The Nagualist Newsletter and Open Forum / Issue 3 Oct./Nov. 1994
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WE LIVE WHAT WE WRITE
These are the second set of notes obtained from the source pointed out to us by the reader from Finland. This is the first accounting of this lecture to be printed in the newsletter.
Notes from talk given by Taisha Abelar, Gaia Bookstore, Berkeley, California Friday night, 7:30 p.m., November 19, 1993.
I took very detailed and copious notes at Abelar's Gaia Bookstore talk. However I was not able to take down every word. If I think I am beginning to paraphrase rather than transcribe, I place the material in brackets; some of the bracketed material also includes some minimal comments from me.
The Training of A Stalker.
-we live what we write about in our books.
-there is no intention to misguide you.
-Castaneda is not all this by himself.
[trans. comment: Abelar seemed quite sincere in stating that despite persistent rumors to the contrary, the work discussed in the various books is real; and it is a full time activity on the part of Castaneda and the others; they are totally involved.]
-the First Ring of Power consists of Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner and Taisha Abelar as the impeccable expression of Don Juan's ideas.
[trans. comment: this was not stated in any egotistic way; I felt she was honoring Don Juan, not herself.]
-we are sorcerers constantly under attack, bombarded by the sharp shooters of the known and unknown.
-we survive by our own resilience,
-and keep coming back for more.
[trans. comment: once again, the tone was very light, not at all like the somber, serious challenging of Donner's lecture given in early 1993 at East West Books (no notes available); this was a light, lyrical delivery.]
-[our goal is / or / we are waiting for the opportunity to present itself to] somersault into the inconceivable.
-[but if your energy body is not awakened and developed, you might somersault into the unknown and never be aware of it.]
-must hone energy bodies to be aware of subtlety and mystery of the somersault or won't even be aware of it.
-[talk about energy body and the assemblage point].
-1st and foremost the world is energy.
-then forms emerge.
-then "concrete reality".
-have lost the ability to perceive energy directly.
-have gotten lost in the indexical categories.
-[proficient] at manipulating indexical categories.
-see everything as concrete.
-want to see energy again.
-people as luminous eggs, the size of the arms outstretched front and back, made of fibers of light, with the assemblage point the length of an arm back, to the rear between the shoulder blades, it is a brilliant luminous point the size of a fist, a point of awareness, an assemblage point, the point of perception, we assemble the world there; the matching of the filaments causes perception.
-the assemblage point can move:
from deep meditation from drugs from high fever from senility from sleep deprivation from sensory deprivation from natural sleep.
-what stalkers do is to fix the assemblage point at another position.
-[and the assemblage point can also move from the blow of the nagual] [then a little discourse about how drugs are unnecessary and harmful and were used in the initial stages with Castaneda only because he was a nagual and his assemblage point was so difficult to move.]
-in sleep [stalking] means hold a dream, control a dream.
-awake / a different meaning / grab onto a line - allow it to grab you - and to give it all your energy and let pull you it yanks you over there [perhaps somersault into the unknown?]
-can't go if the assemblage point is rigid [stuck in one place.]
-[to be effective as a stalker you must have energy to work with.]
-take some energy away from THIS world so that you can use that energy to stick to ANOTHER position.
-[Abelar] trained to move the assemblage point gradually, through the recapitulation, never through drugs.
-[Abelar] thought she was perfectly normal, unchanged by the recapitulation but by the end without her even being aware of the process she had shifted 1/2 of her awareness to the energy body.
-the energy body activates naturally on its own almost invisibly.
[trans. comment: Abelar explains that you do not feel different toward the world after a recapitulation; it is just that once you are done you no longer get so upset by the "little things" that used to bother you before.]
-just don't get insulted so easily or caught up in mating rituals [laughter from audience.]
-the assemblage point can also move very suddenly on its own, which can be quite disconcerting.
-the other day Carlos had to decide on a topic for a lecture; we always wait until the last moment - sometimes I write out a lecture because I am nervous but when it comes time to speak I never use it - I never know what I am going to talk about; so Castaneda was lying in bed just keeping an open mind to let intent formulate his lecture for him he was afraid to fall asleep so he got up and walked around aimlessly without thinking waiting for intent to channel down for us and for you and suddenly it came to him the whole sense of what he was going to do at his lecture and he then heard this snoring sound and looked down at his own body / and you know when you are dreaming you are supposed to look at your hand or hold on to some furniture these are tricks so that the scene does not shift and you do not go off zooming through some wall /,
-and anyway Carlos Castaneda was so freaked he thought this is it he was going to somersault into the unknown when,
-he got immensely concerned that here he was, out of his body, looking at his body, and his body had absolutely no control over its anal sphincters, all that control was with him in the energy body and what would happen if his body just took a big crap...
-when these sudden shifts of the assemblage point happen they can injure the physical body.
-which is why Rule No. 1 is to keep the physical body in prime physical condition to withstand the onslaught.
[trans. comment: Abelar then goes into lengthy vignettes describing the "theater of the real" in which the stalker puts on a role, moves the assemblage point and plays a character so thoroughly that the stalker loses themself in the role. Her three roles, given to her by Emilito, are Ricky the gringo who is an Ugly American - a man - Abelar gets so good she is fooling everyone except the sorcerers' group; then spirit, so says Emilito, sends her the next role in the theater of the real, which is a young Mexican girl of wealthy family waiting for a suitor (there is a funny sequence where Abelar actually falls deeply in love with this defrocked former priest who is suffering from a massive "poor baby me" syndrome, and Abelar knocks him out with a punch to the solar plexus and halls him up into a tree, thinking in her persona that since this was what was done to restore her sanity it will benefit her broken spirited lover; then the last role we learn of is that of a crazy beggar, but in this role Abelar is ignored by everyone and gets to sit around all day and watch people come and go from her spot and one day she does not see the people anymore, just energy bodies...]
-[trans. comment: recapitulation gave Abelar a fluid assemblage point; she was stalking with her ordinary body. Theater of the real was to train her energy body to stalk; intent or spirit, not the stalker, chooses the roles for the stalker to play. In her role as the Mexican girl, she really believed, when she knocked out her suitor and hauled him up the tree, that she was no longer stalking, just in love and had to help him. The other sorcerers threw a bucket of water on her to bring her to her senses. When she saw all the people coming and going to the Church in the last of her reported roles, she became acutely aware of how these people were dreadfully constrained and burdened by the index of the social order, unable to even lift their heads up.]
-there are gaps in the social web, the social index. I saw them when I was a crazy person. You are not aware of them when you are normal. But sorcerers are aware of these gaps and try to move themselves into them. And inorganic beings are also aware of them, and use them to pop in, through the mesh. It is the social matrix.
-How to Do the Recapitulation [for the audience]:
-there is no particular right or wrong way. It has been called to our attention that Donner and Castaneda use different directions for the breathing. It does not matter which way you go, the point is to gently jiggle the assemblage point being your shoulder blades by turning the head. The most important thing is to allow intent to guide you in your dreaming or into moving the assemblage point; something will harmonize what you do.
-so you might start with a particular technique but then develop and refine it according to the dictates of spirit.
-do not hurt your neck by sweeping too far.
-when you have experience you can recapitulate while walking or doing the dishes, just sweep up little bundles of energy from relived past experiences and send back the little hooks other people have left in you.
-start by sitting, quieting the mind. Take someone from your list [of everyone you have ever known] and then visualize a scene with them when you get enough detail [you may or may not have emotionals associated with the scene?] you do the fanning breath. You work backward from most recent people to earliest people.
-don't ravage the physical body.
-avoid the butcher slicing out the categories with indexes.
-sorcerers dive dine on the left over categories sliced off.
[trans. comment: I got from this that our minds and our perceptions are brutally slicing out mere portions of reality, what will fit into our well-learned social perceptions - if a new born were fitted with those special glasses that turn everything upside down, the new born would not be disturbed since the infant has not filled the visual world into a meaningful world; but for us the upside down glasses put things in the wrong places, since we expect sofas on the floor and light fixtures on the ceiling and not vice versa. By the time we are adults we have categorized everything and nothing is fresh and magical; the large chunks of "reality" this "butcher" of our categorizing cuts off and throws away as waste, is what the sorcerers dine on.]
-there have been [27] generations of sorcerers in Don Juan's line manipulating many indexical categories.
-can't find these indexical categories in everyday life.
-need to move out a little from familiar positions.
-the sorcerers in Don Juan's line learned hundreds of different positions of the assemblage point from the Death Defier. For example the dual dream position of going to sleep in a dream and waking up in a second dream in the same position. This provokes a real somersault into the inconceivable.
-Naguals can do double dreaming because they have double bodies; Carol can do it but I can't, Carol can do it because she is a double and has a direct line to the Death Defier.
-you should not start with such difficult tasks, just begin by looking for your hands.
-expand the parameters of our perception, get more than is allotted to us; sorcerer's slip out of the ordinary very harmoniously, into a world that is different and more, that has been infinitely better for me than this world of everyday life.
Questions and Answers: -no, sorcerers do not believe in reincarnation, although the life can be prolonged. Once the person dies the assemblage point goes out and that is it. Sorcerers try to recapitulate so they can offer a substitute instead of their awareness. Born with only a limited, preset amount of energy in life, recapitulation lets you reclaim it and in that way gives you more energy.
-every time you move the assemblage point to a new position you get a boost, that is why it is important to lose self importance or that boost can translate into egomania.
-when you recapitulate, unhook the old extraneous stuff first; don't start with current relationships or you may sever them. [In answer to a question] don't start with your mom, this is one of the big relationships and save it for last.
-recapitulation does not mean you won't love someone anymore; in fact you may love them for the first time when you are done, since there will no longer be unfinished business, old baggage between you.
[trans. comment: Tiggs in San Francisco after the talk at East West mid 1993 said of course it was difficult to recapitulate a husband, there are plenty of people to choose from, why ask for trouble by starting with a husband.]
[trans. comment: during Q&A, Abelar at this talk said it always seems that at least one lady in the audience wants a divorce after one of Donner's talks.]
-put yourself in the scene you have visualized then breathe it in. -gently sweep.
-don't get a sore neck.
-see the energy, the filaments [this is something you might see or sense but will get better with as time goes by especially as you have more energy to work with as a result of the practice.]
-feel with the breath.
-exhale and let go [break off from the matrix of the social structure.]
-no moral judgments or narcissism.
-sometimes body gets involved - jiggle the fibers.
-turning the head jiggles the point behind you.
-can do while doing dishes.
-energy body will make itself known to you, heard by you and teach you how to breathe [in your own way.]
Question: how do we stabilize her without resort to cigarettes, drinking and bad habits.
[Abelar at first thought the question was how do these de-stabilize us; then realized the questioner was concerned not about shifting the assemblage point, but about unwanted shifts and instability; this threw her into a long discussion of boring occupations which stabilize sorcerers, such as accountancy and computer programming; how she studied computer programming; how one of her personas is a bookkeeper; how all these things, if foreign to you, will shift your assemblage point; how all the group has advanced degrees; how she was a real estate broker; how sorcerers use the cradle in the tree to restore the assemblage point. The point became do not stay outside the social order; use it.]
[There then followed an interesting question as to whether the audience can conquer death without a teacher.]
-[slight hesitation; audience thinks question is silly] yes I think so. We are at the end of Don Juan's line. Don Juan only worked with 2-3 positions of the assemblage point. Carlos Castaneda took none. We are passing on this knowledge to whoever is interested. In a sense, intent has reached out to you through the books; to be in this audience tonight; our intent sweeps you in. We are interested in total freedom, not another position of the assemblage point.
-so just recapitulate; it is the most important; activate the energy body and something will guide you.
-we have made a coming out - a line all the way to the back of the room encompasses everyone present - intent has swallowed all of us for the duration of this time.
-depending on how much you give yourself to intent,
-is how much you will get back.
-give yourself totally,
-it will take care of you totally.
-without doing.
-this is the end of the whole lineage.
-we have to do it ourselves.
-our only guide is the energy body.
-I intend that your energy point move,
-the books intend it.
-just allow it.
-if something is here for you, do it.
-I used to love to read the Buddhist sutras.
-then I got up and fought with Florinda about them.
-learn from rubbing against the petty tyrants in your life,
-or from the theater of the real .
[trans. comment: question about something heard at another seminar, that the assemblage points of Abelar and the others had moved into the body. Abelar confirms this, says she was not aware of it as it happened and feels no different; theorizes a similarity with Taoist belief in pre-natal energy, life starting at the Tan Tien, only so much energy to live with, maybe that is why the assemblage point has come up through her perineum into the body. She wonders if this is the flower that blooms before it dies? Before she and her group go where Don Juan has gone, into the unknown.]
-we worry that we do not have enough time. Time does not mean anything to us anymore; though I still wear a watch. I mean we worry that we do not have enough energy to hold and hone our energy bodies and give these talks.
[Question on sex.]
-yes recap the sex, the foreplay, even kissing has tremendous amounts of energy in it.
[I mean should we avoid sex.]
-recap all your sexual encounters, but avoid the current ones [trans. comment: same theme as earlier, don't recap current relationships you don't want to lose...or old ones if you think you might get back together.]
[trans. comment: I think Donner is very sex negative; the questioner in the audience was apparently concerned about the notion that men leave behind "hooks" in women that disappear after 7 years of celibacy; the gist of what I got out of the exchange is that sex is ok, even if you are celibate for 7 years still recap the old sex, recap probably - my guess - solves the problem of the hooks that sex creates - the big message BIG MESSAGE was to resourcefully recover old, otherwise going to waste energy so we can live in the now and have enough energy for dreaming and to let the energy body awaken and guide us...but this could be much more my interpretation than anything else...when in doubt follow the transcription even if it is hard to follow or clumsy and come up with your own interpretation.]
[Question recap the dead too?]
-even the dead.
[Question get energy back I thought we had a limited amount just what we were born with.]
-you get more energy because you get it back [right now you have only what you have left but you can replenish your store; and the assemblage point moves always give you a jolt - keep the body strong!]
-the MORE YOU USE THE ENERGY BODY THE STRONGER YOU WILL BECOME. THE STRONGER YOU ARE THE MORE AWARE AND CONSCIOUS YOU WILL BE.
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