etter not accept it, "because you know what we do with paper in Mexico." He added, "Tell your publisher to print your next book on softer stock." Earlier you mentioned that don Juan deliberately made his teaching dramatic. Your writings reflect that. Much anthropological writing gives the impression of striving for dullness, as if banality were a mark of truth. To have made my astonishing adventures with don Juan boring would have been to lie. It has taken me many years to appreciate the fact that don Juan is a master of using frustration, digression, and partial disclosure as methods of instruction. He strategically blended revelation and concealment in the oddest combinations. It was his style to assert that ordinary and nonordinary reality aren't separate, but instead are encompassed in a larger circle -- and then to reverse himself the next day by insisting that the line between different realities must be respected at all costs. I asked him why this must be so. He answered, "Because nothing is more important to you than keeping your personal world intact." He was right. That was my top priority in the early days of the apprenticeship. Eventually I saw -- I saw -- that the path of the heart requires a full gesture, a degree of abandon that can be terrifying. Only then is it possible to achieve a sparkling metamorphosis. I also realized the extent to which the teachings of don Juan could and would be dismissed as "mere allegory" by certain specialists whose sacramental mission is to reinforce the limits that culture and language place on perception. This approaches the question of who gets to define "correct" cultural description. Nowadays some of Margaret Mead's critics declare she was "wrong" about Samoa. But why not say, less dogmatically, that her writings present a partial picture based on a unique encounter with an exotic culture? Obviously her discoveries mirrored the concerns of her time, including her own biases. Who has the authority to cordon off art from science? The assumption that art, magic, and science can't exist in the same space at the same time is an obsolete remnant of Aristotelian philosophical categories. We've got to get beyond this kind of nostalgia in the social science of the twenty-first century. Even the term ethnography is too monolithic, because it implies that writing about other cultures is an activity specific to anthropology, whereas in fact ethnography cuts across various disciplines and genres. Furthermore, even the ethnographer isn't monolithic -- he or she must be reflexive and multifaceted, just like the cultural phenomena that are encountered as "other." So the observer, the observed phenomenon, and the process of observation form an inseparable totality. From that perspective, reality isn't simply received, it's actively captured and rendered in different ways by different observers with different ways of seeing. Just so. What sorcery comes down to is the act of embodying some specialized theoretical and practical premises about the nature of perception in molding the universe around us. It took me a long time to understand, intuitively, that there were three Castanedas: one who observed don Juan, the man and teacher; another who was the active subject of don Juan's training -- the apprentice; and still another who chronicled the adventures. "Three" is a metaphor to describe the sensation of endlessly changing boundaries. Likewise, don Juan himself was constantly shifting positions. Together we were traversing the crack between the natural world of everyday life and an unseen world, which don Juan called "the second attention," a term he preferred to "supernatural." What you're describing isn't what comes to mind for most anthropologists when they think about their line of work, you know. Oh, I'm certain you're right about that! Someone recently asked me, What does mainstream anthropology think of Carlos Castaneda? I don't suppose most of them think about me at all. A few may be a little bit annoyed, but they're sure that whatever I'm doing is not scientific and they don't trouble themselves. For most of the field, "anthropological possibility" means that you go to an exotic land, arrive at a hotel, drink your highball while a flock of indigenous people come and talk to you about the culture. They tell you all kinds of things, and you write down the various words for father and mother. More highballs, then you go home and put it all in your computer and tabulate for correlations and differences. That to them is scientific anthropology. For me, that would be living hell. How do you actually write? My conversations with don Juan throughout the apprenticeship were conducted primarily in Spanish. From the outset I tried to persuade don Juan to let me use a tape recorder, but he said relying on something mechanical only makes us more and more sterile. "It curtails your magic," he said. "Better to learn with your whole body so you'll remember with your whole body." I had no idea what he meant. Consequently I began keeping voluminous field notes of what he said. He found my industriousness amusing. As for my books, I dream them. I gather myself and my field notes -- usually in the afternoon but not always -- and go through all my notes and translate them into English. In the evening I sleep and dream what I want to write. When I wake up, I write in the quiet hours of the night, drawing upon what has arranged itself coherently in my head. Do you rewrite? It's not my practice to do so. Regular writing is for me quite dry and labored. Dreaming is best. Much of my training with don Juan was in reconditioning perception to sustain dream images long enough to look at them carefully. Don Juan was right about the tape recorder -- and in retrospect, right about the notes. They were my crutch, and I no longer need them. By the end of my time with don Juan, I learned to listen and watch and sense and recall in all the cells of my body. Earlier you mentioned reaching the end of the road, and now you're talking about the end of your time with don Juan. Where is he now? He's gone. He disappeared. Without a clue? Don Juan told me he was going to fulfill the sorcerer's dream of leaving this world and entering into "unimaginable dimensions." He displaced his assemblage point from its fixation in the conventional human world. We would call it combusting from the inside. It's an alternative to dying. Either they bury you six feet deep in the poor flowers or you burn. Don Juan chose burning. I guess it's one way to erase personal history. Then this conversation is don Juan's obituary notice? He had come to the end, deliberately. By intent. He wanted to expand, to join his physical body with his energy body. His adventure was there, where the tiny personal tide pool joins the great ocean. He called it the "definitive journey." Such vastness is incomprehensible to my mind, so I can only give up explaining. I've found that the explanatory principle will protect you from fear of the unknown, but I prefer the unknown. You've traveled far and wide. Give it to me straight: Is reality ultimately a safe place? I once asked don Juan something quite similar. We were alone in the desert -- nighttime, billions of stars. He laughed in a friendly and genuine way. He said, "Sure, the universe is benign. It may destroy you, but in the process it will teach you something worth knowing." What's next for Carlos Castaneda? I'll have to let you know. Next time. Will there be a next time? There's always a next time.  * CASTANEDA'S CLAN. Interview with three female warriors *  *************************************** An exclusive interview with three if the female warriors of Carlos Castaneda's sorcery lineage Florinda, Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, and Carol Tiggs interview by Keith Nichols. It's been over twenty years since Carlos Castaneda began igniting his readers' imaginations about the possibility of viewing reality differently. Today, American seekers are involved in a magical blend of religious practices aimed at the same thing from Zen Buddhism to Yoga to herbal remedies and even Wicca and spiritualism. Yet questions still remain from the intensive searching of the last several decades, such as when are we going to get free, anyway? And how do we explain the inexplicable? These were the questions on my mind when I found myself journeying down the coast toward Los Angeles for an encounter with three women of Castaneda's sorcery lineage: Florinda Donner Grau, Taisha Abelar, and Carol Tiggs. When Florinda Donner-Grau and I first met, she told me about an encounter that serves well to explain the threshold that many people have already encountered. As she walked down the streets in downtown Los Angeles, she saw a floating blob of energy. As she watched it bounce up and down the street, she was a little unsure about her senses. She tugged on the shoulder of a man standing nearby whose mouth was open wide in a state of disbelief--or maybe bewilderment. She saw that he too was looking at the blob. As a sorcerer, Donner-Grau is aware that reality is largely perception and that what we choose to perceive and not to perceive is based on our training. So perhaps the man in L.A. represents a sort of graduation in the school of larger possibilities, a generation prepared by Castaneda and others to perceive subtler energies. With the recent publication of Castaneda's ninth book, as well as books by Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, Carlos Castaneda's sorcerers party has evolved into seems to beckon forth that this reality is not the only one; others do exist into which we can transcend. Why are the women of this lineage just beginning to come out and speak about their practices? Florinda Donner-Grau: Well, there is a fundamental difference in the way males and females perceive and respond to reality. Females, such as Taisha, Carol, and I, didn't write about anything for twenty years. This is the fundamental difference: females need to embody a system of belief before they can write about it. While males build their bridges of understanding with words, women build their understanding with their life. Both are equally valid ways of understanding, yet they are very different ways of processing life. In terms of energy the male cones toward knowledge; he builds step by step. In physics, this stepping can be described like a cone, where males are always moving toward a source but never reaching it. With females, it is different because that cone is reversed. Because of the womb, females have the capacity to perceive knowledge directly. There is no reason for her to explain because she already knows. And it is this knowingness, this experience of being connected with the source-what we call Intent-that sorcerers want to get back to. Females have an inherent advantage in that they know Intent directly, while the male is always approaching it. What is the purpose of being connected with this source, Intent? Florinda Donner-Grau: Well, I'll tell you a story. I love books; I'm an avid reader. Now Carlos hasn't read a book in over twenty years. I know that because he gave all his books to me. Now I'm very interested in phenomenology because as an intellectual pursuit, it is the only one that comes close to sorcery. Well, I'll be reading something and then I'll ask Carlos a question. He'll be quiet for about ten minutes and then he'll give me an explanation of exactly what I have been reading. At that point, I know that he's been out there grabbing that knowledge from elsewhere. And this ability has no limitation; I can ask him something about physics and he immediately gives me a bonafide answer. How would you describe what he is doing? Carol Tiggs: I would say that he is practicing dreaming, which is a way of describing that he is using his energetic body to grab hold of a line of energy and access information directly from the source of the universe. Florinda Donner-Grau: And Carlos knows exactly what line to grab. Seers see that it is all out there anyway. But what makes a capable sorcerer is the ability to access these lines of information with control and at will. Recently, Carlos took a group of twenty people to a small church in Mexico (written about in several of his books). While in the church, he took the whole group into a state of dreaming and journeyed into another world. How does one learn how to do this? Florinda Donner-Grau: It's all a matter of having enough energy to be able to see. We're all so consumed by the everydayness of life that we simply don't have any energy left over to see. How do people use daily life to begin to find where they are draining themselves energetically? Carol Tiggs: When you look back over your workday, one of the clues to where you lost your energy is where you began to feel tired and not energetically yourself. Those places are where you'll find your answers and start to develop some perspective-and you'll be able to begin to pull back your energy from these events and begin to start examining the patterns that keep you stuck within the ego game of hero and victim. Is this process different for the males and the females? Florinda Donner-Grau: The process isn't any different. When you recapitulate, you take yourself back and recreate every event as it happened. Once you have the energy, this happens automatically and you don't have to reach it through any shamanistic means, such as fasting and so on. You can begin any day and start from that day and move backwards. I've done four recapitulations of my entire life to date and I find something new each time. And what I find is that not directly but indirectly we always try to be the hero ourselves. At some of the lectures we have given, people are always taking notes and I find myself saying to them, "No, don't take notes, because those things are meaningless. Just listen." All of their energy is gong into taking notes and they're missing half of what is really going on. Taisha Abelar: We constantly hear people say, If only I was a part of your group, then I could do this or that. But what they don't understand is that wherever you are, that is where you start. Carol Tiggs: Sorcery is really just perception. There are no rituals, no dancing, no nothing. Just perception and some techniques to enhance perception through gathering up of oneself energetically. There are aids, such as not-doing techniques. Taisha Abelar: Or just watching your thoughts and hearing what you are really thinking. You can learn a lot by doing that. Carol Tiggs: What I've found is that people generally fall into one of two categories: either they have to be in control or they are being controlled by something else. When you come from these two scenarios, you generally aren't perceiving your life clearly. By recapitulating you light up in your awareness exactly the energies (or reality) that was constructed so that you can begin to perceive the patterns and programming that control you. Taisha Abelar: When you begin to clearly see the social patterns that control you, you start to move into stalking yourself. This is where you can become an active participant in life. Suddenly your boss is no longer that evil, horrible controller that he once was. Instead he becomes a mirror by which you start to see where you are trapped into the games of this reality. These games are what consume or tie up people's energy and keep them from perceiving the true energetic nature of this reality. When you move away from the consensus of everyday life, you can allow the Intent or the dream that has been set up by Intent to become the moving force, the guide. Florinda Donner-Grau: To do this you have to relinquish this feeling of having to be the one in control. But believe me, even after you have recapitulated, you still have that feeling that you have this one little area over here and that once you get to it, then you will be the one who is in charge. Let's get back to the ways in which males and females perceive. If females perceive directly, then why aren't most females walking around steeped in understanding or knowingness of Intent? Florinda Donner-Grau: Males have an energetic advantage in the physical world. Though the male cone shape configuration of energy makes perceiving the source of Intent more difficult, it is ideal for being able to work stronger in the physical world . There is no way for females to compete against that energetic advantage as long as they are imitating roles that males have created. Instead we as females have to find our own resources and break this cycle of imitation so that we can truly begin to evolve into something different. What is that evolvement? Carol Tiggs: To tell you the truth, I really don't know. What is our Intent as we evolve and what does this evolvement entail? For female sorcerers, part of this comes into enhancing the secondary functions of our wombs, which are the dreaming organs in the female body. And we do this by recapitulating, breaking old patterns, gathering up our energy, so that we can begin to dream a new dream. Taisha Abelar: Whatever has happened to us-and something has happened-we hope to convey to younger people that change is possible. But there has to be some kind of critical mass to make this change possible. Florinda Donner-Grau: When you go against the enormous consensus that constitutes everyday reality, you are pounding against a stone wall. When sorcerers enter into dreaming, the first thing they will usually encounter is a bank of fog. When you see this fog you are pulling at something else energetically. ln a way, sorcery is like Chinese Medicine in that it treats the body as if it were a field of energy. Western Medicine treats the body as if it were an object so it doesn't take advantage of the more powerful energetic reality. Consequently you have doctors cutting out matter instead of using energy to change it. Medicine, like modem man, would change dramatically if it took advantage of these energetic principles to aid in a metamorphis of current limitations and illnesses. Carol Tiggs: What a sorcerer searches for is that evolvement within his awareness or energetic field; that moment or possibility of change into a state of being that has more wellness. Florinda Donner-Grau: Currently there is so much invested in institutions like the A.M.A. that there is no way that they are going to change things like that. But what they are doing to the body is horrendous. They teach us that medicine has advanced, but that simply isn't true. Now we have Aids and cancer and we really don't know what the hell we are doing. I had a young female friend who died of intestinal cancer a couple of months ago. On the outside she was living the perfect life but on the inside she was being eaten alive. You see, her husband was a president of one of those huge corporations and you wouldn't believe the pains she went through to impress people. She was killing herself to impress other people. I asked her, "If things are so bad, why didn't you seek some help?" But she said that she was worried about what people would think. I answered back, "What will they think when you are dead?" Now, she is dead, and they don't think a thing. If that is the price you are going to pay, then take off. But that's what we do. You see, in a way, we're still monkeys. Don Juan used to tease us and say that we are like a monkey who has reached into a gourd to grab some seeds. The monkey can't get his hand out as long as he holds on to those seeds. Humans are very much the same way. Our social expectations are the seeds which consume our awareness. All the monkey would have to do to become free is to just let go of those damn seeds, but he won't. We won't let go of the seeds to get ourselves out of a trapped situation. We just can't let go. Gary Larson drew a cartoon showing an ape who had fallen out of a tree and was laying flat on the ground. Under the drawing was the transcription: The dawn of man. The only thing he forgot to add was that the monkey had fallen onto a patch of seeds. You see, he had grabbed for the seeds; that was the real fall of man. Magical Blend Magazine (c) 1994  * Carlos Castaneda Overview (v0.4uc) *  ========================= Version: 0.4 (under construction) Last-Updated: Tue May 17 12:54:52 CDT 1994 The Sorcerers' Explanation -------------------------- Summerized from Tales of Power, Washington Square Press. The secret of the luminous beings is that we are perceivers, we are an awareness without solidity or bounds. The world we think we see is only a description of world told to us by our internal dialog, a description that has been taught to us by others. We are trapped inside that bubble of perception and what we witness on its walls is a reflection of our world view, our description. As luminous beings, our perception is controlled by the position of our Assemblage Point (the point where our luminous being focuses its awareness on the energy fibers of the universe). There are infinite worlds outside our daily perceptions. By stopping the internal dialog you break through this barrier to the totality of oneself. To this end sorcerers use "the right way of walking" as a practical task; it saturates the tonal and without the one-to-one relation with the elements of its description the tonal becomes silent. Also used are acting without believing or expecting rewards; erasing personal history; and "dreaming". To help erase personal history the techniques of losing self-importance, assuming responsibility, and using death as an adviser are applied. To aide in "dreaming" the three techniques of disrupting the routines of life, the gait of power, and not-doing are used. These techniques are bound together by living like a warrior, to give temperance and strength to withstand the path of knowledge. The nagual is the unspeakable. All the possible feelings and beings and selves float in it like barges, peaceful, unaltered, forever. Then the glue of life binds some of them together and a being is created. That being loses the sense of its true nature and becomes blinded by the glare and clamor of the tonal, where all unified organizations exist. That cluster is the bubble of perception. The secret of the double is in the bubble of perception. In the nagual, the cluster of feelings can be rearranged to any form and made to assemble instantly anywhere. In other words, one can perceive the here and the there at once. The nagual is witnessed by "will", and the tonal by "reason". The tonal is but a reflection of that indescribable unknown filled with order; the nagual is but a reflection of that indescribable void that contains everything. The Seven Gates of Dreaming --------------------------- Summerized from _The Art of Dreaming_. First Gate: You reach the first gate when you become aware you are falling asleep or have a gigantically real dream (perhaps what some would call a lucid dream). You cross the first gate when you are able to sustain the sight of any item in your dream. In order to offset the evanescent quality of dreams, sorcerers have devised the use of the starting point item. Ever time you isolate it and look at it, you get a surge of energy, Second Gate: You cross the second gate when you are able to change from dream to dream. For example, you wake up from a dream in another dream or use an item of your dream to trigger another dream. Third Gate: You reach the third gate when you dream yourself asleep. You cross the third gate by moving your engery body after having done so. At the third gate you begin to merge your dreaming reality with the reality of the daily world. Fourth Gate: At the fourth gate, the energy body travels to specific, concrete places either in this world, out of this world, or places that exist only in the intent of others. Go to sleep in a certain position, then in dreaming, dream that you lie down in the same position and fall asleep again. This is called the twin positions and it solidifies your dreaming attention. The second dream is intending in the second attention: the only way to cross the fourth gate of dreaming. The Path of a Man of Knowledge ------------------------------ Exceprts from _The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge_; pages 82-87. A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning. A man who has, without rushing or without faltering, gone as far as he can in unraveling the secrets of power and knowledge. To become a man of knowledge one must challenge and defeat the four natural enemies. The first enemy of a man of knowledge is Fear. A terrible enemy--treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have put an end to his quest. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity of mind which erases fear. And thus he has encountered his second enemy; Clarity. That clarity of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. If the man yields to this make-believe power, he has succumbed to his second enemy and will be patient when he should rush. And he will fumble with learning until he winds up incapable of learing anything more. He must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think, above all, that his clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when he will understand that his clarity was only a point before his eyes. And thus he will have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where nothing can harm him anymore. It will be true power; the third enemy of a man of knowledge. A man at this stage hardly notices his third enemy closing in on him. And suddenly, without knowing, he will certainly have lost the battle. His enemy will have turned him into a cruel, capricious man. The man must defy his power, deliberately. He has to come to realize the power he has seemingly conquered is in reality never his. He will reach a point where everything is held in check. He will know then when and how to use his power. And thus he will have defeated his third enemy. The man will be, by then, at the end of his journey of learning, and almost without warning he will come upon the last of his enemies: Old age. This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won't be able to defeat completely, but only fight away. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge. But if the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate through, he can then be called a man of knowledge, if only for the brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off his last, invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and knowledge is enough. The Books --------- Teachings: Jun 23 1961 - Sep 30 1965 Separate Reality: Apr 2 1968 - Oct 18 1970 Journey to Ixtlan: Dec 17 1960 - May 1971 [I would like short reviews of each book, if you do it just email it to castaneda-request@austin.bsdi.com] Glossary -------- The Eight Points +---Seeing----+ / \ Nagual Will-----Feeling-----Talking---Reason Tonal \ / +---Dreaming--+ Stopping the Internal Dialog Stopping our description of the world; breaking the barrier of perception. Stopping the internal dialog is the key to the sorcerers' world. The rest of the activities are only props to accelerate the effect. The Right Way of Walking Tales of Power, WSP Paperback edition, page 236, don Juan says: The warrior, first by curling his fingers, drew attention to the arms; and then by looking, without focusing his eyses, at any point directly in front of him on the arc that started at the tip of his feet and ended above the horizon, he literally flooded his "tonal" with information. The "tonal", without its one-to-one relationship with the elements of its description, was incapable of talking to itself, and thus one became silent. Acting Without Believing Acting just for the hell of it, without expecting rewards. Erasing Personal History Removing cues of oneself from the world at large, making oneself unavailable. This frees you from the trap of others attention. This also helps to remove Self-Pity from your world. Losing Self-Importance Another aide in removing Self-Pity. Assuming Responsibility Assume responsibility for your actions and being in this world. Using Death as an Advisor Take every act as your last battle on earth. It doesn't matter if you win or lose a battle but never abandon yourself, even to your death. You should replace Self-Pity as your advisor and use death instead. Actions taken with death as an advisor have power. Disrupting the Routines of Life Our routines are what allows death to stalk us. A hunter learns the routines of its pray and uses them to kill it. Gait of Power Running with abandon, but without abandoning oneself. Imagine yourself being chased in the dark by a ferocious animal, if you get away, this is how you will have run. Not-Doing Focusing your attention on features of the world that are ordinarily overlooked, such as the shadows of things. Dreaming Using the natural shift of the Assemblage Point while asleep. Together, disrupting routines, the gate of power, and not-doing are avenues for learning new ways of perceiving the world, and they give a warrior an inkling of incredible possibilities of action. These lead to the knowledge of a separate and pragmatic world of "dreaming". Stalking Fixing the Assemblage Point in position to give your perception coherence. Used in the daily world it's a way of behaving towards our fellow men. Recapitulation Used to free energy trapped in the world. Performed by visualizing past events (to shift your Assemblage Point to that point) and reclaiming any energy you left behind and returning energy that isn't yours. Mood of a Warrior A mood in which to approch the world, acting with abandon but without abandoning oneself. Using death as an advisor, each act is your last battle on earth. Controlled Folly Since a man of knowledge "sees" and he knows that nothing is more important than anything else then nothing matters to him, he has only his controlled folly, acting as if it mattered even though he knows it does not. Gazing A sourcerery technique of looking without staring at something. The "not-doing" of looking at something. Worthy Opponent An opponent to spur you on the path of knowledge. Having to Believe Having no choice, the situation inspired by the worth opponent. Man of Knowledge A warrior who has become a sorcerer and who "sees" and knows. The ultimate state of being, in total control over your being. Energy Body ??? Assemblage Point The point at which your awarness is focused on your luminous being causing the energy fibers at large to align with the energy fibers inside your cocoon. Glow of Awarness The glowing point at which the Assemblage Point is focused, indicating that the being is alive. This glow lights the fibers and makes the luminous being percieve them. First Attention The attention of the tonal. Used to assemble our daily world. Second Attention The attention of the nagual. Third Attention The attention after burning with the fire from within. Dreaming Attention The attention used while dreaming to exercise the energy body, it's a gateway to the second attention. First Ring of Power Also the first attention Second Ring of Power Also the second attention Gates of Dreaming The seven gates of dreaming are energy obstacles that must be overcome. Dreaming Emissary ??? Scouts Energy beings from other realms in your dreams. By isolating then and indending to follow them they can transport your awareness to inconceivable realms. Dreaming Awake This state results from moving the Assemblage Point during normal awareness. The Tonal and the Nagual The tonal is but a reflection of that indescribable unknown filled with order; the nagual is but a reflection of that indescribable void that contains everything. The Dreamer and the Dreamed The secret of the dreamer and the dreamed is that the dreamed dreams the dreamer, just as the dreamer dreams the dreamed. The Secret of the Luminous Beings The secret of the luminous beings is that we are perceivers, we are an awareness without solidity or bounds. The world we think we see is only a description of world told to us by our internal dialog, a description that has been taught to us by others. We are trapped inside that bubble of perception and what we witness on its walls is a reflection of our world view, our description. Bubble of Perception The bubble of perception is the cluster of feelings that have been assembled in the nagual and bound together by the force of life.  * Subject: Notes on a talk by Taisha Abelar 92 *  The following are notes I took at a talk by Taisha Abelar on 10 October 1992 at the Alexandria II bookstore in Pasadena, California. These are somewhat cryptic but may be of interest to some on the list. ((my comments if any are in double parentheses)) The Activity of sorcerers is that of Dreaming yourself. Society is oriented toward a "poor baby" syndrome (society and the individual are at effect). Drills to resolve this : Write your internal dialogue down for 3 days, wait three days and read it Mark up the newspaper wherever the poor baby concept is expressed. We presently have a mating/courtship compulsion the self is presented as a "poor baby" to the world Stalking the self - see how you are living. The reason for all this is that mankind's assemblage point is in a certain position. You can move the assemblage point to another place. That's what sorcerers do - move it away from the poor baby position The assembalge point is a place of luminosity on the energetic body, it lights the filiaments. When the filiaments of the energetic body match those of the universe perception takes place. How do you move the assemblage point? You need energy - this may be obtained from not doing the presentation of the self in everyday life and stopping seeking courtship. curtail needingness. After you've increased your energy THEN practice sorceric techniques. 1. The recapitulation (see Sorcerer's crossing) 2. Quiet the internal dialogue (Meditation and breathing techniques are good for this) ((Taisha told a rather amusing story of going to a guru in India who had a $900 breathing technique)) The $900 dollar breath: 3 exhalations, 1 inhalation (Use) any technique that works - sorcery passes, gazing techniques. Practice impeccability, you'll know impeccability when you have no self interest. Act without expecting rewards or returns. Act impeccably and the assemblage point moves to the" place of no pity " Heightened awareness. When the assemblage point moves far enough you'll see different worlds. You'll know when you are there - (you'll be) very quiet, unknown to yourself, you'll feel solitude but not loneliness. Energy comes to you and will guide you, energy of the double, the ethereal body. " Poor Baby" ravages energy. That's the beginning, heightened awareness is the door to infinity. NOW you can use dreaming and stalking. Dreaming, use dreams to enhance awareness of being, wake up the energetic body. The art of dreaming - move the assemblage point systematically (find your hands, etc.) Art of stalking - when assemblage point moves you have to fix it at new position - give it reality - explore, get adventuresome. find out the ramifications of the new position from a bodily energy viewpoint. Then develop the energetic body. Use it (while awake). Solidify it and act from it. Where Taisha Abelar is is a poistion of the assemblage point. Moving assemblage point to where their's (other sorcerers) were. The earth too has an assemblage point ((cf. Ley lines etc.)) embarrassment disrupts the assemblage point. There are other worlds than this consensual world. Nagual - pronounced " NO - ALL" You can move the assemblage point in dreaming. (( Taisha Abelar made a loud scream at this point in the talk)) Shriek - makes the assemblage point shift and solidify the energy body. For a normal human the assemblage point is behind the left shoulder at the back. Perception is encoded in the body (cf. Husserl, phenomenologists) Perception - a facet of corporeality. The only way to change the energy body is to move the assemblage point, lighting up different filiaments. Memories can reengage, restimulate different energetic memories. Dream yourself, its up to you A man waits for death and while he waits he surrounds himself with beauty and with strength " The Death Defier" The change comes from within, to change the world, the environment, the universe. You must move the assemblage point Recapitulation - make list of everyone you've known begin with the latest person and work backwards Breath in over right shoulder to left then exhale back (rotating the head back) - visualize and breath you can do it in the world. Don't poor baby yourself. Use devices to jolt yourself you can move the assemblage point up and down. (( She talks about her experiences in the other world with the trees (described in Sorcerer's Crossing))) Competition among the roots of trees (not recommended to move the Assemblage point down) The greatest challenge - practice controlled folly, you see the situation and you don't do anything about it - you don't judge - judging is death. Inorganic entities, they permeate this other realm of the universe. Don Juan's/Carlo's new book The Seven Gates of Dreaming The second gate is these guys - Gargoyles/vampires/shadows they inhabit a close realm and feed off our energy. Don Juan's allys. Seers can see this energy. Build integrity - internal strength. Gazing at gravel/leave