What is recapitulation? Essentially, there is a Knowledge among warriors and wo/men of Knowledge that it is possible for our energy to become stuck in past events. Though much has been written on the subject of recapitulation, the hows and dos and don'ts, I've found that it is most easily visualized by thinking of it like this:
Allow your mind to wander over your life. Certain events will automatically stand out - some good, others not so good. Weddings, funerals, births, deaths, fights, fucks, and simply a perfect moonrise. What is it, then, that causes these memories to stand out? Energetic connections. Ultimately, whether the connection is "good" or "bad" (arbitrary lines in the sand), it is only by freeing the trapped energy that the warrior moves toward detachment. The events that stand out most prominently, are usually the ones which need to be recapitulated first, since those are the ones holding the greatest amount of energy.
In many cases, people go through life being pulled, pushed, and haunted by those old energies, and the result is that the energy which the warrior needs in the Now is locked into those past events. Carlos Castaneda talks about the idea of recapitulation, and there has been much emphasis placed on the mechanics of it. For myself, the mechanics have proven to be entirely pointless. All that matters with recapitulation is Intent: the Intent to release the energy hooks from the past that prevent forward movement in the Now.
For myself, I have discovered that I am what amounts now to an instant recapitulator -- i.e., when something happens that is recognized to be energetically engaging (a fight with a spouse, for example), it is my nature to deal with the situation instantly, and with as much impeccability as I can manage. The result is that the energy hooks simply no longer stick - and by learning to "shed" energy hooks as they occur, one learns to become what I have come to call a "teflon warrior". Shit still happens. Shit still stinks. But the shit don't stick.
So what is recapitulation, you ask again? Simply put, it is coming to recognize the energy hooks for precisely what they are, and by allowing yourself to release the hooks, the energy that was previously attached to the past is freed for use by the warrior in the Now. As with everything else on this journey, recapitulation is a subject that will only be understood through personal engagement.
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It seems to me that this is a "psychoanalytical" approach to recapitulation. In keeping with what CC says about it (in Infinity I think), I try to recapitulate all memories as they come up (I don't do it systematically or chronologically). His purpose for recapping was not just to address emotional occurrences, though this seemed to change some in Taisha Abelar's book. (Which of these approaches is prefereable?)
To me, CC's approach to recapitulation never made a lot of sense, to be honest. The reason is that he refers to it as "recapturing energy trapped in the past" - and that is neither reasonable nor possible, in the grand scheme of things. In fact, the methods used by CC as means to recap seemed far more rooted in ritual than anything else.
My approach may appear on the surface to be more "psychoanalytical", but ultimately this path is about undoing programs within the Self - and most of our programs are rooted in events that happened in our past. Therefore, recapitulation doesn't need to be about hanging oneself in a tree or burying oneself in the ground or any other form of bizarre ritual. You can do that if it pleases you - but it simply isn't necessary. And, in fact, I have personally found that a lot more understanding can be gleaned simply by coming to see how we may be energetically hooked into our own past through events which we may or may not remember on a conscious level.
Basically, after the warrior reaches a certain level of awareness, events may be recapitulated instantly as they happen, and so nothing sticks to a teflon warrior. We simply do not form the attachments which would require later recapitulation.
Also, another thing I have discovered is that once the warrior loses the human form, or even begins to come close to doing so, there is a moment of realization when one simply knows/sees that the phantom s/he was in the past is not the person s/he is in the now. IOW - it would be as pointless and foolish for me to dwell on past abuses in my childhood as it would be for me to lament over the wrongs suffered by a complete stranger. At the point the warrior loses the human form, it becomes possible to see that the phantom I was in the past has very little bearing on who I am now. In that way, the energy is forever moving forward rather than hooking itself onto events in the phantom past.
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