Chapter 4: The Descent of the Spirit (Moving the Assemblage Point) Summary and Analysis

Don Juan and Carlos return to the mountains a few days later. Don Juan quizzes Carlos on the nature of ruthlessness, but Carlos cannot recall what he knows. He emphasizes that the first principle of sorcery is not moving the assemblage point, although it happens first. It is the ruthlessness of sorcery. Ruthlessness requires the banishment of doubt from the mind, which then makes anything possible.

Carlos is reminded of a surgical operation he saw in Mexico City, performed by a famous psychic healer. He tells don Juan about the experience of watching the healer remove a man's diseased liver, wash it in a bucket of alcohol and then replace it. Carlos was skeptical that there was a sleight of hand. Yet the...