Encounters With The Nagual: Part 0 - Chapter 02. Introduction By Armando Torres.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 0 - Chapter 02 - Introduction By Armando Torres.

My name is Armando Torres. I have written this book in order to complete a task that was assigned to me years ago by Carlos Castaneda-- a controversial anthropologist and writer on the subject of sorcery-- who I met in October 1984.

I was still quite young then, and in my quest for answers, I had been looking into various spiritual traditions; and I wanted to find a teacher.

But from the very beginning, Carlos was very clear in that respect. He said, "I do not promise you anything. I am not a guru. Freedom is an individual choice, and each of us must assume the responsibility of fighting for it."

At one of the first of his talks that I attended, Carlos severely criticized the kind of 'human idolatry' that induces us to follow others; and to expect ready-made answers from them.

Carlos explained that this attitude is a remnant of our 'herd mentality'.

He said, "Whoever sincerely wants to penetrate the teachings of sorcerers does not need guides. It is sufficient to have a genuine interest, and guts of steel. You will, by yourself, find everything you need through an unbending intent."

It was on these premises that our relationship evolved. Therefore, I want to state very clearly that I am not Carlos' apprentice in any formal sense of the word. All I did was talk with him from time to time. Yet that was enough to convince me that the true path consists of our determination to be impeccable.

Gratitude is my main motivation for publishing some of the experiences I had by Carlos' side.

It is the nature of a nagual to bestow gifts of power, and as such, Carlos was magnificent with everyone who had the good fortune of knowing him.

To be near him was to receive an abundance of inspiration, and a wealth of stories, advice, and teachings of all kinds.

Since Carlos, as a true warrior of total freedom, shared absolutely everything with those who surrounded him, it would be selfish for me, who has received such gifts, to keep them hidden.

One time, Carlos told me that he used to sit every night and write down fragments of what he had learned from his 'nagual' Juan Matus-- an old sorcerer from the Yaqui tribe of northern Mexico; and Carlos wrote fragments from his 'benefactor', don Genaro Flores-- a powerful Mazatec Indian who was a member of the men of knowledge led by don Juan Matus.

Carlos additionally told me that writing was an important aspect of his personal recapitulation, and that I should consider doing the same with everything I heard during his talks.

I asked Carlos, "What if I forget?”

Carlos explained, "In that case, the knowledge was not for you. Concentrate on what you remember."

Carlos told me that the purpose of his advice was not only to help me retain information that might be valuable in the future, but also that I acquire an initial degree of discipline so that I could undertake real exercises of sorcery later on.

Carlos described the purpose of sorcerers as a supreme enterprise.

By entering a path of saving energy, we regain control of our senses; and we can then intend ourself out of our perceptual limitations.

Carlos preached, "A warrior has no time to lose because the challenge of awareness is total, and the challenge demands maximum alertness twenty-four hours a day."

Carlos insisted that everything a warrior does can be imbued with a practical and urgent sense of unbending focus on our real purpose as human beings-- Freedom.

In my dealings with Carlos and with other men of knowledge, I witnessed events that from a rational point of view I can only call 'extraordinary'.

For sorcerers, however, things like 'remote vision', 'knowledge of events before they happen', or 'journeying to parallel worlds' are normal experiences in the execution of a sorcerer's tasks.

However, as long as we as average human beings are unwilling to verifying this for ourselves, we will inevitably take these things to be fantasies, or simply as metaphors.

That is the nature of sorcerers' knowledge. You can take this knowledge or leave it.

You should not try to reason sorcery out since is not possible to verify it intellectually.

You experience it by exploring the extraordinary possibilities within your being.

- Armando Torres