The Sorcerer's World

He then began his explanation. He briefly outlined the truths about awareness he had discussed:

...that there is no objective world, but only a universe of energy fields which seers call the Eagle's emanations;

...that human beings are made of the Eagle's emanations and are in essence bubbles of luminescent energy- each of us wrapped in a cocoon that encloses a small portion of these emanations;

...that awareness is achieved by the constant pressure that the emanations outside our cocoons, which are called emanations at large, exert on those inside our cocoons;

....and that that awareness gives rise to perception which happens when the emanations inside our cocoons align themselves with the corresponding emanations at large.

"The next truth," he went on, "is that perception takes place because there is in each of us an agent called the assemblage point that selects internal and external emanations for alignment. The particular alignment that we perceive as the world is the product of the specific spot where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon."

Carlos Castaneda
The Fire from Within

Don Juan explained that in order for our first attention to bring into focus the world that we normally perceive, it has to emphasize certain emanations selected from the narrow band of emanations where mankind-in-general's awareness is located.

The discarded emanations are still within our reach, but remain dormant; and typically unknown to us for the duration of our lives.

The new seers call the emphasized emanations: the right side, normal awareness, the tonal, this world, the known, the first attention. The average man calls it: reality, rationality, common sense.

The emphasized emanations compose a large portion of man's band of awareness, but a very small piece of the total spectrum of emanations present inside the cocoon of man.

The disregarded emanations within man's band are thought of as a sort of preamble to the unknown; with the unknown proper consisting of the bulk of our emanations which are not part of the human band and which are never emphasized by the average person. Seers call them the left-side awareness, the nagual, the other world, the unknown, the second attention.

* * *

He explained that human beings repeatedly choose the same emanations for perceiving because of two reasons. First, and most important, because we have been taught that those emanations are perceivable; and second because our assemblage points select and prepare those emanations for being used.

"Every living being," he went on, "has an assemblage point which selects emanations for emphasis. Seers can see whether sentient beings share the same view of the world by seeing if the emanations their assemblage points have selected are the same."

He affirmed that one of the most important breakthroughs for the new seers was to find that the spot where that point is located on the cocoon of all living creatures is not a permanent feature. It is established on that specific spot by habit. Hence the tremendous stress the new seers put on new actions, on new practicalities. They want desperately to arrive at new usages, new habits.

"However, a matter of even greater importance is to properly understand the truths about awareness in order to realize that the assemblage point can be moved from within.

"The unfortunate truth is that human beings always lose by default. They simply don't know about their possibilities."

"How can one accomplish that change from within?" I asked.

"The new seers say that realization is the technique," he said. "They say that, first of all, one must become aware that the world we perceive is the result of our assemblage points' being located on a specific spot on the cocoon. Once that is understood, the assemblage point can move almost at will as a consequence of new habits."

I did not quite understand what he meant by habits. I asked him to clarify his point.

"The assemblage point of man," he said, "appears around a definite area of the cocoon because the Eagle commands it. But the precise spot is determined by habit; by repetitious acts.

"First we learn that it can be placed there and then we ourselves command it to be there. Our command becomes the Eagle's command and the assemblage point becomes fixated at that spot.

"Consider this very carefully; our command becomes the Eagle's command. The old seers paid dearly for that finding. We'll come back to that later on."

"I've mentioned to you that sorcery is something like entering a dead-end street," he replied. "What I meant was that sorcery practices have no intrinsic value. Their worth is indirect. Their real function is to make the assemblage point shift by making the first attention release its control on that point.

"The new seers realized the true role those sorcery practices played, and decided to go directly into the process of making their assemblage points shift; avoiding all the nonsense of rituals and incantations.

"Yet rituals and incantations are indeed necessary at one time in every warrior's life. I personally have initiated you in all kinds of sorcery procedures, but only for purposes of luring your first attention away from the power of self-absorption, which keeps your assemblage point rigidly fixed."

He added that the obsessive entanglement of the first attention in self-absorption or reason is a powerful binding force. Ritual behavior, because it is repetitive, forces the first attention to free some energy from watching the inventory, and as a consequence the assemblage point loses its rigidity.

"What happens to the persons whose assemblage points lose rigidity?" I asked.

"If they're not warriors, they think they're losing their minds," he said, smiling. "Just as you thought you were going crazy at one time. If they're warriors, they know they've gone crazy, but they patiently wait. You see, to be healthy and sane means that the assemblage point is immovable. When it shifts, it literally means that one is deranged."

He said that two options are opened to warriors whose assemblage points have shifted.

...One is to acknowledge being ill and to behave in deranged ways; reacting emotionally to the strange worlds that their shifts force them to witness.

...The other is to remain impassive, untouched, knowing that the assemblage point always returns to its original position.

"What if the assemblage point doesn't return to its original position?" I asked.

"Then those people are lost," he said. "They are either incurably crazy, because their assemblage points could never assemble the world as we know it, or they are peerless seers who have begun their movement toward the unknown."

"What determines whether it is one or the other?"

"Energy! Impeccability! Impeccable warriors don't lose their marbles. They remain untouched. I've said to you many times that impeccable warriors may see horrifying worlds, and yet the next moment they are telling a joke, laughing with their friends or with strangers."

"One of the greatest moments the new seers had," he continued, "was when they found out that the unknown is merely the emanations discarded by the first attention. The unknown is a huge affair, but an affair, mind you, where clustering can be done. The unknowable, on the other hand, is an eternity where our assemblage point has no way of clustering anything."

I insisted once more that it seemed to me that the mystery is obviously within us.

"The mystery is outside us," he said, "Inside us we have only emanations trying to break the cocoon. And this fact aberrates us, one way or another, whether we're average men or warriors. Only the new seers get around this. They struggle to see. And by means of the shifts of their assemblage points, they get to realize that the mystery is perceiving. Not so much what we perceive, but what makes us perceive.

"I've mentioned to you that the new seers believe that our senses are capable of detecting anything. They believe this because they see that the position of the assemblage point is what dictates what our senses perceive.

"If the assemblage point aligns emanations inside the cocoon in a position different from its normal one, the human senses perceive in inconceivable ways."

Carlos Castaneda
The Fire from Within

I was just browsing the forum this morning and came across this. Since I think everything happens for a reason, this relates to a conversation I was having with Della in chat not long ago about this very thing.

I'm wondering if Della or anybody else might have some comments on this? What do you do when you think you're going crazy? I'm not much interested in hypotheticals or philosophicals here. What I'm hoping to talk about are your own real experiences with this part of being a warrior. Have you ever actually felt crazy as a result of this stuff?

MM

Greetings, MM.

For myself, most of the time I think I'm going crazy, I'm really just getting in my own way here with these daily issues. (Self importance! Self importance!)

When I truly think I'm in need of the white jacket with long white sleeves is usually after profound Dreaming. What I usually do is sit quietly and turn off the internal dialogue. I go where the Spirit takes me; let it wash over me as if I'm in need of an energetic cleansing

The last time this happened, tears just started streaming down my face. The only way I can describe it was a feeling deep inside, a feeling of tremendous awe. Something within hooked to the infinite. Something that just reminds me how vast we really are, ourselves...

As I've said before, "The supreme joy of feeling reverent awe; of watching, with my mouth open, whatever is behind those secret doors."

Then, of course, as dJM said, our AP stablizes, gains cohesion, and we are back in the world of the everyday.

But of course we are forever changed from that moment on, as I believe that our AP never really settles back in the same habitual position it once was in

Zam

PS Hope this helps.

There have been times when I have seriously questioned my own sanity - and, no, I'm not attempting to be funny or even light-hearted. When one embarks on this path, perhaps one mistakenly believes it is just like any other path of "learning" - but the difference I've discovered is that the learning we do on this path is done through direct personal experience, whereas a lot of learning one might do in college, for example, is more along the lines of information processed through books.

When I have journeyed profoundly with the mushroom ally, I have watched my assemblage point essentially disintegrate, to such an extent that there is no way of "clustering" anything at all. One simply disappears from one's own view... and then reappears at some other point in time, some other when... and there is really no way of determining what is "real" and what we have just dreamed into being.

But in a more day to day application, there have been times (recently, as a matter of fact!) when I have begun to wonder if my view of the world is so significantly different from anyone else's, that Imust consider myself to be like the "one sane man in the madhouse" to whom Julian and Orlandowere referring in my recent Dreaming experience.

In particular, this part of the quote Zam cited really stood out to me:



Sometimes I think I am incurably crazy. Other times, I think I have become a peerless seer.

Depends on which way the fog is blowing in from the infinite sea.

Point being... this is a very real phenomenon, and as far as I know, every warrior who goes more than a few feet on this path will eventually come face to face with it. Seems to go with the territory.

D

MM, we're all 'crazy' in the sense we 'all' have plenty of work to do. Now, I do my best to not create more 'dual mindsets' because they dont serve, and this can only dissassociate us more, which I dont personally believe is a good thing to do. But say you have folks, like books say, 'ordinary world,' living in whatever they do. Then you have other folks who's lives are far from ordinary, and just seem hammered on from spirit, and so forth. There's a distinct difference with those who have the eyes on spirit, and those who dont. It certainly doesnt mean that others dont have spirit, cause we're all spirit, every one of us. But other folks are more aware of that.

If you are asking the question, 'am I crazy?' even asking is a good way to ground. It also means its time to sit down, like zam says, shut the ID, quiet the mind, cause 'energy' as it comes 'in' can cause plenty of affects, open things up, within us, and around us. Which certainly its supposed to do, but when things become less and less distinct, and our mind cannot reconcile our experiences, when we cannot grab hold of something, or we're getting led into the 'unknown,' mind will naturally wish to distinguish what is going on. And this alone, can make us crazy, esp when we're running counter to a world which isnt always quite accepting of phenomena.

And some of it is rightfully so, its all folly, but some things are folks, being fucking crazy! Sure. How can you make sure you wont end up, like some airy fairy person believing in a bunch of unreal fantasy? Look at your life, and check where its heading, what direction, and get in tune with the various 'confirmations' and synchronicities. You know those, 'there is no way that coulda happened/I couldve known that' experiences. The ones which give you the strange 'jolt' and run the chill up the spine. That's something, which has nothing to do with fantasy, or wishful thinking.

Keep one foot in both realms at all times. Dont give up one foot in either one. That way you have access, but take control, and learn to filter, and then you gain knowledge without going crazy.

Re: AP changes. I recently had a mini-stroke, thankfully I had a complete recovery. But after the recovery I looked at my girl friends arm and "saw" scenes of 17th century sailing boats. I described them to her and mentioned that they had to be the result of hullanctions (sp). Then a week later she asked me to look at her arm to see if I could "see" them again..........I looked, and they started to appear but I willed them to stop and I told her, no I'm sorry but I can't see those "crazy scenes" again.

So, I know that what occured was a major "shift" in my AP. I think the trick to all of this is not to take any of this stuff too seriously but at the same time be grateful for glimpses into the unknown.

Bill W.

If crazy is defined as significant differentiation form the norm, then yes, I'm crazy. What keeps me from being alarmed at this prospect is that my particular craziness works well for me in terms of getting me where I know I need to go. People who have a unique, personal vision of reality are crazy. What they do with that craziness may be a choice if tremendous importance.

In my limited work as a healer, I've found my craziness to be indispensable.

It is my understanding that our understanding of the world, as people, is dependant on our own particular aleignment at any one time. So it is, therefore, not difficult to imagine, not being able to grasp what people are saying if we have chosen not to perceive the bulk of conversation. A simple conversation about something trivial can be the most difficult thing to understand. It is true also, that a person can come across as a distinct person, recognizable and that same person may also seem to be someone completely different depending on our view. The order we impart to the world is of our own doing. I would say, the whole idea of being a fluid Warrior is to be able to guide and affect this order to our own satisfaction. Warriors try and learn how! Having altered order equals some form of chaos, but in time, more order is imparted on chaos (the unknown) which then becomes a manageable, working knowledge. It becomes a new way to perceive the world!

this relates to what della was saying on purpose of enlightenment. that a movement i recently experienced was authentic self vs the actor. i saw it as 'i' losing it's control. i was aware of the unknown surrounding 'i' in my awareness. dj summed it up here, the 1st attention gives up all encompassing control. therefore the way i see it-is that the 1st attention refers to 'i' being in control of awareness. i shifted the ap or point of reference?

Thanks to everybody who replied to my question. I've been out of touch for awhile and just now getting back to catching up a little. Much to think about here.

Still crazy after all these years.
MM

Yes, many times. What do you do? Exactly what don Juan says - shit yourself, then regain control by assuring yourself that all will return to normal. Hopefully.

What doe sit feel like? It feels like reality is literally unravelling.

And also interesting is my mother warned me of this. She's far from being in to any stuff like this - it's just that everyone knows if you start questioning stuff sufficiently, it can make you go bananas. Many people like to joke about being a bit crazy - but, I'm talking about the real, shit scary stuff, where you think you've gone too far and you really must be mentally ill. It's not even hard to do. It doesn't require Toltec sorcery at all.

Hello x,

Its my experience that if nobody can tell that your crazy, then your ok. As long as you've got everyone else convinced, you are free to be as mad as you like!


6+

Lol- unfortunately, that's the 'nice' crazy - where people enjoy saying 'hey,I've always been crazy...' when what they mean is they're a bit different. WHat I'm talking about, and what don Juan is talking about, is the real crazy - the literal unravelling of reality, like having an immensely powerful bad trip. And that's not a light thing - many times I've near enough shit myself, or been terrified, and geuinely believed I was nose diving. That's a different kind of crazy, believe me - and it's one of the reasons why we should be very,very careful who we tell what to, in terms of powerful ideas that can upset their mental balance. There was a guy who watched a film and had a psychotic reactionb and murdered his beloved family - no light joking about being crazy for him; he found the key that unravelled the nagual to him compeltely, but he wasn't prepared and went derranged.