THE FIRST SERIES
The Series for Preparing Intent
Don Juan Matus stated that human beings as organisms perform a stupendous
maneuver of perception which, unfortunately, creates a misconception, a
false front; they take the influx of sheer energy in the universe at large
and turn it into sensory data, which they interpret according to a strict
system of interpretation that sorcerers call the human form. This
magical act of interpreting pure energy gives rise to the misconception,
the peculiar conviction of human beings that their interpretation system
is all that exists.
Don Juan elucidated this phenomenon with an example. He said that tree,
as tree is known to human beings, is more interpretation
than perception. He pointed out that for human beings to establish the
presence of tree, all they need is a cursory glance that tells them
hardly anything. The rest is a phenomenon which he described as the calling
of intent, the intent of tree; that is to say, the interpretation
of sensory data pertaining to the specific phenomenon that human beings
call tree. He declared that the entire world of human beings, just
as in this example, is composed of an endless repertoire of interpretations
where human senses play a minimal role. In other words, only the visual
sense touches the energy influx which comes from the universe at large,
and it does so only in a cursory fashion.
He maintained that the majority of the perceptual activity of human beings
is interpretation, and that human beings are the kind of organisms that
need only a minimal input of pure perception in order to create their world;
or, that they perceive only enough to trigger their interpretation system.
The example that don Juan liked the best was the way in which he said we
construct, by intending, something as overwhelming and as crucial
as the White House. He called the White House the site of power of today's
world, the center of all our endeavors, hopes, fears, and so on, as a global
conglomerate of human beings—for all practical purposes, the capital of
the civilized world. He said that all this wasn't in the realm of the abstract,
or even in the realm of our minds, but in the realm of intending,
because from the point of view of our sensory input, the White House was
a building that in no way had the richness, the scope, the depth of the
concept of the White House. He added that from the point of view of the
input of sensory data, the White House, like everything else in our world,
was cursorily apprehended with our visual senses only; our tactile, olfactory,
auditory, and taste senses were not engaged in any way. The interpretation
that those senses could make of sensory data in relation to the building
where the White House is would have no meaning whatsoever.
The question that don Juan asked as a sorcerer was where the White House
was. He said, answering his own question, that it was certainly not in
our perception, not even in our thoughts, but in a special realm of intending,
where it was nurtured with everything pertinent to it. Don Juan's assertion
was that to create a total universe of intending in such a manner
was our magic.
Since the theme of the first series of Tensegrity is preparing the practitioners
for intending, it's important to review the sorcerers' definition
of intending. For don Juan, intending was the tacit act of
filling out the empty spaces left by direct sensory perception, or the
act of enriching the observable phenomena by means of intending a
completeness that doesn't exist from the point of view of pure perception.
The act of intending this completeness was referred to by don Juan
as calling intent. Everything he explained about intent pointed
to the fact that the act of intending is not in the realm
of the physical. In other words, it is not part of the physicality of the
brain or any other organ. Intent, for don Juan, transcended the
world we know. It is something like an energetic wave, a beam of energy
which attaches itself to us.
Because of the extrinsic nature of intent, don Juan made a distinction
between the body as part of the cognition of everyday life and the body
as an energetic unit which was not part of that cognition. This energetic
unit included the unseen parts of the body, such as the internal organs,
and the energy that flowed through them. Don Juan asserted that it was
with this part that energy could be directly perceived.
He pointed out that because of the predominance of sight in our habitual
way of perceiving the world, the shamans of ancient Mexico described the
act of directly apprehending energy as seeing. For them to perceive
energy as it flowed in the universe meant that energy adopted nonidiosyncratic,
specific configurations that repeated themselves consistently, and that
those configurations could be perceived in the same terms by anyone who
saw.
The most important example don Juan Matus could give of this consistency
of energy in adopting specific configurations was the perception of the
human body when it was seen directly as energy. As it was already
said, shamans like don Juan perceive a human being as a conglomerate of
energy fields that gives the total impression of a clear-cut sphere of
luminosity. Taken in this sense, energy is described by shamans as a vibration
that agglutinates itself into cohesive units. Shamans describe the entire
universe as being composed of energy configurations that appear to the
seeing eye as filaments, or luminous fibers that are strung in every
which way without ever being entangled. This is an incomprehensible proposition
for the linear mind. It has a built-in contradiction that can't be resolved:
How could those fibers extend themselves every which way and yet not be
entangled?
Don Juan emphasized the point that shamans were able only to describe events,
and that if their terms of description seemed inadequate and contradictory,
it was because of the limitations of syntax. Yet their descriptions were
as strict as anything could be.
The shamans of ancient Mexico, according to don Juan, described intent
as a perennial force that permeates the entire universe—a force that
is aware of itself to the point of responding to the beckoning or to the
command of shamans. By means of intent, those shamans were capable
of unleashing not only all the human possibilities of perceiving, but all
the human possibilities of action. Through intent, they realized
the most far-fetched formulations.
Don Juan taught me that the limit of man's capability of perceiving is
called the band of man, meaning that there is a boundary that marks
human capabilities as dictated by the human organism. These boundaries
are not merely the traditional boundaries of orderly thought, but the boundaries
of the totality of resources locked within the human organism. Don Juan
believed that these resources are never used, but are kept in situ by preconceived
ideas about human limitations, limitations that have nothing to do with
actual human potential.
Don Juan stated, as categorically as he was able to, that since perceiving
energy as it flows in the universe is not arbitrary or idiosyncratic, seers
witness formulations of energy that happen by themselves and are not molded
by human interference. Thus, the perception of such formulations is, in
itself and by itself, the key that releases the locked-in human potential
that ordinarily has never entered into play. In order to elicit the perception
of those energetic formulations, the totality of human capabilities to
perceive has to be engaged.
The Series for Preparing Intent is divided into four groups.
The first is called Mashing Energy for Intent. The second is called
Stirring up Energy for Intent. The third group is called Gathering Energy
for Intent, and the fourth group is called Breathing In the Energy
of Intent.
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