"Well, they're doing so many different things. You know, when you teach them, what you really teach is about themselves. And everybody is completely different. Then, what they do is to have a way of life that makes them happy. Just a few of them try to be teachers. But many others, they are artists, they paint and they draw beautiful art.

"The other kind of artists are the actors. There are medical doctors, lawyers, engineers. They are all kinds of people, and what they are doing, they keep going with their life in their way, but with awareness. Now they know what they are doing, and they do it with a purpose. And mainly the purpose that they have is about giving. It's no longer to receive. That becomes secondary. And by giving they are receiving much more than they give."  I wondered how this was accomplished. "What is the Sixth Sun Center?"

"It was created because of the need that we had to go to the next level of Dreaming. To have a place specifically where they have a place to sit in a chair, to go into Dreaming, and see their confirmation. This is a very intense work that they do.

"All that started eight years ago, on my last journey to Egypt. Then one of my apprentices, Dr. Sheri Rosenthal, she insisted that I teach Dreaming. So I told her no. But she was insisting, and I said, 'Okay, let's make a deal. Get forty people who would really want it so bad that they agree for a whole year not to fail one Dreaming. If you can do that, I will teach Dreaming."

"When I told her that, I didn't think that she could get even five people who would really commit themselves. And she came back to me with much more than forty people. To my surprise, they did it.”

"In Castaneda," I said, "I think he hooked his audience in the early '70s with tales of psychotropic plants and also with tales of miraculous events. Y'know, Don Juan disappeared Carlos's car under a hat, and..."
"Those were real stories."

"My question is, are they metaphorical or are they..."  "Okay, this is a great question for don Carlos. But I can make an assumption that, yes, that was real. And, yes, they are metaphoric, but they are real at the same time. Like, in front of my apprentices, I perform so many miracles."

"Describe one, please."

"Well, for example, I took like forty people to Peru. We were in Machu Picchu, at the very top. It was during the night. We were outside, just relaxing. There were around twenty people with me at that time. The night was very clear. Crystal clear. You could see far away. I told them, 'What would you guys think if in less than one minute the whole environment becomes covered by fog, so that you cannot see anything?'

"They said, 'Well, that would be cool.' That's what they said.  "And when I said that, you could see from the mountains the fog coming. In less than one minute it was so dense we could not see each other. And then, when we were like that, I told them, 'And now, what would you guys think if in less than one minute the fog just dissipates?' And as soon as I said that, the fog started going away. You saw it going away, and the night was as clear as in the beginning. And if you ask me how I did that, the answer is, I have no idea."

"How does Toltec Dreaming differ from normal dreaming?"

"Awareness, that is the difference. You know, we live in a world with six billion people. And those people are not aware that they're dreaming. They're born, they grow up, they get old, they die, and they didn't know that their whole life was just a dream. Once you are aware, you find out that it isn't exactly true that life has all the power over you."

I had read about a Toltec technique called "The Art of Stalking." I thought of it as using the attitude of a hunter to analyze and master your own will. I asked Don Miguel to describe it.

"Well, once you have awareness, and once you master transformation, then you find out that you have control over every single belief that exists in your head. You can choose every action, and by choosing the action, you can see the possible reaction. Then you see that your whole life you were victimized by your beliefs. You find that you have an advantage over the rest of the people because you are no longer naive."

"You mean you track down your misconceptions and change them?"  "Oh, definitely. Yes."

In the Castaneda books, one becomes a sorcerer by capturing an "ally spirit." The way it's described, it's like capturing a demon and taming it, putting it to work for you. But in reading other Toltec writings, and about other disciplines, I'd come to believe it meant getting a handle on the lousy attitudes that ruin our lives: greed, lust, vanity, all that stuff.
"I wanted to ask you about the ally spirits. I think they're a metaphor for what in our culture we call neuroses."

"Uh-huh."

"And also they're a metaphor for archetypes. I wanted to know if you think that surmise is correct."

"You know, there's a lot of what I call inorganic beings that exist. And they are in many ways available to us. All that comes from emotions, concepts, beliefs. If you see in your brain, it's full of information, but it's information that doesn't exist in the material world. It's a kind of energy that you can't touch, you can't measure, you can't weigh it. It will not survive the scientific method. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You hear so many voices in your head. Who are you talking to? Who is talking to you? And all that is not matter, but exists."
"Because it has effects?"

"Exactly. It exists and makes you act in certain ways. Okay, then, with imagination, we try to express the existence of this kind of life to everybody. We can draw them, or whatever, whatever our imagination says they look like. It's not exactly true, but those things exist."

Don Miguel told me that the only way to experience what he was talking about was to go with him to Teotihuacán, an ancient city, ruined and being rebuilt by the Mexicans, about thirty miles northeast of Mexico City. He and his second son, Jose Luis, were leading a group there in a week. The five-day trip was already full, but he would give his assistants directions to make a place for me.

Before we left I wanted to interview his son, Jose Luis.

To Be Continued...

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After careers as a professional soldier, war correspondent, magazine and book editor, novelist, non-fiction writer and television producer Jim Morris has turned his attention to esoteric subjects. He is a member of the Special Operations Association and the Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri.  Questions or comments for Jim, email: gymmo@earthlink.net.