'An ally will make you see and understand things about which no human being could possibly enlighten you.'
'Is an ally something like a guardian spirit?'
'It is neither a guardian nor a spirit. It is an aid.'
'Is Mescalito your ally?'
'No! Mescalito is another kind of power. A unique power! A protector, a teacher.'
' What makes Mescalito different from an ally?'
'He can't be tamed and used as an ally is tamed and used. Mescalito is outside oneself. He chooses to show himself in many forms to whoever stands in front of him, regardless of whether that person is a brujo or a farm boy.'
Don Juan spoke with deep fervour about Mescalito's being the teacher of the proper way to live. I asked him how Mescalito taught the 'proper way of life', and don Juan replied that Mescalito showed how to live.
'How does he show it?' I asked.
'He has many ways of showing it. Sometimes he shows it on his hand, or on the rocks, or the trees, or just in front of you.'
'Is it like a picture in front of you?'
'No. It is a teaching in front of you.'
'Does Mescalito talk to the person?'
'Yes. But not in words.'
'How does he talk, then?'
'He talks differently to every man.'
I felt my questions were annoying him. I did not ask any more. He went on explaining that there were no exact steps to knowing Mescalito; therefore no one could teach about him except Mescalito himself. This quality made him a unique power; he was not the same for every man.
On the other hand, the acquiring of an ally required, don Juan said, the most precise teaching and the following of stages or steps without a single deviation. There are many such ally powers in the world, he said, but he was familiar with only two of them. And he was going to lead me to them and their secrets, but it was up to me to choose one of them, for I could have only one. His benefactor's ally was in la yerba del diablo (devil's weed), he said, but he personally did not like it, even though his benefactor had taught him its secrets. His own ally was in the humito (the little smoke), he said, but he did not elaborate on the nature of the smoke.
I asked him about it. He remained quiet. After a long pause I asked him:
'What kind of a power is an ally?'
'It is an aid. I have already told you.'
'How does it aid?'
'An ally is a power capable of carrying a man beyond the boundaries of himself. This is how an ally can reveal matters no human being could.'
'But Mescalito also takes you out of the boundaries of yourself. Doesn't that make him an ally?'
'No. Mescalito takes you out of yourself to teach you. An ally takes you out to give you power.'
I asked him to explain this point to me in more detail, or to describe the difference in effect between the two. He looked at me for a long time and laughed. He said that learning through conversation was not only a waste, but stupidity, because learning was the most difficult task a man could undertake. He asked me to remember the time I had tried to find my spot, and how I wanted to find it without doing any work because I had expected him to hand out all the information. If he had done so, he said, I would never have learned. But, knowing how difficult it was to find my spot, and, above all, knowing that it existed, would give me a unique sense of confidence. He said that while I remained rooted to my 'good spot' nothing could cause me bodily harm, because I had the assurance that at that particular spot I was at my very best. I had the power to shove off anything that might be harmful to me. If, however, he had told me where it was, I would never have had the confidence needed to claim it as true knowledge. Thus, knowledge was indeed power.
Don Juan said then that every time a man sets himself to learn he has to labour as hard as I did to find that spot, and the limits of his learning are determined by his own nature. Thus he saw no point in talking about knowledge. He said that certain kinds of knowledge were too powerful for the strength I had, and to talk about them would only bring harm to me. He apparently felt there was nothing else he wanted to say. He got up and walked towards his house. I told him the situation overwhelmed me. It was not what I had conceived or wanted it to be.
He said that fears are natural; that all of us experience them and there is nothing we can do about it. But on the other hand, no matter how frightening learning is, it is more terrible to think of a man without an ally, or without knowledge.
3
In the more than two years that elapsed between the time don Juan decided to teach me about the ally powers and the time he thought I was ready to learn about them in the pragmatic, participatory form he considered as learning, he gradually defined the general features of the two allies in question. He prepared me for the indispensable corollary of all the verbalizations, and the consolidation of all the teachings, the states of non- ordinary reality.
At first he talked about the ally powers in a very casual manner. The first references I have in my notes are inteijected between other topics of conversation.
'The devil's weed [Jimson weed] was my benefactor's ally. It could have been mine also, but I didn't like her.'
'Why didn't you like the devil's weed, don Juan?'
'She has a serious drawback.'
'Is she inferior to other ally powers?'
'No. Don't get me wrong. She is as powerful as the best of allies, but there is something about her which I personally don't like.'
'Can you tell me what it is?'
'She distorts men. She gives them a taste of power too soon without fortifying their hearts and makes them domineering and unpredictable. She makes them weak in the middle of their great power.'
'Isn't there any way to avoid that?'
'There is a way to overcome it, but not to avoid it. Whoever becomes the weed's ally must pay that price.'
'How can one overcome that effect, don Juan?'
'The devil's weed has four heads: the root, the stem and leaves, the flowers, and the seeds. Each one of them is different, and whoever becomes her ally must learn about them in that order. The most important head is in the roots. The power of the devil's weed is conquered through the roots. The stem and leaves are the head that cures maladies; properly used, this head is a gift to mankind. The third head is in the flowers, and it is used to turn people crazy, or to make them obedient, or to kill them. The man whose ally is the weed never intakes the flowers, nor does he intake the stem and leaves, for that matter, except in cases of his own illness; but the roots and the seeds are always intaken; especially the seeds; they are the fourth head of the devil's weed and the most powerful of the four.
'My benefactor used to say the seeds are the «sober head» — the only part that could fortify the heart of man. The devil's weed is hard with her proteges, he used to say, because she aims to kill them fast, a thing she ordinarily accomplishes before they can arrive at the secrets of the «sober head». There are, however, tales about men who have unravelled the secrets of the sober head. What a challenge for a man of knowledge!'
'Did your benefactor unravel such secrets?'
'No, he didn't.'
'Have you met anyone who has done it?'
