Free The Power of Silence by Carlos Castaneda Page B

didactic jokes. He added as an afterthought that
it went without saying that these jokes entertained his benefactor immensely.
    "If
you think I laugh at you - which I do - it's nothing compared with how he
laughed at me," don Juan continued. "My devilish benefactor had
learned to weep to hide his laughter. You just can't imagine how he used to cry
when I first began my apprenticeship."
    Continuing
with his story, don Juan stated that his life was never the same after the
shock of seeing that monstrous man. His benefactor made sure of it. Don Juan
explained that once a nagual has introduced his prospective disciple,
especially his nagual disciple, to trickery he must struggle to assure his
compliance. This compliance could be of two different kinds. Either the
prospective disciple is so disciplined and tuned that only his decision to join
the nagual is needed, as had been the case with young Talia. Or the prospective
disciple is someone with little or no discipline, in which case a nagual has to
expend time and a great deal of labor to convince his disciple.
    In don
Juan's case, because he was a wild young peasant without a thought in his head,
the process of reeling him in took bizarre turns.
    Soon after
the first jolt, his benefactor gave him a second one by showing don Juan his
ability to transform himself. One day his benefactor became a young man. Don
Juan was incapable of conceiving of this transformation as anything but an
example of a consummate actor's art.
    "How
did he accomplish those changes?" I asked.
    "He
was both a magician and an artist," don Juan replied. "His magic was
that he transformed himself by moving his assemblage point into the position
that would bring on whatever particular change he desired. And his art was the
perfection of his transformations."
    "I
don't quite understand what you're telling me," I said.
    Don Juan
said that perception is the hinge for everything man is or does, and that
perception is ruled by the location of the assemblage point. Therefore, if that
point changes positions, man's perception of the world changes accordingly. The
sorcerer who knew exactly where to place his assemblage point could become
anything he wanted.
    "The
nagual Julian's proficiency in moving his assemblage point was so magnificent
that he could elicit the subtlest transformations," don Juan continued.
"When a sorcerer becomes a crow, for instance, it is definitely a great
accomplishment. But it entails a vast and therefore a gross shift of the
assemblage point. However, moving it to the position of a fat man, or an old
man, requires the minutest shift and the keenest knowledge of human
nature."
    "I'd
rather avoid thinking or talking about those things as facts," I said.
    Don Juan
laughed as if I had said the funniest thing imaginable.
    "Was
there a reason for your benefactor's transformations?" I asked. "Or
was he just amusing himself?"
    "Don't
be stupid. Warriors don't do anything just to amuse themselves," he
replied. "His transformations were strategical. They were dictated by
need, like his transformation from old to young. Now and then there were funny
consequences, but that's another matter."
    I reminded
him that I had asked before how his benefactor learned those transformations.
He had told me then that his benefactor had a teacher, but would not tell me
who.
    "That
very mysterious sorcerer who is our ward taught him," don Juan replied
curtly. "What mysterious sorcerer is that?" I asked.
    "The
death defier," he said and looked at me questioningly.
    For all the
sorcerers of don Juan's party the death defier was a most vivid character. According
to them, the death defier was a sorcerer of ancient times. He had succeeded in
surviving to the present day by manipulating his assemblage point, making it
move in specific ways to specific locations within his total energy field. Such
maneuvers had permitted his awareness and life force to persist.
    Don Juan
had told me about the agreement that the seers of his