Translation:To read Carlos Castaneda/12
IX. THE ART OF DREAMING
First English edition, 1993
Until the spring of 1996 Carlos Castaneda had published nine books. In the time elapsed between the publication of the eighth (silent knowledge, 1987) and the last (the dreaming art, 1993) Castaneda probably lived the consequences of being a three point nagual and not four, as was supposed by his teacher Don Juan.
The naguales are people who have four energy compartments instead of two, as is common in people. Castaneda had many difficulties to "assemble" with the group that Don Juan prepared and apparently started another group integrated by Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs.
Those years between the eighth and ninth book publication, are probably the activation of a new power strategy or the creation of a new lineage to these modern naguales and warriors who have taken a mortal leap, coming out of hiding and gone from an oral to a written culture.
Indeed, as Don Juan points it out, in these ten thousand years of “knowledge” existence, from the ancient witches, through the Don Juan lineage and up to the modern nagual Castaneda, knowledge has undergone many changes.
According to Don Juan, it is noted that the first antiquity witches failed because they became obsessed with the second attention world and neglected the immediate reality, that of the first power ring. These ancient Toltec focused on the reverie world and did not cultivate "the warrior path", which made them impossible people, "lost in a fantasy world", when invaders arrived, they seized the material world in which Toltecs lived very easily, since it had been neglected by the first Toltec.
Another period mentioned by Don Juan, was initiated by first stage surviving witches, by recounting their practices and analyzing their mistakes, again began to study knowledge, but now through an iron clad discipline which they called "the warrior path", "the art of dreaming" and "the art of stalking".
When they were in the beginning of this cycle the European invaders arrived and with the conquest and colony, this new stage had to take refuge in the second attention and further refine their discipline in order to survive in the colony hell and to take maximum advantage of their fucking tyrants.
It was at that time, at the beginning of the 18th century, when another cycle begins with the appearance of nagual Sebastian —who was hiding as a church sacristan— a surviving witch from the first epoch and who had managed to stay mysteriously alive for hundreds of years, but was losing his power at the time. So nagual Sebastian was forced to make a deal, in which the naguales would give part of their energy so that he would continue living, in exchange for a power gift. This agreement linked the six naguales who succeeded him and marked another lineage period, because the information received from the old witch, whom they called "the tenant", changed the knowledge course in the Don Juan lineage and made it different from other lineages that exist today.
Apparently Carlos Castaneda starts a new cycle, not only because he is a three points nagual, but because now the knowledge, which for centuries was maintained secretively through oral transmission, today is available to any person through the books. In addition the task assigned to nagual Castaneda by the power apparently is still is not very clear to its readers.
Also, on 17 October 1993, the Mexico city newspaper "La Jornada" issue 3271, published a paid article with the following text:
TO CARLOS CASTANEDA READERS, TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC:
Carlos Castaneda clarifies, without distinction of any kind, is NOT responsible for the acts, events and publications of individuals or groups that for altruistic or profit purposes call themselves disciples. Also, Carlos Castaneda does not authorize the use of his name or the terms and concepts contained in his books.
From this paid article three things are concluded: the first is that Carlos Castaneda did not order the publication.
The second, some people have cheated "innocent" people who think that in this consumer society they can "buy" knowledge through "plastic gurus", that by costly monthly fees, will make them warriors.
The third is that, if Castaneda published it (which I personally do not believe, given that a nagual is not hooked and concerned with "the doings and wrongdoings of his fellow men"), arise two considerations: one, in the sense that nagual Castaneda cannot "appropriate" the ancient knowledge, generously transmitted by Don Juan and he acknowledges he did not invent them, but that they have been and are a valuable Mexico cultural heritage legacy, and the world, which comes from thousands of years ago transmitted from one generation to another.
Another consideration would be: how can we explain the publications made by both Florinda Donner and Taisha Abelar and with opening and other comments by nagual Castaneda —and even the most unusual— the "courses" and conferences made on "Tensegrity", at a high admission cost and announced in the media as taught by the "Carlos Castaneda guardian warriors"?
In this regard, the Mexico city newspaper Excelsior, on 17 January 1996, in section "B", appeared a note with the following header: "Seminar by ANTHROPOLOGIST CASTANEDA for the BENEFIT of homeless children" and that read as follows: "for the benefit of homeless children, executed through foundations Dr. José Álvarez IAP, city of children; Carlos Moreno Miramón, IAP and Providence homes of father Chinchachoma, the mythical anthropologist Carlos Castaneda will come to Mexico for the first time, says Lucero Arce, seminar Coordinator of his theories..."
And Mexico city newspaper "La Jornada", on Monday, January 29, 1996 appears in an interview made by Arturo Garcia Hernández, which we reproduce the following lines:
"—You have written that the warrior path is a solitary path. Is it not contradictory to make massive Tensegrity courses?
"—No. I am talking here of hard things. Maybe Tensegrity gives them the energy to speak of really heavy things. It is a start.
"What do you expect of the opening now starting?
"—I don't know what is going to happen. Don Juan never told me what is going to happen in front of masses. { ... } Before we were attentive to continue according to Don Juan mandates. Now I want to teach as such because it is a tremendous debt that now I cannot pay to him.
"—Are you not afraid of becoming guru?"
"—No, because I have no ego. There is no way."
All events and interviews that have occurred since the last publication lead us to believe that nagual Castaneda is initiating a new path, without his former team and the advice of his teacher, nagual Juan Matus. In this way the "Tensegrity" concept and the so-called "magical passes" come to share a place with the "old" nagual, tonal, personal importance, stalking, dream, lace point, etc. concepts
Another important contribution of the so-called "Don Juan teachings" are the splendid warrior books: "Being in the dream", by Florinda Donner, published in English in 1991 and "Where the witches cross", by Taisha Abelar, published in English in 1992. These two books point out something basic and important for Toltequity, such as "women's knowledge vision". In the nine Castaneda books there is a "male" approach to this wonderful, amazing and frightening knowledge world of ancient Mexico called Toltecáyotl or Toltequity.
For a colonized mind, product of Judeo-Christian culture, in which indigenous peoples and women always have been undervalued; an Indian and a woman are unable to access, and even less manage knowledge. That is why these contributions enrich the Toltequity vision, because in the ancient Mexico cultures, women was complementary to men.
In our old grandparents world a "Supreme divinity" was revered, which had no name because it was unspeakable, and had no physical representation because was invisible, and was only known metaphorically as "Tloque Nahuaque" (owner of the nearby and the next[1]), or also as "Ipal-Nemohuani" (he for who one lives) or "Yohuali-Ehécatl" (night wind), and that altogether poetically approach the totally abstract concept of "God father" in the Judeo-Christian culture.
But immediately after this abstraction appears "Ometeótl" (the divine duality), a second invocation of the same divinity, from which detach a pair of complementing opposites: "Ometecutli" (of the two, the Lord) and "Ometecihuatl" (of the two, the Lady). For ancient Mexican, men and women formed a pair of complementing opposites. Finally will note that in the post-classical period and Aztecs decadence, the México-Tenochtitlan power was shared by two characters who depended on the Supreme Council called "Tlatócan". The "Tlatoani" (who speak) and the "Cihuacoátl" (female Serpent), who was responsible for governing and administering the empire, respectively.
These examples show how women share with men the same responsibility for the old grandparents administrative, political and religious world, which makes us suppose that in the Toltecáyotl field it is not different.
The Abelar and Donner work display a women's world in the Don Juan teachings; and provide a different vision not only of the lessons but also of Don Juan. On one occasion Castaneda asks Don Juan, that in the Toltequity there are female warriors and Don Juan replied yes. Moreover, claims that they are much better than men, and that he had always referred to the warrior concept in masculine, because he was addressing a man, but that in practice there are men and women in the secret Toltequity world.
Florinda Donner provides her contribution on "the dreaming art", and Taisha Abelar delivers her expert vision of the "stalking art". The Toltequity points out that according to their "basic temperament" practitioners are divided into two complementing groups: dreamers and stalkers.
The first are those who possess an intrinsic ease to achieve enhanced consciousness states through dream control. This ability is developed to the point of making it an "art". The latter, stalkers, in the same way, from their basic temperament, possess an ease -in principle innate- to deal with everyday world issues. Stalkers manage, through the management and control of their actions, entering states of enhanced consciousness; this is achieved through a sophisticated strategy called "the stalking art".
The two texts impeccably depicts women superiority to enter ancient knowledge fields called Toltequity, since their connection with knowledge is "expansive", while the male is restrictive. Males are connected with the concrete and tend to go to the abstract; women, on the other hand, are connected with the abstract and try to move to the concrete.
These books teach us the female connection with spirit; clearly demonstrate the feminine side of the argument; in other words, make us understand the Ometecihuatl concept.
Nagual Carlos Castaneda wrote prologues for both books, for the Florinda Donner book, points out that when he asked the author the reason for writing the book, she replied that it was essential to relate her own experiences in the "dreaming art" to intellectually "entice" those who intend to take seriously the Toltecáyotl knowledge managed by Don Juan, and which relate to the unlimited possibilities of human perception.
Entering "The dreaming art", we shall say it represents a challenge. On the back cover Carlos Castaneda says it was a difficult job, and that when finished he thought it should not be published. However, the warrior "transported" him to the second attention and years later the text transformed, with an "ominous force" that did not have when written.
This book contains 13 chapters on 280 pages, and is intended to penetrate into the art of dreaming, and as noted by Castaneda, he and the warriors understand that trying to talk or write about the dream is unreasonable, given that making rational statements about something so abstract is absurd because it is impossible.
The complete Castaneda works is intended to describe the multiple possibilities of human perception of the surrounding universe. The Toltecáyotl or Don Juan teachings, is the attempt to "embody" some specific, theoretical and practical premises from the possibility of perceiving the world without obsessions, and others, such as energy charges, as real and valid, as those we all perceive.
The Toltecáyotl developed a number of techniques to penetrate these various energy worlds. For this, have to rearrange the energy perception capacity, and this was called "the dreaming art", which is the entrance to the human possibilities "infinity" and the immeasurable universe.
Here Castaneda said something important to understand the effort the new lineage of modern naguales are making, represented by Castaneda and the three female warriors, he claims that Don Juan said he was convinced that humanity needs -to survive this chaotic phase- changing the social perception base. Which somehow be understood, why should this ancient Mexico millenary knowledge be made public.
The perception of the world we all currently have is a social perception, because, ultimately, everything around us is composed of molecules and these, in turn, are composed of atoms; and atoms are energy loads. So the "essence" of everything that surrounds us is energy.
However, since birth we were taught to perceive energy as objects; this is what Don Juan called "the first attention" (or the first power ring); the majority of human beings live and die with only this way of perceiving the world. But the Toltecáyotl -or the so-called Don Juan teachings-, which is a millenary practice and a fraction of the inheritance of a totally unknown and ignored cultural heritage, enables us to perceive the essence of things; or in other words, it allows us, through a very disciplined rigorous technique, "see" the universe essence.
This means perceiving energy directly. Ancient practitioners of this knowledge describe the universe essence as incandescent threads expanding in all directions: small bright filaments that possess self-consciousness.
Immediately after that the ancient practitioners "saw" the universe essence, also saw the human being and found that he was made up of an energy whitish and luminous charge load, luminous egg-shaped. Also "saw" that the luminous egg was larger than the physical body and that it contained the same filaments constituting the universe, but had a brighter part at the height of the right scapula, on the energy body. And saw that in this place the internal and external filaments aligned, and this produced perception. This place was called "lace point" and also could "see" that when the lace point moved, it allowed other perceptions.
The Toltec "saw" that the lace point moves a little when people are dreaming. This movement is involuntary and erratic, but it is "movement". So, after observing and practicing for hundreds of years the Toltec were able to develop methods to move "the lace point" at will.
The first is that only the filaments passing exactly at the lace point become coherent perceptions.
The second is that when the lace point moves in any direction, albeit slightly, different strands begin passing through the lace point, which leads to a different perception.
The third is that they saw in the dream the lace point moves slightly by itself on the luminous egg surface or towards its interior.
The fourth is that through a disciplined technique, called "the dreaming art", the lace point could be moved in dreams at will.
And the fifth was, they saw that the lace point can be moved outside of the luminous egg and become in contact with the energy universe, beyond the human.
The Castaneda text deals with the impossible in an absurd manner. Through a methodology that seems fantastic, and he calls "the seven dream gates", pretending that common dream becomes the mechanism which the practitioner uses to temper the energy body, to make it coherent and flexible as the physical body, exercising little by little, through an iron discipline that seems impossible to sustain for long time (entire years) with a sustained effort, without ambition or obsession. This would be the key Toltequity achievement and the means to achieve freedom.
When the energy body is condensed it is possible to turn it into a unit capable of perceiving independently from the physical body perception. This is achieved not only with the reverie practice, but obtain energy, requires modifying the behavior during vigil, to rechannel the energy needed to maintain focus on the dream. As it has repeatedly been said throughout the Castaneda work, the way in which we spend most of the energy depends on the need to maintain and enhance personal importance, base of our being, and at the same time, of our major constraint. As humans do not "create" more energy than they have, must save and rechannel what they have.
Don Juan taught Castaneda that the "dreaming art" is the lace point displacement, and "the stalking art" means fixing the lace point anywhere it shifts to. That is why these two techniques are complementing and mutually irreplaceable.
The text, as Castaneda noticed, gradually becomes, fantastic and incredible. In Castaneda dreams appear the "trackers, explorers and emissaries". The inorganic beings world the author begins to perceive through his dreaming practices is, logically and rationally, impossible to accept, mainly because of the lack sufficient energy to "understand" it.
We note an idea that Castaneda handles on pages 162 and 163 of his book. There he says that one day, while at the Mexico City National Museum of Anthropology and History with Don Juan, he told him that all the sculptures in the room were a "file" left by ancient witches, and that each stone could be read through the lace point movement, in the same way a book page is read.
Don Juan suggests to Castaneda to fix his eyes on one of them, to silence his mind and try to move his lace point. In this regards, Castaneda says that he began to see and hear things that could not explain. Mentions that he had been in that room before as an anthropologist, managing "scholars" information in the topic, descriptions based on modern man mentality (and we would also add that in a colonized mind). Castaneda acknowledged that for the first time they seemed "crap," totally arbitrary. But this time, because of under what he could perceive through the lace point movement, coupled with what Don Juan said bout them and what he "saw and heard," had nothing to do with what he had read and heard before.
This is another example of the relation that exists on the ancient Mexico history, the philosophical thought and what Castaneda calls the " Don Juan teachings", Toltequity or Toltecáyotl. When Don Juan says that some of the so-called archaeological zones are places where the Toltec left much information in rocks, but in second attention fields. So these places, especially the classic period, are not cities, palaces or fortresses. The work of Castaneda may be a reference point so that Mexicans deal with our past from a un-colonialized point of view and a philosophical perspective.
Studies such as what Dr. Rubén Bonifaz Nuño presented in his book "Mexican ancient cosmogony. Iconographic and textual hypothesis", UNAM, 1995, come to fill the huge gap that exists in the vision and understanding of our cultural heritage, from a non-colonial position, being that from 1521 our own, our culture became: first evil, then primitive and now folklore and tourism.
"The dreaming art" represents a challenge to those that followed the "autobiography" Castaneda offers in his work. The dream world, with explorers, trackers, emissaries, inorganic beings powerful forces and, finally, the encounter with that disturbing, mysterious and terrifying impossible to accept or imagine, character called "the tenant", a death challenger alive for whole millennia and antiquity witches knowledge possessor and that, according to the text, has found the freedom door through Carol Tiggs and Carlos Castaneda energy, leaves us in a real uncertainty state.
If to all this we added the actions which apparently contradict Don Juan teachings, such as giving courses and lectures to people who can afford them; or accepting that the ancient knowledge, cultural heritage of the Mexican people, now "belongs" to a nagual Castaneda select group of disciples, we should think that Castaneda is looking for a personal destiny, in which the thousands of worldwide followers do not fit and contradictorily, today more than ever, is exposed to the masses who think that Castaneda is transmitting Don Juan knowledge, in trying to pay back what he gave him.
Castaneda notes that Don Juan said: "If you think you owe me something and you cannot pay me, pay to the men spirit" (La Jornada, 29-1-96). Is that what these modern naguales and warriors are doing?
Be it as it may, there are nine Castaneda books and two of Abelar and Donner. There is the millennial knowledge —secretly maintained for a long time— now exposed to the public for those who have a little energy available, for those who attempt to perceive reality, under other premises, for those who have a flexible mind and un-colonialized, for travelers who are willing to pay a very high ticket in the freedom bird.
These texts are not anthropology, literature, or science fiction. In any case are "a separate reality". The beginning of a new knowledge lineage, now transmitted in writing, but that has a lot to do with the past of the millenarian civilization of indigenous peoples, which in these last five centuries of denial, genocide and injustice, have managed to keep their knowledge as impeccable warriors, and now is revealed as "the spiritual Mexico reserve".
Don Juan advised Castaneda not to write his books as a writer but as a witch, through the complex and sophisticated reverie art.
In the same way, Castaneda books should be read as power objects and the readers must humbly assume themselves as modern witchcraft apprentices.
A very important point is that Don Juan "was convinced that human beings to survive this tragic times, should change the social basis of perception". This can be translated as a "culture and human values" global change, which can be through a critical reflection process in which the holder of the economic, political and technological power, by common accord changed this "social perception".
But the most logical change is that it happened by a "global collapse". Indeed, that in one blow, discarded the folly of an economic-consumer system that is deranging human beings and preying nature to the edge of life extinction on the planet. If this “global tsunami of world and life perception” was to occur, the people and the towns who have a strong culture based on ancient wisdom foundations, will adapt to these violent changes.
Don Juan mentions that when the Spaniards arrived in the Anahuac, the "time tonal" changed and that many indigenous peoples died from sadness to see their world perception collapse. A collapse like this, of which there have been many in human history, or a change caused by Earth climatic conditions, that have also occurred, can bring about a change in social perception.
"Don Juan argued that we use most of our strength in maintaining our importance, and that our most pernicious wear is the compulsive presentation and defense of our self; the concern about not being admired, loved or accepted. He argued that if it were possible for us to lose some of this importance, two extraordinary things would occur. One, we would free our energy from having to promote and sustain the illusory idea of our greatness; and two, we would gather enough energy to enter the second attention and glimpse the true universe grandeur...
—The freedom search is the only force that I know. Freedom to fly in that infinity. Freedom to dissolve, soar, as a candle flame, that even in the face of the light of a billion stars remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a candle flame...
—The idea that consciousness is a physical element is revolutionary —I said amazed—.
—I did not say it was a physical element —he corrected me—. It is an energy element. You have to make that distinction. For witches who see, consciousness is a glow. They can hook their energy body to that glow and go with it...
Don Juan explained that consciousness use as an energy element of our environment is the witchcraft essence. He said that the witches trajectory first was, releasing the energy existing in us through recapitulation and warrior path discipline; second, use that energy to develop the energy body through the dream; and third, use consciousness as an environmental element in order to enter other worlds, not only with the energy body, but also with the physical body..." C.C.
- ↑ “Omnipresent”