Spiritual Forum

I've read all of Castenedas books and you learn over time that Don Juan reaches ascension with his group of sorcerers.  You learn that sorcery is not like the Mickey Mouse film but a way of harnessing the Power of Nature for spiritual purposes. -he, Don Juan, lives now in an alternate dimension -will retain his youth and is virtually immortal-you will learn through the teachings how he and his group replenish themselves-without being energy vampires-great stuff. Cateneda-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda

An excerpt from ;

The Teachings of Don Juan:
A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Carlos Castaneda
http://ciudadshambala.com/introspeccion_y_liberacion/Carlos-Castaneda-Conocimiento-Yaqui-CiudadShamabala.com.pdf

About eight o’clock in the morning of 17 April, don Juan and I began to leach the root
extract with water. It was a clear, sunny day, and don Juan interpreted the fine weather as an
omen that the devil’s weed liked me; he said that with me around he could remember only
how bad she had been with him.
The procedure we followed in leaching the root extract was the same I had observed for the
first portion. By late afternoon, after pouring out the top water for the eighth time, there was a
spoonful of a yellowish substance in the bottom of the bowl.
We returned to his room where there were still two little sacks he had not touched. He
opened one, slid his hand inside, and wrinkled the open end around his wrist with the other
hand.
He seemed to be holding something, judging by the way his hand moved inside the bag.
Suddenly, with a swift movement, he peeled the bag off his hand like a glove, turning it inside
out, and shoved his hand close to my face. He was holding a lizard.
Its head was a few inches from my eyes. There was something strange about the lizard’s
mouth. I gazed at it for a moment and then recoiled involuntarily. The lizard’s mouth was
sewed up with rude stitches. Don Juan ordered me to hold the lizard in my left hand. I
clutched it; it wriggled against my palm. I felt nauseated. My hands began to perspire.
He took the last bag, and, repeating the same motions, he extracted another lizard. He also
held it close to my face. I saw that its eyelids were sewed together. He ordered me to hold this
lizard in my right hand.
By the time I had both lizards in my hands I was almost sick. I had an overpowering desire
to drop them and get out of there.
“Don’t squeeze them!” he said, and his voice brought me a sense of relief and direction. He
asked what was wrong with me.
He tried to be serious, but couldn’t keep a straight face and laughed. I tried to easy my
grip, but my hands were sweating so profusely that the lizards began to wriggle out of them.
Their sharp little claws scratched my hands, producing an incredible feeling of disgust and
nausea. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth. One of the lizards was already sliding onto
my wrist; all it needed was to yank its head from between my fingers to be free.
I had a peculiar sensation of physical despair, of supreme discomfort. I growled at don
Juan, between my teeth, to take the damn things off me. My head shook involuntarily. He
looked at me curiously. I growled like a bear, shaking my body.
He dropped the lizards into their bags and began to laugh. I wanted to laugh also, but my
stomach was upset. I lay down.
I explained to him that what had affected me was the sensation of their claw s on my
palms; he said there were lots of things that could drive a man mad, especially if he did not
have the resolution, the purpose, required for learning; but when a man had a clear,
unbending intent, feelings were in no way a hindrance, for he was capable of controlling them.
Don Juan waited awhile and then, going through the same motions, handed me the lizards
again. He told me to hold their heads up and rub them softly against my temples, as I asked
them anything I wanted to know.
I did not understand at first what he wanted me to do. He told me again to ask the lizards
about anything I could not find out for myself. He gave me a whole series of examples: I could
find out about persons I did not see ordinarily, or about objects that were lost, or about places
I had not seen. Then I realized he was talking about divination. I got very excited. My heart
began to pound. I felt that I was losing my breath.
He warned me not to ask about personal matters this first time; he said I should think
rather of something that had nothing to do with me. I had to think fast and clearly because
there would be no way of reversing my thoughts.
I tried frantically to think of something I wanted to know.
Don Juan urged me on imperiously, and I was astonished to realize I could think of nothing
I wanted to “ask” the lizards.
After a painfully long wait I thought of something. Some time earlier a large number of
books had been stolen from a reading room. It was not a personal matter, and yet I was
interested in it. I had no preconceived ideas about the identity of the person, or persons, who
had taken the books. I rubbed the lizards against my temples, asking them who the thief was.
After a while don Juan put the lizards inside their bags, and said that there were no deep
secrets about the root and the paste.
The paste was made to give direction; the root made things clear.
But the real mystery was the lizards. They were the secret of the whole sorcery of the
second portion, he said. I asked whether they were a special kind of lizard. He said they were.
They had to come from the area of one’s own plant; they had to be one’s friends. And to have
lizards as friends, he said, required a long period of grooming. One had to develop a strong
friendship with them by giving them food and speaking kind words to them.
I asked why their friendship was so important. He said the lizards would allow themselves to
be caught only if they knew the man, and whoever took the devil’s weed seriously had to treat
the lizards seriously. He said that, as a rule, the lizards should be caught after the paste and
the root had been prepared.
They should be caught in the late afternoon. If one was not on intimate terms with the
lizards, he said, days could be spent trying to catch them without success; and the paste lasts
only one day. He then gave me a long series of instructions concerning the procedure to follow
after the lizards had been caught.
“Once you have caught the lizards, put them in separate bags.
Then take the first one and talk to her. Apologize for hurting her, and beg her to help you.
And with a wooden needle sew up her mouth. Use the fibres of agave and one of the thorns of
a choya to do the sewing. Draw the stitches tight. Then tell the other lizard the same things
and sew her eyelids together. By the time night begins to fall you will be ready. Take the lizard
with the sewed-up mouth and explain to her the matter you want to know about. Ask her to go
and see for you; tell her you had to sew up her mouth so she would hurry back to you and not
talk to anyone else. Let her scramble in the paste after you have rubbed it on her head; then
put her on the ground. If she goes in the direction of your good fortune, the sorcery will be
successful and easy. If she goes in the opposite direction, it will be unsuccessful.
If the lizard moves towards you (south), you can expect more than ordinary good luck; but
if she moves away from you (north), the sorcery will be terribly difficult. You may even die!
So if she moves away from you, that is a good time to quit. At this point you can make the
decision to quit. If you do, you will lose your capacity to command the lizards, but that is
better than losing your life. On the other hand, you may decide to go ahead with the sorcery in
spite of my warning. If you do, the next step is to take the other lizard and tell her to listen to
her sister’s story, and then describe it to you.”
“But how can the lizard with the sewed-up mouth tell me what she sees? Wasn’t her mouth
closed to prevent her from talking?”
“Sewing up her mouth prevents her from telling her story to strangers. People say lizards
are talkative; they will stop anywhere to talk. Anyway, the next step is to smear the paste on
the back of her head, and then rub her head against your right temple, keeping the paste
away from the centre of your forehead.
At the beginning of your learning it is a good idea to tie the lizard by its middle to your right
shoulder with a string. Then you won’t lose her or injure her. But as you progress and become
more familiar with the power of the devil’s weed, the lizards learn to obey your commands and
will stay perched on your shoulder. After you have smeared the paste on your right temple
with the lizard, dip the fingers of both hands into the gruel; first rub it on both temples and
then spread it all over both sides of your head. The paste dries very fast, and can be applied
as many times as necessary. Begin every time by using the lizard’s head first and then your
fingers. Sooner or later the lizard that went to see comes back and tells her sister all about her
journey, and the blind lizard describes it to you as though you were her kind. When the
sorcery is finished, put the lizard down and let her go, but don’t watch where she goes. Dig a
deep hole with your bare hands and bury everything you used in it.”