"The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiantly clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendours of transcendent beauty. . ."We long exceedingly to dwell in this translucent darkness and, through not seeing and not knowing, to see Him who is beyond both vision and knowledge--by the very fact of neither seeing Him nor knowing Him."
Ben wondered at the hobo's being in the group, but remembered that he'd once mistaken Cartwright's teacher for a bag lady, so he wasn't about to judge this guy by his appearance.
"On my way home from Healdsburg this afternoon," Cartwright began, "I met Clarence thumbing a ride on Dry Creek Road." He motioned toward the raggedy man. "When I picked him up, Clarence said he didn't much care where I was going, because he didn't know where he was going. Clarence, it turns out, has lived most of his life in Tennessee where he worked in a shoe factory which went out of business seven years ago when the plant was moved to Mexico. Since then, Clarence has been on the road. He likes California, he says, because of the milder climate. Anyway, welcome, Clarence." He bowed his head momentarily to the vagrant.
"I asked Clarence if he'd be willing to participate in on our session this evening and he kindly consented. What was your experience when you first arrived at the ranch?"
"When I first stepped foot into your house," Clarence began, speaking with a distinctly southern drawl, "the smell of bread baking knocked me for a loop. And thanks to the young lady which was showing me around, I got some of that fresh-baked bread on a ham and cheese sandwich that was mighty tasty." Clarence looked around. "The next thing I noticed was that they was so many books in almost every room. Never seed so many books in my life. Don't know what you all do with so many. Then I noticed some of your strange pictures on the walls. Some of 'em kinda startlin'. Anyhow much obliged for the fine meal you give me and thanks to the young lady who showed me around."
"Clarence, if I were to offer you a choice between a job here at the ranch and two bottles of Jack Daniels, which would you want?"
Clarence, it was clear, was puzzled by Cartwright's question, as he stared at him. "Well, if you don't mind, mister, I'd just as soon take the Jack Daniels. Don't seem like steady work sits too well with me lately. I do day labor whenever I need, but reg'lar jobs don't seem to pan out too good."
"Thank you for participating in our discussion, Clarence," Cartwright stood and shook Clarence's hand, "Brianna will drive you up to Dry Creek dam which you said was where you'd like to go. And she has a back pack with some things in it that might be useful."
Clarence stood and shook Cartwright's hand and looked around at the rest of the group. "Nice meetin' you folks, much obliged for your hospital'ty. They's some fellas up at the dam I done a bit a travelin' with. Reckon we'll chew the fat for a spell."
With that he walked out of the room and onto the porch where Brianna was ready with his back pack filled with new clothes, new shoes, and two bottles of Jack Daniels. She would drive him to the dam.
Cartwright asked the group to face the large viewing screen on the wall.
"William Blake," Cartwright said to the group as they were facing forward, "a Perennialist artist and poet, once said that 'to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.' The major part of your work in studying the Perennial Tradition is to refashion your cognitive faculties so that you can literally see with your heart. You are learning to see people, objects, and events in their eternal aspect." Cartwright activated a document on the screen, explaining it in detail.
"An interesting way for you to practice gaining this higher awareness, is to watch a movie in a state of mind in which you perceive one or more characters in the movie as an illuminated being. For example, watch American Beauty by perceiving Ricky as possessing a higher consciousness and becoming Lester's teacher." Cartwright paused. "Parenthetically, I'd recommend you read the review of American Beauty on our Web site.
"Three additional examples of movies in which you can practice "seeing" in this expanded way:
Cartwright smiled as he looked about the group. "And you can practice by perceiving such a person as Clarence as an enlightened being, whatever his appearance. Reflect on these concepts and practice them."
He stomped out of the room and the group could hear him start his car and leave. Silence enveloped the meeting room.
"Would anyone care to comment?" Cartwright asked the group.
Salik rose. "Having heard this interchange, a sparrow flew over and said to the mole. 'You moles are not worth teaching. I'm offering, at a very reasonable price, instructions in how to fly, and not a single mole has enrolled.'"
Cartwright looked around at the group, soliciting other responses.
One of the persons whom Ben had not met before asked Cartwright, "What is the source of your teaching?"
"If I say it is from inspiration, that would be inexplicable to most people," replied Cartwright. "If I say these are my own concepts, some would concentrate on me as a creative genius and ignore the teachings. If I named my teacher as the source, many people would seek her out and try to make her a celebrity, again disregarding the teachings. The Perennial Tradition maintains that all teachers are one, they vary only in the way they operate."
"But some of us already know who your teacher is," the questioner demurred. "Aren't we in danger of venerating her instead of the teachings? What should we do?"
"You should try to understand that you currently lack the capability necessary to perceive the real meaning of the answers to the questions you ask," Cartwright replied. "Teachers and teachings exist to help people to apply and practice knowledge, not to answer questions or give experiences which will be felt to be satisfying or new."
Ben now asked Cartwright, "How can I refashion my sight to perceive things in their eternal aspect?"
Cartwright suddenly stood up and looked resolutely at Ben. "Open yourself and fashion your being to become clear-visioned. Allow Ultimate Reality to grant you the truth of its essence, an illumination, a mysterious arising of being out of non-being."
Ben's perception was suddenly so heightened and intensified that he perceived everything about him as existing in a different reality. He experienced everything in the room not as something coming to him from the outside, but as a reality appearing, emerging, growing from within as beings released out of the universe into existence. People, objects, and events revealed themselves directly to him. He was deeply moved by awe and remained in a state of reverence so that entities seemed to show themselves to him.
He remained all ears and eyes for the summons of these awe-inspiring phenomena. Ben had no desire to get hold of or possess what he was experiencing with the aid of his intellectual concepts. He sought only to keep himself in the frame of mind appropriate to the revered objects--one which rendered him open to their summons and made his vision clear for their beckonings.
Everyone and everything in the universe, now and for all time, was actually, invisibly in the room-reality with him and the others. Ben remembered reading that Mozart had experiences in which he became aware all at once of an entire composition from beginning to end, above and beyond all representations of temporal sequence.
Ben sensed that there was communication from and interaction with a number of invisible entities in the room. As he looked at everyone in the group, he knew that they were just as they were supposed to be and that each was a part of a Higher Unity. He was flooded by an overwhelming sense of peace and harmony.
From a purely rational perspective, the evening was revolving in a topsy-turvy way, yet Ben could see a higher logic to it. He realized that some in the group were highly advanced in their study, and then it struck him: they communicated with Cartwright and one another through a form of extrasensory transmission which was not precisely what was understood as telepathy, clairvoyance or clairaudience. It was as though everyone participated in an infinite essence in which ideas, feelings, goals, values, and plans were held in common.
"Ben," Cartwright said, "I'd like you to play that tape you made the other evening."
Ben had brought the tape with him as he had been instructed. He got up and put the cassette into the stereo player system so everyone could hear. The group sat listening to what sounded like a gathering of creatures of a lower, atavistic animal form, chortling and guffawing, as though they were brutes sitting around an open fire in the wilderness. Their guttural explosions of excitement and their raucous grunts and whoops were startling in their bestiality.
As the tape ended, Cartwright asked the group, "What would you say that was?"
"Baboons?" asked one of the guests.
"Sounded more like orangutans or chimpanzees," suggested another.
"Gorillas?" someone else guessed.
Cartwright stood and walked toward Rabia. He bowed to her and she ruffled his hair as a mother might her son's. After everyone was seated again, nothing happened--no one spoke or stood up or moved about. This went on for several minutes and some of the guests grew uneasy, looking about the room to see if anyone was going to speak. Ben found it strange that the more advanced students did not look at Cartwright as though expecting him to continue the evening. Several of them had their eyes closed, evidently meditating.
The mysterious state of heightened consciousness which Ben had experienced was waning somewhat and he was moving back toward his ordinary awareness. Strange that he did not resent this return to customary sensibility. He felt that there was some tincture of the previous state that remained as a residue.
Suddenly the lights went out in the room and it was pitch black. Then a lamp with a candle inside appeared out of the darkness, carried by Brianna.
Walt exclaimed, "You pride yourself on being of such an exalted state of sentience that you can see in the dark, why do you carry a lamp?"
Brianna replied immediately, "So ordinary people won't run into me."
Cartwright's voice could then be heard, "The Illuminating Enterprise which operates at all times, is seen by some people only when the light can be contrasted to the dark. It is your work to learn to see all the activities of the Enterprise. To see the light in the light or the dark."
The lights suddenly came back, seeming to flood the room with a brilliance not seen before. Everyone looked around, as if seeing things for the first time as Brianna exhibited the candle-lit lamp in the room's brightness for all to see. The next week, while Ben was busy with research for a new book, Cartwright told Ben that he should re-read Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan and Tales of Power. This rather surprised Ben because it was the first time he had understood Castaneda's exposition of sorcery to have any relationship with the Perennial Tradition. On Friday, Cartwright told Ben to meet with him at 2 PM in his study. This was the first time he had been invited for a private conference and Ben wondered what he might experience.
"Thus far," Cartwright began the private session, "you've been engaged in 'erasing your personal history' by changing your job and moving to Healdsburg. In your apprenticeship with Walt and now in your work as my writing assistant, you're engaged in 'losing self-importance,' 'assuming responsibility,' and
'being inaccessible.' You have had some experience in 'seeing' and at the last teaching sessions you were able to 'stop the world.'
"The sorcery tradition which Castaneda came in touch with is one of the innumerable embodiments of the Perennial Tradition. One of this tradition's basic premises is that the world of everyday life is only one of many descriptions. The Perennial Tradition--sorcery, magic, Hermeticism, Sufism, Gnosticism--teaches us how to stop the ordinary world and 'do' a new world through a different description. We do this by learning to be in the world of the sorcerer--where coyotes talk to humans--and simultaneously be in the ordinary world--where coyotes do not talk to humans. We make sure we do not get stuck exclusively in either world but move freely between them."
Cartwright paused to allow Ben to digest what he had said so far.
"Your next work is to become a warrior, a hunter who seeks to apprehend power. You will train in what is called 'real dreaming' in which you will learn to control every facet of your dreaming experience and gain power. You are going to begin to train in hunting power, first in nature and then in society."
Cartwright asked Ben if he had any questions and Ben was surprised that he felt no need to ask about anything at all.
On Sunday evening, Walt showed up at Ben's apartment unannounced and told Ben to pack for a camping trip they would be taking in Missouri. It would be just Cartwright, Walt, and Ben on the trip and they would be canoeing and camping on the Current River.
After they had settled in their cabins they were served red sassafras tea from freshly-cut roots. Everyone in the group had a specific task and each was busy attending to their chores. At dinner that evening, the entire group gathered around a huge table, with Cartwright at the end. Ben had never tasted morel mushrooms before and he delighted in their earthy flavor. The salad had fresh watercress and home-grown tomatoes. The preparers served roast lamb which was from their own stock. Ben learned from talking with several members of the group that most of them had jobs in the surrounding communities: some were teachers, others computer specialists, and one was a forest ranger. In speaking with Danielle he learned that they raised most of their own food and that each of them participated in butchering.
Early the next morning they ate a hearty breakfast of free-range eggs, thick bacon, and pancakes. Danielle and Jason had loaded their canoe on top of the van and they drove north of Eminence to the spot where the Current River crossed highway 19. The three intrepid voyagers loaded their gear into the canoe and started down the beautiful, clear river glistening in the early morning sunlight.
The symphony of the river's babble and the myriad bird calls added to the beauty of the huge boulders lining the river and the lush growth of trees and shrubs that greeted them at every turn. Walt was in the front with Ben steering in the rear while Cartwright sat water-level in the center. Ben was soon aware that Walt was as proficient as Cartwright in giving him the exact "signals" he needed to keep the canoe on its course and through the challenging twists of the river.
They stopped around noon to eat a lunch of cheese and mixed fruit they had brought. Again, Ben noticed that they didn't carry water, but located spring-fed streams flowing into the river from which they could drink. As the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, they pulled to the left side of the river and carried the canoe into a shrub thicket where the canoe would be out of site. Walt indicated to Ben that they were just above the spot on the river where the Current was joined by Jacks Fork River. The place was called, predictably, Two Rivers. They walked some way from the river where they found a lovely stream and pitched their tents on the earthen shelf just above it. Walt made sure that Ben pitched his tent near an old dead stump. Cartwright and Walt pitched their tents some distance from Ben, so that each one had his own private spot.
Walt cooked T-bone steaks over an open fire, the smoke from the fire permeating the meat, and Ben could not remember when a steak had tasted so appetizing. Walt had also prepared a fresh salad from Miner's lettuce he had found nearby. After they cleaned up the supper area, each of the three wandered off by himself. It was now approaching twilight and Ben walked back toward where his tent was pitched. He sat down to enjoy the spectacle of the forest.
As dusk settled Ben heard the plaintive cry, Whip-Poor-Will, in the distance, the Whippoorwill's haunting vibrato echoing through the woods.
With a rush of wings a Whippoorwill flew onto the old tree stump no farther than ten yards from Ben. It first warbled its usual refrain, but now it was so close Ben could hear the marvelous throbbing tremolo with which the bird begins his song.
To read of a coyote speaking to Castaneda was one thing, to actually experience a bird speaking to him . . . "Thank you," Ben replied.
The bird remained on the stump for several minutes, now silently speaking to Ben in a way that startled Ben by its distinctness within his mind. The Whippoorwill spoke of its love of the river and its joy of the panorama of nature in which it made its home. "We are always so delighted when humans come here who can communicate with us," the bird spoke aloud. "Blessings."
The Whippoorwill then flew off toward Cartwright's tent, glancing back at Ben.
When Ben arrived at Cartwright's estate the next Thursday evening and entered the meeting room, he was surprised to see
Walt sitting among the circle of people. This was the first time he'd seen Walt at a teaching session. There were a number of new faces, just a sprinkling of those familiar to Ben. To Ben's disappointment, Joan was not present. He was somewhat startled to see a man in ragged clothes sitting with the rest of the group. His shoes were so worn that Ben wondered how he walked in them. He had a bit of rope instead of a belt and his jacket was several sizes too big for him and spotted with dirt. The ravages of time were deeply etched in the man's face, giving him the appearance of a snapshot from the 1930s Depression.
Movie
Interpretation
Resurrection
Esco invisibly heals Edna and transmits to her the
power to heal. Edna learns through experience that healing is best
accomplished invisibly, without crowds sounding praise and without
the persons being healed knowing they are being healed.
Being There
An enlightened being studies human life by watching
TV, moving through events invisibly to attain a position in which he
can contribute to human evolution.
Nobody's Fool
Paul Newman's character is an enlightened being from the beginning of the movie.
He hardly had time to finish his sentence when Walt leapt from his seat and began speaking in an angry tone. "You humiliated that bum by getting him to make a stupid choice, just so you could make sport of him. And I notice that you've allowed some big shots to attend this session. I can foresee that this evening you'll put some of these big shots through some inane test which they'll fail, you'll humiliate them, and then send them on their way just like usual. These people obviously don't have any real awareness of what you're doing, they're just greedy for some sense of personal importance, and you're trying to beat a dead horse. All that can result is their being humiliated, your wasting our time, and these phony students here feeling ego-satisfaction at being so superior to the morons you've make a fool of. I for one," he scowled, "will not sit here and be a party to this fiasco." 
Brianna had returned from driving the shabbily-dressed man. She was evidently going to a formal affair after the meeting, since she was dressed fit to kill. She began speaking as soon as she entered the room. "A mole and a raven were conversing one day. The mole said, 'How wonderful that you can fly through the air!" The raven replied, 'To a raven what would seem remarkable is a raven who couldn't fly.'" She took her seat again. 
Cartwright then asked Ben to explain the source of the tape. It had been an incredible evening in which Cartwright had suddenly appeared at Ben's apartment and said that they were going to a movie together. Ben explained that they had driven to a movie theater in Santa Rosa where they had seen a movie about a Mafia hit man. The movie celebrated the Mafia murderer's exploits and presented him as a likeable buffoon. Cartwright had told Ben to bring a small tape recorder and they had sat in back of the theater recording the audience's reactions. Even at the time, the sounds of the movie audience had sounded to Ben as an atavistic form of human life so startling that he had shaken his head in amazement. Cartwright had actually pounded his chest and made a gorilla-like "woof woof" noise and the audience had joined in as though this was a natural response to what they were seeing in the movie. 
As the group was mulling over this strange auditory experience, Rabia entered the room. Behind her was Walt. Evidently Walt had driven her from the Santa Rosa airport. Walt's earlier departure had been his part in the "symphony" of the teaching session.
They flew to St. Louis Monday morning where they were met by a guy and a gal who appeared to be students of Cartwright. They introduced themselves as Danielle and Jason. They loaded their gear into a van and started west on highway I-44, then U.S. 68 at St. James and finally U.S. 19 south till they reached a small hamlet named Eminence. Just outside the town they came to a rural retreat where a group of about two dozen of Cartwright's students lived and worked. The beautiful main lodge was built of logs and was surrounded by a variety of trees, with a small stream running nearby. 
The bird, his silent grey eyes looking intently at Ben, spoke in a voice
filled with the echoes of the hills: "Welcome."
