magazine_interviews/mas_alla_jan_1995_google_translated
Beyond Science (Más Allá de la Ciencia)- No. 71 - January 1995 - Pages 20-29
CASTANEDA: THE ADVENTURE OF FREEDOM
"If one takes what don Juan says as a lie, one more farce of the many that exist, the loser is oneself, since by taking it (so) affirms the inviolability of the interpretive system of the everyday world and that whole system is already complete. The only thing left then for us is to grow old and enter senility. And if all that awaits us before death is senility, then the social order lied to us by making us believe that our choices in the everyday world were multiple and extraordinary."
This is how Carlos Castaneda expresses himself when more than thirty years have passed since his life crossed paths with that of the incomparable Yaqui sorcerer Juan Matus. Carlos Castaneda was never the same after that decisive encounter, nor were the thousands and thousands of followers whom the anthropologist helped define a new concept of reality. This month MÁS ALLÁ is pleased to offer its readers an exceptional document in a worldwide exclusive: the most recent and surprising statements from the most elusive of characters, who emerges from behind a curtain of rumors. Since we are all immersed in a shared interpretation of the world, Castaneda's proposal to perceive without such interpretations, to witness without judgment and without prejudice, to break our routines, even perceptual routines, is possibly the closest thing to freedom. And, faced with such an invitation, the questions about whether don Juan really existed or not, whether or not his apprentice invented his magical experiences, whether he flew like crows or jumped into abysses, become more than irrelevant and will never obtain, moreover, an answer that satisfies everyone.
We will have to admit, in any case, that breaking the previous agreement on the nature of the world (which the latest scientific avant-garde discoveries increasingly force us to do) and human possibilities is as intellectually attractive as it is difficult to carry to practice. If it is true - as don Juan said in his day and Castaneda continues to affirm today - that we have the possibility of traveling into the unknown, the story of the sorcerers whose lineage now ends deserves to be carefully considered. Don Juan, the sorcerer who taught us the ins and outs of the path with a heart, calls it premeditated evolution. A good name for an ultimate adventure.
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Interview with Carlos Castaneda
NAVIGATING INTO THE UNKNOWN
His teacher, the Yaqui Indian Don Juan Matus , conquered the hearts of millions of people around the world, and an entire generation was marked by Carlos Castaneda's books. Except for sporadic appearances, for years Don Juan's heir has remained inaccessible. Today Carlos Castaneda crosses the fog that surrounds him and in a rigorous exclusive interview for MAS ALLÁ, he breaks his silence to ask us about the adventure of the sorcerer who has perceived the inconceivable. His travels through the unknown have brought us back to a forceful Castaneda who continues to challenge our imagination and proposes to us, as Don Juan did in his day, a total revolution which he calls freedom.
Decades have passed since Carlos Castaneda undertook the great adventure of knowledge under the tutelage of that masterful figure who went by the name of Juan Matus, an unforgettable character and formidable and constant presence for tens of thousands of readers around the world who, for years, delighted in the stories and vital adventures of the anthropologist turned sorcerer's apprentice.
Since the first book in the saga appeared in 1968, the reception and impact of his work have been described as a true publishing phenomenon. Some saw in Castaneda the greatest literary and spiritual genius of recent generations; for others, it was a new and revolutionary way of doing anthropology; there are those who believed in don Juan as an absolutely real character, and there are also those who claimed that we were dealing with an intelligently conceived literary fiction. Hundreds of articles were written about the "Castaneda phenomenon," which divided the greatest authorities in anthropology at the time; a multitude of books and essays, the most varied interpretations of the content of his books, apocryphal biographies and a whole universe of rumors: Castaneda he has died, he is a venerable old man, he never existed, he has committed suicide, he has disappeared, he has gone mad...
Oblivious to the controversy, oblivious even to those who dared to supplant his personality or enriched themselves by presenting themselves as his disciples, the writer has already turned into a sorcerer (and) he never responded to criticism, as if none of it could affect him. Except for the very few interviews (almost all of them to North American magazines) granted during all this time, he meticulously followed don Juan's instructions and completely erased his personal history, weaved an impregnable mist around him and became, surely without intending to, an almost legendary figure. However, in his sporadic declarations, Castaneda kept insisting that the idea that he had invented don Juan was totally inconceivable, and that he was just "an informer of very old techniques." His disappearance from the public scene responded, in any case, to a well-thought-out strategy: to acquire complete freedom to sneak into all possible worlds, to perceive without prejudice and squeeze the maximum of the possibilities of human nature, freedom not to be trapped in descriptions of reality, whatever they may be. "After meeting him - affirmed the writer Graciela Corvalán nine years ago after having had several meetings with him - his books become credible."
A new book, The Art of Dreaming (ed. Seix Barral), recently appeared in Spain has confirmed to his many followers that Castaneda is still alive and faithful to his career, trying to unravel the vastness of the mystery that Don Juan bequeathed him, but there are other novelties: two women, Florinda Donner-Grau (Being in Dreaming, ed. emecé) and Taisha Abelar (The Sorcerer's Crossing, ed. Gaia), also students of don Juan, now break their anonymity and tell in two works their particular apprenticeship with the group of sorcerers led by Juan Matus. Different but complementary to Castaneda's own, it fully coincides with it in its fundamental postulates: social consensus determines and limits, generally for life, our perception of reality, but we have the possibility of penetrating into or other worlds as real as this one if we manage to accumulate enough energy for such an undertaking; there is much, much more to witness than what we had been told was possible, if we accept the revolutionary proposal of a total personal change that breaks the previous agreement about what we are.
The following is just one of many possible interviews that could be done with someone as elusive and multifaceted as Carlos Castaneda (the writer continues to demand that there must be no photographs or tape recorders to record his voice). It has not been our intention to return to the old controversies that contribute nothing to the essential content of his proposal, but to try to clarify, as far as possible, some of the most common doubts in all those people for whom Castaneda's books have been a milestone in their lives, and (who) have even tried to put their suggestions into practice, with better or worse luck. As far as we know, this is the first time that Carlos Castaneda publicly manifests himself with such resoundingness on the thorny issue of all those who have "adopted" his knowledge and today give courses and seminars on "the way of the warrior", while telling us provides new clues about his current position as a sorcerer and nagual, his aspirations, doubts and fears, even about the fate of the unrepeatable master and his group of "navigators of the unknown."
"You will learn in spite of yourself, that is the rule," don Juan told him at the beginning of their association. On one occasion the apprentice described the teacher as someone who lived entirely in magical time, and who only occasionally settled down in ordinary time. Possibly that is the position of the author today, abandoning his magical time for a few moments to try to make us understand and invite us on a journey through the indescribable. Castaneda let don Juan's words speak for themselves and we do the same with yours. And the Castaneda who speaks today seems to be at the end of the road. Beyond awaits the mystery.
-In your books, you have explained that each nagual brings new characteristics to his lineage. Which are these new characteristics in your case? Does your own path and purpose differ in any way from that traced by your teacher don Juan?"
First of all, I would like to make it clear that the term lineage, although I have used it extensively, is not entirely adequate. Actually, in the world of sorcerers like don Juan there is no lineage as we understand it: an ancestry or descent. In that world there is only an aggregate of people who have a common goal or interest, there are participants, practitioners of the knowledge system that don Juan tried to promulgate among us. The manager or leader of such practitioners is known as the nagual, a being whose energy allows it to enter areas forbidden to everyday perception. Each new nagual brings personal characteristics with which he influences the practitioners of his time. In my case, my personal contribution lies in my academic interest in the social sciences; the final goal of this interest is the desire that the philosophical field of Western man expand to the world of sorcerers. And it is at this point that don Juan's path and mine differ. He was not interested in conceptualizing his knowledge. If I forced him to, he would explain everything with unique clarity and precision, but explaining was not his inclination. He acted without bothering to understand anything, and said that either time is wasted in intellectual twists and turns, or one acts. I am different, I want to understand the processes of don Juan's sorcery, but not in an intellectual way, but energetically. By this I mean that I believe it is possible to plunge into the energetic twists and turns of the universe without transforming this into a brain process.
-What does the condition of being the new nagual imply and what does it mean for you?
It means to be nominally at the head of a series of practitioners of don Juan's teachings. On an abstract level, this implies that the new nagual is responsible for the perception maneuvers of each of these practitioners. Since they are all involved in following in don Juan's footsteps, the nagual has to use his personal effort and discipline in order to guide them through the energetic flows of the universe, and the nagual must possess balance and sanity necessary to tackle such a task.
THE WORLD OF THE NAGUAL
-How could you describe the world of the Nagual?
It is the world of sorcerers to which don Juan introduced us. It cannot be classified as a world apart from the everyday, but rather as something different, as a state of being. It is a world in which, for example, giving one’s word is a final act that cannot be canceled. Such a promise is like a legal document without change. In another more abstract aspect, the world of the nagual is a world where unusual things are perceived. Don Juan explained the incidence of unusual perceptions by saying that the primary requirement, for man in general, is to reach total silence. Stopping the internal dialogue, he said, is the entrance to the sorcerers' state of being, the entrance to a world where inconceivable perceptions are an everyday matter.
-It doesn't seem like something easy to achieve...
The way in which don Juan managed to silence the internal dialogue of his disciples was by forcing silence on them from second to second. We could say that silence agglutinates second by second, until reaching a limit and individual point that exists in each one of us. Mine was fifteen minutes; upon reaching it, by accumulation of silence, the everyday world was transformed and I came to perceive it in an indescribable way. To achieve this, the only advisable and possible practice is effort, the intense desire to achieve it, taking one small step after another. What is not in any way admissible is that nobody teaches us how to take those little steps, or takes us by the hand providing us with instruction at all times. Don Juan said that the only essential thing is the personal decision of each one of us to reach silence.
-And who makes up the world of the nagual today?
The disciples of don Juan: Carol Tiggs, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau. There were other Indian disciples; however, only the witches managed to sustain that required state of total silence. I know that in the United States and in Latin America several people declare themselves don Juan's disciples or ours, but the truth is that we do not have students, we never have had them, and not for lack of desire or interest on our part, but because no one dares to undertake and develop the change of habits and reasoning and the discipline that are needed to reach the world of sorcerers. The world of sorcerers is not a fiction or an idealization. It is a state of changes, maneuvers, radical facts. Don Juan defined himself neither as a sorcerer nor as a spiritual man, but as a navigator in the inconceivable sea of the unknown. To navigate that sea, he said, you need discipline, sanity and guts of steel.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE
"We do not have students because no one dares to undertake the change of habits and the necessary discipline to reach the world of sorcerers."
-You present access to sorcery as a matter of having accumulated enough energy, but not all people seem to be born equally gifted in this regard. Is there really an opportunity for everyone?
Indeed, access to the world of don Juan Matus is a matter of having enough energy, and you are right in saying that not all human beings seem to be born equally gifted. I would add that, in my opinion, nobody is born endowed with enough energy. This boils the problem down to a common denominator: Since no one has enough energy, all of us have about an equal chance. Certainly there are people who are born with much more energy than others, but this is just to deal with daily chores. Such an amount of energy does not have any advantage for access to the world of sorcerers. There enter those who gather a special quality of energy, the product of an iron discipline and purpose.
-Is it possible to face the everyday world without losing energy?
Sorcerers like don Juan say yes, they say that the events of the everyday world are disastrous for us only if they are filtered through personal importance. We are so self-centered and we think we are so important that the slightest setback overwhelms us. We expend so much energy in presenting and defending the self in the everyday world that we have nothing left to face any contradiction. This total wear and tear is, apparently, something inevitable, since we remain exclusively on the track traced by our socialization. If we dared to change lanes, to change our way of being, just by suppressing the onslaught of personal importance we would have achieved something unheard of: canceling the daily wear and tear of energy and entering into energetic conditions that would allow us to perceive much more than we think it is possible.
-Is it possible to achieve that without the push of a nagual?
Don Juan's proposal is accessible to everyone who reaches total silence. Silencing the internal dialogue is a final proposition, which can be accomplished through any means. The presence of a teacher or a guide is not superfluous, but neither is it absolutely essential. What is essential is the daily effort to accumulate silence. Don Juan used to say that reaching total silence is equivalent to “stopping the world”. That is the moment when one sees the flow of energy in the universe around us.
DREAM AND RECAPITULATION
-In your books, you use the concept of an eagle that devours consciences at the hour of our death, and also speaks of the spirit. Are they perhaps equivalent terms; Is what you call an eagle somehow comparable to the spirit?
Your question is intellectually very real, but at the same time absurd. I couldn't answer you because I personally don't know what the eagle that devours consciences is, nor do I know what the spirit is. Both are operative terms that try to describe something ineffable, unheard of, that cannot be described. Every time I asked don Juan questions that had no answers, he sang a song for me: "Ask the stars that see me cry at night."
-What is the relationship between what you call Dreaming and what other authors have called "lucid dreaming"?
There is no relationship. Dreaming is a maneuver of sorcerers who, with their iron discipline, transform ordinary dreams, whether lucid or vague, into something transcendental. I don't know of anyone in the normal, everyday world who has the discipline to bring about this transformation. Lucid dreams are very vivid dreams, but they cannot be used as an energetic gateway to take our awareness of being to other worlds as real and forceful as the world of daily activities.
-In numerous occasions you have emphasized the importance of recapitulation, and many people inspired by what you say have tried to practice it. Could you comment on the methodology and the concrete results of this exercise?
The recapitulation was for don Juan the essential method to embark on the road to freedom; it is not (just) a technique to recover energy, but a maneuver congruent with the vision of sorcerers. They consider that the fact that we have consciousness of being is a universal state. A colossal force lends consciousness to newborns, whether they be viruses, amoebas, or human beings. At the end of life, that same enormous force takes away from each one of those beings the consciousness of being borrowed, which has been magnified by their individual experiences. The recapitulation, for sorcerers, is the way to return to that enormous force what it lent us at the moment of birth. What is totally unheard of, said don Juan, is that this force is satisfied with the recapitulation. Since the only thing he wants from us is the awareness of being, by giving it to him in the form of a recapitulation, he does not take our life in the end, but lets us pass with it towards freedom. This is the theoretical interpretation that sorcerers make of the recapitulation. The methodology to carry it out is very simple. First, one makes a list of all the people with whom one has had dealings, from the present to probably the moment of birth. The point is to relive each experience with each of the people on the list, not simply remembering them, but reliving them again. To this is added a very slow rhythmic breathing, from right to left and exhaling in the center, which they call the fan, because it fans the memories. The sorcerers belief is that by reliving all our experiences one gives them to the colossal force that destroys us. Since this maneuver has nothing to do with psychological exercises such as psychoanalysis, reliving lived experiences implies making use of energy that has already been spent.
“The sorcerers consider that an enormous Force lends us the consciousness of being and at the end of life takes it away from us. Having been magnified by individual experiences. The recapitulation is the way to return to that Force what it lent us so that it allows us to pass to freedom.”
-And how do you know if the recapitulation is being done correctly?
It's incidental but concrete results are an increase in energy and a state of well-being. The presence of these two sensations are like an index that the recapitulation is being carried out in an effective way.
A ROMANCE WITH KNOWLEDGE
-Especially in your latest book, The Art of Dreaming (ed. Seix Barral), you describe what you call the Second Attention as a fierce world full of dangers and traps, nothing to do with the stories of a world placid and happy that other traditions tell us about. What are these differences due to; why does the knowledge of his lineage differ so substantially from other sources?
What sorcerers call Second Attention is really a world full of dangers and traps, but such dangers and traps are neither more nor less than those of our world. And certainly the Second Attention has nothing to do with a placid and happy universe. Don Juan explained this discrepancy by saying that the world of sorcerers is a living world, concrete and real, which can be entered in a total way. He also said that the world of the mystics is a world produced by glimpses of the unknown, a dead, imaginary world that has nothing to do with the reality of the struggle and the incessant change of a living and real world. As I mentioned before, don Juan considered sorcerers as navigators in the sea of the unknown. At first I thought it was a poetic metaphor, but then I realized it was a phenomenological description of a state of being. Don Juan used to say that it (should) not possible for Western man to be so simplistic as to believe in the mystical "complacencies" of those who have never deliberately navigated the unknown with full premeditation.
-Recently, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar have published books about their own training with don Juan. Is there any reason why they have decided to break their silence?
Both decided to write about their experiences on the path of the warrior after the return of Carol Tiggs, who was absent for ten years. The fact that she came back with us caused a complete change in the perspective outlined by don Juan, and our isolation, imposed by don Juan, was transformed into the opposite. Due to this change, the three disciples of don Juan: Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs, acquired an exorbitant importance within the parameters of the world of sorcerers. By virtue of their own impeccability, they became his genuine representatives. They themselves raised the option of writing about their learning, something that I find extraordinarily appropriate since no one but them could fully account for the complexity of don Juan as a colossal teacher.
-What happened then with the rest of the apprentices with whom we become familiar in your books? Are you still linked to them in any way?
They are no longer with us for a very simple reason: they cannot meet my academic demands. It was essential that the apprentices adapt to the temperament of the new nagual, which in my case is that of living a love affair with knowledge. The other apprentices intended me to be like them, merely a practitioner of don Juan's knowledge. Such a thing is not possible, it had to be the other way around, as tradition dictates; so I didn't abandon them, they were the ones who abandoned me. Now, their hope is that at the definitive moment don Juan will be able to help them. Once Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar wrote their books, our relationship with the other apprentices ended because, by writing, they both reaffirmed their relationship with the intellect and thus with the new nagual.
“Don Juan said that the world of mystics is the product of glimpses of the unknown, dead and imaginary, while that of sorcerers is a world that is alive and real at first glance, that can be fully entered.”
THE ALTERNATIVE DEATH: WHERE IS DON JUAN?
-Tell us about that alternative death of sorcerers. Should it be understood as a metaphor or as a real fact? Do you and your group aspire to achieve it?
Let me clarify that we are not a group. Each one of us, students of don Juan's knowledge, is an isolated individual. What brings us together is the purpose of freedom, but not enough to make us a cohesive group. Consuming yourself in the fire from within is an alternative to physical death; it is not a metaphor, it is a real fact, although incomprehensible. Don Juan explained the fire from within as a condition of energetic tension created by the fact of adhering to following the premises of the warrior's path. This physical tension causes an energetic explosion at the right time, an explosion that transforms every cell of the living being into consciousness of being, that is, into pure energy. Of course all of us, his students, aspire to reach this end state. Don Juan called it total freedom because, for him, this state implied the perception of the universe that surrounds us free of interpretations based on our socialization and language.
-Don Juan wanted freedom. Did he finally achieve his purpose?
Don Juan affirmed that to die as sorcerers die is to take the consciousness of being to a plane incomprehensible to the linear mind. To die consumed by the fire from within is equivalent to transforming our entire physical being into consciousness of being. Don Juan died like this, and in doing so achieved what sorcerers call total freedom. The awareness of being, increased by the contribution of our physical part, reaches indescribable levels. Freedom for sorcerers is the freedom to perceive as total beings and not as men: apes chained by socialization and language.
-And where did don Juan go, if it is possible to describe it in any way?
Carol Tiggs and Florinda Donner-Grau claim to have a relationship of knowledge with don Juan; they have contributed the idea that he and the rest of the sorcerers that accompany him have been trapped in one of the states of the world, something that sorcerers call "the layers of the onion." They affirm that don Juan could not escape from ours to the twin universe, the universe of inorganic beings, because although he was an abstract man, his group was made up of very concrete practitioners. They say that if the degree of abstraction of these practitioners had been greater, the leap in consciousness of being of all of them would have had a much greater scope. Perhaps don Juan's consciousness of being is stuck in a place that he did not want to reach, a state that is not appropriate to his temperament. Be that as it may, a nagual is capable of modifying situations based on multiple circumstances. I personally believe that the only thing that exists for a nagual is the fight. A nagual conceives that where he is is precisely where he should be, and from there he proceeds.
THE END OF A LINEAGE
-On more than one occasion you have stated that you are the last, that your lineage ends with you. Does that mean that don Juan's legacy will be lost forever?
In effect, with us the lineage of don Juan ends. But don Juan's wish is that I transform this negative situation into something very positive, by making the idea of freedom available to everyone. If such a thing were possible his lineage would not end; instead, it would disperse until it reached a huge crowd. My desire for this to happen is intense, and my intent impeccable. I can only say that I hope so desperately, but that everything remains in the hands of the spirit and our own impeccability. It is true that something goads us into ending up like don Juan, consumed by internal fire. We do not wish to resist, but to propose an argument of sufficient value to be able to continue our work and have the time we need.
-Meanwhile, there is a proliferation of people who give courses on your system of knowledge, use your concepts and carry out a "free adaptation" of don Juan's teachings. What is your opinion about it?
I don't think it is possible to teach or give classes on the knowledge of don Juan. Over the years I have given many lectures about my learning with him, but it seems that the only thing I have achieved is to provide vocabulary to a series of people who have gained recognition thanks to it. What he proposes leads to palpable facts that require great care and dedication. The unfair thing about these apocryphal courses is that there are really many people interested in learning about don Juan, and it is unfortunate that those who cynically take advantage of that situation have emerged; they charge money, but they can't teach anything. It's terribly obvious that at bottom there is only economic interest. The truth is that no one who attends these courses will ever get anything out of it. the. None of us, don Juan's disciples, can teach as he taught because we don't have the command to do such a thing. So the question that arises in my mind is, how could people who don't even realize what don Juan was doing do it?
THE MYSTERIES OF PERCEPTION
-Along with Dreaming, Stalking is another of the essential premises that appear in his work and that has also undergone the most diverse interpretations. What exactly does it mean to stalk?
Don Juan called stalking the act of moving the assemblage point and keeping it fixed where it moved. The assemblage point is a concept of sorcerers, who maintain that the perception of human beings takes place at a point invisible to the normal eye, a point located at the height of the shoulder blades, but not in the physical body but in the energetic mass, about a meter behind your back. That is where, according to sorcerers, millions of energy fibers from the universe converge, which, through an act of interpretation, are transformed into the perception of the everyday world. Sorcerers affirm that if the assemblage point moves to a different place than usual, another series of energetic filaments converge on it and, therefore, another world becomes accessible to our perception. The assemblage point moves through dreams or through practical actions. Once this is achieved, keeping it fixed in its new position is a true art. Whoever cannot achieve this will never be able to perceive new worlds in an inclusive way; you will perceive them in a partial and chaotic way. We could say that perception is fixed as the assemblage point is fixed, and that, in essence, is a matter of having enough energy.
-You have spoken of moving the assemblage point through practical actions. What kind of actions?
Stalkers generally gain enough energy to master the art of stalking through behavioral maneuvers, such as voluntarily engaging in cognitive dissonance. This is, for example, how Taisha Abelar was taught to stalk. One of the behavioral maneuvers that the sorcerers made her live was to turn her into a beggar. For a year, she was sent daily, very dirty and ragged, to the doors of churches to beg for money. Taisha's task was to transform himself into a beggar so completely that his behavior perfectly matched people's preconceived ideas of a beggar. Taisha did not do this as an actor, for whom a performance is only a matter of a few moments, but she was completely a beggar. Another example of stalking is what don Juan's companion, Doña Florinda, did to me when she sent me to work for almost two years as a cook, a job that took up all my time every day; And yet another example of stalking is the one described by Taisha Abelar in her book: the fact that they made her live for more than a year on top of huge trees. The fruit of these maneuvers is that one is transformed to the point of becoming the transformation itself. That is stalking.
-Do you recommend this type of maneuver to those who wish to get involved in your proposals?
Of course it is a very difficult sorcery maneuver to perform under the circumstances of the everyday world. I don't know how anyone could guide another person to stalk without first achieving command of stalking. I'm told there are people out there who claim they can teach stalking. My opinion is that such a thing is a very calculated deception, and it is not fair that people who are really interested fall into such a trap. Among other things, to stalk it is necessary to be impeccable with others and with oneself, in order to be able to see oneself without lies. It can only be stalked when one reaches a balance of attachment and estrangement from the world around us. As long as that state is not reached, it is absurd. Whoever manages to reach it, would practice stalking, would not teach it, much less charge for teaching it. Don Juan once made a very appropriate comment about teaching without knowing what one is teaching: "Avoid at all costs the compulsion to be a weekend warrior. It is very easy to believe that one day's effort is enough. It is not so." To get out of the bad place in which we all find ourselves, you have to use all the effort you have."
THE BIOLOGICAL MANDATE OF EVOLUTION
-When don Juan spoke of evolving, what was the meaning and direction of that evolution for him?
In the course of my stay with don Juan I came to understand that it is vital to become aware that we have to change our state of being. Don Juan called this change evolution. He maintained that the social order emphasizes reproduction as a biological mandate, but that it was time to take into account another biological mandate: evolution. For him, the sign of this premeditated evolution in a human being was to get to "see" the flow of energy in the universe." "See" ourselves as energy fields, like "luminous eggs," as he put it, meant that we had come to cancel the interpretive system that allows us to see the world only as we do. Don Juan referred to this interpretive system as a perception system that takes sensory data and transforms it, through an act of intentionality, into the perception of the world. Let us take as an example when we consider the sensory data of the building that houses the "securities bank." All that our senses capture is the presence of an architectural structure that we call a building, which in itself is already an interpretation. However, the act of total intentionality that leads us to "see" the "securities bank" is an act of pure interpretation, since to "see" the "securities bank" we have to make use of all our sense of civilization. Don Juan asserted that for our interpretive system to remain in force, all of us have to engage in cynical and misleading perceptual maneuvers, maneuvers with which we have to end. Unless we dedicate every heartbeat to this task, we are the ones being blackmailed.
-What is the alternative then?
The knowledge of don Juan is a vital option to get out of such maneuvers. He said that if one takes it as a lie or invention, one more farce of the many that exist, the loser is oneself, since by taking it that way one affirms the validity and inviolability of the interpretive system of the everyday world, and all that system is now complete. The only thing left then for us is to grow old and enter senility. A great drug guru of the 1960's declared not long ago that he had discovered a tremendously homemade drug for walking on clouds twenty-four hours a day, and that drug was called "senility." If all that awaits us before death is old age and senility, the social order lied to us by making us believe that our options in the daily world were multiple and extraordinary. Don Juan's vision was to achieve that denied multiplicity of options by canceling the effect of our interpretive system. This is the core of his teachings. Whoever begins to elucidate them in a classroom setting is a cynic and a fraud, because there is no way to do so without first having internalized don Juan's conceptual paradigm bodily. By proposing the idea of premeditated evolution, which would cancel our system of perception, he proposes a total revolution which he calls freedom.
Concha Labarta