Shamans like don Juan Matus defined their quest as the quest of becoming, in the end, an inorganic being, meaning energy aware of itself, action as a cohesive unit, but without an organism. They called this aspect of their cognition total freedom, a state in which awareness exists, free from the impositions of socialization and syntax. ~ Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Don Miguel Ruiz calls them parasites, Susan Gregg calls them angels, fairies and gnomes, Ekhardt Tolle calls them “the pain body”, and others call them walk-ins, manifestations of dreams or fears, abstract forces or spirits.

They can be all of the above, except angels, fairies and gnomes which is merely an attempt at fixating the attention on something that cannot be labeled, only experienced. They reside in a realm, according to Castaneda, that exists outside of our own. They are only interested in energy.

Since a warrior’s purpose is to save energy, the inorganic beings are especially attracted to them as a resource. In the ordinary world the inorganic being manifests themselves in different (normal) shapes and happenings, sometimes as people. According to don Juan, one can learn a great deal by observing them in form, should they so choose to present themselves in this manner.

Opportunities to experience inorganic beings have presented themselves to me many times and I blow them off more often than not. If they are insistent then I voice to them loudly and clearly, “go away, there is nothing for you here” and they leave.

The most vivid experience with them was extremely frightening. One hot summer day many years ago, a sorcerer and I were walking through the Bacatete foothills of a small town in Sonora, Mexico. We were “exploring” an area that had been mentioned as a place of power in Taisha Abelar’s book The Sorcerer’s Crossing. Walking amongst the rocks and scrub brush through a dry arroyo in nearly 100 degree heat a noise rose above the sound of the cicadas. It was the type of noise that one may hear coming from a large crowd of people quite a distance away but it wasn’t a distance away, it was all around me.

Typically not one to panic or give in to fear, the hair on my arms stood up and I froze on the spot. Swallowing hard, I slowly turned my head all around to see the entities that my seeing allowed me to be aware of. My physical eyes couldn’t focus on a thing but I knew I was being watched and talked about, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Calling out to my compañero, he acknowledged me, without looking up or missing a step and said, “ignore them and do not fear them, to do so will be to feed them.” It was too late, they had gotten a fierce hold of me and my fear mounted.

Walking quickly to the car gave me a false sense of security. My companion joined me there and we briefly and in hushed tones acknowledged the presence of so many inorganic beings noting that Taisha’s accounts had been very correct. We were thrilled to be connecting with her tale of power and noticed someone coming from the distance at the top of a small hill. It was a tall thin man walking beside a burro. After a while staring at them we realized that they were not getting closer in spite of the fact that they never stopped moving forward. They had, as don Juan had once described, the shape of the flame of a candle and were translucent and appeared to look like they were engulfed in the wiggly energy lines that rise up from the road during intense heat, like a mirage.

Against our better judgment, we made a power deal with the one who had energetically approached us. Though the details are unimportant, the opportunity to validate our experience at this level with the accounts written by the sorcerers in don Juan’s party was unparalleled. A lot of disruption which ultimately led to positive change for many in our group occurred as a result of this power deal. This inorganic being is still a part of our group and only time will tell what will happen with it.

The old sorcerers faced this problem of coexistence without concerning themselves with time and space. They reasoned that the degree of awareness of organic beings and the degree of awareness of inorganic beings were so different that both could coexist with the most minimal interference.

The inorganic being’s essence is impersonal energy aware of itself. This is not necessarily easy to conceptualize. A crucial mistake amongst the old sorcerers, don Juan said, was to attribute human characteristics to this type of inorganic being and to believe that it could be harnessed and put to use as energetic helpers. He went on to tell Carlos that the only way you can put this to the test is by means of direct experience.

My experiences have led me to the realization that inorganic being are awareness. Perhaps an awareness that once lived as an organic being, even as a human being. It is conceivable to me that the inorganic being we met in the desert was a human being at one point in time and wished to immerse itself in a human realm again, for a while. It appeared to us, in the distance, as a human, as though it took the form that we were most familiar with. Kind of like Jodi Foster’s father in the movie Contact, after she goes through the wormhole and winds up on the “beach” in a distant galaxy.

I like to believe that some inorganic beings were, at one time, sorcerers, or people of awareness. That they lived their lives impeccably and “darted past the eagle to be free.” That they did, as Carlos said: “… defined their quest as the quest of becoming, in the end, an inorganic being, meaning energy aware of itself, action as a cohesive unit, but without an organism. They called this aspect of their cognition total freedom, a state in which awareness exists, free from the impositions of socialization and syntax.”