The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

by Carlos Castaneda

  '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.

  Tuesday, 28 January 1964

  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.

  8

  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.

  Saturday, 12 September 1964

  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.

  We all got up and went outside. The women gave us water. Some of the men gargled it; others drank it. The men did not talk at all, but the women chatted and giggled all day long. The ritual food was served at midday. It was cooked corn.

  At sundown on Friday 4 September, the second session began. The leader sang his peyote song, and the cycle of songs and in— take of peyote buttons began once again. It ended in the morning with each man singing his own song, in unison with the others.

  When I went out I did not see as many women as had been there the day before. Someone gave me water, but I was no longer concerned with my surroundings. I had ingested eight buttons again, but the effect had been different.

  It must have been towards the end of the session that the singing was greatly accelerated, with everybody singing at once. I perceived that something or somebody outside the house wanted to come in. I couldn't tell whether the singing was done to prevent 'it' from bursting in, or to lure it inside.

  I was the only one who did not have a song. They all seemed to look at me questioningly, especially the young men. I grew embarrassed and closed my eyes.

  Then I realized I could perceive what was going on much better if I kept my eyes closed. This idea held my undivided attention. I closed my eyes, and saw the men in front of me. I opened my eyes, and the image was unchanged. The surroundings were exactly the same
for me, whether my eyes were open or closed.

  Suddenly everything vanished, or crumbled, and there emerged in its place the manlike figure of Mescalito I had seen two years before. He was sitting some distance away with his profile towards me. I stared fixedly at him, but he did not look at me; not once did he turn.

  I believed I was doing something wrong, something that kept him away. I got up and walked towards him to ask him about it. But the act of moving dispelled the image. It began to fade, and the figures of the men I was with were superimposed upon it. Again I heard the loud, frantic singing.

  I went into the nearby bushes and walked for a while. Everything stood out very clearly. I noticed I was seeing in the darkness, but it mattered very little this time. The important point was, why did Mescalito avoid me?

  I returned to join the group, and as I was about to enter the house I heard a heavy rumbling and felt a tremor. The ground shook. It was the same noise I had heard in the peyote valley two years before.

  I ran into the bushes again. I knew that Mescalito was there, and that I was going to find him. But he was not there. I waited until morning, and joined the others just before the session ended.

  The usual procedure was repeated on the third day. I was not tired, but I slept during the afternoon.

  In the evening of Saturday 5 September, the old man sang his peyote song to start the cycle once more. During this session I chewed only one button and did not listen to any of the songs, nor did I pay attention to anything that went on. From the first moment my whole being was uniquely concentrated on one point. I knew something terribly important for my well-being was missing.

  While the men sang I asked Mescalito, in a loud voice, to teach me a song. My pleading mingled with the men's loud singing. Immediately I heard a song in my ears. I turned around and sat with my back to the group and listened. I heard the words and the tune over and over, and I repeated them until I had learned the whole song. It was a long song in Spanish. Then I sang it to the group several times. And soon afterwards a new song came to my ears. By morning I had sung both songs countless times. I felt I had been renewed, fortified.

  After the water was given to us, don Juan gave me a bag, and we all went into the hills. It was a long, strenuous walk to a low mesa. There I saw several peyote plants. But for some reason I did not want to look at them. After we had crossed the mesa, the group broke up. Don Juan and I walked back, collecting peyote buttons just as we had done the first time I helped him.

  We returned in the late afternoon of Sunday 6 September. In the evening the leader opened the cycle again. Nobody had said a word but I knew perfectly well it was the last gathering. This time the old man sang a new song. A sack with fresh peyote buttons was passed around. This was the first time I had tasted a fresh button. It was pulpy but hard to chew. It resembled a hard, green fruit, and was sharper and more bitter than the dried buttons. Personally, I found the fresh peyote infinitely more alive.

  I chewed fourteen buttons. I counted them carefully. I did not finish the last one, for I heard the familiar ramble that marked the presence of Mescalito. Everybody sang frantically, and I knew that don Juan, and everybody else, had actually heard the noise. I refused to think that their reaction was a response to a cue given by one of them merely to deceive me.

  At that moment I felt a great surge of wisdom engulfing me. A conjecture I had played with for three years turned then into a certainty. It had taken me three years to realize, or rather to find out, that whatever is contained in the cactus Lophophora wil— liamsii had nothing to do with me in order to exist as an entity; it existed by itself out there, at large. I knew it then.

  I sang feverishly until I could no longer voice the words. I felt as if my songs were inside my body, shaking me uncontrollably. I needed to go out and find Mescalito, or I would explode. I walked towards the peyote field. I kept on singing my songs. I knew they were individually mine — the unquestionable proof of my singleness. I sensed each one of my steps. They resounded on the ground; their echo produced the indescribable euphoria of being a man.

  Each one of the peyote plants on the field shone with a bluish, scintillating light. One plant had a very bright light. I sat in front of it and sang my songs to it. As I sang Mescalito came out of the plant — the same manlike figure I had seen before. He looked at me. With great audacity, for a person of my temperament, I sang to him. There was a sound of flutes, or of wind, a familiar musical vibration. He seemed to have said, as he had two years before, ' What do you want?'

  I spoke very loudly. I said that I knew there was something amiss in my life and in my actions, but I could not find out what it was. I begged him to tell me what was wrong with me, and also to tell me his name so that I could call him when I needed him. He looked at me, elongated his mouth like a trumpet until it reached my ear, and then told me his name.

  Suddenly I saw my own father standing in the middle of the peyote field; but the field had vanished and the scene was my old home, the home of my childhood. My father and I were standing by a fig tree. I embraced my father and hurriedly began to tell him things I had never before been able to say. Every one of my thoughts was concise and to the point. It was as if we had no time, really, and I had to say everything at once. I said staggering things about my feelings towards him, things I would never have been able to voice under ordinary circumstances.

  My father did not speak. He just listened and then was pulled, or sucked, away. I was alone again. I wept with remorse and sadness.

  I walked through the peyote field calling the name Mescalito had taught me. Something emerged from a strange, starlike light on a peyote plant. It was a long shiny object — a stick of light the size of a man. For a moment it illuminated the whole field with an intense yellowish or amber light; then it lit up the whole sky above, creating a portentous, marvellous sight. I thought I would go blind if I kept on looking; I covered my eyes and buried my head in my arms.

  I had a clear notion that Mescalito told me to eat one more peyote button. I thought, 'I can't do that because I have no knife to cut it.'

  'Eat one from the ground,' he said to me in the same strange way.

  I lay on my stomach and chewed the top of a plant. It kindled me. It filled every corner of my body with warmth and directness. Everything was alive. Everything had exquisite and intricate detail, and yet everything was so simple. I was everywhere; I could see up and down and around, all at the same time.

  This particular feeling lasted long enough for me to become aware of it. Then it changed into an oppressive terror, terror that did not come upon me abruptly, but somehow swiftly. At first my marvellous world of silence was jolted by sharp noises, but I was not concerned. Then the noises became louder and were uninterrupted, as if they were closing in on me. And gradu— ally I lost the feeling of floating in a world undifferentiated, indifferent, and beautiful. The noises became gigantic steps. Something enormous was breathing and moving around me. I believed it was hunting for me.

  I ran and hid under a boulder, and tried to determine from there what was following me. At one moment I crept out of my hiding place to look, and whoever was my pursuer came upon me. It was like sea kelp. It threw itself on me. I thought its weight was going to crash me, but I found myself inside a pipe or a cavity. I clearly saw that the kelp had not covered all the ground surface around me. There remained a bit of free ground underneath the boulder. I began to crawl underneath it. I saw huge drops of liquid falling from the kelp. I 'knew' it was secreting digestive acid in order to dissolve me. A drop fell on my arm; I tried to rub off the acid with dirt, and applied saliva to it as I kept on digging. At one point I was almost vaporous. I was being pushed up towards a light. I thought the kelp had dissolved me. I vaguely detected a light which grew brighter; it was pushing from under the ground until finally it erupted into what I recognized as the sun coming out from behind the mountains.

  Slowly I began to regain my usual sensorial processes. I lay on my stomach with my chin on m
y folded arm. The peyote plant in front of me began to light up again, and before I could move my eyes the long light emerged again. It hovered over me. I sat up. The light touched my whole body with quiet strength, and then rolled away out of sight.

  I ran all the way to the place where the other men were. We all returned to town. Don Juan and I stayed one more day with don Roberto, the peyote leader. I slept all the time we were there. When we were about to leave, the young men who had taken part in the peyote sessions came up to me. They embraced me one by one, and laughed shyly. Each one of them introduced himself. I talked with them for hours about everything except the peyote meetings.

  Don Juan said it was time to leave. The young men embraced me again. 'Come back,' one of them said. 'We are already waiting for you,' another one added. I drove away slowly trying to see the older men, but none of them was there.

  Thursday, 10 September 1964

  To tell don Juan about an experience always forced me to recall it step by step, to the best of my ability. This seemed to be the only way to remember everything.

  Today I told him the details of my last encounter with Mescalito. He listened to my story attentively up to the point when Mescalito told me his name. Don Juan interrupted me there.

  'You are on your own now,' he said. 'The protector has accepted you. I will be of very little help to you from now on. You don't have to tell me anything more about your relationship with him. You know his name now; and neither his name, nor his dealings with you, should ever be mentioned to a living being.'

  I insisted that I wanted to tell him all the details of the experience, because it made no sense to me. I told him I needed his assistance to interpret what I had seen. He said I could do that by myself, that it was better for me to start thinking on my own. I argued that I was interested in hearing his opinions because it would take me too long to arrive at my own, and I did not know how to proceed.