To: The Ixtlan Mailing List
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 17:29:30 -0400

A note on the notes: I wrote this stuff down after getting home from the seminar. I left a lot out but still, it seemed that someone else might like to read them. I did not write them verbatum this time so please for give the lack of detai and any errors you might perceive. There is some irrelevant personal comments so don't pay attention to them. Sincerely V.

CARLOS CASTANEDA'S TENSEGRITY -- THE WESTWOOD SEMINAR

On July 20, 1996 a group of about 700 persons met for a week long seminar with the nagual Carlos Castaneda and his group which included Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar and the Energy Trackers - a group of 8 women and 6 men who would lead the seminar's movement sections. Each day would usually begin with a lecture of about 1 to 2 hours though on one occasion Carlos talked for 3 hours until lunch, a welcome gift. Each of the women seers gave lectures that outlined their particular orientation into the sorcerers' world. Carol conceptualized the seers realm as the capacity to see energy as it flows in the universe.

Florinda, a phenomenonally direct being discussed our unalterable position and the need for the utilization of the fact that we are beings that are going to die. Carlos stated that we are, at our cores, perceivers of energy and that through silence we can break the ties that bind us to our habitual interpretation system and on our habitual self reflection. Taisha Abelar presented to us the possibility of entering into other worlds, other peels of the onion. She outlined the ways in which this is done and provided the realization of this as a bona-fide possibility.

The auditorium was arranged with four platform stages. Four, according to Carlos is a number representing permanence. On each stage were two energy trackers. The women formerly known as the chacmools were there as well as the blue scout (Brett) and two new members. They were all very lean and thin with short hair. Their movements were very powerful and were executed with their best effort.

Carlos said that we would cover five core areas during the seminar. These five areas he said held all that was necessary to reach the desirable state of inner silence and to encourage the regrowth of the energy body. The five areas are:

1.TENSEGRITY
2.DECISIONS (area for)
3.THE RECAPITULATION
4.DREAMING
5.INNER SILENCE.

Carlos Castaneda spoke about the differences between men and women. Women have a straight bar of energy running from back to lower center by the womb. Men, unlike women have a swanlike curvy bar of energy which relates to their complexity and vulnerability. In both men and women, however, this bar of energy appears to seers, to be damaged. They have been broken or mangled. In woment the break is uniform and about eight inches in length. It was pointed out that in all women wherever they may live i.e USA, Japan, Russia, the South Pole, wherever, all (except Argentinians {a joke}), had this problem, this break in their energy bar. The question then is why and what or who, is responsible. In men also there is damage and the breaks in this bar of energy can be seen.

In a later lecture as Carlos discussed the flyers, entities that consume our sheen of awareness, the breaks in our energy bar were further explained. Carlos said that it was due to the maneuvers of the flyers that the damage was universal. He said that once someone asked him about whether or not he should be celibate and Carlos replied that he already was. He said that most of us are only masterbators. The damage to that bar keeps us from having real orgasms, real jolts of energy. He pointed out that we do the same thing the flyers do to us, to our own pets. We castrate them, we fix them so they won't go outside the yard and will like us. They are controllable until they die. Those breaks in our energy are one of the means the flyers "fix" us.

The results from these breaks are lowered energy and frigidity in men and in women. Carlos Castaneda reported that their are so many women haters. Women hate other women and men hate women too, a comment that caused a great deal of laughter. He talked about the TV show where two cops just love each other to death and the women is put in the show as a hooker or dies or something and everyone loves it. Women are insignificant or incidental in the movies he said. And he said, that the break in women results in women being frigid.

Carlos said that sex was for procreating. It is our bodies one best shot and that people, as a result of a cogent leap or shift, do it for deleterious reasons i.e.., recreation. This results in energy being lost. Carlos says it does not matter if one has sex unless you have made the decision (see V spot) to become a warrior/sorcerer.

Carlos Castaneda stress a number of times and with vehemence, that we suspend judgment. He implored us to not heal anybody (joking), lend energy, do yoga or chi kung, etc. for just the next few days and said that after the seminar they could get as mad or upset as they wanted and hate Carlos Castaneda. But for the length of the seminar he requested we refrain from our judgments and criticisms.

I feel it is important that I state that before coming to the seminar I had resolved to do just what he had asked regarding judgment. Last year at the three week encounter with Carlos and his people I feel I was incapable of getting the most out of the seminar. I could list many reasons and variables and yet they would all point to a single reason. I was battling the "me" problem. On the one hand there would be a part of me that knew Carlos was right on target.

Another part of me wanted to hurt them, to discredit or disprove them. It was as if there was a voice in my mind which sounded like my mind itself that was doing everything possible to inject doubt, hate, whatever it took to block out their efforts. This to me, after a year of fighting, I would not go there with my "know-all" attitude. Carlos himself stated at the beginning of the seminar that the energy was not as bad as it had been in the past. He said our loud ME!!! was now a more quiet and subdued "me" and would, if we kept it up, become a tiny little "me". So it seemed that I was not the only one who was leaving their greatness, their wonderfulness, their uniqueness, at the door this time.

People stress their "ME" idealities in their acts, Carlos stressed. This occurs as the sheen of awareness that should, right fully cover our luminous cocoons, is eaten down below our toes. It is this area, this last vestige of our sheen of awareness, where the focus on our self-reflection occurs. The new nagual said that now, a year after Culver City, that persons big "ME" had been reduced to a little "me" and that it would get smaller and that many persons energies were in a position to shift to something else.

Carlos talked about the assemblage point and the band of man, a strip of energy that is about a foot wide running down the luminous egg. He talked about alignment of new worlds and the force that holds us and galaxies together. He talked about psychology and developmental psychology and the socialization process along with what it does to us. Examples included the little girl who, at five years old says "Mommy I'm bored". He talked about what "audacity" really was to him, that holding the little flame of one's awareness against that immense and terrifying universe was true audacity. He said that Don Juan would say "because its all I have". That, he said is real audacity. The idea of some absolute "Word of God" or the like, was terrifying to him. Finalities were something he abhorred. Carlos said that we are in a universe that is changing every second.

A humorous story was told about a class he was once teaching in an auditorium-like classroom. There were three girls in there that fidgeted a lot. He said their dogs, which they took with them there, were the perfect students not moving during the entire class. He said that they were or thought they were witches. Some guy came up to Carlos and said "Carlos, what if I told you that someone was fucking with your mind?" Carlos replied "Well, I think, I, I, I,,, I think I'd like it". The guy tried to convince Carlos that they were doing something and told him, no matter what, not to scratch his ear. So Carlos started scratching his ear in class finally going bananas. Once someone, maybe that same guy asked Carlos "Carlos, what do you think about eeevill?" Carlos replied "I, well, I, I don't know, I think I like it". Finally Carlos told us that there is no good and no evil. There is only energy out there and a predatorial universe. It is useless to get mad at it.

Another very humorous story involved Don Juan's maneuvers to get Carlos to quit smoking. Don Juan told Carlos that they were going for a trip to the desert and that he (Carlos) should take plenty of cigarettes. Carlos wrapped up a magnificent bundle of cigarettes in foil because the old nagual told him that coyotes would smell the tobacco and carry them off. The first night the coyotes carried off Carlos' bundle and the next day they spent looking for it. Carlos was going crazy for a cigarette. Don Juan told him that there was a town nearby and they could go there and get some cheap Mexican cigarettes there if Carlos did not mind smoking them. Carlos, at that point would have smoked anything and was reduced to making noises, hardly able to talk at all.

Unfortunately, somehow Don Juan lost their way and they could not find the town. By then quite a number of days went by and their concern turned to simply staying alive. In the light of that new development, Carlos eventually forgot about his craving and finally told Don Juan "you know, I don't even want a cigarette now". With that, don Juan said "its time to go home". The highway was only a mere twenty feet away. They had gone in circles.

The center of energy between the toes is where we all are" don Juan told Carlos. "But for men it depends on which way their dick is pointing".  "It could be a little to the right or the left" Carlos actually tried to determine where his was. Carlos laughed recounting this and the other ways Don Juan would amuse himself. Carlos also joked about how people think they can "lend and heal" with their energy. "Carlos, let me heal you with my energy". "Your energy is weak Carlos. I can Heeaall you". Stupid ideas all relating to our insane beliefs that we are unique and special.

Carlos said that he was well on his way to becoming a professor. He had his hush puppies, his jacket with the patches on the sleeves as well as a pipe. To top it all off he had a leather briefcase. When he told Don Juan, he said "You look ridiculous".

We all have this weird tendency and obsession to "look for love" Carlos said. We sell ourselves. If someone says "I love you", that's it, we give them everything. Carlos said his mother was a communist and that she freed him by dying when he was 5 years old. He said that because of her, he would never be able to stay in the penthouse. It was this social mentality that influenced his consideration that for only four or five mortals to escape in the way of Don Juan's lineage, was unacceptable for him..

Carlos talked about youth being related not to age but to vitality. He told us how Don Juan was infinitely younger than him. He, Carlos, was chubby and don Juan said "You're kind of chubby. Why don't you do the magical passes?". Carlos replied "what magical passes. What are you talking about don Juan?' Don Juan reminded Carlos of the way he taught him to crack his joints. That was his entrance into the realm of the magical passes. Carlos said that the idea that he and Kylie sat around thinking up the movements was absurd. He explained that the passes, Tensegrity, were a generic form of the sorcerers' ancient magical passes previously shrouded in secrecy. In ancient times the passes were designed for specific temperaments and body types.

Carlos Castaneda stated to us that he is closing shop and that don Juan never got to deal with mass like he was doing with us. This meeting, this mass was an explosion for him, an explosion of something else. He told us that this person (referring to the image of Carlos Castaneda on the stage) was an apparition. He said "I'm already gone. All I have to do is shut my eyes". He talked about his appointments with Infinity and said that he and the rest were not even friends with one another. They just got together for the seminars and sometimes they went to the movies. He was only the chauffeur, the bus boy.

Carlos talked some about violence and movies with stars like Arnold Swartzenegger who never got hit by all the high tech. machine gun bullets and weapons fired at him. Carlos pointed out that in the movies of today they obligatorily say "let's kick ass!" and "Fuck you". In his time, he said, all they could say was "gee wiz!".

A member of the Spanish speaking audience said to Carlos something to the effect that it made her sad that the lineage was ending. Carlos replied that it made him sad too.

Carlos told us that he used to eat 17 bacon sandwiches a day and he smoked since he was eight. He joked about how he would say "let me catch my breath". Panting, he would lite up a cigarette and puff madly on it.  Carlos said that rituals obscured the real issues.

Taisha Abelar talked about inorganics and the fact that we have the capacity to move into other layers of the onion, so to speak. For Carlos it is the fact that - we are perceivers -, for Florinda that - we are beings that are going to die - and for Carol that - we can stop the world to see energy as it flows in the universe.

Taisha mentioned Glovis and Flebis (sp?), two allies or inorganic beings who she says, have accompanied her or attached themselves to her awareness, not as leeches though. She said that they are impeccable and are dealing with her world which, for them, is the unknown. Taisha said they would hover outside the jet plane on the wings discovering its speed. But now she gets them to go inside, just, they will not put on their seatbelts.

Taisha described three ways to move in and out of the cousins world (inorganic realm). The cousins, she said are very much like us, but inorganic, slower and infinitely older. their world is as is our own, a layer of the onion. The three ways are dreaming (a natural hatchway), internal silence, and finding cracks in the world. Florinda in her lecture said that all of them had a mini-breakdown before Taisha's lecture. Taisha wanted to bring this huge pigeon, one with no legs, to the lecture. Florinda said during her evening lecture, that Taisha got it in some other world and it was as big as a dog. She said that we, or some of us, might not even have been able to see it but that they had at least left it in  the car. She said it moved by waddling on its belly.

Taisha spoke of a place where there are three legged dogs. Florinda said that those things are very sophisticated and never to make fun of a three legged dog. In that world it is not nonsensical. It is a part of that world.

Taisha said that in the sorcerers house that they always talked about another wing of the house and that she, with her reporter mentality of the time, was interested in the how, what, where, why, factual questions and in finding no wing, believed that the sorcerers in their house in northern Mexico were referring to a potential or maybe a past wing. She took her tools and looked, tapping on walls for secret passageways and digging outside for an old foundation, etc. She concluded, finding nothing, that they were all cracked or lying. But one day she was pushed by one of the sorcerers of don Juan's party into this room, a room without four walls and yet it was a room where the walls were undulating. There was a man on the floor moving like a marionette and besides him were two disc like things which were trying to imitate him. Her body or her awareness told her this, since the discs had no head or limbs. The man was don Genaro and she said the floor was pristine like it had never been walked on. For them, the sorcerers, the room was their entrance to the other world.

Taisha said there were cracks, vortices of sorts into the other world, all over the place, even on there in the San Bernadino mountains. and near the botanical gardens at UCLA. She joked about almost making us a map to the spot. Taisha described how she was going up this hill there where the water no longer flowed. The energy, the flowing energy was still there however, making cars go much faster than normal. She ended up in another layer of the onion and finally left. She said that, finding oneself in such a position i.e., having gone through a crack, one has to be sober and use the tools of a warrior when doing this kind of thing. One can choose to look around or one can return by simply sitting still or staying put Taisha said warriors do not lose their minds, that that is a result of obsession with the self. One needs energy though.

Taisha told the story of how once she and Carlos were driving to the airport and they found themselves placed far away from there, even though they had been close. Carlos used to be a cab driver before and did not get lost so they concluded that something had happened. Taisha, during the incident had said "We flew! We flew!" and Carlos just said something like "You did it again Taisha!"

Two friends of theirs, a microbiologist and an insurance salesman, two ordinary persons, came to Carlos with a story of what had happened to them. They had been driving on the highway. The landscape seemed wrong or different to them after a while and they tried to turn back found that they could not find the way. They were on this gravel road and decided to go to this cottage they saw and ask. As they drove up to the cottage a monstrous looking and very tall man was at the door and his voice was weird. He was saying "Go back". Go back". They were so frightened that they just backed up out of there and out of that other layer of the onion.

Taisha said there was a front door and a back door into that realm. One door was dreaming and she joked about having to get in line and say "Get out of my way!" Dreaming was one of those doors then. Taisha talked about the third way of entering these worlds which is inner silence. She talked about a blackness that would occur when one's inner threshold was reached anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. One could find oneself in another layer as she and Florinda had done. Florinda wanted to leave the mall they had found but couldn't until Taisha had finished her inspection shopping. Taisha spoke of other worlds, infinite worlds out there, perceivable and potential via shifts or movements of the assemblage point.

In one world people would sit in a sort of gallery to watch the sun rise as it took up two thirds of the horizon. There was already a sun in the sky and the giant rising sun did not burn anything or affect in ways like our own universe would.

Taisha mentioned that that early on in her apprenticeship, the sorcerers would say the other world(s)) were not in "this space". But she, with her mentality, thought they meant that the other worlds were in another galaxy or something. She found out though.

She talked about a new technology of another world where people, working for a company there, named Soni, were watching what at first, looked like a drive in movie picture, but turned out to be a projected image; projected from some distance behind. Many worlds to go to when one gains the energy and the control and the sobriety Taisha told us that we each had to take these individual journeys and then, maybe, we'd all leave together.

Florinda talked about the fact that we are beings that are going to die. We act immortal so we don't do anything. She told the story of how old Florinda told her no to drive a car and how she drove her car off a cliff. Her brand new car with no insurance. How they locked her out of the house and she cried since it had never been locked on her. And then how she had found it open. How her hammock was gone and she cried again.

Florinda discussed practical actions such as old Florinda's dramatic actions or how speaking her name "my name is Florinda Donner" were gestures for It. This reminded us of this or towards the feeling of the sorcerers' world.

She talked about her car, John Tuma, Genaro, finding the perfect husband, energy, family and no kids, awareness is physical, men sublime joke but... knowing knowledge so one can't let it go. Professors, cracked cunts, egomania, a weird apparition of a woman in her house, sobriety, not loosing one's mind. She said "oh hell, another navigator".

Taisha said they gave her a nickname "Wow wow". It meant, she thought, either that she whined like a baby, or barked like a dog. She said she'd rather be the dog.

Florinda mentioned how they, the four of them, were not real for the sorcerers unless they were standing right in front of them.

Carlos she said, is not there anymore. Florinda said that it was fascinating to see the change. The old nagual was like that when she met him. But to see it happen, to Carlos, was very weird.

Florinda said that warriors do think ponder, consider... but when they act, they don't care about outcomes. Sometimes they forget why they are doing what they are doing.

Carol Tiggs' song:

I've been bad, I've been bad,
I should be punished,
Until I am dead,
And when I am dead,
I should be punished some more.

A song we sang a few times with Carol, the nagual woman tonight. She was dressed in black seemingly overflowing with energy. Like the others, she had short cropped hair and was lean, catlike. She looked better than last year.

After a few words she brought out the starlight trackers. They were the blue scout and the mother of the little girl. The blue scout is CC's daughter and the other is the cyclic being from last year, I think. They had leather gloves with silver tips on each finger as well as mod looking mirrored sunglasses (snake eyes) They were strange looking and serious about the form they did which we were told was the snake.

Then Renata and Nyie Murez did the crab set. They were the pre-dawn trackers and squeaked as they did their strange set. Carol spoke after they were done. Oh, by the way, Florinda and Taisha seemed very delighted with the sets. Anyhow, Carol said that properly, the order should have been that set, the Crab first and then the snake and then the next which was a knife set, but that costume changes necessitated the order.

The knife set involved double daggers and was very beautiful, and was Carol indicated, originally done with human bones, rounded on one end for the Vspot, with writing. The nagual Luhan designed them as attempts to kinesthetically get to the state of internal silence and to the abstract, he substituted metal knives.

Carol later in the lecture said that the sets gave some energy for the things she would say and do that night.

Carol talked about her absolutely terrible "me" ness when she first met don Juan. She said he'd make up derogatory nick names for her but she would always try and make them into something admirable Names like "Prickwithears", or "Seven Layer Butt", or "Fat Butt". Ultimately, Carol pointed out that our minds, no matter our perceived notions, are all alike. She described those awareness that consume us as food, the flyers. She said that they should be called the leapers or the jumpers because that's what they do. She said their awareness is so heavy that it sinks right through us like lead. She was repulsed by them. When their friend, Tony gave her a picture to show CC, she thought that to see one in a photo was very horrible.

The flyers keep us in Humaneros (pro:Umaneros), like we keep chickens in galleneros. Those humaneros are cities. She said it was strange how we thought it was "that's stupid" that there could be such entities. Even stranger how weird that we viciously cling to beliefs like gods, god, and guilt (thus the song) that have nothing to do with us or our wellbeing. She told a joke about the god Thor (I'm Thor!!)

The flyers give us our minds - one size fits all - Carol said, which she really did not like. It was as she said this that I realized my suspicions about the vibrating plate over the heads of people. Carlos is the morning had said that there was a center of energy, unlike the swirling centers of liver/pancreas, spleen, adrenals (and womb for women), at the top of our heads which moves side to side faster tan our heart beats. I realized that that was the energy center or false mind we identify with the "me", given to us by the flyers.

Carol said that we imitate our captors and impose horrible fates on our pets. That we castrate and fix, declaw and defang and descent them so they will be docile and like us until they die. So they won't try and leave. She said sorcerers of old found this out and that don Juan hated them as they had sold out to that they themselves wouldn't be eaten. He said that they were the caretakers of this knowledge and sold out to them for personal gain and power.

The picture of the flyer was the omen they needed for them to tell more about the flyers. Carol said, that like a cheap B movie, she had said to CC, "but what do they want with us?"

She said that they all were skeptical and did not do anything about them for a long time (as apprentices). But when they finally 'saw' them they were horrified. Those things with their heavy awareness sunk right through us. Carol's conclusion to the question of whether or not they ate other organic beings was no because of the unique nature of the human energy which was like a giant cutout or machine stamp, something like clear edges. "Why?" How the hell should I know why? They just do it seems.

The sorcerers did know and discover one thing the flyers detested which was and is awareness grown via discipline. The magical passes do this. The recapitulation does this. Inner silence does this. Mankind, said Carol, could possibly return to his pre-sentient state as a brilliant and fully covered entity, luminous, and escape the cosmic manglers.

Carol was being funny, singing and joking, obviously pleasing her cohorts a great deal. A great deal of her information was vital and struck home. Bullseye! Besides the critical jumper information, was the horrible sense of self-importance we maintain, wasting gobs and gobs of energy. Who loves me? Who will see and tell me how special and wonderful I am, when or how can I get picked? One day they'll see how much I've changed and apologize. They'll see how wonderful I am!" PHLEGGH!! It really is disgusting and not our fault, according to CC and Carol. But it would be our fault, since we know, not to do anything about it.

At one point in the lecture Carol said "no, I'm not going to talk about it", obviously talking to someone on the stage that we could not see. She told the story about her and some man, a musician and how she supported him, looking for love, I think.

There are beings in the universe(s) that are predators and they go throughout the universe looking for food. Carol picked four people and made them look into her eye before having them fall backwards into a state of silence. Her act plunged the whole audience into silence. The group got up and left. That silence was palpable and stayed with me for the rest of the night. It was great..

You, only live twice,
Or so it seems,
Once for yourself,
And once for your dreams,
You drift through the years,
And life seems tame,
Till one dream appears,
And freedom's its name,
And freedom's a stranger,
Who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger,
Or the stranger is gone,
This dream is for you,
So pay the price,
Make one dream come true,
You only live twice,
And freedom's a stranger,
Who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger,
Or the stranger is gone,
This dream is for you,
So pay the price,
Make one dream come true,
You only live twice.