Intending the movement of the assemblage point is a great accomplishment. But accomplishment is something personal. It's necessary, but it's not the important part. It is not the residue sorcerers look forward to. The idea of the abstract, the spirit, is the only residue that is important. The idea of the personal self has no value whatsoever. Every time I've had the chance, I have made you aware of the need to abstract. You have always believed that I meant to think abstractly. No. To abstract means to make yourself available to the spirit by being aware of it.
One of the most dramatic things about the human condition is the macabre connection between stupidity and self-reflection.
It is stupidity that forces us to discard anything that does not conform with our self-reflective expectations. For example, as average men, we are blind to the most crucial piece of knowledge available to a human being: the existence of the assemblage point and the fact that it can move.
For a rational man it's unthinkable that there should be an invisible point where perception is assembled.
For the rational man to hold steadfastly to his self-image insures his abysmal ignorance. He ignores, for instance, the fact that sorcery is not incantations and hocus-pocus, but the freedom to perceive not only the world taken for granted, but everything else that is humanly possible.
Here is where the average man's stupidity is most dangerous; he is afraid of sorcery. He trembles at the possibility of freedom. And freedom is at his fingertips. It's called the third point. And it can be reached as easily as the assemblage point can be made to move.
This is another of the sorcerers' contradictions: it's very difficult and yet it's the simplest thing in the world. I've told you already that a high fever could move the assemblage point. Hunger or fear or love or hate could do it; mysticism too, and also unbending intent, which is the preferred method of sorcerers.
Unbending intent is a sort of single-mindedness human beings exhibit; an extremely well-defined purpose not countermanded by any conflicting interests or desires; unbending intent is also the force engendered when the assemblage point is maintained fixed in a position which is not the usual one.
The distinction between a movement and a shift of the assemblage point is that a movement is a profound change of position, so extreme that the assemblage point might even reach other bands of energy within our total luminous mass of energy fields. Each band of energy represents a completely different universe to be perceived. A shift, however, is a small movement within the band of energy fields we perceive as the world of everyday life.
Sorcerers see unbending intent as the catalyst to trigger their unchangeable decisions, or as the converse: their unchangeable decisions are the catalyst that propels their assemblage points to new positions, positions which in turn generate unbending intent.
Trying to reason out the sorcerers' metaphorical descriptions is as useless as trying to reason out silent knowledge.
The world of daily life consists of two points of reference. We have for example, here and there, in and out, up and down, good and evil, and so on and so forth. So, properly speaking, our perception of our lives is two-dimensional. None of what we perceive ourselves doing has depth.
A sorcerer perceives his actions with depth. His actions are tridimensional for him. They have a third point of reference.
Our points of reference are obtained primarily from our sense perception. Our senses perceive and differentiate what is immediate to us from what is not. Using that basic distinction we derive the rest.
In order to reach the third point of reference one must perceive two places at once.
Normal perception has an axis. "Here and there" are the perimeters of that axis, and we are partial to the clarity of "here." In normal perception, only "here" is perceived completely, instantaneously, and directly. Its twin referent, "there," lacks immediacy. It is inferred, deduced, expected, even assumed, but it is not apprehended directly with all the senses. When we perceive two places at once, total clarity is lost, but the immediate perception of "there" is gained.