The Dark Side

 

From The Power of Silence, by Carlos Castaneda

Don Juan asked Tulio uno how they had called intent. Tulio uno explained that the stalkers called intent loudly. Usually intent was called from within a small dark isolated room. A candle was placed on a black table, with a flame just a few inches before the eyes, then the word “intent” was voiced slowly, enunciated clearly and deliberately as many times as one felt was needed. The pitch of the voice rose or fell without any thought. Tulio stressed that the indispensable part of calling intent was a total concentration on what was intended. In their case, the concentration was on their homogeneity and on Tulio’s appearance. After they had been fused by intent it still took them a couple of years to build up the certainty that their homogeneity in Tulio’s appearance would be reality to the onlookers. I asked don Juan what he thought of their way of calling intent, and he said that his benefactor, like the nagual Elias, was a bit more  given to ritual than he himself was, therefore they preferred paraphernalia such as candles, dark closets and black tables.

I casually remarked that I was terribly attracted to ritual behavior myself. Ritual seemed to me essential in focusing one’s attention.
Don Juan took my remark seriously. He said that he had seen that my body, as an energy field, had a feature which he knew that all the sorcerers of ancient times have had and avidly sought in others: a bright area in the lower left side of the luminous cocoon. That brightness was associated with resourcefulness and a bent toward morbidity. The dark sorcerers of ancient times took pleasure in harnessing that coveted feature and attaching it to man’s dark side

– Then there is an evil side to man - I said, jubilantly - You always deny it; you always say that evil doesn’t exist and that only power exists

I surprised myself with this outburst. In one instant all my Catholic background was brought to bear on me and the prince of darkness loomed larger than life. Don Juan laughed until he was coughing.

– Of course, there is a dark side to us - he said - we kill wantonly, don’t we? In the name of God we destroy ourselves, we obliterate life on this planet, we destroy the Earth, and then we dress in robes and the Lord speaks directly to us. And what does the Lord tell us? He says that we should be good boys or he is going to punish us. The Lord has been threatening us for centuries, and it doesn’t make any difference. Not because we are evil, but because we are dumb.

Man has a dark side, yes, and it’s called stupidity.