What happens next is that all three of them spends some conciderable time looking for Castanedas car, and finally it ends up under don Genaros hat. The purpose of this whole charade was to learn Castaneda to see. He didn't, however.

There seem to be some confusion regarding the nature of this event; did Castanedas car really dissapear, or was he somehow tricked (hypnotized, brought into dreaming etc) into thinking and believing it was gone?

Both explanations are wrong, and at the same time they are also right. The castanedian explanation is as follows: What is demonstrated is the most common position of the assemblage point used by shamans. When a shift or movement of the assemblage point takes place, the change of reality percieved is a de facto change of reality. Castanedas assemblage point was moved to this location, and in the resulting world, the shamans world, it was nothing for don Genaro to remove Castanedas car. Such events are described by other sources, regarding contact with shamans, mystics, healers and magicians.

So what happened is that Castaneda was transported to another world, which was really our world, only that slightly different rules apply. This was the result of a movement of his assemblage point to another position. The car did dissapear, but on the other hand, so did Castanedas 'normal perception' of the world. Was he tricked?

Events like this can not be understood without the idea of the assemblage point, and in this lies the solution to the riddle...