nagual Elias and the manifestations of the spirit from the apprentice's perspective, was the story of the spirit's difficult knock on his benefactor's door.

"Everything connected with my benefactor was very difficult," he said and began to laugh. "When he was twenty-four years old, the spirit didn't just knock on his door, it nearly banged it down."

He said that the story had really begun years earlier when his benefactor had been a handsome adolescent from a good family in Mexico City. He was wealthy, educated, charming, and had a charismatic personality. Women fell in love with him at first sight. But he was already self-indulgent and undisciplined; lazy about anything that did not give him immediate gratification.

Don Juan said that with that personality and his type of upbringing- he was the only son of a wealthy widow who, together with his four adoring sisters, doted on him- he could only behave one way. He indulged in every impropriety he could think of. Even among his equally self-indulgent friends, he was seen as a moral delinquent who lived to do anything that the world considered morally wrong.

In the long run, his excesses weakened him physically and he fell mortally ill with tuberculosis- [* tuberculosis- infection transmitted by inhalation or ingestion of tubercle bacilli and manifested in fever and small lesions (usually in the lungs but in various other parts of the body in acute stages)] the dreaded disease of the time. But his illness, instead of restraining him, created a physical condition in which he felt more sensual than ever. Since he did not have one iota of self-control, he gave himself over fully to debauchery, [* debauchery- a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity] and his health deteriorated until there was no hope.

The saying that 'it never rains but it pours' was certainly true for don Juan's benefactor then. As his health declined, his mother, who was his only source of support and the only restraint on him, died. She left him a sizable inheritance which should have supported him adequately for life, but undisciplined as he was, in a few months he had spent every cent. With no profession or trade to fall back on, he was left to scrounge for a living.

Without money he no longer had friends; and even the women who once loved him turned their backs. For the first time in his life, he found himself confronting a harsh reality. Considering the state of his health, it should have been the end. But he was resilient. He decided to work for a living.

His sensual habits, however, could not be changed, and they forced him to seek work in the only place he felt comfortable: the theater. His qualifications were that he was a born ham, and had spent most of his adult life in the company of actresses. He joined a theatrical troupe in the provinces away from his familiar circle of friends and acquaintances, and became a very intense actor; the consumptive hero in religious and morality plays.

Don Juan commented on the strange irony that had always marked his benefactor's life. There he was, a perfect reprobate, [* reprobate- a person without moral scruples] dying as a result of his dissolute ways, and playing the roles of saints and mystics. He even played Jesus in the Passion Play during Holy Week.

His health lasted through one theatrical tour of the northern states. Then two things happened in the city of Durango: his life came to an end, and the spirit knocked on his door.

Both his death and the spirit's knock came at the same time- in broad daylight in the bushes. His death caught him in the act of seducing a young woman. He was already extremely weak, and that day he overexerted himself. The young woman, who was vivacious and strong and madly infatuated, had by promising to make love induced him to walk to a secluded spot miles from nowhere. And there she had fought him off for hours. When she finally submitted, he was completely worn out, and coughing so badly that he could hardly breathe.

During his last passionate outburst he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. His chest felt as if it were being ripped apart and a coughing spell made him retch uncontrollably. But his compulsion to seek pleasure kept him going until his death came in the form of a hemorrhage. It was then that the spirit made its entry, borne by an Indian who came to his aid. Earlier he had noticed the Indian following them around, but had not given him a second thought, absorbed as he was in the seduction.

He saw, as in a dream, the girl. She was not scared nor did she lose her composure. Quietly and efficiently she put her clothes back on, and took off as fast as a rabbit chased by hounds.

He also saw the Indian rushing to him trying to make him sit up. He heard him saying idiotic things. He heard him pledging himself to the spirit and mumbling incomprehensible words in a foreign language. Then the Indian acted very quickly. Standing behind him, he gave him a smacking blow on the back.

Very rationally, the dying man deduced that the Indian was trying either to dislodge the blood clot or to kill him.

As the Indian struck him repeatedly on the back, the dying man became convinced that the Indian was the woman's lover or husband and was murdering him. But seeing the intensely brilliant eyes of that Indian, he changed his mind. He knew that the Indian was simply crazy and was not connected with the woman.

With his last bit of consciousness, he focused his attention on the man's mumblings. What he was saying was that the power of man was incalculable; that death existed only because we had intended it since the moment of our birth; that the intent of death could be suspended by making the assemblage point change positions.

He then knew that the Indian was totally insane. His situation was so theatrical- dying at the hands of a crazy Indian mumbling gibberish- that he vowed he would be a ham actor to the bitter end, and he promised himself not to die of either the hemorrhaging or the blows, but to die of laughter. And he laughed until he was dead.

Don Juan remarked that naturally his benefactor could not possibly have taken the Indian seriously. No one could take such a person seriously, especially not a prospective apprentice who was not supposed to be volunteering for the sorcery task.

Don Juan then said that he had given me different versions of what that sorcery task consisted. He said it would not be presumptuous of him to disclose that, from the spirit's point of view, the task consisted of clearing our connecting link with it.

The edifice that intent flaunts before us is, then, a clearinghouse; within which we find not so much the procedures to clear our connecting link, as the silent knowledge that allows the clearing process to take place. Without that silent knowledge no process could work, and all we would have would be an indefinite sense of needing something.

He explained that the events unleashed by sorcerers as a result of silent knowledge were so simple and yet so abstract that sorcerers had decided long ago to speak of those events only in symbolic terms. The manifestations and the knock of the spirit were examples.

Don Juan said that, for instance, a description of what took place during the initial meeting between a nagual and a prospective apprentice from the sorcerers' point of view, would be absolutely incomprehensible.

It would be nonsense to explain that the nagual, by virtue of his lifelong experience, was focusing something we couldn't imagine, his second attention- the increased awareness gained through sorcery training- on his invisible connection with some indefinable abstract. He was doing this to emphasize and clarify someone else's invisible connection with that indefinable abstract.

He remarked that each of us was barred from silent knowledge by natural barriers, specific to each individual; and that the most impregnable of my barriers was the drive to disguise my complacency as independence.

I challenged him to give me a concrete example. I reminded him that he had once warned me that a favorite debating ploy was to raise general criticisms that could not be supported by concrete examples. Don Juan looked at me and beamed.

"In the past, I used to give you power plants," he said. "At first, you went to extremes to convince yourself that what you were experiencing were hallucinations. Then you wanted them to be special hallucinations. I remember I made fun of your insistence on calling them didactic hallucinatory experiences."

He said that my need to prove my illusory independence forced me into a position where I could not accept what he had told me was happening, although it was what I silently knew for myself. I knew he was employing power plants, as the very limited tools they were, to make me enter partial or temporary states of heightened awareness by moving my assemblage point away from its habitual location.

"You used your barrier of independence to get you over that obstruction," he went on. "The same barrier has continued to work to this day, so you still retain that sense of indefinite anguish, perhaps not so pronounced. Now the question is, how are you arranging your conclusions so that your current experiences fit into your scheme of complacency?"

I confessed that the only way I could maintain my independence was not to think about my experiences at all.

Don Juan's hearty laugh nearly made him fall out of his cane chair. He stood and walked around to catch his breath. He sat down again and composed himself. He pushed his chair back and crossed his legs.

He said that we, as average men, did not know, nor would we ever know, that it was something utterly real and functional- our connecting link with intent- which gave us our hereditary preoccupation with fate. He asserted that during our active lives we never have the chance to go beyond the level of mere preoccupation, because since time immemorial the lull of daily affairs has made us drowsy.

It is only when our lives are nearly over that our hereditary preoccupation with fate begins to take on a different character. It begins to make us see through the fog of daily affairs.

Unfortunately, this awakening always comes hand in hand with loss of energy caused by aging; when we have no more strength left to turn our preoccupation into a pragmatic and positive discovery. At this point, all there is left is an amorphous, piercing anguish, a longing for something indescribable, and simple anger at having missed out.

"I like poems for many reasons," he said. "One reason is that they catch the mood of warriors and explain what can hardly be explained."

He conceded that poets were keenly aware of our connecting link with the spirit, but that they were aware of it intuitively, not in the deliberate, pragmatic way of sorcerers.

"Poets have no firsthand knowledge of the spirit," he went on. "That is why their poems cannot really hit the center of true gestures for the spirit. They hit pretty close to it, though."

He picked up one of my poetry books from a chair next to him, a collection by Juan Ramon Jimenez. He opened it to where he had placed a marker, handed it to me and signaled me to read.

Is it I who walks tonight in my room

or is it the beggar who was prowling in my garden at nightfall?

I look around and find that everything is the same

and it is not the same

Was the window open?

Had I not already fallen asleep?

Was not the garden pale green?...

The sly was clear and blue...

And there are clouds and it is windy

and the garden is dark and gloomy.

I think that my hair was black...

I was dressed in grey...

And my hair is grey

and I am wearing black...

Is this my gait?

Does this voice, which now resounds in me,

have the rhythms of the voice I used to have?

Am I myself or am I the beggar

who was prowling in my garden at nightfall?

I look around...

There are clouds and it is windy...

The garden is dark and gloomy...

I come and go...

Is it not true that I had already fallen asleep?

My hair is grey...

And everything is the same and it is not the same...

I reread the poem to myself and I caught the poet's mood of impotence and bewilderment. I asked don Juan if he felt the same.

"I think the poet senses the pressure of aging and the anxiety that that realization produces," don Juan said. "But that is only one part of it. The other part, which interests me, is that the poet, although he never moves his assemblage point, intuits that something extraordinary is at stake. He intuits with great certainty that there is some unnamed factor, awesome because of its simplicity, that is determining our fate."