Carlos Castaneda on the journey of human consciousness to other worlds

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Our perception of reality is determined, usually for life, by social convention, but we have the opportunity to penetrate other worlds as real as this one if we can accumulate enough energy for such an undertaking; there is much that we will witness - much more than what we have been told as possible - if we accept the revolutionary proposal to completely change our personality, which would destroy the preliminary idea of who we are.

Q: How could you describe to us the world of the modern nagual?

KK: This is the world of sorcerers into which don Juan introduced us. It cannot be classified as a kind of world that exists separately from the everyday. Rather, it is a kind of state in which, for example, a given word means a final action that cannot be undone. A promise of this kind is akin to an official document that cannot be changed. In another aspect, more abstract, the nagual's world is a world where unusual things are perceived. Don Juan explained the issue of unusual perception, saying that for a person, in general, complete silence is a prerequisite for it. Stopping the internal dialogue, he said, is a door to the state of a magician, a door to a world where unusual perception is an everyday thing … - which does not seem very simple … The way don Juan was able to silence the internal dialogue of his students was to induce them to remain in silence second by second. We can say that silence "sticks together" from seconds until it reaches the individual boundary that exists in each of us. My limit was fifteen minutes. When I reached it, accumulating silence, the everyday world changed, and I perceived it in an indescribable way.

The only possible practice that can be advised is effort, an intense desire to achieve silence, little by little. It is completely unacceptable for someone to teach us how to take these steps, or to lead us by the hand, giving instructions every moment. Don Juan said that the only essential thing is the personal decision of each of us to come to silence.

Q: You think of access to magic as a matter of accumulating enough energy, but not all people seem to be equally capable of this from birth. Is there really a chance for everyone?

K. K.: Yes. I would add to this that it seems to me that no one is born sufficiently energized. This brings the problem down to a common denominator: since no one has enough energy, the odds are almost equal for all of us. Undoubtedly, there are people who were born with much more energy than others, but this is only in order to spend it on everyday activities. This amount of energy has no advantage in reaching the magician world. It includes those who accumulate energy of a special quality: the fruit of iron discipline and intention.

Q: Is it possible to resist the everyday world without wasting energy?

KK: Sorcerers like don Juan say you can. They say that the events of the everyday world are destructive for us only if they are refracted through a sense of our own importance. We are so self-centered that the smallest nuisance overpowers us. We spend so much energy on presenting and protecting our “I” in the everyday world that we have nothing left to meet face to face with anything that contradicts us. This complete wear and tear seems to be something inevitable, since we are moving exclusively along the track laid by our socialization. If we dared to change the track, change the way of existence, only suppressing the onslaught of our own importance, then we would achieve an unprecedented result: we would nullify the daily waste of energy and find ourselves in energetic conditions that would allow us to perceive much more than we used to think possible.

Q: Is it possible to achieve this without "hitting the nagual"?

KK: What don Juan offers is attainable for all those who have achieved inner silence. Stopping the internal dialogue is the ultimate goal that can be achieved using any means. The presence of a teacher or guide is not superfluous, but it is also not absolutely necessary. What is really needed is a daily effort to build up silence. Don Juan said that coming to complete silence is tantamount to "stopping the world." This is the moment when you see the flow of energy in the Universe around us.

Q: What is common between what you define as a dream and what other authors call "guided dreams"?

K. K.: Nothing in common. Dreaming is a maneuver of sorcerers who, with the help of iron discipline, transform ordinary dreams, be they controlled or uncontrollable, into something transcendental. I don’t know anyone in the normal, everyday world who has the discipline necessary to bring about such a transformation. Guided dreams are very vivid, but they cannot be used as an energetic gateway to transfer our awareness to other worlds that are as real and amazing as the world of everyday life.

Q: You have repeatedly emphasized the importance of re-experiencing (recapitulation - ed.), And many people, inspired by what you said, tried to practice it. Could you tell us about the methodology and specific results of this exercise?

KC: Revisiting was an indispensable way for don Juan to start the path to freedom. This is not an energy recovery technique, but a maneuver that matches the vision of the sorcerers. They believe that the possession of awareness of being is a state inherent in all living things. Some extraordinary power gives self-awareness to those who have just been born - be it a virus, an amoeba, or a human being. At the end of life, the same power will take away from each of these beings the self-awareness that has been lent to them, expanded through individual life experience. For the sorcerer, recapitulation is a way to give back to this extraordinary power what it lent us at the moment of our birth. It is absolutely incredible, don Juan said, that this power is content with the above-mentioned experience again. Since the only thing she wants from us is self-awareness, then if we give it to her in the form of a recapitulation, she does not take life away from us in the end, but allows us to go along with her to freedom. This is how sorcerers theoretically explain recapitulation.

Its technique is very simple. First, a list is made of all the people with whom a relationship has been maintained, from now to the moment of birth. The point is to relive the experience of communicating with everyone on the list - not just remembering them, but exactly reliving them. Added to this is a very slow rhythmic breathing, which is called "fan" because it refreshes (literally fanns) memories.

Sorcerers believe that the whole world of our communication, being experienced anew, is surrendered to an extraordinary force that destroys us. Since this maneuver has nothing to do with psychological exercises like psychoanalysis, re-living the entire experience of life implies the use of already spent energy.

Q: How do you know if the recapitulation is being performed correctly?

KK: Your subtle but concrete results will be an increase in energy and a state of well-being. The presence of these two sensations is the criterion.

Q: Along with dreaming, one of the main concepts outlined in your book, which has also undergone many interpretations, is stalking (stalking - ed.). What exactly does "stalk" mean?

KK: Don Juan called stalking the action of shifting the assemblage point and keeping it where it was displaced. The assemblage point is a concept of sorcerers who believe that the perception of human beings is carried out at a point invisible to the ordinary eye, located at the level of the shoulder blades, but not in the physical body, but in the energy mass, about a meter away from the back. It is there that millions of energy fibers of the Universe are connected, which, through interpretation, are transformed into the perception of the everyday world. Sorcerers assure that if the assemblage point is displaced with the help of a dream or through practical actions, a number of other energy threads are connected in it, and therefore another world becomes available to our perception. Maintaining it after a shift in a new position is a real art. One who cannot achieve this will never be able to perceive other worlds in their entirety; he will perceive them partially and chaotically. One could say that perception is fixed as the assemblage point is fixed, and this is mainly a matter of having enough energy.

Q: You talked about displacing the assemblage point using practical steps. What actions are we talking about?

KK: Basically, "watchers" (stalkers - ed.) Achieve the energy necessary to master the Art of stalking, thanks to the maneuvering behavior, which is the voluntary involvement of the "stalker" in cognitive dissonances. This is how Taisha Abelar was taught. One of the behavioral maneuvers that the sorcerers forced her to endure was becoming a beggar. Throughout the year, she, dirty and tattered, was sent daily to the door of the church to beg for alms. Taisha's task was to transform so completely that her behavior fully corresponded to the usual image of a beggar. Taisha did not do it as an actor, for whom the performance is a matter of some moments - she was really a beggar. Another example of stalking is my job as a cook for almost two years, directed by don Juan's companion, dona Florinda, a job that took up all of my time every day. Another example of tracking is described by Taisha Abelar in her book: when she was forced to live in huge trees for over a year. The result of these maneuvers is that the practitioner transforms to such an extent that he becomes transformation itself. This means stalking.

Q: Do you recommend this type of non-doing to those who want to get involved in dissonances?

KK: Of course, this is a very difficult maneuver of magicians to carry out in the conditions of the everyday world. I don’t know how anyone could lead another to stalking without directing their own stalking. I was told that there are people who claim that they can teach stalking. In my opinion, this is a very calculating deception, and it is unfair for people who are really interested to fall into a similar trap. By the way, when stalking, you need to be impeccable in relation to others and to yourself, in order to see who you are without deceiving yourself. Only after reaching a balance between attachment to the world around us and alienation from it, you can engage in stalking. Until you reach this state, it is meaningless. Those who manage to achieve it will practice it, not teach it, and even take money for it. Don Juan once made a very accurate comment about those who teach without knowing what they are teaching: “Never allow yourself to be forced to be a warrior only on weekends. It is very easy to think that a one-time effort is sufficient. This is not true. To get out of that bad place where we all are now, you need to use all the available strength."

Q: Meanwhile, a growing number of people are organizing courses on your knowledge system, using your concepts, and “freely adapting” don Juan's lessons. What is your opinion on this?

KK: I don't think this can be taught … Over the years I have read a huge number of lectures about my training with don Juan, but it seems that I have achieved only that I have gifted the terminology to a number of people who have earned fame on it. What don Juan suggests leads to tangible deeds that require a lot of dedication and dedication. It makes no sense to conduct such apocryphal courses, because in reality many people are interested in don Juan's knowledge, and it is a pity that there are those who cynically take advantage of this situation: they take money, but they cannot teach anything. It is appallingly obvious that all of this is rooted in economic interest. Undoubtedly, no one who attends such courses will ever be able to learn anything from them. None of us as disciples of don Juan can teach as he taught, because this requires leadership that we do not have. So a question arises in my mind: how can people who have no idea what don Juan did?

Q: When don Juan spoke about evolution. What did this evolution mean to him and what is its direction?

KC: Throughout my training as don Juan, I came to understand the vital importance of knowing that we must change the state of being. Don Juan called this change evolution. He argued that social attitudes force us to elevate reproduction to the level of a biological commandment, but it is time to take into account another commandment of nature: evolution. For him, the sign of this deliberate evolution in the human being was the attainment of a vision of the universe as a flow of energy. The fact that we saw ourselves as fields of energy, as "luminous eggs", as he said, meant for us the abolition of the interpretation system, which allows us to see the world only as we see it. Don Juan spoke of this system as a system of perception that captures sensory data and deliberately transforms it into the perception of the world.

Don Juan argued that our interpretive system continues to operate because we are all engaged in cynical and deceitful perceptual maneuvers that we must end. Unless we devote every heartbeat to the task at hand, we will continue to be victims of this blackmail.

Q: What is the alternative?

KC: Knowing don Juan is a vital way to end the aforementioned maneuvers. He said that anyone who considers their existence to be a lie or fiction, another farce in addition to all the others, is deceived, because, in this way, the value and inviolability of the interpretive system of the everyday world is affirmed. The only thing that remains for us in this case is old age and decrepitude. One famous preacher of psychedelics in the sixties recently announced that he had discovered a horribly simple drug that allows you to soar in the clouds twenty-four hours a day, and this drug is called "decrepitude."

If all that awaits us before death is old age and decrepitude, then social attitudes lied to us, forcing us to believe that our choices in the everyday world are diverse and extraordinary. Don Juan's dream was to achieve this variety of choice by undoing the effect of the interpretation system. This is the essence of his lessons. Whoever tries to interpret them in an audience setting remains a cynic and a comedian, because there is no way to do this without first having gutted don Juan's conceptual paradigm. By proposing the idea of deliberate evolution that would change our interpretive system, he proposes a total revolution, whose name is freedom.