participate as an apprentice, however, that method of taking notes became very difficult, because our conversations touched on many different topics. Then Don Juan allowed me — under strong protest, however — to record openly anything that was said. I would also have liked to take photographs and make tape recordings, but he would not permit me to do so.
I carried out the apprenticeship first in Arizona and then in Sonora, because Don Juan moved to Mexico during the course of my training. The procedure I employed was to see him for a few days every so often. My visits became more frequent and lasted longer during the summer months of 1961, 1962, 1963, and 1964. In retrospect, I believe this method of conducting the apprenticeship prevented the training from being successful, because it retarded the advent of the full commitment I needed to become a sorcerer. Yet the method was beneficial from my personal standpoint in that it allowed me a modicum of detachment, and that in turn fostered a sense of critical examination which would have been impossible to attain had I participate continuously, without interrupt. In September 1965, I voluntarily discontinued the apprenticeship.
Several months after my withdrawal, I considered for the first time the idea of arranging my field notes in a systematic way. As the data I had collected were quite voluminous, and included much miscellaneous information, I began by trying to establish a classification system. I divided the data into areas of related concepts and procedures and arranged the areas hierarchically according to subjective importance — that is, in terms of the impact that each of them had had on me. In that way I arrived at the following classification: uses of the hallucinogenic plants; procedures and formulas used in sorcery; acquisition and manipulation of power objects; uses of the medicinal plants; songs and legends.
Reflecting upon the phenomena I had experienced, I realized that my attempt at classification had produced nothing more than an inventory of categories; any attempt to refine my scheme would therefore yield only a more complex inventory. That was not what I wanted. During the months following my withdrawal from the apprenticeship, I needed to understand what I had experienced, and what I had experienced was the teaching of a coherent system of beliefs by means of a pragmatic and experimental method. It had been evident to me from the very first session in which I had participated that Don Juan's teachings possessed an internal cohesion. Once he had definitely decided to communicate his knowledge to me, he proceeded to present his explanations in orderly steps. To discover that order and to understand it proved to be a most difficult task for me.
My inability to arrive at an understanding seems to have been traceable to the fact that, after four years of apprenticeship, I was still a beginner. It was clear that Don Juan's knowledge and his method of conveying it were those of his benefactor; thus my difficulties in understanding his teachings must have been analogous to those he himself had encountered. Don Juan alluded to our similarity as beginners through incidental comments about his incapacity to understand his teacher during his own apprenticeship. Such remarks led me to believe that to any beginner, Indian or non-Indian, the knowledge of sorcery was rendered incomprehensible by the outlandish characteristics of the phenomena he experienced. Personally, as a Western man, I found these characteristics so bizarre that it was virtually impossible to explain them in terms of my own everyday life, and I was forced to the conclusion that any attempt to classify my field data in my own terms would be futile.
Thus it became obvious to me that Don Juan's knowledge had to be examined in terms of how he himself understood it; only in such terms could it be made evident and convincing. In trying to reconcile my own views with Don Juan's, however, I realized that whenever he tried to explain his knowledge to me, he used concepts that would render it 'intelligible' to him. As those concepts were alien to me, trying to understand his knowledge in the way he did placed me in another untenable position. Therefore, my first task was to determine his order of conceptualization. While working in that direction, I saw that Don Juan himself had placed particular emphasis on a certain area of his teachings — specifically, the uses of hallucinogenic plants. On the basis of this realization, I revised my own scheme of categories.
Don Juan used, separately and on different occasions, three hallucinogenic plants: peyote (Lophophora williamsii), Jimson weed (Datura inoxia syn. D. meteloicles), and a mushroom (possibly Psilocybe mexicana). Since before their contact with Europeans, American Indians have known the hallucinogenic properties of these three plants. Because of their properties, the plants have been widely employed for pleasure, for curing, for witchcraft, and for attaining a state of ecstasy. In the specific context of his teachings, Don Juan related the use of Datura inoxia and Psilocybe mexicana to the acquisition of power, a power he called an 'ally'. He related the use of Lophophora williamsii to the acquisition of wisdom, or the knowledge of the right way to live.
The importance of the plants was, for Don Juan, their capacity to produce stages of peculiar perception in a human being. Thus he guided me into experiencing a sequence of these stages for the purpose of unfolding and validating his knowledge. I have called them 'states of non-ordinary reality', meaning unusual reality as opposed to the ordinary reality of everyday life. The distinc— tion is based on the inherent meaning of the states of non— ordinary reality. In the context of Don Juan's knowledge they were considered as real, although their reality was differentiated from ordinary reality.
Don Juan believed the states of non-ordinary reality to be the only form of pragmatic learning and the only means of acquiring power. He conveyed the impression that other parts of his teachings were incidental to the acquisition of power. The point of view permeated Don Juan's attitude toward everything not directly connected with the states of non-ordinary reality. Throughout my field notes there are scattered references to the way don Juan felt. For example, in one conversation he suggested that some objects have a certain amount of power in themselves. Although he himself had no respect for power objects, he said they were frequently used as aids by lesser brujos. I often asked him about such objects, but he seemed totally uninterested in discussing them. When the topic was raised again on another occasion, however, he reluctantly consented to talk about them.
'There are certain objects that are permeated with power,' he said. 'There are scores of such objects which are fostered by powerful men with the aid of friendly spirits. These objects are tools — not ordinary tools, but tools of death. Yet they only instruments; they have no power to teach. Properly speaking, they are in the realm of was objects designed for strife; they are made to kill, to be hurled.'
'What kind of objects are they, Don Juan?'
'They are not really objects; rather, they are types of power.'
'How can one get those types of power, Don Juan?'
'That depends on the kind of object you want.'
'How many kinds are there?'
'As I have already said, there are scores of them. Anything can be a power object.'
'Well, which are the most powerful, then?'
'The power of an object depends on its owner, on the kind of man he is. A power object fostered by a lesser brujo is almost a joke; on the other hand, a strong, powerful brujo gives his strength to his tools.'
'Which power objects are most common, then? Which ones do most brujos prefer?'
'There are no preferences. They are all power objects, all just the same.'
'Do you have any yourself, Don Juan?'
He did not answer; he just looked at me and laughed. He remained quiet for a long time, and I thought my questions were annoying him.
'There are limitations on those types of powers,' he went on. 'But such a point is, I am sure, incomprehensible to you. It has taken me nearly a lifetime to understand that, by itself, an ally can reveal all the secrets of these lesser powers, rendering them rather childish. I had tools like that at one time, when I was very young.'
'What power objects did you have?'
'Maiz-pinto, crystals and feathers.'
'What is maiz-pinto, Don Juan?'
'It is a small kernel of corn which has a streak of red colour in its middle.'
'It is a single kernel?'
'No. A brujo owns forty-eight kernels.'
'What do the kernels do, Don Juan?'
'Each one of them can kill a man by entering into his body.'
'How does a kernel enter into a human body?'
'It is a power object and its power consists, among other things, in entering into the body.'
'What does it do when it enters into the body?'
'It immerses itself in the body; it settles on the chest, or on the intestines. The man becomes ill, and unless
