"What is the purpose of a party?"
"From the Eagle's point of view: To explore, to verify, and to expand the Rule. Each generation of warriors should leave their print on it, because the Rule is accumulative. The heritage of the lineage consists of a series of positions of the assemblage point, to which successive parties go adding their own acquisitions. It is normal that lineages make a 'journal' of incidents where the naguals note their discoveries.
"The basic interest of an organism is to reproduce itself. Therefore, one way of defining it would be to say that the Rule is the recipe for a reproductive process. What it seeks is the perpetuation of awareness, something which, beyond a certain point, cannot be accomplished through individual channels. The resources that each warrior personally acquires during his training are secondary achievements,
"From the sorcerers' point of view, the object of grouping themselves is to ensure their passage to another level of attention, since without energy mass there is no flight."
"Do you mean that solitary warriors don't have a chance?"
"No. What I'm saying is that a party can go further.
"Imagine that you live in a colony of gregarious caterpillars who are in a state of metamorphosis. Suddenly, one of the cocoons breaks open, and its resident leaves in a momentary explosion of light and color. The sensation you're left with is that the caterpillar disappeared. For the caterpillar itself, on the other hand, its true life as a butterfly will have begun. Now then: A solitary caterpillar is more likely to end up in the stomach of a bird.
"In the same way, the ulterior objective of warriors is the definitive jump to the third attention; the liberation from all forms of interpretation. The quantity of energy that is necessary for this can only be achieved by means of a special consensus of critical mass, in order to generate the necessary agreements to compact the energy.
"However, since many parties are not able to reach the completion of their energy, naguals have built an inhabitable oasis inside the second attention, an enormous edifice of intent in a remote region of dreaming, where seers go alone or in small groups. I call it 'the dome of intent', because its visible form is dome-shaped, but Don Juan preferred to call it 'the cemetery of the naguals'."
"Why did he call it that?"
"Because staying in that space to live implies the sorcerer's literal death. In a sense not at all allegorical, it is a cemetery. Although those who choose that destiny have achieved the expansion of awareness for an enormous period of time, they will have to do without it when the moment arrives.
"So, for many sorcerers, the immediate goal of the party is the dome of the naguals, in the hope of being able to use it as a transit port where they can accumulate provisions for a great expedition. To get there, it is not necessary that the whole group leave at the same time. Sometimes, warriors choose to go one by one. In that case, they can partially return, as long as the totality of the group's energetic structure has not been completed.
"As you can see, the challenges warriors are involved in during their human existence are barely the prelude; the really tremendous stuff comes later. Don't ask what they dedicate themselves to while they remain in that world; it would sound like a fairy tale to you. The important thing is: All their activities are governed by the Rule."
I commented that, keeping in mind the goal of the party, the Rule could be interpreted as the prehispanic equivalent of what other cultures called 'divine laws', that is, a group of normative regulations designed for man's salvation.
He replied:
"It is not the same, because it does not come from a supreme being. The mechanism of the Rule is impersonal, it lacks kindness or compassion. It has no other objective than its own continuity.
"Allowing themselves to be seduced by the analogies, the ancient seers made the error of identifying the Rule with their particular interpretations, and wound up worshipping it and erecting temples in its honor. The new seers rejected all that. When they explored stalking, they dusted off the essence of sorcery and rediscovered the goal of total freedom, which does not resemble religious goals in any way. It erased in them the fascination for the human mold, but it had a secondary effect that I have already explained to you: The wild enthusiasm of the old seers was substituted by furtive and suspicious attitudes.
"In the end, the effect stalking had on the nagual parties was to betray their initial motives. In time, the goal of total freedom was reduced to rhetoric. Almost all the sorcerers of Don Juan's lineage preferred the flight to the second attention. With the exception of the nagual Julian Osorio, none of them wanted to be deprived of the adventure and ecstasy of visiting the dome of the naguals, constructed of intent, located on one of the stars of the constellation of Orion."