The Nagualist Newsletter and Open Forum / Issue 2 August / September 1994
Copyright 1994 by Nagualist Newsletter, all rights reserved. Individual submissions by readers and staff of the newsletter are also protected under copyright law. No portion may be reproduced without the written permission of the Nagualist Newsletter and of the individual who made the submission. Additional copies may be available at no charge.

AVALANCHE OF INFO FROM CARLOS

Sell your soul to the devil, live 5 billion years.

Just as I thought the second issue was done and I could go back to watching TV reruns, a reader sent in the following lecture notes. They were so interesting that we added four pages to the newsletter. As a result, the newsletter was mailed a few days late. No one on staff wanted to make readers wait until the next issue.

To set the stage, we start this column out with the letter of the reader who sent the notes. The portions of the letter which are not printed (...) are just the usual introductory remarks like "you can print this", etc. Following the letter is an exact copy of the notes sent in by the reader. The italics and special emphasis marks are as specified by the reader; we assume these point out ideas emphasized by Carlos himself. Note that the Phoenix Bookstore is where Carol Tiggs is said to have materialized after her 10 year absence and may explain Carlos' debt.

Dear Editors,

... I am enclosing the notes I took for three of the four lectures Carlos Castaneda gave in Los Angeles last year. I was not able to attend the third lecture, which I understand was mostly questions and answers. He did not charge for these lectures, although a fee was paid to the bookstore's owner, to whom Carlos felt indebted...

He discouraged the audience from taking notes but I did. The main themes which he emphasized most were: the need for recapitulation, using intent, how self-importance saps our energy, using death, not using drugs. Some of these will probably not be that clear to you: some are not that clear to me.

I have been recapitulating in a cardboard box that was used to pack a washing machine. I think that calling to intent, aloud, is very powerful, "Intent, I want to be responsible for the fact that I'm going to die."...

...I am interested in seeing how Don Juan's teachings overlap other teachings, such as Brain Swimme's, a cosmologist, who writes that our consciousness feeds the universe.

Source: Seattle, WA

CARLOS CASTANEDA - LECTURE #1

Purpose of lecture series: paying debt to Phoenix Store,

Discussion of the term "Sorcery". CC does not like that term, prefers "Nagualism".

Definition of nagual: double charged person, has more resources. Nagual requires discontinuity (being cut off from source of psychological continuity) for training.

Too much energy is used in the defense of the presentation of self in everyday life. In order to become aware of factors we are defending, do recapitulation.

DJ said that everyone had a trick or a hinge in his/her presentation of self. For a long time now that trick has been "poor baby". Much energy is expended in presenting and defending the self as feeling self-important and deprived.

Wasted energy in looking for a companion. The false belief that a mate will lead to fulfillment. "We don't know how to give love. We only want to receive."

** Warriors love life and the beyond without expectations of return.

We accept the idea of self-importance without examination. There is no uniqueness. We all express the same needs. (Story of CC listening to psych.. tapes and identifying with them all). Need for recapitulation to lose self-importance.

We get this idea of self-importance from the social order. The social order is not interested in the individual. It is leading us to our destruction. Turning us into repetitious idiots, teaching us to feel sorry for ourselves. "I need you. I love you" mantra. The social order does not supply us with meaning or purpose. However, the social order keeps us from experiencing discontinuity and dissonance. The world is predictable when you leave lots out.

Our flaw: We have no purpose. Without purpose, there is no gain. We need purpose.

Recapitulation helps us drop self-importance in the presentation of self.

You don't need a guide. You only need energy. Energy is supplied by unbiased examination.

Anti-dope message: Drugs make you incapable of sustaining pressure. CC was given drugs to enhance his concentration, not for pleasure or gratification. Even mentions prozac.

Discipline: develops warriorship. Warrior is someone who asks for freedom. Freedom is taking your awareness into the inconceivable. Our heritage is to be free. We are travelers. Must fulfill our fate by becoming warriors. Discipline is the only deterrent to social order. What is discipline? Not compulsive schedule. It means being fluid, reasonable, demanding, and continuing with unbiased examination of self 24 hours/day.

To be a warrior:

    1. Accept responsibility: Accept that s/he will die---in humbleness. This is not open to negotiation. Look in the mirror in the middle of night; look at the being who is going to die. Ask, What are you doing? What is the sum total of your actions?
    2. Forget understanding things. Don't ask why. There is no rational explanation. Since when have we been able to understand any of this around us. Nothing can be explained.
    3. Yell intent. Name what we want: "I want to be responsible for the fact that I'm going to die." There is an impersonal force in the universe which obeys our calling. Say it out loud: "I want to accept the fact that I'm going to die." Our voice carries tremendous power. Our word is final. We will begin to see subtle changes. Words cannot be explained; should be called "index."
    4. Recapitulation: Make list, recall events. "Cloak of confidence" is developed by recapitulation.
    5. Take discarded stimuli and make a world. The world of common sense is not the only possible world.
    6. Indebtedness: If you receive something, you are indebted. Accept responsibility for indebtedness. You are indebted to the world and to the spirit (something inconceivable that sustains us). Payment for service is freeing,

Stories about CC searching out other gurus after his left world. His search was very discouraging. He found only "merchants of God." Teachers should not charge for their teachings: they should work from 8 to 5. Their interest was in accumulating wealth.

We only take a cursory look at the world. Interpretation follows. Interpretation is inherited. We go thru life interpreting.

Where is the world taking place? In us. Answers have been constructed. We have been led to accept these answers. We should examine, not interpret.

Defining the universe is magic. Voice responsibility for perceiving: Yell, "I am a human being, Therefore, I am sublime." Our fate is to be perceivers. It is cowardly to hide behind ideas. The world should be fabricated based on the fact that we will die.

TV-Teaches us complaining. Everyone complains on TV: "poor baby".

What do we have to look forward to? Senility. Story of old person yelling in restaurant, "Nurse, I need some more ketchup."

Disease is indulging. Voice your intent to become someone else.

"Bladerunner" movie quote: I have perceived inconceivable worlds.

CARLOS CASTANEDA, LECTURE #2

Don Juan did not believe that man was evil. However, he did see man as a sad creature. He said that warriors could identify with man but that they should not feet sorry for him because that implies an attitude of "being better."

Energy By saving enough energy, you can see energy-seeing not with the eyes. Energy is visible at a level that is incomprehensible. We are seeing energy now but we don't know it because our awareness is not aware.

Not-doing Cognitive dissonance (which is produced by not-doing) helps the warrior suspend judgment. S/he needs moments of doubt. By not-doing, warriors realize that the world is an arrangement. Ex: tying shoe laces in a different way Ex: "album of sublime moments" - moments that require exquisite care (alcoholic-operatic singer-barber singing when CC was ten years old) (hearing a Mexican poem --- Nagual rides the top of the wave).

It is time for us to get out of the "brain of the beast" (that part of us which is extravagantly repetitious, all of our routines). Search for companionship is primordial. People who pour all their energy into companionship are wasting energy. Without the search for a partner, the person would have an enormous amount of energy.

The brain of the beast stops us from seeing although we think we're great. A warrior needs to examine every sense of superiority.

Dreamer Sees herself as something indescribable, indefinable.

Warrior sees everything as a challenge. Only as warriors can we become what we really are. We deny our true nature. DJ had to destroy the egomaniacal CC. When your assemblage point shifts, person changes. "Claim your destiny,"

Dreams Dreams can be used as a springboard into infinity. Dreams are trap doors: Your awareness goes through one way and awareness from infinity comes in the other way.

Assemblage point Assemblage point determines where perception takes place. It is located behind right shoulder at arm's length. When A.P. is displaced, new world perceived.

In sleep, assemblage point is displaced, The farther the displacement, the more terrifying the dream. It is terrifying because there is no order. If dreaming is seen as a challenge (a formal enterprise) demoniacal expressions will I disappear. Discipline is required so that dreams do not Upset Our balance. Accept maintaining balance as a challenge.

Dreaming

In dreaming one must maintain the assemblage point fixed in the same position. At first, the results are chaotic but then we organize the new world into new categories.
Dreaming can be very exciting. Can't wait to go to sleep. Dreaming can take only a few minutes-the rest is normal sleep. Dreaming makes you stronger and revitalized.

There are seven entrances to dreaming. Each implies a different world.

1st step: become aware of falling asleep. You really want to become aware of the elements present in your dreams. Take short glances so that the dream doesn't change. You lie to your mind by saying "I want to become aware that I'm falling asleep." But your real purpose is to examine every element of ordinary dream.

Say, "I am a dreamer". Use intent from the position of a being who is going to die. (If you don't do this from the position of knowing you will die, what are you saving yourself for? Senility? Once you voice intent, energy will pull the dreamer. Intent must be simple and humble, as a person who is going to die.

Something is keeping us from realizing how bad off we are. We are not in the best of all possible worlds, in spite of what many think. Need to use death. Once a warrior sees the flow of energy, the world is never the same.

Story of CC -writing book: Obsessed about notes, plan to destroy them if he died. DJ said that was crazy and complicated, that he should write a book-either dream a book or write a shitty book. CC wrote a shitty book and left it in a theater, so he wrote a second shitty book.

Dream Intruders Should notice intruders in dreams. There is an underlying sense of things in our dreams: then something inconceivable appears (flying fish). That is an intruder or scout. Scouts are from inconceivable worlds of awareness. Awareness is the element of travel (Like boats use water to travel).

Stop the dream when you see an intruder and say, "hey, tell me where you come from." Intruder is compelled to take you to where it came from (need energy to do this). When you ask the intruder, it is compelled to do this.

You will be taken to "Twin Force". Things are twins in the universe. The twin universe is a universe of awareness, a world of awareness, but it lacks organisms. Inorganic beings are slow, live a long time, are teachers. Females are replicas of inorganic beings.

The universe is female--- always in search of males.

You are noticed immediately when your awareness is enhanced. Battle? ? Interaction? ? with inorganic beings is unavoidable (at death). Why not do it when you're alive and vigorous? The sea of universe will eventually get you. "Call to it now. Claim your destiny."

Going with intruders is dangerous when you're greedy (CC was greedy by nature). Must be crystal clear and have guts of steel to go with intruder.

People are scared by these concepts---too real. (His publisher sent his latest book out to over 130 reviewers and not one reviewed his book. Too scared)

When your energy wanes, you are pulled back like a rubber band.

Energy Need energy to remember details of dream. Must save energy. Boost of energy from accepting death and losing self-importance (not better or worse than anyone).

All of us can be "A-1" Quality dreamers, if given the opportunity.

Sadness There is a wave of entological sadness in the universe. We are often protected by our ego. Waves come and hit us whether we like it or not. We personalize it, but it's not personal. It's out there and there is nothing that can be done about "great wave".

2nd stage: wake up into another dream. By this point it feels like we have always paid attention to dreams, but we were not aware of doing it with the energy body. DJ said that the energy body (composed of pure energy) is working all the time. We have a double view (perception with our eyes and with our energy body).

Element of time. Takes so long for us to get all this. DJ would say to CC, "What have they (meaning the dominant culture) done to you?" The art of dreaming can help repair us.

Double positions: For incredible perception, fall asleep in dream in same position that you really fall asleep in. Try this and "write me a letter in care of Phoenix Bookstore after trying twin positions." "Aiming at tapping somebody."

2nd gate: You will come to a complete halt in your dreams. You will be held in position, find yourself staring at an object. It does not shift into something else the way that things normally shift in other things in dreams. The fixation is broken only when it releases you. The twin universe imposes itself on you. We have more energy. They (inorganic beings) have more awareness. Our advantage is that we're temporary, which makes us powerful and as fast as a bullet.

Ask, "Take me where inorganic awareness arises." Will go to the tubes of energy. You will begin to hear a voice (not losing your mind)---the dreaming emissary will tell you what is hidden from view. (first a man's voice, then a woman's)

DJ despised this information: Tells only what you already know or what you should know. Don't let it impinge on your life. Say "Stay away from my affairs." You can easily become dependent on the voice---exonerates you from responsibility.

CARLOS CASTANEDA - LECTURE #4

Said he called a few people about the lectures and they were unhappy: complaints about the fee, about his not being a teacher.

His way requires discipline. Emotional revelations do not change us. He wants us to do it. Take the "infinitive journey."

He put down the concerns of everyday life: "Haven't done our Christmas shopping." There is "nothing where we are but emptiness and boredom."

Knowledge has been passed down in his lineage. CC was close to (similar to) Julian. Something has prevented the continuation of the lineage. CC will "Close the cycle".

Death and dying are not necessarily linear concepts. There is nothing but energy out there. Must meet that energy with all your might. Be prepared for a splendid fight (with death).

A warrior has no self-reflection. S/he can maintain total silence. The "Ethereal man" is a warrior in true silence. In a moment of silence, can reconstruct the world. Our internal dialogue is banality, has nothing to do with life and death. With discipline the warrior is prepared to meet that immensity. "The mind cannot resist persistence." In normal life the fantasy of self-importance helps us fight off the immensity.

Falling in love is a subjective state. How different it is to really feel affection.

A ball of energy has been bothering CC. Maybe it is one of us?

"I cannot meet you at the place where you are. It is a preposterous place." Invitation to meet him where he is. "Take me up on it."

* - Down on drugs: marijuana, peyote, heroin,

Expressed frustration regarding spreading his message in Mexico. "Deeply Catholic people hardly know anything." Symbol of Jesus must be examined. DJ had CC study the history of the church.

Press yourself. Break linear thinking. Seek moment of silence. When the internal dialogue ceases, it is black from the eyes up. Then infinity will seek you out---"Pull you up". The discipline of DJ and his party was that they all left together. Dona Florinda burned from within in 1985. Her energy leaped into infinity. "That's worth fighting for!"

It takes forever for death to take us back--- to dissolve our experiences. Sorcerers beat the odds. Recapitulation gives death a facsimile of our awareness. "It" will let you go. "Try it."

Complaints about people's comments, wanting to tell him their dreams. "Tell me about your dreams after working with discipline." You will not age easily (with recapitulation).

Someone told CC that she would pray for him, which pissed him off. "It is arrogant to pray for someone." (He brings this up several times).
Man is the measure of his world. We are in a rotten state--- worse than in 1950. There is no point in our technological accomplishments. The social order doesn't care about the being who is going to die. "Take this option seriously."

Carol Tiggs changed CC. She brought the possibility of CC talking with others. His interest is to hook us to the abstract. It is a very difficult maneuver---to hook us to the abstract.

Women have much more facility than men. Men are rare and coveted. Forces will snatch men, make a bid for men. In the twin universe, entities are aware, more powerful, but slower. They become aware of men. Your energy body will tell you what to do. Trust something in you (don't trust amulets or red underwear). Avoid confrontation. Women can be incorporated in the twin universe with little effort, just a little discipline. Women can project themselves in.

If you voice your desire to stay, you will live for 5 billion years. They offer nearly eternity. You will die with the earth. CC never gave his word. The emissary of dreaming was a salesman: "You don't even have to breathe." DJ refused. CC nearly succumbed. CC says he couldn't help it; he loves to go to the twin universe.

Let "IT" (the impersonal energy) come to you. You will reach unthinkable things. All of us can do this. We have never been given the opportunity.

Referred to a lecture he went to in Ojai, where there were lots of "shoulds". There are no gods, only perception. "Do this before you die." The ethereal man is a man of silence who is pulled away by infinity.

DJ told CC: "I will leave and will leave behind the birds singing `me, me, me." (referring to CC feeling self-importance).

CC will meet us only at the place of no pity. Act! Make a list of people and recapitulate. Direction of head is not important. Breathe and re formulate the memory. This will increase your energy.

"I will give you my word that we will meet again if you do the work."

Editor: Thanks for taking notes. It's interesting that Carlos' group tells seminar goers not to take notes. Don Juan told Carlos not to take notes, he ignored him, and we all got a chance for freedom as a result. Carlos told this reader not to take notes, s/he ignored him, and now we all have his promise to meet us again. And the men have the knowledge that they can live as slaves of the inorganics for 5 billion years.

This reader took excellent notes, and I didn't find anything unclear. I do believe however, that "infinitive journey" might have been "definitive journey". Or perhaps Carlos was making a pun. Eventually, we will have notes from someone else on this meeting and I bet we'll see an even different view of the lecture series. I have already seen different notes (which I can't yet publish) on Taisha's lecture featured in this issue. It might just as well have been a different lecture. We'll print them as soon as we can.

I was thinking about the notes from Carlos' lectures and a disturbing thought occurred to me. Carlos said that "Females are replicas of inorganic beings." Also, Clara told Taisha in, The Sorcerers' Crossing, that men drain energy from women through sexual intercourse. And Carlos said that the inorganics offer men energy. Since there has already been quite a bit of male bashing in the books, I don't feel too bad about pointing out the following: The inorganics offer men energy and invite them to live in their tunnels for the rest of their lives. And women are replicas of the inorganics. As don Juan said, "draw your own conclusions."

As a result of reading these notes, I tried the twin positions last night. I was flying in a dream and that triggered dreaming. I then had the choice to look at objects or try the twin positions. I decided to go for the twin positions because I was sure I remembered the position I went to sleep in. I laid down on the sidewalk in the dream, crossed my hands over my solar plexus, and went to sleep.

All I got out of the deal was a cozy nap. I actually slept in the dream, completely aware of sleeping. It was very restful, but after a few minutes of expecting something transcendental, I decided to wake up. I woke up in the real world and discovered that sometime in the night I had turned over in my sleep and was now on my stomach. Now I'm left wondering if that was the reason for the failure, or if one is supposed to go to sleep and the dream comes later, like a normal sleeping situation.

I guess I won't be "tapped" by Carlos any time soon. Maybe a reader will have more luck. If anyone succeeds in making it work, please tell the newsletter about it. And if Carlos "taps" you, please send a picture. Just kidding!

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