It's difficult for me to write about such a personal concept as the 'verification of the postulates of sorcerers'. To enable me to agree with them was not a matter of arriving at coherent explanations, but of being involved in a minimum of practical commitments, and building a new kind of consensus from there. The elements of that new language, the true dialogue of warriors, are not founded in our reason, but in our energy savings.
As Carlos explained to me, the validation of such an irrational topic as 'the movement of the assemblage point' can only be done via premises of power. Since any intent to explain something is a product of the fixation of the assemblage point in a specific position, there is no other way to corroborate its movement than moving it for ourselves, and see what happens.
Faced with the overwhelming logic of his argument, I asked him:
"Does that mean that it's not possible to verify the statements of sorcerers from the outside?"
"On the contrary!" he answered. "The effects of power can only be lived from the outside, because, once our attention flows, we stop being a rigid and isolated 'me', and instead we blend into the world that surrounds us. That's why seers say that the mystery of the world is not inside, but outside. Or in other words, the solution is not mental, it is practical!"
I asked him what was practical about a topic as vague as the movement of the assemblage point.
He replied that the movement was something vague for me, because I didn't have any voluntary control over my states of awareness. As an example, he mentioned learning how to read and write, something that may seem completely unimportant to a savage, but ends up becoming a vital necessity for civilized man.
And that example, he said, could only give a bleak idea of how urgent the control of the assemblage point becomes for a sorcerer.
I wanted to know how it was possible that a topic of such importance goes unnoticed in the life of the immense majority of people.
He answered that the movement of the assemblage point is something as natural, and at the same time as sophisticated, as speaking or thinking. If we are not taught how to do it, we never do it.
He assured me that the key to either reaching or losing the extraordinary achievements of sorcery resides in consensus, in the agreements we make.
"To verify facts, one first has to agree on their meaning. Unfortunately, for most people to agree means to be rigid, and not depart from the official description. We must have a strong will to learn, if we are to dare exploring other areas of consent.
"Sorcerers have found that there are two ways of agreeing. The first one is the collective consensus; it starts from reason and it can take you very far, but it will inevitably throw you into a paradox in the end. The other is the consensus induced by a movement of the assemblage point, and it can only be corroborated by those that share similar circumstances.
"A consensus based on individual experience has an advantage over one based on explanations, because the life of the senses is complete in itself; reason, on the other hand, only works by means of comparisons, positive and negative, certain or false, and so on.
"The first effect of penetrating the consensus of sorcerers is that those dualities we have always accepted as something self-evident stop being operative, which in the beginning is extremely disconcerting for the reason. In time, sorcerers learn that in a world where there are no solid objects, but rather beings who flow
among various states of awareness, it doesn't make sense to try to separate truth from lies.
"Don Juan said that the truth is like the cornerstone of a building, a sensible man should not try to remove it! When we surrender to definitions, our energy becomes stagnated, or blocked. The tendency to do that is an imposition of the foreign mind, and we have to put an end to it. To substitute the reason-based consensus with experience was what Don Juan called 'to believe without believing'. For sorcerers, this completely redefines the concept of corroboration.
"They don't look for definitions, but for results. If a practice is able to elevate our level of awareness, what does it matter how we explain it to ourselves! The means by which we will start acting to save and increase our energy are not important, because once we are in possession of our totality, we enter a new field of attention where we don't care about concepts anymore, and things demonstrate themselves.
"Perhaps you think these statements just give permission to be irresponsible. But a warrior understands the real message: 'Reality' is a 'doing', and a doing is measured by its fruits.
"Anyone who judges a sorcerer from an everyday point of view, will judge him to be an irremediable liar, because the universes of both don't coincide. And if the sorcerer tries to explain inexplicable things with borrowed words, he will inevitably become entangled in contradictions and be seen as a humbug or a lunatic. That's why I have said that from the point of view of the everyday world, the world of the nagual is a fraud.
"In fact, this goes for all 'isms', nagualism is not an exception. But as opposed to the defenders of reason, who seek followers for their particular kind of agreement, a sorcerer won't tell you that his vision of the world is the real one; he tells you: 'I believe because I want to, and you can do it, too'. This expression of will is something very powerful, and will provoke, as an avalanche, events of power.
"If you pay close attention, you will notice that children don't just 'innocently' believe in the magic of the world; they believe because they are complete and they see! And the same thing happens with sorcerers. The fabulous stories I have told you don't belong to the plane of reality in which you and I are having this conversation, but they happened!
"Nagualism is like somebody who inherited a story and a treasure map, but doesn't believe in it, so he comes to you and gives his secret to you. And you are so clever, or so naive, that you take the story as truth and dedicate yourself to deciphering the map. But the map is coded with various keys, which makes you learn several languages, go to difficult places, dig in the ground, climb mountains, descend into ravines, and dive in deep waters.
"In the end, after years of searching, you arrive at the place where the treasure should be, and - oh how disappointing! - you just find a mirror. Was it a lie? Well, you are healthy, strong, well educated, full of adventures, and you've had a great experience. Truly, there was a treasure there!
"Keeping in mind that there are neither truths nor lies in the flow of energy, a warrior chooses to believe by predilection, for the excitement of the adventure, and in this way he learns to focus on the world from another point of view - the focus of silence. It is only then that the immense treasure of the teachings is revealed."