Carlos Castaneda

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Question:

Don Juan Matus describes the world as being predatory in nature, which
is at variance to perhaps all other mystical, shamanic and esoteric
traditions. Can you comment on this?



Answer:

In the tradition of the sorcerers to which don Juan belongs, it is
maintained that the universe is predatorial in nature. For sorcerers,
this is not a matter of speculation or of metaphorical predilection -
they know for a fact that it is predatorial. Throughout the ages they
have described the condition of man, which is about the bleakest
description we know. As time goes by, this description gains more and
more ground. Sorcerers say that just as we keep chickens, or gallinas in
Spanish, in a coop, or a gallinero, some entities that come from a
universe of awareness keep us in human coops. Sorcerers make a joke and
say that those entities, which they call flyers, or voladores, keep us
human beings, or seres humanos, cooped up in humaneros.



The flyers of the sorcerers' tradition are black shadows that we
sometimes detect and explain away as floaters in the retina. Sorcerers
know for a fact, by means of their capacity to see energy directly, that
those shadows are predatorial and that they keep us alive in order to
devour our awareness. Sorcerers say that our awareness is like a sheen
around our total field of energy that looks to them like a luminous
ball. To them, this sheen of awareness is like a plastic cover that
would make the luminous ball shine even more if it were not for the fact
that it has been eaten away down to the level of our heels.



Here is where the sorcerers description gets very disturbing to us;
sorcerers say that the only sheen of awareness left in us by our eaters
is the awareness of self-reflection. Therefore, all we are left with is
the concern with me, myself and I. In our personal lives we have
corroborated that the only force left in the immediate world around us
is the force of self-importance, which comes disguised in the form of
humility, compassion, altruism, kindness, you name it.



This sorcerer's description is of course our ultimate nemesis; we don't
want to believe that we are being raised for food. In this sense,
naturally, the sorcerers' tradition is at total variance with any other
kind of spiritual tradition. Sorcerers say, and believe me, not out of
cynicism, that every ideal we deal with in terms of spiritual
traditions, religions, etc, is a device concocted by the flyers to keep
us in a lull. Imagine our disquietude upon examining, weighing and
pondering this proposition.



Question:

What is the 'jump for freedom' and what is 'death' to those people who have not made this 'jump'?



Answer:

We understand that the jump to freedom is equivalent to evolving in a
premeditated way. For sorcerers, the natural reason for our lives, aside
from being eaten by the flyers, is to fend off our attackers in order
to allow our awareness to grow to its full capacity. To complete this
task is an evolutionary step which sorcerers call the jump to freedom.
We haven't reached that state so we truly don't know what it means.



Your question of what death is to people who have not made this jump can
be answered by sorcerers very simply by telling you that people who do
not allow the regrowth of awareness die by being eaten by the flyers.