A scene script adapted from Chapter Ten of the book Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda.
(The scene script that follows has been previously presented in my book The Curious Case of Dr. Castaneda’s Twelve Pages of Field Notes.)
23. EXT. DON JUAN’S HOUSE — DAY
The date is 17 August 1961. The time is early morning. CARLOS [an undergraduate of anthropology at the University of California] has just pulled his car up in front of DON JUAN’s shack in the desert. As Carlos gets out of his car and approaches don Juan, who is sitting under the ramada on an inverted wooden milk crate, don Juan surely notices that Carlos has come with some personal dilemma he needs to get off his chest. Carlos’ typically buoyant facial expression is, this morning, dejected and laced with trepidation. [This is, perhaps, not so surprising. Ever since his first proper interview with his anthropological informant, don Juan, seven months earlier, and during the three extended field trips since then, he had pestered don Juan to teach him about the hallucinogenic cactus peyote. Don Juan, who had not believed that Carlos was psychologically prepared for such an undertaking, had nevertheless relented after Carlos managed to solve a certain riddle that don Juan had posed as a test in order to determine if Carlos’ burning desire to learn about “Mescalito,” the deity don Juan alleged is contained in the peyote cactus, might override the fact that Carlos was not an Indian. Two weeks earlier, on the 4th of August, don Juan had allowed Carlos to ingest some peyote buttons. The resulting night-long hallucinatory experience has presumably affected Carlos profoundly.]
DON JUAN: [speaking in Spanish] Pull up a crate and sit down. You usually bring a bag of groceries. You must really be out of sorts. And where is your legendary writing gear? I have the feeling that you may want to take notes from the outset of our conversation this morning.
CARLOS: [also speaking in Spanish] Honestly, I forgot to get groceries. I’ve been terribly absent-minded ever since the peyote session . . . [pausing when he sees a sudden frown appear on don Juan’s face] I mean, ever since my meeting with Mescalito two weeks ago. And my briefcase is still on the front seat of my car.
Don Juan motions to Carlos to remain seated, and he goes to the car and reaches in through the window, which Carlos has left open because of the heat, to retrieve a black leather briefcase from the passenger seat in the front of the car. Don Juan returns to his milk crate under the ramada and hands the briefcase to Carlos, who is sitting opposite him next to a large boulder that is curiously embedded in the sand floor of the porch. Carlos takes a notepad and pencil out of the briefcase, and laying the briefcase in his lap as an improvised writing table he immediately begins to scribble notes.
DON JUAN: Tell me that you don’t carry that thing around with you in your hand when you are attending your school.
CARLOS: I do, don Juan.
DON JUAN: Do you usually drive your car from place to place?
CARLOS: I almost always leave my car at home. I usually walk to wherever I’m going.
DON JUAN: I’ve taught you the correct manner in which to walk. I told you to avoid focusing your eyes on anything, and to keep your fingers gently curved while you walk. Walking is the single most important thing you do every day. You could say that walking in the appropriate manner is the key to everything I have been trying to show you. Never carry anything in your hands. If you need to take anything with you, then use your knapsack.
CARLOS: Don Juan, ordinarily I wear a suit. I can’t carry a knapsack strapped over a three-piece suit. Besides, I really don’t want to walk from class to class like some kind of zombie.
DON JUAN: And what is a zombie?
CARLOS: A zombie is a dead person who has been reanimated by a sorcerer or witch. They are reputed to walk about very stiffly without any expression on their faces.
DON JUAN: That’s silly. Such beings do not exist. Trust me. I am myself a sorcerer or witch. Dead bodies can never reanimate. Dead is forever dead.
CARLOS: That’s not the point, don Juan. I was using the word figuratively. I was not implying that I believe in zombies.
DON JUAN: Well, I suggest that you put your jacket on over your knapsack. It is better to let people think that you are a hunchbacked zombie than to carry anything in your hand. The appropriate form of walking is one of the manners in which a person can stop the world, and you, my friend, are in dire need of stopping the world. A meeting with Mescalito is another way to stop the world, a way of stopping it dead in its tracks.
CARLOS: That’s what I need to talk to you about this morning. I’m afraid I’m just not cut out for the task of learning about Mescalito. For two weeks I have been strangely restless and morose. I feel that I no longer see a clear purpose in what I am doing. It’s like I’ve reached a crossroad, and it doesn’t matter whether I continue on or turn right or turn left. Mescalito has left me feeling empty, really empty.
DON JUAN: I think you’re finally beginning to learn.
CARLOS: Really, don Juan. This learning is not for me.
DON JUAN: But you came to me to learn about Mescalito. In order to prepare you for your first meeting with him, I taught you the rudiments of hunting in the wilderness to make you a stronger person. Now that you are actually learning, you want to quit. What about your thesis?
CARLOS: I can still write a thesis. You can talk to me about peyote, I mean Mescalito. I don’t want to take it again. I’m afraid I’ll find myself heading in a direction from which there is no return. I don’t want to go mad.
DON JUAN: Whatever you might write about me talking about Mescalito would be worthless. You’re afraid. So what? Fear is one of the obstacles along the path to knowledge. It can be overcome.
CARLOS: But this is really a difficult situation for me, don Juan. I don’t know what I am doing here any longer.
DON JUAN: I don’t think you have ever known what you are doing here. And what about me? This is a difficult situation for me too. Some fool brought you to me about a year ago. Remember? Some fool pointed you out to me in a manner that I just couldn’t ignore. So I told you to visit me some time, but I didn’t tell you where I live. And you found me just the same. Then I taught you to be a hunter in order to strengthen you for any eventual meeting with Mescalito. I taught you that a hunter strives to erase his personal history, to disrupt the routines of his life, to assume responsibility for his acts, to take death as his advisor, and, above all else, to rid himself of his self-importance. About two months ago, I gave you a riddle to solve. I told you that there is a specific spot on my porch where, if only you could find it, you would always be at your strongest. And you found your spot, the very spot you’re sitting on now, although it took you from sunset to sunrise. Not only that, you even found your enemy spot, the spot you should avoid at all cost. And so I arranged a meeting with Mescalito, and he actually played with you. I have never seen him in such a mood before. I have been very baffled. I have thought about little else for the past two weeks. Now I believe I know why he has so demonstratively pointed you out. Mescalito was telling me that you are my chosen man. How strange! You are not an Indian.
CARLOS: Chosen for what purpose, don Juan?
DON JUAN: I am the keeper of certain secrets, secrets which I should not reveal to others until I have found my chosen man. By allowing you to play with him, Mescalito has shown me that you could be that man. I have therefore decided to teach you the secrets that make up the lot of a man of knowledge. I had a teacher myself, my benefactor, who taught me everything I know.
CARLOS: You have mentioned the concept of “a man of knowledge” before, but I didn’t then understand what you were referring to. I still don’t. What exactly, or rather, who exactly is a man of knowledge?
DON JUAN: A man of knowledge is a warrior who, through years of training and personal struggle, has achieved the ability to become and remain impeccably self-aware.
CARLOS: And what is it to be impeccably self-aware?
DON JUAN: Impeccable self-awareness happens when the warrior understands his lot in life independently of what others may have told him it is or should be. The warrior has finally understood without the shadow of a doubt that he will one day, sooner or later, but not that much later, cease to exist, and that all things become equal in the face of death. When deliberately facing one’s inescapable annihilation, most things a person does or has done in life are turned to sheer folly. The average man is seldom aware of death’s perpetual presence in life, and thus he believes that his acts, as well as the acts of others, have meaning. A man of knowledge realises that his acts are without meaning, and yet he goes on living. What he has learned to do is to put his folly under control. A man of knowledge is keenly aware of the fact that the world is totally incomprehensible, and thus he treats the world as it is: a sheer mystery, and what people do as endless folly.
CARLOS: Does one have to be a warrior in order to become a man of knowledge?
DON JUAN: Most definitely. Only a warrior can become a man of knowledge.
CARLOS: Would I be understanding you correctly if I were to say that you are not using the term “warrior” in the original sense of the word? That the kind of warrior you’re speaking of is not the Indian warrior one reads about in stories of the Old West?
DON JUAN: My kind of warrior is certainly concerned with war, but not with the paraphernalia of ordinary human warfare. He has no need of guns, or of bows and arrows. My kind of warrior wages war on the human condition; he wages a ruthless, never-ending war. If he wins enough battles, he can become a man of knowledge.
CARLOS: Can a warrior be female?
DON JUAN: In my experience, a woman will usually make the better warrior. Assuming that a warrior is male is just an old manner of speaking.
CARLOS: Do you personally know any men of knowledge?
DON JUAN: I am personally acquainted with several men of knowledge, and my benefactor told me of others from his generation.
CARLOS: What about women of knowledge?
DON JUAN: I personally know only one, but I have heard that there are others.
CARLOS: Are these people of knowledge Indians?
DON JUAN: Yes, they are. But this does not mean that only Indians can acquire the sort of knowledge I am talking about. I just don’t know very many people who are not Indians. And the world is a big place.
CARLOS: What about your benefactor? Was he a man of knowledge?
DON JUAN: Considering him in retrospect, I don’t believe he was. He was a diablero, an evil sorcerer, all of his life, and because of this, I fear he missed the boat, which makes me rather sad.
CARLOS: What about me, don Juan? Do you think I could become a man of knowledge?
DON JUAN: Honestly? No, I don’t. But who am I to say? Still, I don’t think that Mescalito pointed you out to me as a potential man of knowledge. I imagine that your purpose in his scheme of things is another. Perhaps you will serve as a sort of beacon to others. Whatever the case, for better or worse, you may very well be my chosen man.
CARLOS: Whatever your intentions might be, don Juan, I cannot meet with Mescalito again.
DON JUAN: Mescalito does not provide the only avenue to power and knowledge. What he offers is a shortcut, but it is a shortcut that is fraught with danger and comes with no guarantee of success. You need not seek his advice again until you are strong enough.
CARLOS: Then what are your intentions with me as your chosen man?
DON JUAN: In the past I have endeavoured to show you how to lead the good, strong life of the hunter in order that you might withstand your initial meeting with Mescalito. Now that you have met him and he has singled you out as someone very special, I shall show you how to lead the life of the warrior. I must warn you, however, that learning to hunt has not made you a hunter. Likewise, learning how to become a warrior will not necessarily turn you into one. A warrior is an immaculate hunter, but a hunter who hunts power instead of game. In order to hunt power, you must make yourself accessible to it. And there is only one way to make yourself accessible to power, and that is to force yourself into the state of mind in which you have ceased to talk to yourself. You can aspire to become a warrior, but until you have learned to stop your internal dialogue, you will not actually be able to act like a warrior. Stopping the internal dialogue is the prerequisite for stopping the world. Once the world has stopped, power will come. And you will store this power as your own personal property, even though you are not aware that you are storing anything. Personal power is accumulative. One day you may find that you have stored so much personal power that you have become a man of knowledge.
CARLOS: But how can I stop talking to myself without the help of Mescalito? I talk to myself incessantly.
DON JUAN: Of course you do. We all get into the habit of talking to ourselves as very small children once we have learned enough language to be able to do it. Some of us, however, learn to break the habit—when we decide to become warriors. The warrior is a once-ordinary person who has learned to stop the internal dialogue; the rest of warriorship is just trappings. I have already shown you what I have found to be the best way of stopping the internal dialogue, namely, what I call the appropriate form of walking. Unfortunately, you do not seem to have taken me seriously. Allow me to repeat my original instructions. Find some area where you can walk unobstructed for a good distance, maybe a long country road with little traffic. Fix your eyes on the road ahead of you, but keep them unfocused, even slightly crossed, so that you can be aware of everything ahead of you, but so you cannot see anything clearly. Gently curl your fingers in order to draw your attention towards your hands and away from that which you are perceiving with your eyes. If you walk far enough in this manner, you will at some point become aware of the fact that you have entirely ceased talking to yourself. This awareness, if you can learn to maintain it, is only a short step away from stopping the world.
CARLOS: Is the appropriate form of walking the only way to stop the internal dialogue?
DON JUAN: No, but in my opinion, it is the most effective and convenient way.
CARLOS: It doesn’t seem very convenient to me.
DON JUAN: This is because you lack the willpower you need in order to persevere. Find a country road that is at least a couple of kilometres in length. The longer the better. Traverse this road for its entire length, walking as I have instructed you, and you will understand what I am talking about. Maybe not the first or second time, but at some point, you will understand that it’s all just a matter of perseverance.
CARLOS: It may be difficult to find an appropriate stretch of road in Los Angeles, where I live.
DON JUAN: This is a petty concern. Surely there is a suitable stretch of road somewhere in California. You have a car. Get in it; drive out and scout around. You have my permission to drive your car in order to walk.
CARLOS: You say that the appropriate form of walking is the most effective way to stop the internal dialogue. I suppose, then, that there are other ways.
DON JUAN: Dreaming is another route you might take.
CARLOS: I don’t think that is a route I would like to take. I’ve been having the most disturbing dreams and nightmares ever since my experience with Mescalito. I want them to stop. I don’t want more of them. It’s partly because of these dreams that I don’t want to meet Mescalito ever again.
DON JUAN: That’s not the kind of dreaming I’m referring to. Your dreams and nightmares have been ordinary dreams and nightmares. Mescalito has that effect on some people. Don’t worry about them. They’ll pass. You can’t exercise any volition in ordinary dreams and nightmares because while you are dreaming you are not aware of the fact that you are dreaming. You realise that you have been dreaming only when you wake from the dream. In the kind of dreaming I’m referring to you can give your dream direction by exercising some amount of volition because while you are dreaming in this manner you are conscious of the fact that you are dreaming.
CARLOS: What you are referring to is called lucid dreaming.
DON JUAN: Well, whatever it may be called, it is different from ordinary dreaming because you can control your dream, at least to a certain extent. But in order to do this you must learn to set up “dreaming” [he makes air-quotes as he says the word]. Choose some object and focus your attention solely on that object with the intention of finding it in your dreams. If you do find the object in your dreams, this is because your undivided attention while setting up dreaming has, at least momentarily, managed to stop your internal dialogue. Once you find the object in a dream, you can then attempt to direct the outcome because you’re fully aware that you are dreaming even though you are fast asleep.
CARLOS: This is all pretty weird, don Juan.
DON JUAN: I’m sure you do weirder things, but such things that do not enhance your life. Take this as a challenge. Tackle your dreams. Just imagine what you can do in your dreams that you can’t do in waking life. Choose some object, and then make it appear in a dream. I suggest that you focus on your hands.
CARLOS: Why my hands?
DON JUAN: Because you always have your hands with you.
CARLOS: Seriously, how do I focus on my hands?
DON JUAN: Seriously, you raise both hands to the level of your eyes, like this, and then you stare at them like a fool for as long as you can. If you do this exercise often enough, one night you will find yourself in a dream, dreaming about finding your own hands in the dream. From then on, the sky’s the limit. You will have made yourself accessible to the power of dreaming.
CARLOS: But how do I go on from there, from finding my hands in a dream?
DON JUAN: You’re on your own from there. I suppose I could give you pointers, but any pointers from me will only reflect what I did when I learned to set up dreaming. This will probably be of limited value to you. You and I are so very different. What I can do for you—and I have decided to start this afternoon—is to show you how to make yourself accessible to the power that is native to the Sonoran Desert. This desert, being essentially a wilderness, is simply oozing power. I’ve told you before that plants and animals are not the only beings native to the desert. There are also beings, or entities, which lack corporeal existence but exist nonetheless. These entities are usually bound to certain natural formations like water holes, or arroyos, or cliff overhangs, or shallow caves. We Indians call them spirits. Only in exceptional circumstances do they manifest themselves to humans. A warrior, however, learns how to lure them out in order to harness their very special power. This is what I shall attempt to show you this afternoon.
CARLOS: Can you not just tell me about the spirits?
DON JUAN: No, just hearing about the spirits will not help you access their power. From now on, instead of merely roaming about in the desert as we have done before, we are going to visit places of power, places where you can learn to make yourself accessible to power.
CARLOS: Don Juan, I still have not got over the trauma of meeting Mescalito! I don’t think I want to seek out any of the spirits of the desert.
DON JUAN: You are indulging in silly fears. I believe that you are my chosen man. Either you begin to act like it or you should return to Los Angeles and stay away from Mexico in the future. It’s time for you to try to act like a warrior, even though you are not one. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I know a place about a two hours’ hike from here, a dry water canyon, where a spirit dwells. We shall walk to this place this afternoon. When we arrive in the canyon, we shall make all manner of commotion in order to announce our presence to the spirit. Having done that, we shall then remain perfectly silent and motionless until the spirit chooses to manifest itself, however long this should take.
CARLOS: You have no problem sitting perfectly still and silent for hours on end. I know, I’ve seen you do it. I can’t sit still for five minutes.
DON JUAN: It’s all a matter of the internal dialogue, whether or not you are capable of switching it off. I shall be waiting for the spirit with you, and you know that I will not allow you to talk or fidget while we are waiting. As usual, you’ll have the choice of either following my instructions to the letter or simply getting into your car and returning home. Thus far, you’ve never taken the second choice. The good news is that if you attempt to stop your internal dialogue by sitting motionless for long enough, it will switch itself off; the world will stop; and the spirit will then manifest itself in some manner.
CARLOS: What kind of spirit is this water canyon spirit?
DON JUAN: How many kinds are there?
CARLOS: Sorry, don Juan. That was a stupid question. I guess I’m just nervous.
DON JUAN: Then answer me this: Do you believe that spirits exist out there in that wilderness?
CARLOS: Honestly?
DON JUAN: Of course.
CARLOS: No, I do not believe in spirits.
DON JUAN: Well then, what are you afraid of? Come on; admit it. You enjoy walking about in the desert with me. Up to now, I’ve been catering to your hunter’s spirit, and you have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. From now on, I shall appeal to the warrior that I believe is dormant within you. I think it is too late for you to quit. Only when you have made the decision to become a warrior will you be able to begin writing your thesis. You will be able to tell others about what I have shown you, whether or not you ever become a man of knowledge. But enough of talking for now. Get your knapsack. Make sure you have a full bottle of water. It’s a hot day. You have an appointment with power, and the water canyon is far from here.