Animal contact can alter what Castaneda calls “assemblage points.” Like mother-love. It’s been slobbered over by Hollywood. Andy Hardy goes down on his knees by his mother’s bed. What’s wrong with that? A decent American kid praying for his mother. What’s wrong with that?

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, B.J. It’s shit. It’s dead mawkish muck and it destroys the truth under it.”