Doctrine

In the early 60s, Castaneda published the book “The Teachings of Don Juan. The Path of Knowledge of the Yaqui Indians,” in which he spoke in detail about his apprenticeship with the Mexican magician. Over the next three decades, 8 more books by Carlos Castaneda were published, as well as books by women magicians who were students of don Juan. It is interesting that the level of elaboration of information and the style and nature of writing books changes noticeably from book to book, and by the time of writing his last works, Castaneda discards youthful maximalism and excessive self-confidence, gradually turning into the leader of a group of magicians, the leader of his own organization of his followers, a cult.

Castaneda calls his teaching – “The Teaching of Don Juan” – magic, although Don Juan himself notes that this is an inaccurate name. Don Juan called himself a “seer,” “a man of knowledge,” and a “warrior of absolute freedom.” According to his teaching, the way the vast majority of people see the world is not the only way of seeing it. He writes that magicians who are “seers” can see the world around them as a set of streams of luminous energy fibers, “stretching in all conceivable and inconceivable directions from infinity to infinity.” In this picture of the universe, human beings are seen by magicians as some kind of “luminous cocoons” or a kind of eggs, passing through the energy fibers of the universe.

The central concept of the teachings of magicians is the assemblage point, which is a bright spot on the back surface of the cocoon, located at an arm's length behind the human physical body. This spot can move along the surface, inside or outside the cocoon, changing its shape. Magicians believe that the assemblage point is responsible for the perception of the world: a person perceives only those energy fibers that pass through the assemblage point.

From the point of view of don Juan and according to the teachings of Castaneda, the universe is not limited to the reality that we know, the world familiar to us. Castaneda claims that the universe consists of an infinite number of worlds, the arrangement of which relative to each other don Juan sometimes compared to the layers of an onion. When the assemblage point moves, a person perceives other fibers that are usually inaccessible to him. In this way, a person “collects worlds.”

According to the teachings of magicians, a human being, when born, receives from a faceless powerful force, which magicians call the Eagle, an “advance” - consciousness. Throughout his life, a person develops this consciousness, enriches it with his experience. When a person dies, the Eagle takes his consciousness along with his accumulated experience, impressions and experiences. As a way to avoid the Eagle’s absorption of one’s consciousness and to preserve it even after the death of the physical body, a concept called “The Way of the Warrior” is proposed.

It is said that only by radically changing your entire being can you achieve this. The entire life of a warrior must be subordinated to the main goal, so he must spend his energy optimally, because its supply is limited. Why a warrior must follow the following rules:

a warrior must re-evaluate his life interests and activities and cut off everything unnecessary, strictly selecting that. what he will spend his time and energy on; a warrior must get away from everyday hustle and bustle and aimless existence; a warrior should not torment himself with doubts or complain about fate; a warrior does not waste time on trifles and does not indulge himself in anything, he must be the master of his destiny; he should be driven by an unbending desire to achieve “absolute freedom”, impeccability and strict internal discipline - these are the qualities necessary for a warrior on his path.

Taking the path of a warrior, a person must consistently master magical arts and techniques. Magical Arts"Intentions", "stalking" and "dreaming" consist of the ability to move one's assemblage point and keep it in a new position. The art of stalking consists in the fact that a warrior consciously goes beyond his characteristic image, habitual forms of behavior and remains beyond them. The art of dreaming is that a warrior develops the ability to control his own dreams, communicating through them with beings from other worlds or even moving to these other worlds.

Objectively, the “Teachings of Don Juan”, set forth by Castaneda, is an ancient magical tradition, dating back to the teachings and practices of the Toltec Indians.

Castaneda's works ("The Teachings of Don Juan", "Journey to Ixtlan", etc.) contain extensive material on the use of drugs for ritual cult purposes. Castaneda describes how the Indian Don Juan taught him to comprehend “unusual reality” and achieve “power with the help of hallucinogenic plants: peyote, datura, and mushroom.” After the first try of a plant containing mescaline, the author admitted: “I forgot, that I am a human being!” Later, in an interview, Castaneda explained: “I never used LSD, but from studying with don Juan I learned that psychotropic drugs are used only to stop the flow of ordinary interpretations, to overcome contradictions and shake the usual confidence in the adequacy of perceptions."

On the warrior's path

We are perceivers. This is the first prerequisite of the warrior's path, according to the form in which don Juan Matus taught his disciples. This may seem like a tautological statement, a confirmation of the obvious: it is the same as saying that a bald person is someone who has no hair on his head, but still this statement is not a tautology.

In the world of magicians, this statement relates to the fact that we are organisms that are primarily oriented towards perception. We are perceivers, and, according to magicians, this is the only source through which we can strengthen our stability and be able to navigate the world.

Don Juan Matus told his disciples that people, as organisms, perform a very important maneuver, which, unfortunately, creates a wrong way of perception; people take a flow of pure energy and turn it into sensory data, which they interpret in accordance with a strict system, sorcerers call this system of interpretation the human form. This magical act of interpreting pure energy gives rise to a false mode of perception: a strange belief that our system of interpretation is all that exists. Don Juan explained that the tree we know as a tree is an interpretation rather than a perception. He said that all we need to perceive a tree is just a short glance at it, which will tell us almost everything about the tree. The rest is a phenomenon that we describe as the evocation of intention, the intention of the tree, in other words, the interpretation of the sensory data inherent in this special phenomenon that we call the tree.

As in this example, everything else, the whole world for us, is made up of an endless repertoire of interpretations in which our feelings play a minimal role.

In other words, the flow of energy that the universe represents is perceived only by our organs of vision, and even then to a minimal extent. Sorcerers argue that most of our active perception is interpretation, they also argue that people are organisms for which a minimum initial amount of pure energy is enough to create their world, or, in other words, they perceive only that amount of pure energy that enough to support their interpretive system. The claim that we are perceivers is an attempt on the part of sorcerers to return us to our origins, to return us to what should be our true state: perception.

Tonal and Nagual

One of the most interesting aspects of the vision of the world, according to don Juan, is the dualistic concept of reality, which is expressed in the terms “tonal” and “nagual”.

Castaneda provides the most detailed explanation of the essence of the tonal and the nagual in his book “Tales of Power.”

In it, he reveals to us two aspects of the tonal: this is the space in which an ordinary person exists throughout life, and the organizing principle that gives meaning and significance to everything related to awareness.

The tonal includes everything that a person is, everything that he thinks and does, everything that we can think and talk about at all. Reason, thinking and the ordinary description of reality are the strongholds of the tonal, they include the entire spectrum of the known. For ordinary person only the known exists, and therefore conscious experience is limited for him by the limits of the tonal - the acquisition of this experience begins with the moment of birth and ends with death.

Accordingly, the nagual can be defined as everything that remains outside the tonal. This is something that is impossible to imagine. Castaneda describes the tonal as an island on which all daily life takes place. Nobody knows what lies beyond the island. The nagual in this case will be a space of unimaginable secrets surrounding the island.

So, the tonal and the nagual are true opposites in the world, although in essence they are one.

The tonal is what is called order, space, samsara, and the earthly world. Nagual - lack of order, chaos, nirvana, the heavenly world, the kingdom of God. The tonal and the nagual are in everything or everything is them.

Everything in the universe, from the atom to the galaxy, has its own special structure. All things in the world are subject to certain principles and act according to unchanging laws. This world harmony is called the tonal.

The tonal is the cosmic mind, but at the same time this complex cosmos rests in the bosom of the great ocean of primordial emptiness, the abode of elemental forces that have no order, no principles, no laws. This great uncertainty, which gives rise to everything, is called the nagual. At the same time that the entire universe is a great tonal, each individual thing has its own order, its own tonal. The tones of different things, although they may be similar, at the same time have individual differences. Each era also has its own tonal, called the tonal of time. The period of dinosaurs had its own order, our period has its own.

The Middle Ages had their own social organization, and the 20th century had its own. The tonal is time, the nagual is eternity.

The nagual and the tonal alternate with each other. Tonal - life, consciousness, nagual - destruction and death. From the nagual comes the tonal. Periods of the tonal - order and life - are replaced by periods of chaos and destruction.

Gradually, in the process of life, habits and skills are formed in it, reflexes and tonal patterns of the environment in which this creature is located are developed.

A person's personality is formed. Physiologically, personality is connected to the left hemisphere of the brain, and essence is connected to the right. At the beginning of life, both hemispheres of the human brain have right-sided functions. After the separation of the functions of the hemispheres of the brain, the struggle between feeling and mind, the nagual and the tonal, the devil and the guardian angel flares up in a person. Often this guardian turns into a guard - a despot who suppresses everything that does not correspond to his ideas about morality. The right hemisphere of the brain is connected to the left side of the body: the left eye, ear, nostrils, etc., which are considered magical, perceiving the world of the nagual. Left hemisphere The brain is connected to the right side of the body - the side of the tonal. This division is known in many mythological, religious systems.

Yogis believe that the lunar channel Ida is associated with the left side of the body, and the solar Pudgala is associated with the right. The right one is responsible for sensory perception, the left one is responsible for motor action. Ida and Pudgala are connected with the left and right trunks of the spinal cord fibers (what attracts and frightens so much is the great magic of opposites and everyday life).

The human nagual is responsible for intuition, magical abilities, feelings, dreams, and will. The tonal contains a map of the world, i.e. a list of everything known, things, concepts, etc., which have their own verbal designation. From childhood, this card grows, acquiring new concepts and skills, but over time, when a person’s mind becomes enslaved in dogmatism, it becomes unable to grow and harmoniously embrace new phenomena of the world. However, no matter how broadly the mind is able to comprehend the order of the world, no matter how many points of view it accepts, it is not able to comprehend the nagual who lies beyond the tonal. The flexible tonal is able to withstand the blows of the new and unknown. The state of a person’s tonal depends on the habits that make up his character and lifestyle. Bad habits that weaken a person weaken the tonal. A healthy lifestyle and impeccability strengthen the tonal, making it capable of meeting the nagual.

From the very beginning of their apprenticeship, sorcerers strengthen the tonal, preparing it to meet the unknown. Without this, the tonal will be mortal and man will suffer madness. In order for contact with a nagual not to be fatal, a person must have a harmoniously formed personality, a layer between the world and the person’s individuality.

Personality is the sum of habits, skills, means of communication that helps to live in the world and society. If you move to another country, then your personality cannot exist harmoniously there until you learn the language, manners and customs of that people. If you lived in the city and then moved to the forest, then you need forest life skills.

Your personality remains the same, but personality changes in different environments, allowing you to adapt to it.

An example of good tones can be given by all the heroes of books and films about American Indians: Chingachgook, Osceola, Winnetou. But the tonal of these people does not correspond to our era, just as Mowgli’s tonal could not exist among people without acquiring the necessary skills of the tonal of their environment. An example of a good tonal of our time is the personality of Bruce Lee. This does not mean that to create a good tonal you must strive to become a movie star or a hero, far from it. These are simply vivid examples of such tonals.

The magician's tonal must be much more flawless than the tonals of these people. Only the person who becomes a student of a magician has the correct and impeccable tonal. The one who perfects the tonal is the teacher, the person who shows the nagual to the student is the benefactor.

The nagual has a suppressive effect on the tonal, because the nagual destroys the tonal. Chaos and order cannot exist peacefully. The elemental forces of chaos destroy order, but the flawless tonal is able to withstand great pressure of force.

A person’s tonal becomes weak as a result of indulgence, that is, the habit of thinking of oneself as weak, unlucky and stupid, and justifying one’s weaknesses.

Such self-hypnosis, concerns and fears most of all undermine the tonal, leading to the emergence of other bad habits.

The tonal has two sides. The first, external one is the fringe, the surface of the island, it is associated with action, the commission of external actions. This is the disordered side - the mechanical movement center.

The second part deals with the mind, judgment and decision.

This is an inner tonal, more delicate and more complex.

Often a discord arises between the mind and action in a person.

A person is not able to restrain his manifestations or carry out his plans. The correspondence of the word to the deed determines the harmony between the two parts of the tonal. A good tone is harmonious. The nagual is our individuality.

He is responsible for creativity (for the tonal is only patterns and stereotypes of learned actions), for strength and parapsychological abilities.

The nagual can create incredible things: bio-energy, the subtle body, the human spirit, his will.

When the nagual comes out, the tonal contracts. For example, at the moment of clairvoyance... flashes of intuition, internal dialogue - the attribute of the tonal subsides. At the moment of strong emotional experiences, the logical mind of the tonal recedes into the background. When faced with the unknown, the tonal retreats.

In a moment of mortal danger, the nagual can come out and protect the tonal. Any action of magic is carried out at the expense of the nagual. In order for the nagual to come out, the tonal must be learned to compress. The stronger, freer, more relaxed and natural the tonal becomes, the easier it is to compress. For a sorcerer, the nagual appears through the effort of his tonal. Whether a magician can manifest the tonal depends on the amount of personal power of the magician, and this in turn is determined by his impeccability.

The ordinary human tonal - the mind is in disarray. Required big job above yourself in order to cleanse and put in order your tonal. To be a perfect tonal means to be aware of everything that happens on the island of the tonal. Many people live unconsciously, as if in a dream, dream, dream automatically, judge, argue, eat, watch TV, etc. When a person is alert, attentive to his thoughts, feelings, internal dialogue, his state, this state will be conscious. A person has a center of witness consciousness, looking at the body, mind, feelings. If a person has such a center, then his tonal becomes perfect.

The middle tone of a person must be characterized by unity, that is, order and self-control must embrace the entire being.

The magician must break the formed unity so that the tonal and the nagual are perceived separately.

The perception of the tonal is limited to the world of the tonal and a person cannot perceive the nagual. For a civilized person, the nagual can be nature, landscape, fog, etc., for he can easily distinguish industrially produced things, but he cannot distinguish one stone from another. For a savage, on the contrary, he will distinguish twigs and leaves from other twigs and leaves, but will not distinguish a vacuum cleaner from a tape recorder.

To perceive the nagual, one must move away from the ordinary perception of the tonal. Also, in order to dream, you need to fall asleep and disconnect from physical world. It is not easy to split a person's perception. This can only be done by two impeccable magicians - the teacher and the benefactor. If they, having split a person’s perception, are unable to collect it, then the person will die. This splitting is accomplished by separating the perception of the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

A way of such splitting can be whispering in both ears. The teacher whispers in the right ear, the benefactor in the left.

A glance directed at a person’s right eye while simultaneously sending a beam of energy into it can have the same effect. That is, the influence of wills can stop the internal dialogue and call the nagual out, attracting him with his will. The goal and task of the magician is to enter the world of the nagual. The tonal is made to realize that it has entered the world of sorcerers, but the tonal does not know that the decision is in the world of the nagual and is determined by superpersonal forces. However, one must enter the nagual without damaging the tonal, otherwise the person may die.

The mysterious power hidden in a woman is the gift of the nagual. A woman is more perfect in comprehending the nagual, and the nagual is feminine, and the tonal is masculine. Entering the nagual is known in India as samadhi, but the impressions of this exit are not always easy to transfer into the tonal.

To do this, the magician must be able to freely enter and exit unseen areas of his own free will.

Vision of a white eagle

Even in ancient times, magicians discovered and developed in themselves and their students the ability to “see” another reality, in which there are no individual objects, but only flows of energy. At some stage of their research, the “seers” were able to feel the indescribable force that is the source of existence of all beings. They called it Eagle, because those few and short glances that allowed them to see this power gave them the impression that what they saw resembled a huge black and white eagle.

When the “seer” looks at the Eagle, four flashes clarify its essence.

The first flash, like lightning, helps to capture the contours of the eagle's body. Then you can see white strokes that look like feathers.

A second flash illuminates the rippling, wind-tossed blackness that resembles the wings of an eagle.

With the third flash, the “seer” notices a piercing inhuman eye.

The fourth flash reveals what the Eagle is doing.

It devours the consciousnesses of all creatures that lived on Earth a moment ago, and are now dead, flying to the Eagle’s beak, like an endless stream of moths flying towards the fire to meet their Master and understand the reason that they lived. The eagle breaks these small fragments of flame and then eats it, because consciousnesses are its food.

The “seers” also saw that it is the Eagle that imparts consciousness. He creates living beings in such a way that in the process of life they can enrich the consciousness received from him along with life. And therefore, when the ancient “seers” argued that the meaning of life lies in the accumulation and development of consciousness, they were not talking about faith or logical conclusion. They saw it.

They saw how the consciousnesses of living beings fly away at the moment of death and, like luminous balls of cotton wool, rise directly to the Eagle's beak and are absorbed by it. Don Juan emphasized that he prefers to compare the Eagle not with a devourer of consciousnesses, but with a huge magnet that attracts these consciousnesses.

When don Juan stated that the Eagle generates consciousness through its emanations, C. Castaneda noted that this statement reminds him of the statement: “God generates life through his love.” Don Juan immediately retorted, emphasizing that there is a difference between these two statements: “The seer sees how the Eagle generates consciousness through its emanations, but the religious person does not see how God generates life through his love.”

The “seers” also established that the Eagle sees all creatures at once and identically. Only judging by the actions of the Eagle, the “seer” can guess what the Eagle wants.

The eagle is completely indifferent to the fate of each individual creature, but he gives each of them a unique gift: “In his own way, in his own way.” own funds, every being, if it wishes, has the power to retain the power of consciousness, the power not to obey the call of death and to be devoured.” Each was given the power to seek the passage to freedom and pass through it, bypassing the all-consuming beak. To the "seer" who sees this passage, and to those who have passed through it, it is quite obvious that the Eagle gave this gift to perpetuate consciousness.

The guide to the passage is the nagual - a double being to whom the Rule has been revealed. The Eagle created the first female and male nagual and immediately sent them into the world of “seeing.” Unlike ordinary people, the nagual’s luminous egg, which will be discussed below, is divided into four compartments or sometimes, like Carlos Castaneda’s, into three. In addition, their right sides sway and their left sides rotate.

Looking ahead a little, we note that at the moment of transition a person enters the third attention, and the body in its entirety is illuminated with knowledge. Each cell is instantly aware of itself and the integrity of the entire body. Therefore, the critical point of the struggle of a warrior, that is, a person struggling to become a “seeer,” is not only and not so much to realize that the transition about which the Rule speaks is a transition to the third attention, but that such awareness exists at all.

So, the Eagle gave man the Rule, to the understanding of which don Juan leads his students in three stages. At first, students had to accept the Rule as a kind of map, which should be understood not in a topographical sense, but rather as a model of behavior, as a way of life. To accept a Rule as a card is to accept this image life, and not some other.

In the second stage, the student must come to understand the possibility of achieving higher consciousness, the existence of which he has already become convinced.

At the third stage, don Juan led the disciples to the actual passage into another, hidden world of consciousness.

The Rule itself contains three precepts: the first is that everything around us is an incomprehensible mystery; second, we must try to solve this mystery without even hoping to achieve it; the third precept is that the warrior considers himself part of this unknowable mystery.

The theory of knowledge of the ancient Toltecs, whose heir don Juan considers himself, states that the only method of understanding the world is the art of mind control. Don Juan devoted his life to mastering this art and subordinated the lives of his students.

Emanations of the Eagle

So, in the world there are no separate objects that exist on their own, although we, in accordance with our experience, perceive our world as a world of objects and phenomena.

In fact, they don't exist.

There is only a single universe formed by the emanations (energies) of the Eagle. To understand this truth, the ancient Toltecs introduced the concepts of “known” (“known”), “unknown” (“unknown”) and “unknowable” (“incomprehensible”). However, they made a mistake by identifying the last two concepts. The new seers corrected this error by defining the boundaries of these concepts and clearly formulating the categories.

They called “unknown” something that is hidden from a person by some kind of curtain made of the fabric of existence, which has a terrifying texture, but is within reach.

At some point in time, the “unknown” becomes “known”.

The “unknowable” is something indescribable and beyond comprehension or comprehension. “The unknowable” will never become the “known”, but, nevertheless, it is always somewhere nearby, delighting us with its splendor.

However, its grandeur and infinity are terrifying. The “unknowable,” unlike the “unknown,” does not give a person hope and a sense of happiness.

On the contrary, when confronted with the “unknowable,” the “seer” feels exhausted and confused. His body loses tone. Clarity and balance disappear, since the “unknowable” does not give, but takes away energy. Researchers not only realized this, but also found ways to protect themselves.

The above definitions of concepts allow us to conclude that “known” and “unknown” are one and the same thing, since both are within the limits of what is possible for human perception. Using controlled vision, magicians try to make the “unknown” accessible to our perception.

Having become acquainted with the three aspects of reality, we were able to give a more precise definition of the process of “seeing”. This process uses those parts of the being that are not used in the normal perception of the world. “To see means to expose the inner essence of everything, it means to directly perceive energy. The “vision” comes on its own as soon as we accumulate enough energy. But “seeing” is different from ordinary “looking.” When the seer “sees,” Something seems to explain to him everything that happens as more and more new emanations enter the tuning zone (“tuning” is the selection of emanations located inside the aura and corresponding to external emanations). He hears a voice telling him in his ear what is what. If there is no voice, then what happens to the “seeing” is not a “vision”. This voice is something completely incomprehensible. Don Juan uses a metaphor, stating that this "luminosity of consciousness" plays on the emanations of the Eagle, "like a harpist plays a harp."

Having developed the ability to “see” in oneself, a person becomes a warrior who has taken the path leading to knowledge.

The first truth of knowledge: the world is what it appears, but at the same time it is not. The world is not as dense and real as we are accustomed to believe, based on our perception, but it is not a mirage.

The world is not illusory, as is sometimes claimed, it is quite real. But he is also unreal. What do we actually know?

We perceive Something. This is a well established fact. But what exactly we perceive is not one of the facts that is so unambiguously established. To establish this, we need to examine our perceptions and prove their authenticity. The work done showed the subjectivity of perception and established that we learn what and how to perceive.

We can only affirm that “there is Something that affects our senses. This is the part that is real. The unreal is often what our senses tell us about it. Something... It never occurs to us that the role of our senses is very superficial. The way they perceive is due to a special property of our consciousness. It is this property that makes them work this way and not otherwise.” “Seers” claim that the world of objects exists only insofar as our consciousness makes it so. In reality, there are only emanations of the Eagle - fluid, ever-changing and at the same time unchanging, eternal. Thus, it is argued that the picture of the world depends on the way of perceiving emanations. Perception itself is defined as “tuning,” i.e., it takes place under the condition that the emanations inside the cocoon (meaning the aura) are tuned to the corresponding external emanations.

“Tuning” is possible because “external and internal emanations are the same streams of light fibers. And living beings are tiny bubbles formed by them, tiny points of light attached to these endless flowing threads.”

"Vision" is also "attunement". If the attunement of emanations that are used in everyday life gives the perception of the ordinary world, then "seeing" is due to the attunement of those emanations that are not usually involved.

The luminosity of living beings is formed only by a limited set of Eagle emanations - an insignificant part of their infinitely varied multitude. For the “seer,” the process of perception consists in the fact that the luminosity of the Eagle’s emanations outside the cocoon causes the internal emanations to glow brighter. The external luminosity, as it were, attracts the internal one, captures and fixes it. The luminosity fixed in this way is, in essence, the consciousness of this particular being.

In addition, external emanations exert pressure on internal emanations, the strength of which determines the level of consciousness of the being.

Developing the idea of ​​the Eagle's emanations, don Juan emphasized that they are a thing in itself. They permeate everything that exists - both the knowable and the unknowable. They are impossible to describe, it is “simply the presence of something, a mass of some quality or state, a pressure that blinds.” However, it cannot be seen in the usual sense of the word. The “seer” perceives the Eagle with his whole body, with his whole being. There is something within each of us that can make us perceive with our whole body.

You need to understand this as follows. “Man is composed of the emanations of the Eagle. Therefore, to perceive the Eagle, he must turn to himself, to his own components. But here difficulties arise with consciousness: it becomes confused. At the critical moment, when the emanations within and the emanations without must simply find mutual correspondence, consciousness intervenes and sets about constructing interpretations. The result is a vision of the Eagle and its emanations. But in reality, neither the Eagle nor the emanations exist. Not a single living being is able to understand the true essence of what actually exists.” We can only say that everything that exists is energy.

Subsequently, magical researchers found that only a small part of the Eagle’s emanations is within the reach of human consciousness . And only a small fraction of this small part is accessible to the perception of an ordinary person in his everyday life. This tiny particle of the Eagle’s emanations is the “known.” The small part that is accessible to human consciousness is the “unknown.” Everything else - mysterious and immeasurably huge - is “unknowable”.

The “seers” also established that emanations have the power of total dictate. All beings, without exception, are forced to use the emanations of the Eagle, without even realizing what it is. That's why they are also called "teams". Although this sounds too human, the term corresponds to the essence of the phenomenon, for these are precisely “commands”. “The organism of any creature is designed in such a way that it captures a certain band of emanations, and each species involves the emanations of a certain range characteristic of it. The emanations, in turn, exert enormous pressure on organisms.

This pressure is the factor by which a creature perceives a picture of the world corresponding to its range.”

Emanations located outside the cocoons of living beings are called large emanations. The pressure they exert on the cocoon is the same for all living beings.

But the results of this pressure are different, since the reaction of the cocoons to it is infinitely varied. However, within certain limits we can talk about some uniformity of reactions.

See a person

Having learned to “see” emanations, “seers” create their own picture of the world and their own view of man’s place in it. For them, “all people are luminous beings, consisting, as it were, of two segments.

The first is our physical body, which we can feel directly. The second is a luminous body, giving us the appearance of a huge luminous egg, which can only be seen by “seeers”. The main task of magic is to reach the luminous shell. This goal is achieved through a complex system of dreams and a rigid systematic practice of “not-doing” (or “non-doing”), that is, some unusual action that involves our entire being and makes it aware of its luminous part. This happens when large, i.e. external, emanations fall on the ever-moving fluid emanations inside the cocoon and force them to stop, freeze.”

To understand this, it is necessary to remember the role of consciousness in the formation of perception and its structure.

Various aspects the realities discussed earlier are perceived by different levels of consciousness.

With a great deal of simplification, it can be divided into three parts.

The smallest is the so-called “first attention”, necessary for life in the everyday world. It embraces the consciousness of the physical body.

The larger part is the “second attention”, necessary for perceiving the luminous shell and acting as a luminous being... “Second attention” is always in the background and comes forward only thanks to special practice or accidental injury. It embraces the consciousness of the luminous body.

The last, biggest part is the “third attention”. It is that immeasurable consciousness which includes the indefinable aspects of the physical and luminous bodies in their unity.

Having entered the “second attention” independently or with the help of a teacher, a person begins to see a luminous body approximately as K. Castaneda saw it: “... suddenly all the people in my field of vision turned into large bubbles of white light. I looked at the glowing eggs not just briefly, but continuously... The bubbles of light were blurry at first, as if my eyes were not attuned, but then in one second my vision seemed to be established, and the bubbles of white light became elongated glowing eggs.

They were large, even huge, no less than a meter wide...” At the same time, the women had some kind of bundles of luminous threads, reminiscent of lion tails.

These ligaments grow inward from the place where the genitals are located in the physical body. They are the ones who give life. The embryo, in order to grow, attaches to one of these feeding “roots” and completely eats it, leaving a dark spot in the luminous shell.

Although human beings appear to the “seeing” luminous eggs, the ovoid shape is only an outer cocoon, a shell of luminosity, hiding an extremely intriguing, hypnotizing core, consisting of concentric rings of yellowish luminosity the color of a candle flame... The shell only darkens the radiance of the core. In order to free the shining being, the shell must be broken from the inside and into right time, in the same way that creatures hatching from eggs break through their shells. Breaking the shell is called loss human form and is the only means of liberating the radiant core.

“Breaking the shell means remembering your other self and coming to the integrity of yourself.” The concept of loss of human form relates to bodily conditions and is mastered by the student upon reaching a certain level of learning. The end result is an underlying sense of detachment, which does not automatically mean wisdom, but allows the warrior to pause momentarily to reassess the situation and reconsider his position.

Our luminosity is composed of the emanations of the Eagle, enclosed in an egg-shaped cocoon. That tiny part of all emanations that is inside the cocoon is what makes us human. The emanations themselves cannot be described. For don Juan, they resemble luminous threads, but what is incomprehensible about them is that these threads have self-consciousness. “I will not be able to explain what is meant by self-consciousness of emanation. All I know is that the threads of emanation are aware of themselves, they pulsate with their own life, and there are so many of them that numbers lose all meaning. And each of them is eternity itself.”

However, the Eagle's emanations are more than just streams of light fibers. Each of them is a source of energy of unlimited power. The emanations inside and outside the cocoon are the same. They form a continuous flow of energy. In this case, the cocoon, as it were, separates it; the surface of the cocoon isolates the inner part of the rod fibers from the outer one and thereby forms the direction of pressure of external emanations on the internal ones.

As a result of this pressure, a certain part of the emanations in the cocoon glows in a special way. This glow is the consciousness of beings. In humans, this is an amber-colored luminosity, distinguished by a special brightness of the glow. “This region occupies a narrow vertical stripe that runs along the right side of the cocoon’s surface from top to bottom.”

So the universe is made up of emanations or energies.

A small part of them is enclosed inside the cocoon. Consciousness arises as a result of the constant pressure of large, or external, emanations on internal ones. Perception, in turn, is a consequence of consciousness and arises when internal emanations are tuned to their corresponding greater ones. But this “tuning” does not happen by accident. “Perception is made possible by the “assemblage point” - a special formation of bright luminosity the size of a tennis ball, constantly located inside the luminous ball flush with its surface at a distance of two feet behind the right shoulder blade of a person, which is engaged in the selection of internal and external emanations to be “tuned.” At the same time, the specific version of the “tuning” that we perceive as the world is the result of where the “assemblage point” is located at the moment, i.e., what emanations it selects.”

Ancient magicians suggested that by focusing the spherical radiance on the energy threads of the universe, passing directly through this radiance, the “assemblage point” automatically, without any pre-conscious intention, collects these threads or fibers, forming from them a stable picture of the perceived world. Wherein main role in collecting emanation into bundles, the radiance surrounding the “assemblage point” plays the role of a kind of magnifying glass, collecting scattered rays of light into a bundle. Having seen how much this glow fades in people who are unconscious or near death, and how it completely disappears in the dead, they came to the conclusion that this glow is the glow of consciousness.

Once noticing that the “assemblage point” can sometimes shift from its usual place on the cocoon, the magicians began to closely study the reasons for this displacement, and most importantly, its consequences. Thus, they concluded that perception is automatically assembled there and only where the “assemblage point” is located. And one more thing: due to the fact that the assembly is carried out in a new place and uses new fibers, the assembled world differs from the everyday world we are familiar with.

A displacement of the “assemblage point” within the luminous ball, i.e., along its surface or inward, called “shift,” and a displacement outward, outside the ball, called “movement” of the “assemblage point” was also noted.

Since the “shift of the assemblage point” is its displacement within the luminous sphere, the worlds perceived as a result, no matter how strange they may seem, belong to the human sphere. As a result of the “movement of the assemblage point,” fibers that do not belong to the human sphere are activated. The perception of these fibers brings to life unthinkable, incomprehensible worlds in which there is not a trace of anything human.

To understand the action of the “tuning” mechanism and the role of the “assemblage point” in it, it is necessary to connect them with the concepts of “first and second attention”, which were already mentioned above.

"First attention" focuses the ordinary world we perceive, only highlighting and intensifying certain emanations selected from the narrow band of emanations in which human consciousness is located. The emanations that are not involved do not disappear anywhere. They remain within our reach, but seem to be dozing. We won't know anything about them until the end of our lives, unless we become warriors.

“Seers” call the isolated and intensified emanations “right-sided” or “normal” consciousness, “tonal”, “this world”, “known”, “first attention”. The average person calls this “reality”, “rationality”, “common sense”. These isolated emanations constitute a significant part of the band of human consciousness, but only a small fraction of the entire spectrum of emanations located inside the human cocoon. The untapped emanations within the human band are something of a threshold to the “unknown.”

Actually, the “unknown” is composed of many emanations that do not belong to the human spectrum and are never isolated in an ordinary person.

They are called “left-sided” consciousness, “nagual”, “other world”, “unknown”, “second attention”.

The “second attention” belongs to the luminous body just as the “first” belongs to the physical body.

As a result of centuries of hard work, the “seers” realized that by shifting the “assemblage point” as a result, for example, of a blow from the nagual, previously untapped emanations can be isolated and strengthened. At the same time, the world remains the same, but becomes clearer. This wealth of sensations is perceived by the body as a sensation of acceleration.

Bilateral movements between the right and left sides made it easier to understand that on the right side too much energy was absorbed by the actions and interactions of our daily lives. On the left side, on the other hand, there is an innate need for economy and speed.

“In a state of heightened awareness, everything is perceived as one piece, a monolithic mass of inseparable parts.

This ability is characterized by intensity.

However, returning to the right side, it is impossible to arrange everything experienced on the left side in a linear sequence, and therefore remember, remember in the universal sense of the word.” The experiences we receive remain accessible to us, but they cannot be reached, since they are walled up by a wall of intensity.

This forgetting is the main problem of those learning the art of moving the “assemblage point” and, therefore, the task of remembering is to connect our left and right sides, to unite these two sides various forms perception into a single whole.

The thousand-fold shift of the “assemblage point” revealed some patterns that are common to everyone who crosses the border between two levels of consciousness. This pattern is the appearance of a “wall of fog” as a kind of boundary between two forms of perception.

When the "assemblage point" is displaced from its normal position and reaches a certain depth, it passes a certain barrier that momentarily deprives it of the ability to tune the emanations. It is felt as a moment of emptiness of perception: at the moment of disruption of the emanation setting, the perception of a “streak of fog” appears.

“...It (something) was 5-7 meters to the right of me and looked like an ethereal wall of yellow fog, dividing the whole world in two. This wall stretched from earth to sky, going into infinity, while the right side of the world from me was covered with this fog, and the left was clearly visible.”

This wall moved as the person turned his head. The separation seemed real, but the border was not on a physical level. “...When a warrior has enough equanimity, the presence of which depends on the right amount of energy, he can stop the rotation of the wall. It is not inside us. It is definitely outside in the world, dividing it into two parts, and rotates when one turns one's head, as if it were attached to our temples. Successfully keeping the wall from turning gives the warrior the strength to face it and the strength to pass through it at any time...” However, to pass beyond the “wall of fog” while in a state of heightened awareness requires a small part of our full consciousness, whereas to pass through the physical bodies into another world we need our entire being.

As a result of repeated journeys through the "wall of fog" the warrior undergoes a permanent change in his entire being, a change that forces him to take for granted that the worlds between the parallel lines dividing left and right attention are real, because they are part of the common world, just like just as our luminous body is part of our being.

The "wall of fog" is the most obscure part of don Juan's teachings. It turns out that the turning of the head to stop the movement of the wall of yellow fog among stalkers (warriors engaged in “not-doing”) is not done in order to turn the face in a new direction, but in order to look at time differently.

Usually we look at time running away from us. Stalkers face the coming time. This is not equivalent to looking into the future, but only means that time is seen as something concrete, although incomprehensible. Time is the essence of attention. The Eagle's emanations are made of time.

The Wheel of Time, like a state of heightened consciousness, is part of the other self, just as left- and right-side consciousness are parts of our everyday self, and physically it can be described as a tunnel of infinite length and width, a tunnel with reflective grooves. Each groove is infinite, and their number is infinite. Living beings are created by the power of life in such a way that they look into only one groove. To look into it means to be caught by it. What warriors call will refers to the wheel of time - something like an intangible tentacle that we all possess. The ultimate goal of a warrior is to learn to focus his will on the wheel of time in order to make it turn. Warriors who have managed to turn the wheel of time can look into any groove and extract from it whatever they want. To be caught in a groove; time means seeing images of this groove, but only as they go away. Freedom from the bewitching power of these grooves means the ability to look in any direction as these grooves move away or approach.

Reaching the barrier of perception in a state of heightened consciousness, or "second attention" is a common lesson in the school of warriors. However, don Juan explained that a warrior's training ends when he overcomes the barrier of perception from a state of normal consciousness.

To do this, he must use "setting". The only force that can temporarily eliminate "tuning" is "tuning". It is necessary to eliminate the “setting” that dictates the perception of the ordinary world of everyday life.

Intending to change the position of his “assemblage point” and intending to keep it in the new position long enough, the warrior assembles another world and escapes from this one.

A barrier of perception will separate these worlds.

Overcoming the barrier of perception is the culmination of everything that seers do. From the moment the barrier is overcome, a person and his fate acquire a completely different meaning for a warrior. The barrier is used as a final test. The warrior must jump into the abyss from a cliff while in a state of normal consciousness. If he fails to erase the everyday world and collect another world before he reaches the bottom, he will die. You need to make this world disappear, but at the same time remain yourself. "Seers" know that when the flame of consciousness burns them, they will retain self-awareness, in in a certain sense remaining ourselves.

An important discovery of the “seers” was the determination of the location of the “assemblage point”, namely: not in the physical body, but in the luminous shell, in the cocoon itself.

“Usually, a cocoon hardened by self-absorption does not give in to the nagual’s blow at all. However, in some cases it is very pliable, and even minimal force will form a cup-shaped depression in it. Its size ranges from a tiny flattening of the surface to a depression that occupies a third of the entire volume of the cocoon.” This explains the possibility of transition to “second attention” as a result of a blow or injury.

Don Juan explained that the depression in the cocoon acts on the “first attention,” shifting the luminosity of consciousness.

The depression presses on the emanations inside the luminous shell.

The “seer” can observe how the highlighting factor of the “first attention” shifts under the influence of the force of this pressure. The emanations inside the cocoon shift, as a result of which the glow of consciousness moves to previously uninvolved emanations belonging to areas that are normally inaccessible to “first attention”.

The glow formed in the consciousness by the concavity of the cocoon can be called “temporarily increased attention.”

The emanations it highlights and amplifies are so close to the emanations used in everyday life that the attention itself is modified to a minimal extent. But the ability to understand, concentrate and forget increases. This occurs because the emanations that give special clarity of perception and clarity of consciousness remain isolated and intensified only while the warrior is in a state of heightened consciousness.

It is very important to note that the “state of heightened consciousness” is not only visible as a deepening of the luminosity within the egg-shaped human cocoon. Surface luminosity also increases. But with the brightness of the glow formed by full consciousness, this intensification cannot be compared in any way. In the case of full consciousness, the entire luminous egg immediately flares up. This explosion of light is so powerful that the shell of the egg dissipates and the internal emanations spread beyond any imaginable limits.

"Seers" believe that consciousness always comes from outside and that the true secret is not within us. It is noted that, in accordance with the nature of things, large emanations fix the emanations inside the cocoon. And the trick of true consciousness is to allow the fixative emanations to merge with those within us. If we can make this happen, we become what we really are - fluid, ever moving, eternal.

This leads, quite logically, to the conclusion that the level of consciousness depends on the extent to which it is able to allow the pressure of large emanations to guide it.

The Seers also established that “consciousness does not appear at the moment of birth, but at the moment of conception, when, during copulation, the emanations inside the cocoons of pairs of living beings do everything possible to endow with consciousness the new being they create. During sexual intercourse, the emanations in the cocoons of each partner become extremely excited, culminating in the merging of the two parts of the luminosity of consciousness. - one from each partner, which are separated from their cocoons.”

It has also been noted that “from the moment of conception the consciousness of a being is increased and enriched by the process of life and that the consciousness of, for example, an insect and the consciousness of a man grow in strikingly different ways. But with the same steadfastness.”

Assemblage point offset

Human beings choose to perceive the same emanations for two reasons. The first and main thing is that we were taught that these emanations are accessible to perception. And the second: our “assemblage points” select and prepare precisely these emanations for perception.

The decisive factor was probably the discovery that the location of the “assemblage point” on the cocoon is not constant, but is determined by habit. “In accordance with the Eagle’s command, the person’s “assemblage point” is located on the cocoon within a certain area. But its exact location is determined by habits, that is, constantly repeated actions. First we find out that she can be in a particular place, and then we ourselves order her to be there. Our team becomes the Eagle team.”

The next discovery was that the “assemblage point” could be moved from the inside. Technically, this is accomplished through a process of awareness: a person must realize that the world we perceive is the result of a certain position of the “assemblage point” on the cocoon. If such an understanding is achieved, the “assemblage point” can be shifted by force of will as a result of acquiring new habits. Hence the enormous importance attached to unusual actions and practices.

Magical practices have direct significance only for distracting the first attention from self-absorption, the power of which firmly fixes the “assemblage point”. Their indirect meaning is to shift the “assemblage point” by removing it from the control of “first attention”.

For the “seeer,” the shift of the “assemblage point” is at a level three-quarters of the height of the cocoon, on its surface.

In fact, when it is displaced, it goes deeper inside the cocoon, causing the emanations dormant inside the disk of human consciousness to glow (don Juan compares consciousness to a disk of light cheese inserted into a head of dark cheese), passing through the entire cocoon through and through.

It is interesting to note that the inward movement of the “assemblage point” is seen as a movement to the left along the surface of the cocoon, which is explained by its transparency. Moving deeper, and not to the left, allows a person, when shifting the “assemblage point,” not to lose personal self-awareness.

"Construction" of consciousness

The next important position of the teachings of K. Castaneda is the statement that the “first attention” perceives emanations in blocks or beams. The organization of such perception is also a function of the “assemblage point”. An example of blocky perception is the human body as we usually perceive it.

The remaining parts of our being - the luminous cocoon - are never highlighted or intensified. They are doomed to oblivion, because the function of the “assemblage point” is to force us not only to perceive certain bundles of emanation, but also to ignore all others.

The “assemblage point” emits a glow that groups internal emanations into bundles, which are then tuned to the corresponding larger emanations, also collected in bundles. The formation of bundles occurs even when the “seer” is dealing with emanations that have never been used. As soon as the emanations are isolated and strengthened, the laws of block perception characteristic of “first attention” come into play. For example, when we look at a tree, the “assemblage point” produces the attunement of countless emanations. As a result, the "assemblage point" causes us to perceive a block of emanations, which we call a tree.

But the "assemblage point" not only provides the attunement of emanations, but also removes certain emanations from the attunement zone in order to obtain greater clarity of perception.

Based on the block perception of emanations, the concept of “unknown” can be clarified. “It is the essence of emanations that the “first attention” ignores. There are many of them, they constitute a huge area in which the organization of blocks is possible.” And the “unknowable” is an endless area in which the “assemblage point” is not able to organize blocks. A completely logical conclusion follows: “the secret of the image of the world lies in perception.” “Seers” see that something perceived by the senses is determined only by the position of the “assemblage point.” And if she builds emanations inside the cocoon in a position different from normal, human senses begin to perceive the world in the most incomprehensible way.

Having noted the decisive role of the “assemblage point,” K. Castaneda moves on to explain the mechanism of its displacement and fixation. The habitual way of life and habitual actions keep the “assemblage point” in one position, and internal dialogue rigidly fixes it. This means that stopping the dialogue immediately makes the “assemblage point” moveable.

The internal dialogue stops due to the same thing due to which it begins: due to the action of the will. We are forced to start an internal conversation with ourselves under pressure from those who teach us. “When they teach us, they use their will. And we use ours in the learning process.

By learning to talk to ourselves, we learn to control the will. To stop internal conversations, you should use the same method: apply the will to it, develop the appropriate intention.”

Through inner silence, the power of attunement of internal emanations is released. Magical actions attract this force. It “clings” to the edges of the strip of consciousness, and the “assemblage point” can easily move across it. At the same time, visions of physical activity are found on the right edge, and spiritual activity on the left.

By overcoming a certain limit in its movement, the “assemblage point” is capable of assembling worlds completely different from the one we know.

Continuing the theme of blocks of emanation, don Juan reported that the emanations of the Eagle are always collected in bundles, which are called large bands of emanation. For example, “there is an immeasurably huge bunch that forms organic beings. They have a special quality. They are fluffy. They are transparent and shine with their own light, they have some specific energy. They are aware and actively moving. That is why all organic beings are filled with a special burning energy. Other emanations are darker and not so fluffy. Some have no light at all and are opaque..."

All organic beings belong to the same band. Imagine a wide strip of luminous filaments. Organic beings are bubbles that appear around individual groups of these fibers. Within this band of organic life, some bubbles form around fibers running through the middle of the band. Others are closer to the edges. The strip is wide enough to accommodate all types of organic beings. These bubbles contain different emanations, therefore the creatures are different. The large bands of emanations are countless, but there are forty-eight of them on Earth. For the “seer” there are forty-eight types of organizations, forty-eight blocks or structures on Earth. One of them is organic life. The seven bands produce inorganic bubbles of consciousness. And there are forty stripes that form bubbles that have no consciousness. These bubbles only generate organization.

The eagle generates consciousness with the help of three gigantic beams of emanations passing through eight large bands. The property of these bundles is to impart color to themselves. One is beige-pink, the second is peach and the third is amber. Within the organic band, the pink tuft belongs primarily to plants, the peach tuft to insects, and the amber tuft to humans and other animals. Within the amber bundle of consciousness there are a large number of faint shades corresponding to differences in the quality of consciousness. The most common: pinkish-amber and greenish-amber. Blue-amber ones are often found. But pure amber color is a huge rarity. The hue is ultimately determined by the amount of energy saved and stored.

Don Juan further said that there is no movement inside the shells of inorganic beings formed by the seven other stripes of consciousness. They look like shapeless reservoirs with very weak luminosity.

Their shells are completely different from the cocoons of organic creatures. They do not have elasticity, the quality of fullness, due to which organic beings resemble balls, literally bursting with energy from within.

The remaining forty bands are formed not by consciousness, but by non-living energy structures. For some reason they decided to call them vessels in contrast to cocoons and reservoirs, which are understood as fields of energy consciousness that have independent luminosity.

So, the world as a whole is formed by forty-eight stripes.

The world that our “assemblage point” offers to our normal perception is composed of two stripes.

One of them is an organic stripe, the second is a stripe that has structure but does not have consciousness.

The remaining forty-six large stripes do not relate to the world that we perceive in our normal state.

Stalking

Having noticed that in the case of unusual behavior for a person, previously untapped emanations begin to glow, and his “assemblage point” shifts gently and harmoniously, the warriors began the practice of systematic control over behavior. It is called the art of “stalking”, because it consists of a special kind of behavior in relation to people and to one’s actions. “Stalking” is the practice of internal secrecy that does not manifest itself in behavior.

The art of “stalking” is used in ordinary reality, i.e. it is intended for practice in the right side of consciousness and consists in the implementation of special control of ordinary reality, the purpose of which is to enter the unusual reality.

The stalker thus makes the everyday world his battlefield, turning every action and every interaction with other people into a strategic goal.

“Not-doing” is the first form of “stalking” available to the student. Its goal is to break acquired habits and behavioral patterns. Anything can be “not-doed”. Blowing dust from one place to another, running backwards, looking for a car under a pebble, dreaming - all these are examples of “not-doing”.

The main force of “stalking” is the recapitulation of one’s life, just as the “dreaming body” is the main force of dreamers. The reason why stalkers must review their lives in such detail is that Eagle's gift includes his agreement to accept a surrogate instead of a real consciousness if it turns out to be a perfect copy. The eagle can only be satisfied with a perfectly executed revision instead of consciousness.

One of essential components recapitulation is breathing. The fact is that the luminous body constantly creates cobweb-like threads emerging from the luminous mass under the influence of various kinds of emotions. Therefore, every interactional situation or situation in which the senses are involved is potentially devastating to the luminous body. Inhaling while turning the head from right to left while remembering the feeling, the stalker, using the energy of breathing, “picks up” the threads he left behind. This is immediately followed by an exhalation from left to right. With the help of exhalation, the stalker frees himself from those threads that were left in him by other luminous bodies participating in the recalled event.

If this picking up and throwing away of threads has not happened, there is no way to practice controlled stupidity, because these foreign threads are the basis for the limitless growth of a sense of self-worth, importance.

The meaning of controlled stupidity is that the warrior, realizing the futility human communication and everyday activities within human society, in order to achieve his main goal, he pretends that he is doing all this seriously. He pretends that what others think and say about him is terribly important to him. In fact, the warrior is deeply indifferent to this, since the first thing he tirelessly struggles with is the consciousness of his own importance. A person who “sees” the true state of affairs, his complete dependence on the Eagle’s commands, is unlikely to overestimate his importance. Thus, he laughs at others, but above all at himself. One of the results of a detailed recapitulation of one's life is sincere laughter when coming face to face with the tired manifestation of narcissism, which is the essence of all human interactions.

Having overcome narcissism and reassessed his importance, the stalker “erases” his previous history, which is usually preserved by people for self-examination and a feeling of their usefulness and significance. From now on, the only value for him is knowledge.

Settings

Next and no less important than “stalking” was the discovery of an unknown force - the energy of mutual adjustment of emanations. The “seers” saw that the volume of the glow of consciousness and its intensity increased as the emanation inside the cocoon was adjusted to correspond to larger emanations. This discovery became the springboard for the development of a complex set of techniques for controlling the attunement of emanation, reminiscent of meditation. The resulting energy was called will. It is understood as “a certain blind, impersonal, never-interrupted flow of energy that determines our behavior, forcing us to act one way and not another.”

Will can be represented in the form of maximum control of the glow of the body as an energy field. It is felt as a force emanating from the midsection of the body following a moment of silence, or intense terror, or deep sadness, and is used to turn the glow of the body into silence.

This is a moment of distraction of consciousness that is even quieter than the moment of turning off the internal dialogue. This shutdown of consciousness, this silence makes it possible for the intention to rise to direct the “second attention,” control it, force it to do this or that. The will is so complete control of the “second attention” that it is also called the other “I”. It is the will that determines the nature of our perception of the world ordinary life and by the force of this perception indirectly determines the usual position of the “assemblage point.” Then it was established how the will works. It is noted that to give the perception a quality of continuity, constant renewal of tuning occurs. To constitute a living world, the setting must be fresh and vibrant all the time.

To constantly maintain these qualities, the flow of energy that arises in the process of this very adjustment is automatically directed to strengthening its individual selected elements.

All living beings are slaves to "intention".

It forces us to act in this world. It even forces us to die. When we become warriors

"intention" becomes our friend... The Nagual has shown what he can do with his "intention." He could make things appear by calling on "intention". He said that if anyone wants to fly, he must create the “intention” of flying.

This is how the third basic element of the system was found - “intention”, which is understood as the purposeful control of the will - the energy of compliance.

Working in a dream

Stalking was an effective method for shifting the assemblage point, but the shift itself was insignificant. The search for new ways to shift the “assemblage point” required a more detailed acquaintance with the emanations of the Eagle, which was mortally dangerous. To protect the “seers”, a new “old” technique was used - “dreaming”, which turned out to be the most effective way to shift the “assemblage point”. However, in the dream the researcher is left alone with the incomprehensible power of attunement.

Just like “stalking,” “dreaming” began with a simple discovery: in a dream, the “assemblage point” quite naturally moves slightly to the left. The disruption of its fixation is the result of relaxation, and previously untapped emanations begin to glow - hence the intricacy of dreams. Next, it remains to learn to control this shift, called the art of “dreaming”, or the art of controlling the “dream body”.

But control does not imply any attempts to manage this shift. We are talking only about fixing the “assemblage point” in the position that it reached, naturally moving in a dream. The place where the “assemblage point” was during sleep is called “dream position”, and the art of “dreaming” is to maintain it in this place, even after waking up. This means that the "dream body" can be controlled, thereby forming a new temporary "dream body" each time one wakes up in a new "dream position."

Subsequently, a system was created - the “warrior’s path”, which made it possible to gain internal strength to direct the shift of the “assemblage point” in a dream. This strength was the warrior’s poise. This is a sense of balance, a feeling of almost complete indifference and lightness, as well as a natural and deep tendency to study and understand, that is, everything that constitutes the “impeccability of a warrior.”

Don Juan defined "dreaming" as the "not-doing" of sleep. It enables practitioners to use it. to take into account the part of their lives that they usually spend in chaos.

In the “dream” there are several states that are apparently common:

Calm wakefulness is a preliminary state when the senses fall asleep, but the surroundings are still aware.

Everything is perceived as a stream of reddish light.

Dynamic wakefulness - the reddish light dissipates like fog, and the sleeper looks at some scene, as if at a scoreboard, because it is motionless. He sees a three-dimensional picture. A frozen piece of something.

Passive observation. In this state, the dreamer no longer looks at the frozen fragments of the world, but observes the event, being a witness to it. The predominance of our visual and auditory sensations makes this condition mainly a matter of the eyes and ears.

In this state, the sleeper is drawn into action.

Here he is already doing something, taking some steps and using his time fully. This is a state of dynamic initiative.

The very act of “dreaming” begins as a completely special state of consciousness, which you come to by fixing the remainder of the consciousness that you still have in the dream on individual features or elements of the dream. This remnant of consciousness, which don Juan called “second attention,” was brought into action through the exercise of “not-doing.”

An essential aid to "dreaming" was a state of mental calm or "not-talking to oneself" - the first point.

The second point is to concentrate on the tip of the sternum, on the upper abdomen. Don Juan said that the energy needed to “dream” comes from this point.

The energy needed to move during sleep comes from the area located 2-5 cm below the navel. In women, both of these energies come from the womb.

The third point is the “dreaming” pose.

The fourth is the time of the “dream”.

The technique for achieving the “dream body” begins with an initial action, which, when repeated with steadfastness, generates an unyielding “intention.”

This, in turn, leads to internal silence, and this latter generates the internal strength necessary to shift the “assemblage point” to the desired positions right during sleep. When moving into the “dream body,” the most important thing is to consolidate the “second attention.” Setting the task of moving into the “dream body,” don Juan insisted that the “second attention” be turned on while still awake. But “first attention,” the attention that creates the world, can never be completely overcome.

It can only be turned off for a moment or replaced by “second attention”, provided that the body has already accumulated it in sufficient quantities. The art of "dreaming" is a natural way of accumulating "second attention".

To train “second attention” you can use the following techniques:

The task is to see your hands in a dream;

Choosing a place and finding it in a dream;

Selecting some changes or details in this place and using them for the “second attention” tincture;

Exit of the body into a dream;

The use of things in the everyday world in dreams, i.e. the inevitable penetration of dreams into the world of everyday life.

The accumulation of energy, achieved by using the listed techniques and techniques, leads the warrior to the threshold of finding his unity, but only to the threshold. He still draws the missing energy from inorganic beings during dreams, and the main and final push is given to him by the Earth, which, according to the teachings of Castaneda, is a living being. The “seers” discovered a luminous cocoon of the Earth containing the emanations of the Eagle. This push is an impulse emanating from the consciousness of the Earth itself at the moment when the emanations inside the warrior’s cocoon are attuned to the emanations inside the Earth’s cocoon. The “unknown” contained in the emanations of the Earth at this moment becomes perceptible.

The higher consciousness of the Earth allows a person to move into parallel large bands of emanation, and the power of this “tuning” causes the ordinary world to melt away.

Description of the world

Immediately after birth, infants cannot perceive the world in the same way as adults perceive it. Their attention does not yet function as “first attention,” and therefore they are not involved in the perception of the world that is characteristic of the people around them. Surrounded by the same emanations, they have not yet learned to select them and organize them in the same way as adults. Babies have a lot of work to do to achieve this - they will move forward step by step, grow and absorb the description of the world that their parents will provide them with. Everyone, especially an adult, when he interacts with a child, becomes a teacher - in most cases this happens unconsciously - continuously describing the world in one or another of its manifestations. At first, children cannot fully perceive this description, but over time they learn to perceive reality in terms of this description. It will determine in every detail the form in which their perception will select and organize the surrounding energy fields.

We will not be mistaken if we say that what we perceive every day represents that habitual description that we ourselves directed in advance to the outside world. The flow of this description remains unchanged, maintaining the familiar perception of the world - this happens moment after moment, day after day. If you stop this flow of descriptions, then the perception of the world is destroyed, and as a result, what is called in Castaneda’s books “stopping the world.” “Vision” is precisely the ability to perceive the world as it becomes when the flow of description stops.

Early in Castaneda's apprenticeship with don Juan, he was taught to describe the world from the sorcerers' point of view - this was a means of interrupting the flow of conventional descriptions. He later learned that the description of the magicians was also just another case of description, which in turn could become a trap. Don Juan stated more than once that he was not a magician, but rather a warrior and a “seer.”

Internal dialogue

Inner dialogue is the mental conversation we constantly have with ourselves and is a direct expression of the reality that each of us perceives. He performs the function of a guardian, whose main task is to protect the above-mentioned description, feeding it with his own content (thoughts) and facilitating the commission of actions that strengthen it. It follows from this that we perceive this world and behave in the way that is typical for us, based on what we tell ourselves in reasoning with ourselves. This, in turn, helps confirm the content and describe our internal dialogue.

Commitment to internal dialogue can lead to such an extreme as the habit of replacing reality with your thoughts. We look at the world, at objects, at people, at ourselves and at the same time we think about what we see, and in the end we begin to mistake our thoughts for objects in the real world. We tell ourselves that the world is such and such, and we are convinced that this is how it really is.

Naturally, everything that happens as a consequence of this internal dialogue stops the moment we are able to stop this dialogue. That is why don Juan speaks of stopping the internal dialogue as the key that opens the doors between worlds.

Rings of Power

The ability to "isolate" certain aligned emanations corresponding to the terms of the description shared by the rest of humanity is called the "first ring of power" - we apply it to the elements of the surrounding world, projecting our description onto them. The result is a description of the world as we perceive it. In addition, each person's power ring is combined with the power rings of other people. Thus, the creation of reality in terms of description is to a certain extent a collective task, in the solution of which everyone involved in a given situation takes part. As a result, objects of reality are perceived by people almost identically.

At the same time, there is a second ring of power that allows you to go beyond ordinary perception - it is this ring that magicians use to form the perception of other worlds. Everyone has such a second ring, but it begins to function only when it is possible to silence the first ring, which does not happen often in the lives of ordinary people.

Not-doing

One way to block the first ring is to perform actions that are alien to our everyday description of the world - this method is known as “not-doing” (or “not-doing”). The ordinary description of the world forces us to behave in accordance with its inherent terms; Thus, all our actions turn out to be emanations of the mentioned description of the world and at the same time aimed at its reproduction. These actions are what we call “doing” (or “doing”).

In combination with the description of the world that feeds them, they form a self-reproducing system. Any action that does not coincide with the world is a form of “not-doing.”

Not-doing interrupts the flow of description, which in turn stops the creation of the known world. Non-doing is the mediator that opens the way to the unknown side of reality and ourselves. In other words, it provides access to the nagual - we talk about it as a “separate reality”, and in the case of an individual, as the awareness of another “I”.

Because non-doing practiced as awareness right side, allows us to touch the edges of awareness of the left side, then the systematic practice of not-doing creates more and more new points of such contact. Little by little, this can allow us to move closer to unifying the two modes of awareness, which can result in a “wholeness of self.”

There is another aspect to keep in mind. Everything we talk about in reference to our own “I” (ego) is an element of the description we have internalized. This circumstance takes on special significance if we realize that this part of the description chains us to certain forms of being and behavior. Although these forms seem absolute and rigidly defined, they can be stopped or stopped entirely, opening up to us unlimited possibilities in what we can become and what we can do. Consequently, non-doing, which stops the flow of description, is an open door to freedom and a path to changing oneself. By not-doing our own “I,” we interrupt the flow of description of our own person, we are freed from the spell of the ego, which only wants to be believed that it alone represents the only reality, and we are able to recognize our true nature, the nature energy fields, free and fluid. From now on, we can rediscover ourselves - intentionally and voluntarily; we gain the ability to respond in new ways to new situations that arise around us every moment.

Tensegrity

Tensegrity is a system of magical movements that develop awareness. They allow a person to quickly accumulate a significant amount of free energy and gain conscious control over his energy body.

For many years, Carlos Castaneda and his companions on the magical journey Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, at the insistence of their teacher don Juan Matus, selected the most effective magical movements that were taught to them by the sorcerers of don Juan’s party and don Juan himself.

Over the years, everything selected was systematized by them and the three female guardians of their magical group - Kylie Lun Dal, Reine Murez and Maya Murez - in the form of a holistic, self-sufficient technology of psychoenergetic training, called tensegrity.

In 1993, Florinda Donner-Grau, Carol Tiggs and Taisha Abelar, along with the Three Guardians, began teaching tensegrity publicly on behalf of Carlos Castaneda. The first workshops were held in 1993-1994 at the Rome Institute, Arizona, Akohi Farms, Maui, Hawaii, and the Isalen Institute, Big Sur, California.

Since at about the same time Carlos Castaneda, for certain reasons, lifted the thirty-year ban on the publication of any photo and video materials that had never been violated, video recordings were carried out according to the tensegrity practice system at each of the seminars.

The first videos on tensegrity went on sale in February 1995 at the Phoenix Bookstore in Santa Monica, California. Then a special was filmed educational video. In it, female guardians demonstrate in detail the technique of twelve basic tensegrity movements - the first part of the system of magical movements, explaining in sufficient detail the action and energetic background of each element.

The beginning of the disclosure of the practice of tensegrity to the world of people is not just a significant event. This is another breakthrough to the heights of the Spirit, another step into a new quality of awareness.

What is death

When we read in obituaries “Carlos Castaneda died...”, do we correctly understand the meaning of the word “died” or do we put into this concept what the people around us usually put into it?

In most spiritual traditions, a person who has achieved enlightenment (in terms of Eastern traditions) retains awareness after death, and his physical body remains in this world. This happened, for example, with the Indian master of the 20th century Osho Rajneesh, this is how Buddha, the founder of Jainism Mahavir, and the Orthodox saint Sergius of Radonezh died. However, in some traditions such a valuable resource as the body is not left on Earth. At the end of his path, the practitioner realizes the Body of Light: he declares that in seven days he will die; he is locked in a room or tent, and on the eighth day only hair and nails are found there.

Many traditions talk about incarnations, on Rajneesh's grave it is written: “Never born, never died. Only visited this planet Earth between 12/11/31 and 01/19/90.” Not all people can achieve realization in one life; the same Rajneesh remembered his previous incarnation, in which he was three days short of enlightenment.

Castaneda's tradition does not recognize reincarnation, nor does it recognize the possibility of maintaining awareness, leaving the physical body to die in this world. According to the teachings of Indian magicians, a human being, upon being born, receives awareness as an “advance” from an impersonal powerful force, which the magicians figuratively called the Eagle. Throughout life, a person develops this awareness and enriches it with his experience. When death comes, the Eagle takes away his awareness along with the accumulated experience and impressions. Therefore, each of us has only two possibilities: either we die and the Eagle absorbs our consciousness, or we take the path of the warrior in order to have a “cubic centimeter of chance to have a chance” to achieve absolute freedom, or, in other words, to burn in fire from the inside. This is what happened with Castaneda’s teacher, don Juan Matus, with his teacher, with his teacher’s teacher...

Castaneda said: “I would like to find integrity to leave this world in the same way that he (don Juan) did, but there is no guarantee.” If Castaneda really died, it only means that he was unable to realize his “cubic centimeter of chance.” For those who practice the techniques described in Castaneda’s books, go to tensegrity seminars, nothing has changed - each of us can have a chance, but cannot have guarantees.

Here's what we know about Castaneda's death.

Carlos Castaneda, author of 12 books dedicated to the teachings of shamans Ancient Mexico, died on April 27, 1998 at his home in Westwood (Los Angeles) from liver cancer; his body was cremated and his ashes were sent to Mexico - this is the official information. A message about this appeared in the press (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, etc.) on June 19, i.e. almost two months later.

Castaneda and two female warriors of his magical group: Taisha Abelar (author of the book “The Magical Transition”) and Florinda Donner-Grau (author of the books “The Dream We Are,” “Shabono,” “Life in a Dream”) - left this world, maintaining awareness. This was stated by one of the energy trackers - the name given to a group of female practitioners who demonstrate tensegrity at seminars - at a meeting with seminar participants. (The deaths of Taisha and Florinda were not reported in the press.)

Of the four members of Castaneda's magical group, only Carol Tiggs remained here.

Castaneda's literary agent, Tracy Kramer, said:

“In keeping with the tradition of the shamans of his lineage, Carlos Castaneda left this world in full consciousness” (Los Angeles Times).

Indeed, all three women warriors were present at the seminar on April 4 (Castaneda has not appeared at the seminars since more than a year), On May 2, Carol was alone (she didn’t say a word about Carlos’ death). Taisha and Florinda were supposed to be at the Munich seminar at the end of May, but they did not come, the organizers even reduced the cost of the seminar and returned the difference to the participants; On June 6 and 13, none of the four magicians were there either.

It is quite possible that the versions of Castaneda's death are fake. Newspapers note that the circumstances of Carlos' death are as full of hoaxes as his life.

According to the report, he was cremated "at once" - a suspicious rush.

However, press reports were two months late; as an explanation, journalists cite the words of Deborah Druz, “lawyer and friend” of Carlos Castaneda: “He did not like to be the center of attention. Knowing this, I did not take responsibility for issuing an official press release."

The official version is that he died of liver cancer, but seminar participants who saw Castaneda at his favorite restaurant in Los Angeles in February (that is, two months before his death) report that he looked like everything but for a person suffering from liver cancer.

The photograph “Castaneda in 1951” looks suspicious: firstly, the man in the photograph is in his late forties, and Castaneda in 1951 was no more than 26; secondly, his followers conducted a mini-survey of those who saw the writer with their own eyes, of course, in 1996, and not in 1951, but there are still few similarities. In general, Castaneda forbade himself to be photographed or filmed: “Recording is a way to record you in time. The only thing a magician should not do is become static, inert.

A static world, a static picture is the opposite of a magician.”

In 1997, a book by Margaret Runyan, Carlos's ex-wife, was published in Canada, which she claims describes him as a master of hoaxes. We have already given an example of such a hoax regarding the date of birth above, in the first chapter of this book. But this is only one fact. According to Castaneda's teachings, the magician erases his personal history, so there is no doubt that we will never know most of the information about Castaneda.

Why does a magician need hoaxes? The magician's goal is to leave while maintaining awareness. And for this, the magician must not only have enough energy, he must be free and fluid. Personal history, public attention, as well as a sense of self-worth - this is what gets in the way: it binds, it takes away energy.

Here is an epigraph to Castaneda’s book “Tales of Power”:

“Five conditions for a lonely bird: First: it flies to the highest point; Second: for company she does not suffer even birds like her; Third: its beak is directed to the sky; Fourth: it does not have a specific color; Fifth: and she sings very quietly.”

Now we would like to ask a question. Maybe we're solving the wrong problem? Whether Castaneda died, Castaneda left or freed himself from the burden of public attention - what can having this information give us? How many copies have been broken in the discussion of the questions “was Don Juan a real person?”, “Didn’t Castaneda use the works of other anthropologists?”, “Are the events of his books real or is it fiction?”! But what did it give and to whom?

Why do scientists continue to waste time and energy on this? Is it because discussing these things is much more familiar and easier than asking yourself (namely yourself) the main question: do the techniques described by Carlos Castaneda work? After all, if we ask ourselves this question, we will come face to face with the fact that we have little time and only one choice: we can either move blithely towards our own death, or “give up the damned pettiness that is characteristic of people who live life the way if death would never touch them.”

One of Castaneda's students, a tensegrity practitioner, said: “It is more useful for us to consider that Castaneda really died. You become more determined. You understand that you are alone and you must mobilize all your strength.”

Indeed, “we are at our best when our backs are against the wall.”

Castaneda said: “Intention is not reasoning, it is action.” Masters of the Dzogchen tradition emphasize:

“We are not talking about a philosophical doctrine, we are talking about the practical return of man to his true nature.” There are many wonderful strong techniques described in different traditions: prayer, meditation, yogic asanas... Why do we ignore them, or turn them into a formality, by doing which we do not move anywhere, do not change?!

Let us conclude this chapter with the words of Castaneda, spoken at one of the seminars: “We will all come face to face with infinity, whether we like it or not. Why do this when we are weak and decrepit, at the moment of death? Why not when we are strong? Why not now?"

Sanchez Victor

The Teachings of Don Carlos (Practical use of the techniques of Carlos Castaneda)

This book is a reference work intended solely for use as a source of general information. The exercises described in the book were tested during seminars conducted by the author; some are unsafe and may cause physical injury. These include exercises No. 73 (“Tree Climbing”) and No. 76 (“Burial of a Warrior”). These and similar exercises should only be done in groups, under the guidance of experienced teachers. Those undergoing the training course must be in good physical shape, the question of the possibility of such classes for each potential participant should be decided by his doctor - only after those who wish can be allowed to perform some of the most difficult exercises, for example those mentioned above. Responsibility for any problems or injuries sustained while practical application this manual. rests entirely with the injured person or with the leader who used these exercises during group classes.

In addition, I would especially like to emphasize that everything written in this book belongs to the pen of Victor Sanchez. Carlos Castaneda did not participate in the writing of this work and does not share the views expressed in it.

I express my gratitude

In my life I have had the good fortune to know and enjoy, perhaps undeservedly, the love of many. There are also many people to whom I would like to express my gratitude. If I set myself the task of listing everyone who in one way or another helped me or participated in my acquisition of experience, which resulted in the publication of this book, I would not have enough pages.

However, I would like to bring to your attention, dear reader, my gratitude to some of those who have had the greatest influence on my experience:

Mountains, trees and gray whales, who revealed to me the secrets of harmony and Power and made me realize the existence of a type of communication between them that lies beyond the agreements and disagreements of the world of human beings.

To the indigenous people of America, who allowed me into their world as an equal.

To the woman who not only gave me life, but also taught me the very first love song I knew, the melody of which continues to adorn my world to this day.

Participants in practical classes who managed to create so much magic that there was enough for everyone.

Teresa, for all these years of love and spiritual growth.

To my father, for his never-ending fight against any form of mediocrity that he waged throughout his life.

And, of course, Carlos Castaneda is for that. that he showed us all the door and gave us the key to it with his most amazing books of our time.

Victor Sanchez

List of books by Carlos Castaneda mentioned in the text

(I) The Teachings of Don Juan

(II) Separate reality

(III) Journey to Ixtlan

(IV) Tales of Power

(V) Second Ring of Power

(VI) Gift of the Eagle

(VII) Fire from within

(VIII)The power of silence

Introduction

A little bit about yourself

The book you are holding in your hands appeared as a result of my many steps on the Earth. I made them motivated by curiosity and the desire to live a different life from the life of those whom I had observed since my childhood, and whose lives, it seemed to me, embodied only the dullness of repetition and were devoid of happiness. This curiosity has made me a witness to events happening in the most unexpected corners of the Earth, it has allowed me to merge with nature through joyful, seemingly extraordinary efforts. Curiosity led me to abandon my previous way of life - this happened after I met the Native Americans from the Nahua and Uichol tribes - they are also researchers of twilight states of consciousness; with group members participating in the workshops; among those I met along the path of life were dogs who remained faithful to me and shared with me the vicissitudes of most of my life; the giant whales that allowed me to enter their world; as well as my relatives and loved ones.

I look around, and every step, every moment brings me that feeling that was born during my search for freedom and my unknown face.

First my search led me to the places where my people lived; I walked many paths of Mexico, which sheltered me and nurtured me on its breast. As I walked her land, she accepted me and revealed many of her secrets to me. She introduced me to the people whose way of life was closest to her: the Native Americans of the steep highlands of central Mexico, bearers of knowledge that could save us from the burden of endless problems. In that distant past, when I lived among the Nahua Indians, I gave up my name and personal history, let go of the self that I once was, and was reborn again, stunned by an encounter with “another reality.”

Being a man of my time and wanting to acquire the necessary tools to bridge the gap between the way of life of the society in which I grew up and the magical world of the Indians, I decided to study anthropology. Working with anthropologists, I found that they were too determined to change the way of life of the Indians. They taught the Indians such ethnocentric ideas as progress, nationality, social classes, which could hardly help establish mutual understanding. Such anthropologists can be compared with the conquistadors of the 16th century, overwhelmed by a passion for the conquest of new lands, and with the priests who sought to convert local residents into Christianity.

Disillusioned, I invented what I called anti-anthropology, following the example of psychiatrists who invented anti-psychiatry in order to overcome the barriers that traditional psychiatry erected out of fear of encountering the “other reality” of those people who, according to its ideas, were considered mentally ill. So I had to turn anthropology on its head, so to speak. I approached the “other reality” of the Indians not in order to change them, but in order to change myself - I sought to meet my unknown face, plunging into what was for me a completely alien view of reality. This reality contains many of the ancient secrets of knowledge that the Toltecs received directly from this world.

Later - about 13 years ago - I came across the books of Carlos Castaneda. To my surprise, I found in them a lot of things that were familiar to me from my own experience of anthropological research, but this was the first time I encountered such a detailed and systematic presentation. “The dream body”, the warrior’s path, awareness of the Earth, correct gait, access to unusual reality, omens, signs, tonal and nagual - I had to encounter all this in one form or another when communicating with representatives of various ethnic groups - the Uichol Indians, the Mazatecs , Mixtecs, but most often - Nahua Indians. In the books of Carlos Castaneda, I found not only a systematic presentation of the meaning of all these concepts, but also found “teaching” about many subjects, as well as assumptions and proposals that I had never encountered before. What seemed most interesting to me was that a huge number of references to special possibilities of action were scattered throughout Castaneda’s books.

Converted anthropologist and controversy

For those readers who do not know this, I will inform you that in the early 1960s, Carlos Castaneda was a graduate anthropology student, and it was then that he met an old Yaqui Indian man named Juan Matus. Don Juan became a source of information for him, with his help Carlos intended to study the use of peyote in medicine by the Indians of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The old Indian turned out to be a powerful “man of knowledge,” a magician who, from the very beginning of their relationship, began to consider Carlos Castaneda his student. Little by little, the young anthropologist took on this role as don Juan's disciple. In eight books published to date, he has described the various stages of his apprenticeship, which has attracted enormous interest from readers around the world.

The work of Carlos Castaneda has generated lively controversy, especially among anthropologists. Perhaps out of envy at the success of his books, Castaneda's colleagues launched a campaign of criticism, declaring that the factual basis of his writings was very dubious, especially everything that concerns the reality of the existence of don Juan. I did not have the opportunity to meet don Juan, but I personally know don Carlos, have read his books and put into practice the information contained in them. The question of whether don Juan really existed seems to me to be of minor importance compared to the ideas contained in these books. For me personally, it doesn’t matter who the author of the ideas mentioned is Don Juan or Carlos Castaneda. It is important that these ideas exist and - more importantly - they work. The application of the teachings described in the books in practice allows us to feel that in each of us there is hidden an awareness of the other - an awareness of another own “I”, which opens up unlimited possibilities for perception and experience. This is the only thing that really matters.

Carlos Castaneda can safely be considered one of the the greatest mysteries XX century. Thousands of books and articles have been written about him and his teachings, millions of people read him and are amazed mystical power his creativity. We are trying to understand his teaching to the best of our ability...
This is the second part of the article dedicated to the teachings of Carlos Castaneda in our project. First part - .

The ancient Toltec teaching is a multifaceted, complex and ambiguous phenomenon. Both Castaneda himself and his teacher, an Indian by origin, Juan Matus, tried to designate him using various terms. “Magic”, “shamanism” - these are some of the options that the author of the books tried to designate them himself. Juan Matus, when asked by a student how he would define everything that was happening, he replied that he would call it “nagualism,” which, in fact, would not fully reflect the essence.

The term “nagual” refers to the leader of the party of seers. A party (“magicians,” “warriors,” or “seers”) consists of a certain number of other participants. Where everyone has their own role. This term also denotes the side of awareness opposite to the “tonal”. They are opposed to each other to some extent. “Tonal” is our daily life, our usual perception of the world around us, and “nagual” is a different, altered perception.

According to ancient Toltec knowledge, the human body is a kind of luminous cocoon in the shape of an egg. For an ordinary person, this cocoon is divided into 2 parts, for a Nagual into 4 (or 3), which speaks of his special energy abilities and therefore it is he who becomes the leader, i.e. leads a certain number of other warriors. In order to see this very human cocoon, certain practices are used, which there is no point in writing about in this article, which is why warriors are called “seers” because they learn to see this very cocoon.

The cocoon is a luminous egg, which is filled with some energy “threads”. By the way, the whole world, the whole universe and everything that exists consists of these very “threads”. And man is a part of this endless energy. Roughly speaking, what makes a person human is that the energy threads are enclosed in this very cocoon, which is a person.

Inside the cocoon there is a point called the assemblage point. Being in a certain place, it highlights certain energy threads and tunes them to similar threads outside the cocoon. And therefore we perceive the everyday world as it is. By shifting the assemblage point, we can perceive “other” worlds. Due to the fact that the assemblage point will highlight other, previously uninvolved energy threads (it will tune them), which also exist outside the human cocoon.

A warrior or the path of war is a person who follows the path of knowledge, gradually (throughout his entire life) going through all its stages. Its essence is impeccability, which means doing the best you can, no matter what you are involved in.

Juan Matus' CC training was divided into 2 large blocks: training in a normal state and in a heightened state of awareness. The second part is devoted to most of the books he wrote, because it is in them that the most significant and extraordinary moments of his apprenticeship are described. And the trick is that after moving from a state of heightened awareness to an ordinary state, a person does not remember where he was and what he was doing. Therefore, most of the books are the author’s recollection of what happened to him in a state of heightened awareness and a rethinking of his entire apprenticeship. A state of heightened awareness implies a certain special state in which a person understands more than usual, more easily perceives information that would normally be a mystery to him, is open to perception more than usual and is less constrained by prejudices (only he does not begin to have the abilities of Superman , don't think so). But a person cannot remain in this state for a long time, because... this requires large amounts of energy. And as mentioned above, the peculiarity of this state is that upon leaving it, a person does not remember what happened to him.

Don Juan achieved a heightened state of awareness by shifting the QC assemblage point, which for him, as an experienced teacher, did not seem difficult.

About 1/3 of KK's books are devoted to training in a normal state of awareness, while the rest are devoted to training in a heightened state of awareness. KK has to remember (like any other warrior) what happened to him in a state of heightened awareness.

At the beginning of his training, Don Juan lays out the basic steps that a person must overcome in order to become a “man of knowledge.” Fear (everything is clear here, I think), or rather overcoming it. Fear is followed by clarity of thought, which dispels fear but also blinds. Those. a person begins to act without fear, but at the same time, he does not understand when to wait and when to act. Having managed to overcome the clarity of thought, a person meets his third enemy: power, strength. Power comes with responsibility. A person must learn to control his own power, to be in power over it, and not vice versa. Those. he must not become a slave to his own power. Just like clarity of thought, strength should not blind a warrior. And the last enemy that a person faces on his path is old age. It is impossible to defeat this enemy, you can only force him to retreat for a while. The moment when a person is ready to give himself the opportunity to “retire”, lie down and relax, thereby surrendering. A person must fight and not give up until the very end of his life, until his last breath. He must go his way to the end, live out his destiny.

Also, at the very beginning, the basic principles of the warrior’s path were formulated for Carlos:

Erasing personal history - which means shrouding a person’s origins and biography in a halo of mystery. Also partly a severance of friendly ties. Because all this contributes to the fact that people (no matter how close) form a certain opinion about a person, and roughly speaking, due to the fact that they think in a certain way about him, they expect a certain model of behavior to which the person subconsciously adapts. And this in turn affects a person and his behavior.

To be a warrior means to be flexible, fluid and able to behave in accordance with the situation.
- Sense of self-importance (SSI) is such a famous phrase on the Internet. The phrase: “without a sense of self-importance we are invulnerable” belongs precisely to the teacher KK. It implies a rejection of the so-called delusions of grandeur or inflated self-esteem. Absolute humility in relation to any events, and not wanting a better life for yourself than the one you currently have.

Using death as an advisor is a more abstract formulation. According to Toltec teachings, death is our faithful companion. She is at arm's length, to our left. If they turn around, she can be seen as a quickly flickering shadow that does not allow itself to be seen. Death is like something that is constantly watching us. KK himself felt the presence of death, long before meeting Juan Matus. He describes the sensation as a cold sensation running up the spine. At that time, this contributed to his making a certain decision, which was the only correct one at that time. Death itself warned him. And she always watches us, until one day she pats us on the shoulder.

This prerequisite is related to the ChSV, because how can you feel important if death is constantly following you and you are mortal? No matter how bad we feel, the only thing we cannot survive, overcome or cope with is own death(which means everything is fine!).

Taking responsibility. If you decide something, you need to go to the end, but at the same time you need to take responsibility for what you do. What exactly a person does does not matter, but he must know why he is doing it, and act without doubts and regrets. Man is mortal, and therefore he cannot allow himself to regret anything or doubt anything, he cannot allow himself to cancel his decisions, there is no time for that. Only an immortal man could afford such a luxury.
In a world where death is hunting everyone, there is only time to make decisions. From the moment you accept someone's idea, it becomes your business too. Taking responsibility for your decisions means being willing to die for them.

Breaking routines. Become fluid and unpredictable. This premise is also related to the concept of "becoming a hunter", which suggests that as a hunter, you should not have a routine, otherwise it will be possible to hunt you down. Those. in this case, you are not the hunter, but the prey, the game. Being a hunter, you are able to track down someone who has a routine (including in the literal sense, in the sense of hunting animals). But it also means that we are all equal in the face of death, whether you are human or any other animal.
In a general sense, this implies a rejection of predictability, less action automatically and each time based on the current moment.

The last battle on earth. It means that we are all mortal, and therefore must act accordingly. In the sense that we must make decisions and act and not give in to doubts. Those. act every time as if this is your last battle, as if this is the last thing you will do in this world. In other words, perfection.

Become unavailable. This means that you don’t need to take more at a time than you really need. Be it food, person or anything. Careful attitude towards everything that surrounds you. To the point of not even plucking plant leaves unnecessarily if there is no real need for it. Avoid exhaustion (both your own and that of others), treat yourself and others with care.

This means that you do not succumb to hunger and despair, like an unfortunate degenerate who is afraid that he will never be able to eat again in his life (and therefore completely devours everything that comes in his way). Anxiety inevitably makes a person accessible; he involuntarily opens up. Anxiety makes him desperately cling to anything, and having clinged, you are already obliged to exhaust either yourself or what you are clinging to.

A person is inaccessible if he does not squeeze every last drop out of his world. He touches it lightly, staying in it just long enough, and then quickly leaving, leaving no trace.

Internal dialogue. More precisely, stopping it. One of the very first and most important prerequisites that Carlos began to learn at the very beginning of his apprenticeship.

Try to just sit down and say nothing to yourself, in your own head. Try to achieve inner silence at least for a long time, and then you will see how difficult it is.

Naturally, this is simply impossible to achieve. There are certain techniques for stopping internal dialogue.

The list listed above is not complete and exhaustive; if you want to familiarize yourself with it in more detail, then read KK’s book “Journey to Ixtlan.”

It is also worth mentioning 3 more important aspects, such as dreaming, intention and stalking.
Let's start in order.

A dream is a special state, something like a controlled sleep, controlled by the dreamer. Through certain practices, a person achieves that with the help of a dream he can find himself in the desired place, be an observer or participant in what is happening. This was very difficult for KK himself. At the very beginning, Don Juan gives him a simple task: to look at his hands while in a dream. KK does not succeed the first time and takes a very large amount of time to complete the task.

Dreaming is somewhat opposed to stalking as a method, but they have the same goal. Conventionally, warriors are divided into two types: stalkers and dreamers.

Don Juan also says that women are more prone to dreaming than men.

Intention is a way of turning a cause into an effect. Intention itself decides what consequences are born. We approach human intention through the study of the unconscious. It pushes us into action or inaction. The unconscious is the foundation of modern human behavior. Every subject developing consciousness is faced with two types of meaning: subjective and objective. Subjective meaning is the core and foundation of a person’s motivations. This is our personal life. But often people present this personal subjective meaning as objective and real.

Stalking is a technique of tracking one's feelings and emotions with the goal of constant and complete control over oneself. Tracking yourself in everyday life, in communication, in what you do, in everything. Through stalking a person becomes actor and an observer of your own life and the lives of other people. This is done in order to learn to control and manage your emotions, behavior, consciousness.

The stalker’s task is to learn to manipulate conventions and reflexes, constantly realizing that he is not involved in them, that is, to learn his system of behavior and free himself from it.

To achieve this, stalkers use the following strategy:
1. Tracking uniformity - a person’s actions are constantly repeated under the influence of some factor. The stalker tracks the reason for his actions.
2. Algorithm tracking. One human action can follow from another in accordance with a certain algorithm. For example, envy can develop into anger, resentment into pity. This often leads to loss of energy. Knowing this sequence allows the stalker to pause.
3. Habit tracking. A number of habits are associated with a person’s psychotype. Changing habits can lead to changes in psychology.
4. Tracking motive and value. At the end of a certain situation, the Stalker asks himself questions: what caused this specific emotion? Why was there such a reaction? Vigilance and sincerity are important here. The process of self-knowledge should take place until a person experiences dispassion and detachment, observing his shortcomings, flaws and imperfections. Thanks to this, the Stalker abstracts himself from society and its energetic influences. But this does not mean that he opposes himself to him. He learns to live in it. Stalker He doesn’t follow the lead of life, he himself shapes the circumstances of life, that’s the point.

A simple example can be given of tracking yourself. For example, make it a rule, when entering any room, to spin around your axis several times, or maybe stroke, lightly hit something (someone :)), it doesn’t matter. Let it be a kind of small ritual and as soon as it becomes a habit, it will be done automatically, stop doing it.

That's all!

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Carlos Castaneda - the teachings of Don Juan

Carlos Cesar Salvador Aranha Castaneda - American writer and anthropologist (Doctor of Philosophy and Anthropology), ethnographer, esoteric thinker and mystic, author of best-selling books on shamanism and the presentation of a worldview unusual for Western man. Castaneda himself used the term magic, however, according to him, this concept does not fully convey the essence of the teaching based on the traditions of the ancient and new “seers” - the Toltecs - “The Way of the Warrior”. Carlos Castaneda's books retained the reputation of anthropological research for some time after their publication, but are now considered fiction by the academic anthropological community.

Because Castaneda, in his own words, made it his goal to erase personal history (as part of the spiritual practice known as the "Way of the Warrior") and for many years purposefully kept many aspects of his life secret and shrouded his activities in fog, he the biography has become the object of numerous speculations and conflicting versions, which makes it difficult to compile an accurate biography, since, apparently, it is impossible in in this case find a source you can completely trust.

There are several types of sources of information about Carlos Castaneda: firstly, the natural source is the information that Castaneda himself provided in books, articles and some interviews; secondly, this is information from books and articles in various media, the authors of which directly or indirectly stated that they obtained information from documented sources; thirdly, the documents themselves (real or fictitious); fourthly, subjective memories of those who personally knew Carlos Castaneda or who claimed to know him (such a source can be considered the book “A Magical Journey with Carlos,” written by Margaret Runyan Castaneda, who was married to him for some time, but lived with him only for first six months).

For many years, Carlos himself deliberately did not react to numerous contradictory publications in the press regarding his life, activities and even supposed death. More characteristic, related to the erasure of personal history, is Castaneda’s prohibition on filming, taking photographs and using a voice recorder during interviews and public lectures. Castaneda explained this by the fact that, according to ethnic esotericism, a man of knowledge (that is, a warrior or magician in his terminology) cannot allow himself to be static, even in videos or photographs, since his essence is the opposite of static.

So, Castaneda himself called the village of Juchieri, near Sao Paulo in Brazil, his birthplace. His original name was Carlos Aranha, but in 1959, upon receiving American citizenship, he adopted his mother's surname - Castaneda).

The future writer was born into a wealthy family, although at the time of birth his mother was 15 years old and his father 17. Subsequently, he described the circumstances of conception as quick copulation “outside the door.” He was handed over to be raised by one of his mother's sisters. She died when he was 6 years old; Castaneda treated her like a mother. Castaneda's real mother died when he was 25. Little Carlos had an obnoxious behavior and often got into trouble.

At the age of 10, Carlos was sent to a boarding school in Buenos Aires. On his fifteenth birthday, his parents found him a host family in San Francisco and sent him to live and study in the United States. After receiving his high school diploma, he went to Milan to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. However, fine art was not given to him, and soon he returned to California, having not eaten well.

Between 1955 and 1959 he took various courses in literature, journalism and psychology. At the same time, he worked as an assistant to a psychoanalyst, where his task was to organize hundreds of tape audio recordings made during therapeutic procedures. At the same time, he continued to study at the University of California.

Carlos claimed that as part of his anthropological practice at the university, he accidentally met the Yaqui Indian, the Mexican magician Juan Matus, which completely changed his life. As it turned out later, don Juan saw in him a nagual, that is, a leader magician capable of training and continuing the line of magicians to which don Juan belonged. According to Castaneda’s books, “magic” consisted in the ability to change one’s perception, which, according to the teaching, allows one to significantly expand and even radically change ideas about the cognizable and about life in general. That is, “magic” is not a trick involving getting “something” out of nowhere, but the practice of expanding perception beyond boundaries known to man. Also, magic does not have as its goal power over other people, interference in their destiny and health. The goal is the so-called “burning in fire from the inside” - achieving a different form of existence in the “energy body”. Castaneda was dissatisfied with the term “magic”, as he considered it inaccurate, so later, in search of a more precise term, he replaced it with the word “shamanism”, which also did not quite correspond to reality, since it reflected knowledge about interaction with surrounding spirits, which was only very a small part of the teaching.

After graduating from university, Castaneda moved to don Juan to devote himself entirely to the knowledge of magic. In 1971, his apprenticeship bore fruit in the form of the book A Separate Reality, and in 1972 he published Journey to Ixtlan, for which he received his doctorate. In this work, “plant seeds” are described for the first time - the result of a long study of various properties of plants that contribute to increased awareness, the shaman’s entry into certain states that allow him to see at a distance, to see through the eyes of birds (from a bird’s eye view) and animals...

The book became a bestseller, the writer gained incredible popularity, and it was then, on the advice of don Juan, that he decided to abandon society - to reduce contacts with people to a minimum, not to appear in public, to exclude interviews and any public meetings. Also from this moment until the end of his life, he begins active magical practice, teaching new adherents the teachings of don Juan. Sometimes, however, he agrees to give lectures (for example, at the University of California), but solely for the sake of popularizing knowledge and increasing sales of his books - after all, royalties from sold copies were his only source of income.

In 1998, two latest books Carlos Castaneda - "The Wheel of Time" and "Magic Passes". The first summarizes the most important points of Don Juan's teachings in the form of aphorisms with commentaries, the latter presents a description of the system of magical passes that he said he learned during his apprenticeship with don Juan and which he designated with the borrowed term "tensegrity."

Carlos Castaneda died of liver cancer. Three weeks before his death, Castaneda invited six of his female fans-students, who not only read his books, but also led the lifestyle he taught, believed in the magic of his books, gave them parting words to carry the word of don Juan to people, bequeathed everything to them his creativity and... promised to return. He promised that as soon as he settled “in the world,” he would begin to come to one of the women (with whom he could make contact) in dreams and would control his earthly life after physical death. However, this did not happen.

Within a week of the writer's death, five women - Nuri Alexander, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Kylie Lundahl and Talia Bey - mysteriously disappear. The remains of only one of the women were found two months later in Death Valley. The suspected cause of death was suicide.

53-year-old Carol Tiggs (the only surviving student of Castaneda) became Castaneda's heir and headed the Cleargreen publishing house, which today has all the rights to publish and republish the books of the late writer.

Currently, Castaneda’s students, with the support of Cleargreen, conduct lectures and seminars on teaching tensegrity all over the world, including in Russia. However, one can find many statements from critics who say that Castaneda was a clever hoaxer, and don Juan was just a fictional character, into whose mouth Castaneda put quotes from the books of Wittgenstein, Carroll, authors of texts on anthropology and Eastern philosophy. Castaneda gathered around himself women whom he charmed and with whom he subsequently entered into intimate relationships. Yet stories related to magic are nothing more than tales to increase book sales. Many also point out the improbability of the events described by Castaneda. For example, Castaneda's Don Juan is a wise shaman, whose image does not coincide with the stereotype of an Indian sorcerer, and the knowledge he shares does not coincide with the ideas of academic science about the shamanic culture of the Indians. Historians claim that a man named Juan Matus, that same Indian magician, never existed - there is no evidence of his reality, no one has ever seen him, and, most likely, he is a figment of the writer’s imagination. An imaginary friend...

However, five of his students disappeared mysteriously and without a trace immediately after his death, and no explanation has yet been found for this...

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