The Eagle's Gift: Part SEP: Chapter SEP 5 - The First Ring Of Power Can Be Stopped By A Functional Blocking Of The Capability Of Building Skimmings.

The Eagle's Gift. ©1982 by Carlos Castaneda.

Part S.E.P.: Chapter S.E.P. 5 - The First Ring Of Power Can Be Stopped By A Functional Blocking Of The Capability Of Building Skimmings.

Don Juan used to say that the function of the "not-doings" is to create an obstruction in the usual focus of our first attention. The not-doings are, in this sense, maneuvers destined to prepare the first attention for the functional blocking of the first ring of power, or, in other words, for the interruption of intent.

Don Juan explained to me that this functional blocking, which is the only method to systematically use the latent capability of the first ring of power, represents a temporal interruption that the benefactor creates in the disciple's capability for building skimmings. It is a premeditated and powerful artificial intrusion into the first attention in order to push it beyond the appearances which the known skimmings present to us. This intrusion is accomplished by interrupting the intent of the first ring of power.

Don Juan used to say that in order to achieve this interruption, the benefactor treats intent as what it really is- a flux; a current of energy that can eventually be stopped or reoriented. An interruption of this nature, however, implies a commotion of such magnitude that can force the first ring of power to stop fully; a situation which is impossible to conceive under our normal life conditions. It is unthinkable to us that we can un-walk the steps we took when we consolidated our perception, but it is feasible that under the impact of this interruption we could place ourselves in a perceptual position very similar to the one of our beginnings when the Eagle's commands were emanations which we still had not imbued with significance.

Don Juan used to say that any procedure the benefactor could use to create this interruption must be intimately linked with his personal power. Therefore, a benefactor does not use any process to handle intent, but rather moves it and makes it available to the apprentice trough his personal power. In my case, Don Juan achieved the functional blocking of my first ring of power through a complex process which combined three methods. (1) my ingestion of hallucinogenic plants, (2) the manipulation of my body, and (3) his maneuvering with intent itself.

In the beginning Don Juan relied strongly upon the ingestion of hallucinogenic plants- apparently due to the persistence of my rational side. The effect was tremendous, and yet retarded the sought for interruption. The fact that I viewed the plants as hallucinogenic offered my reason the perfect justification to congregate all of its available resources to continue exerting control.

I was at that time convinced that I could logically explain anything that I was experiencing including the inconceivable feats that Don Juan and Don Genaro used to do to create the interruptions. I explained the interruptions as perceptual distortions caused by the ingestion of hallucinogenics.

Don Juan used to say that the most remarkable effect of the hallucinogenic plants every time I ingested them was something that I interpreted as the peculiar feeling that everything around me oozed a surprising richness. There were colors, forms, details that I had never beheld before. Don Juan used this increment in my ability to perceive, and through a series of commands and comments used to force me to enter a state of nervous restlessness.

Afterwards he manipulated my body and made me shift from one side of awareness to the other until I had created phantasmagorical visions or absolutely real scenes with three-dimensional creatures that could not possibly exist in this world.

Don Juan explained to me that when the direct relation between intent and our constructed skimmings is broken, it cannot ever be repaired. From that moment on we acquire the ability to catch a current of what he described as "phantom intent"; or the intent of the skimmings which are not present at the moment or place of the interruption. This is to say that intent is put at our disposal through some aspect of our memory of the breaking.

Don Juan asserted that with the interruption of the intent of the first ring of power we become receptive and mold-able. A nagual can then introduce the intent of the second ring of power.

Don Juan was convinced that children of a certain age find themselves in a similar situation of receptivity. Being deprived of intent, they are ready to be imprinted with any intent which is available to the teachers who surround them.

After my period of continuous ingestion of hallucinogenic plants, Don Juan totally discontinued its use. However, he obtained new and more dramatic interruptions in me by manipulating my body, and making me shift states of awareness, combining all this with maneuvers with intent itself. Through a combination of mesmerizing instructions and adequate comments, Don Juan created a current of "phantom intent" and I was lead to experience common skimmings as something unimaginable. He conceptualized all this as "glancing into the immensity of the Eagle".

Don Juan masterfully lead me through countless interruptions of intent until he was convinced, as a seer, that my body showed the effects of the functional blocking of the first ring of power. He said that he could see a unusual activity around the area of the shoulder blades. He described it as a little hole that had formed exactly as if the luminosity was a muscular layer contracted by a nerve.

To me, the effect of the functional blocking of the first ring of power was that it managed to erase the certainty which I had all my life that what my senses reported was "real". Quietly I entered a state of inner silence.

Don Juan used to say that what gives warriors the extreme uncertainty that his benefactor had experienced at the end of his life- that resignation to failure that don Juan himself was living- is the fact that one glance into the immensity of the Eagle leaves one without hope. Hope is the result of our familiarity with skimmings and the idea that we control them.

In such moments only the warrior's way of life can help us to persevere in our efforts to discover that which the Eagle has concealed from us; to persevere in our efforts without hope that we can get to understand what we discover.