the sorcerers' crossing

The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman's Journey - 1992 by Taisha Abelar

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Foreword by Carlos Castaneda

Taisha Abelar is one of a group of three women that were deliberately trained by
some sorcerers from Mexico; under the guidance of Don Juan Matus. I have written
at length about my own training under him, but I have never written anything about
this specific group, of which Taisha Abelar is a member. It was a tacit agreement
among all of those who were under don Juan's tutelage that nothing should be said
about them. For over twenty years we have upheld this agreement. Even though we
have worked and lived in close proximity, never have we talked with one another
about our personal experiences. In fact, never had there been an opportunity even
to exchange our views about what specifically don Juan or the sorcerers of his
group did to each one of us. And such a condition was not contingent upon don
Juan's presence. After he and his group left the world, we continued to adhere to
it, simply because we had no desire to use our energy to review any previous
agreements. All our available time and energy was employed in validating for
ourselves what don Juan had so painstakingly taught us. Don Juan had taught us
sorcery as a pragmatic endeavor by means of which any of us can directly perceive
energy. He had maintained that in order to perceive energy in such a fashion, we
need freedom from our normal capacity to perceive. To free ourselves and directly
perceive energy was a task that took all we had. It is a sorcerer's idea that the
parameters of our normal perception have been imposed upon us as part of our
socialization, not quite arbitrarily, but laid down mandatorily nonetheless. One
aspect of these obligatory parameters is an interpretation system which processes
sensory data into meaningful units; and renders the social order as a structure of
interpretation.

Our normal functioning within the social order requires a blind and faithful
adherence to all its precepts; none of which call for the possibility of directly
perceiving energy. For example, don Juan maintained that it is possible to
perceive human beings as fields of energy; like huge, oblong, whitish luminous
eggs. In order to accomplish the feat of heightening our perception, we need
internal energy. Thus, the problem of making internal energy available to fulfill
such a task becomes the key issue for students of sorcery. Circumstances proper to
our time and place have made it possible now for Taisha Abelar to write about her
training, which was the same as mine, and yet thoroughly different. The writing
took her a long time, because, first, she had to avail herself of the sorcery
means to write. Don Juan Matus himself gave me the task of writing about his
sorcery knowledge; and he himself set the mood of this by saying, "Don't write
like a writer, but like a sorcerer." He meant that I had to do it in a state of
enhanced awareness which sorcerers call 'dreaming.' It took Taisha Abelar many
years to perfect her dreaming to the point of making it the sorcery means to
write. In don Juan's world, sorcerers, depending on their basic temperaments, were
divided into two complementary factions: 'dreamers' and 'stalkers'. Dreamers are
those sorcerers who have the inherent facility to enter into states of heightened
awareness by controlling their dreams. This facility is developed through training
into an art: the art of dreaming. Stalkers, on the other hand, are those sorcerers
who have the innate facility to deal with facts and are capable of entering states
of heightened awareness by manipulating and controlling their own behavior.
Through sorcery training, this natural capability is turned into the art of
stalking. Although everybody in don Juan's party of sorcerers had a complete
knowledge of both arts, they were arranged in one faction or the other. Taisha
Abelar was grouped with the stalkers and trained by them. Her book bears the mark
of her stupendous training as a stalker. Preface

I have devoted my life to the practice of a rigorous discipline which for lack of
a more suitable name we have called sorcery. I am also an anthropologist, having
received my Ph.D. in that field of study. I mention my two areas of expertise in
this particular order because my involvement with sorcery came first. Usually, one
becomes an anthropologist and then one does fieldwork on an aspect of culture- for
example, the study of sorcery practices. With me, it happened the other way
around: as a student of sorcery I went to study anthropology.

In the late sixties, while I was living in Tucson, Arizona, I met a Mexican woman
by the name of Clara Grau, who invited me to stay in her house in the state of
Sonora, Mexico. There, she did her utmost to usher me into her world. Clara Grau
was a sorceress; part of a cohesive group of sixteen sorcerers. Some of them were
Yaqui Indians; others were Mexicans of various origins and backgrounds, ages and
sexes. Most were women. All of them pursued, single-heartedly, the same goal:
breaking the perceptual dispositions and biases that imprison us within the
boundaries of the normal everyday world and prevent us from entering other
perceivable worlds. For sorcerers, to break such perceptual dispositions enables
one to cross a barrier and leap into the unimaginable. They call such a leap "the
sorcerers' crossing." Sometimes they refer to it as 'the abstract flight,' because
it entails soaring from the side of the concrete; the physical, to the side of
expanded perception and impersonal abstract forms. These sorcerers were interested
in helping me accomplish this abstract flight so that I could join them in their
basic endeavors. For me, academic training became an integral part of my
preparation for the sorcerers' crossing. The leader, or 'nagual' as he is called,
of the sorcerers' group with whom I am associated, is a person with a keen
interest in formal academic erudition. Hence, all those under his care were
encouraged to develop their capacity for the abstract, clear thinking that he
acquired in a modern university.

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