Carlos Castaneda - The Teachings of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

'No, it wasn't the same. We have different characters.'

'How did you behave?'

Don Juan did not answer. I rephrased the question and asked it again. But he said he did not remember his experiences, and that my question was comparable to asking a fisherman how he felt the first time he fished.

He said the smoke as an ally was unique, and I reminded him that he had also said Mescalito was unique. He argued that each was unique, but that they differed in quality.

'Mescalito is a protector because he talks to you and can guide your acts,' he said. 'Mescalito teaches the right way to live. And you can see him because he is outside you. The smoke, on the other hand, is an ally. It transforms you and gives you power without ever showing its presence. You can't talk to it. But you know it exists because it takes your body away and makes you as light as air. Yet you never see it. But it is there giving you power to accomplish unimaginable things, such as when it takes your body away.'

'I really felt I had lost my body, don Juan.'

'You did.'

'You mean, I really didn't have a body?'

'What do you think yourself?'

'Well, I don't know. All I can tell you is what I felt.'

'That is all there is in reality — what you felt.'

'But how did you see me, don Juan? How did I appear to you?'

'How I saw you does not matter. It is like the time when you grabbed the pole. You felt it was not there and you went around it to make sure it was there. But when you jumped at it you felt again that it was not really there.'

'But you saw me as I am now, didn't you?'

'No! You were NOT as you are now!'

'True! I admit that. But I had my body, didn't I, although / couldn't feel it?'

'No! Goddammit! You did not have a body like the body you have today!'

'What happened to my body then?'

'I thought you understood. The little smoke took your body.'

'But where did it go?'

'How in hell do you expect me to know that?'

It was useless to persist in trying to get a 'rational' explanation. I told him I did not want to argue or to ask stupid questions, but if I accepted the idea that it was possible to lose my body I would lose all my rationality.

He said that I was exaggerating, as usual, and that I did not, nor was I going to, lose anything because of the little smoke.

I asked don Juan what he thought of the idea of giving the smoke to anyone who wanted the experience.

He indignantly replied that to give the smoke to anyone would be just the same as killing him, for he would have no one to guide him. I asked don Juan to explain what he meant. He said I was there, alive and talking to him, because he had brought me back. He had restored my body. Without him I would never have awakened.

'How did you restore my body, don Juan?'

'You will learn that later, but you will have to learn to do it all by yourself. That is the reason I want you to learn as much as you can while I am still around. You have wasted enough time asking stupid questions about nonsense. But perhaps it is not in your destiny to learn all about the little smoke.'

'Well, what shall I do, then?'

'Let the smoke teach you as much as you can learn.'

'Does the smoke also teach?'

'Of course it teaches.'

'Does it teach as Mescalito does?'

'No, it is not a teacher as Mescalito is. It does not show the same things.'

'But what does the smoke teach, then?'

'It shows you how to handle its power, and to learn that you must take it as many times as you can.'

'Your ally is very frightening, don Juan. It was unlike anything I ever experienced before. I thought I had lost my mind.'

For some reason this was the most poignant image that came to my mind. I viewed the total event from the peculiar stand of having had other hallucinogenic experiences from which to draw a comparison, and the only thing that occurred to me, over and over again, was that with the smoke one loses one's mind.

Don Juan discarded my simile, saying that what I felt was its unimaginable power. And to handle that power, he said, one has to live a strong life. The idea of the strong life not only pertains to the preparation period, but also entails the attitude of the man after the experience. He said the smoke is so strong one can match it only with strength; otherwise, one's life would be shattered to bits.

I asked him if the smoke had the same effect on everyone. He said it produced a transformation, but not in everyone.

'Then, what is the special reason the smoke produced the transformation in me?' I asked.

'That, I think, is a very silly question. You have followed obediently every step required. It is no mystery that the smoke transformed you.'

I asked him again to tell me about my appearance. I wanted to know how I looked, for the image of a bodiless being he had planted in my mind was understandably unbearable.

He said that to tell the truth he was afraid to look at me; he felt the same way his benefactor must have felt when he saw don Juan smoking for the first time.

'Why were you afraid? Was I that frightening?' I asked.

'I had never seen anyone smoking before.'

'Didn't you see your benefactor smoke?'

'No.'

'You have never seen even yourself?' 'How could I?'

'You could smoke in front of a mirror.'

He did not answer, but stared at me and shook his head. I asked him again if it was possible to look into a mirror. He said it would be possible, although it would be useless because one would probably die of fright, if of nothing else.

I said, 'Then one must look frightful.'

'I have wondered all my life about the same thing,' he said.

'Yet I did not ask, nor did I look into a mirror. I did not even think of that.'

'How can I find out then?'

'You will have to wait, the same way I did, until you give the smoke to someone else — if you ever master it, of course. Then you will see how a man looks. That is the rule.'

'What would happen if I smoked in front of a camera and took a picture of myself?'

'I don't know. The smoke would probably turn against you. But I suppose you find it so harmless you feel you can play with it.'

I told him I did not mean to play, but that he had told me before that the smoke did not require steps, and I thought there would be no harm in wanting to know how one looked. He corrected me, saying that he had meant there was no necessity to follow a specific order, as there is with the devil's weed; all that was needed with the smoke was the proper attitude, he said. From that point of view one had to be exact in following the rule. He gave me an example, explaining that it did not matter what ingredient for the mixture was picked first, so long as the amount was correct.

I asked if there would be any harm in my telling others about my experience. He replied that the only secrets never to be revealed were how to make the mixture, how to move around, and how to return; other matters concerning the subject were of no importance.

My last encounter with Mescalito was a cluster of four sessions which took place within four consecutive days. Don Juan called this long session a mitote. It was a peyote ceremony for peyoteros and apprentices. There were two older men, about don Juan's age, one of whom was the leader, and five younger men including myself.

The ceremony took place in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, near the Texas border. It consisted of singing and of ingesting peyote during the night. In the daytime women attendants; who stayed outside the confines of the ceremony site, supplied each man with water, and only a token of ritual food was consumed each day.

During the first night of the ceremony, Thursday 3 September, I took eight peyote buttons. They had no effect on me, or if they did, it was a very slight one. I kept my eyes closed most of the night. I felt much better that way. I did not fall asleep, nor was I tired. At the very end of the session the singing became extraordinary. For a brief moment I felt uplifted and wanted to weep, but as the song ended the feeling vanished.