## Carlos Castaneda Interviews and Articles

### Carlos Castaneda's
The Warriors' Way | Readers of Infinity
Number 4. Volume 1.

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by Carlos Castaneda
"READERS OF INFINITY"
Formerly "THE WARRIORS' WAY"
A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics
Number 4, Volume 1
Los Angeles, April, 1996

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Author's Note

The April issue of Readers of Infinity: A journal of Applied Hermeneutics, is being published at this late date, because it, together with the first three issues, belongs to an original set of four, specifically conceived in harmony with the sorcerers' idea that the number four implies order and permanency.

It was the writer's utmost wish to give this journal a character as distant as possible from temporariness, whatever that character may turn out to be. It seems that in this case, it turned out to be the publication of this journal in book form. So be it. Since the fourth issue was already finished by late March and ready to go to press, it became impossible to pass up the opportunity to publish it as a monthly issue.

A NEW AREA FOR PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

We have briefly discussed in the previous issues of this journal the idea of Hermeneutics as a method of interpretation, the idea of the Phenomenological Method, and the idea of intentionality. I would like to outline now the possibility of a new area of philosophical inquiry. The elucidation of this topic is hinged on the definition of certain concepts that were developed by sorcerers or shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times.

The first of such concepts, which is the cornerstone of sorcerers' activities and beliefs, is called seeing. By seeing, sorcerers mean the capacity that, in their belief, human beings have to perceive energy as it flows in the universe. The claim that sorcerers make, which is substantiated by their practices, is that energy can be perceived directly as it flows in the universe, using our entire organism as a vehicle for perception.

Sorcerers make a distinction between the body as part of the cognition of our everyday life, and the entire organism as an energetic unit which is not part of our cognitive system. This energetic unit includes the unseen parts of the body, such as the internal organs, and the energy that flows through them. They assert that it is with this part that energy can be directly perceived.

Because of the predominance of sight in our habitual way of perceiving the world, sorcerers describe the act of directly apprehending energy as seeing. For sorcerers to perceive energy as it flows in the universe means that energy adopts nonidiosyncratic, specific configurations that repeat themselves consistently, and that can be apprehended in the Same terms by anyone who sees.

The most important example of this consistency of energy in adopting specific configurations is the human body when it is perceived directly as energy. Sorcerers perceive a human being as a conglomerate of energy fields that gives the total impression of a clear-cut sphere of luminosity. Taken in this sense, energy is described by sorcerers as a vibration that agglutinates itself into cohesive units. They describe the entire universe as composed of energy configurations that appear to the seeing sorcerers as filaments, or luminous fibers that are strung in every which way, but without ever being entangled. This is an incomprehensible proposition for the linear mind. It has a built-in contradiction that can't be resolved: how could those fibers extend themselves every which way and yet not be entangled?

Sorcerers, as unstudied practitioners of the phenomenological method, can only describe events. If their terms of description seem inadequate and contradictory, it is because of the limitations of syntax. Yet, their descriptions are as strict as anything can be. The luminous energetic fibers that make up the universe at large do extend themselves to infinity in every which way, and yet, they are not entangled. Each fiber is an individual, concrete configuration; each fiber is infinity itself.

In order to deal with these phenomena more adequately, perhaps it would be proper to construct an entirely different way of describing them. According [actual page 3/12] to sorcerers, this is not at all a far-fetched idea, because perceiving energy directly is something that can be achieved by every human being. Sorcerers argue that this condition accords human beings the potential of reaching, through an evolutionary consensus, an agreement on how to describe the universe.

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Another sorcerers' concept that deserves close scrutiny in terms of this elucidation is something they call intent. They describe it as a perennial force that permeates the entire universe ; a force that is aware of itself to the point of responding to the beckoning or to the command of sorcerers. The act of using intent they call intending. By means of intending, sorcerers are capable, they say, of unleashing not only all the human possibilities of perceiving, but all the human possibilities of action. They maintain that through intent, the most far-fetched formulations can be realized.

The limit of sorcerers' capability of perceiving is called the band of man, meaning that there is a boundary that marks human capabilities as dictated by the human organism. These boundaries are not merely the traditional boundaries of orderly thought, but the boundaries of the totality of resources locked within the human organism. Sorcerers believe that these resources are never used, but are kept in situ by preconceived ideas about our limitations, limitations that have nothing to do with our actual potential.

The point that sorcerers present is that since perceiving energy as it flows in the universe is not arbitrary or idiosyncratic, seers witness formulations of energy that happen by themselves and are not a product of interpretation on our part. Sorcerers declare that the perception of such formulations is, in itself and by itself, the key that releases the locked-in human potential that never enters into play. Such formulations of energy, since they happen, by definition, independently of man's volition or intervention, are capable of creating a new subjectivity. Being cohesive and homogeneous for all human beings that see, these energy formulations are, for sorcerers, the source of a new intersubjectivity.

According to sorcerers, the subjectivity of everyday life is dictated by the syntax of our language. It necessitates guidelines, and teachers, who, by means of well-placed traditional commands that seem to be the product of our historical growth, begin to direct us, from the instant of our birth, to perceive the world. Sorcerers maintain that the intersubjectivity resulting from this syntax-guided rearing is, naturally, ruled by syntactical description-commands. They give as an example the statement, "I am in love," a feeling which is shared intersubjectively by all of us, and which, they point out, is released upon hearing that description-command.

Sorcerers are convinced that, on the other hand, the subjectivity resulting from perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe is not guided by syntax. It does not necessitate guidelines and teachers to point out this or that by commentary or command. The resulting intersubjectivity among sorcerers exists by means of something which they call power, which is the sum total of all the intending brought together by an individual. Since such intersubjectivity is not elicited through the aid of syntactical commands or solicitations, sorcerers claim that this subjectivity is a direct byproduct of the total human organism at work, fixed on one single purpose : intending direct communication.

In summation, intentionality or intending, for sorcerers, is the pragmatic utilization of intent, the force that expedites everything. For them, intent is a pragmatic channel for attainment, and intentionality is the means to use it. It is not merely, as it is with the philosophical discourse of the Western man, the intellectual account of the growth of human awareness from basic sensations to complex processes that can produce knowledge. Given that sorcerers are thoroughly pragmatic in their approach to life and living, intentionality is an active affair. It entails a posture on the part of sorcerers that they describe as a stand of power. From this stand, they can actually call intent. In this sense, intentionality becomes the [actual page 4/12] completely conscious act of intending. Sorcerers explain that these phenomena are actualized when the total human organism, in all its potential, is engaged in one single, all-inclusive purpose: intending.

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Taking sorcerers' capacity to perceive energy directly as a point of departure, it is possible to conceive a new area for philosophical discourse. The impediment to the realization of this possibility has been, so far, the lack of interest on the part of the sorcery practitioners in conceptualizing their knowledge and their practices. Sorcerers claim that after reaching certain thresholds of perception, which are like entrances into other realms of existence, the interest of practitioners is focused solely on the practical aspect of their knowledge.

Because of this bent towards pragmatism, sorcerers can seriously contemplate the transformation of philosophy and philosophical inquiry into a realm of practicalities by incorporating in it a more inclusive view of human potential. They consider that the direct perception of energy is then the usher that would lead us into a new subjectivity, free from syntax. Sorcerers propose that this new subjectivity is the way to reach intent, through the active process of intentionality.

THE WARRIORS' WAY VIEWED AS A PHILOSOPHICAL-PRACTICAL PARADIGM.
THE ENERGY BODY

The fourth unit of the warriors' way is THE ENERGY BODY. Don Juan Matus explained that, since time immemorial, sorcerers have given the name of energy body to a special configuration of energy which belongs to each human being individually. He also called this configuration the dreaming body, or the double or the other. His preference, in accordance with a sorcerers' agreement to emphasize abstract concepts, was to call it the energy body. But he also told me about a secret fun name for the energy body, which was used as a euphemism, a nickname, a term of endearment, a friendly reference to something incomprehensible and veiled : que ni te jodan -- which in English means, "they shouldn't bother you, energy body, or else."

Don Juan formally explained the energy body as a conglomerate of energy fields which are the mirror image of the energy fields that make up the human body when it is seen directly as energy. Don Juan said that for sorcerers, the physical body and the energy body are one single unit. He further explained that sorcerers believe that the physical body involves both the body and the mind as we know them, and that the physical body and the energy body are the only counterbalanced energy configurations in our human realm. Since there is no such thing as a dualism between body and mind, the only possible dualism that exists is between the physical body and the energy body.

The contention of sorcerers is that perceiving is a process of interpreting sensory data, but that every human being has the capacity to perceive energy directly, that is to say, without processing it through an interpretation system. As it has already been stated, when human beings are perceived in this fashion, they have the appearance of a sphere of luminosity. Sorcerers affirm that this sphere of luminosity is a conglomerate of energy fields held together by a mysterious binding force.

"What do you mean by a conglomerate of energy fields?" I asked don Juan when he first told me about this.

"Energy fields compressed together by some strange agglutinating force," he replied. "One of the arts of sorcerers is to beckon the energy body, which is ordinarily very far away from its counterpart, the [actual page 5/12] physical body, and bring it closer so it can begin to preside energetically over everything the physical body does."

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"if you want to be very exact," don Juan went on, "you can say that when the energy body is very close to the physical body, a sorcerer sees two luminous spheres, almost superimposed on each other. To have our energy twin close by would be our natural state, were it not for the fact that something pushes our energy body away from our physical body, starting at the very moment of our birth."

The sorcerers of don Juan's lineage put an enormous emphasis on the discipline required to bring the energy body closer to the physical body. Don Juan explained that once the energy body is within a certain energetic range, which varies for each individual, its proximity allows sorcerers the opportunity of forging the energy body into the other or the double : another being, solid and three-dimensional, exactly like themselves.

Following the same practices, sorcerers can change their solid, three-dimensional physical bodies into a perfect replica of the energy body ; that is to say, a conglomerate of pure energy fields which are invisible to the normal eye, as all energy is ; an ethereal charge of energy capable of going, for example, through a wall.

"Is it possible to transform the body to such an extent, don Juan? Or are you merely describing a mythical proposition?" I asked, amazed and bewildered when I heard these statements.

"There's nothing mythical about sorcerers," he responded. "Sorcerers are pragmatic beings, and what they describe is always something quite sober and down-to-earth. Our handicap is to be unwilling to stray away from our linearity. This makes us into disbelievers who are killing themselves to believe the damnedest things one can imagine."

"When you talk like this, don Juan, you always mean me," I said. "What am I killing myself to believe ?"

"You are killing yourself to believe, for instance, that anthropology is meaningful or that it exists. Just like a religious man kills himself to believe that God is a man who resides up in heaven and that the devil is a cosmic evildoer who has taken residence down in hell."

It was don Juan's style to make cutting but astoundingly accurate remarks about my person in the world. The more cutting and direct they were, the greater their effect on me and the greater my chagrin upon hearing them. Another of his didactic devices was to give extremely pertinent information about sorcerers' concepts in a mood that was light, but deeply critical of my compulsion to commit him to linear explanations. I asked him once, while discussing the topic of the energy body, one of my convoluted questions:

"Through what processes," I said, "can sorcerers transform their ethereal energy bodies into solid, three-dimensional bodies, and their physical bodies into ethereal energy, capable of going through a wall?"

Don Juan, adopting a professorial seriousness, raised his finger and said : "Through the volitional -- although not always conscious -- yet quite within our capabilities, but not altogether within our immediate ability -- use of the binding force that ties the physical and the energy bodies together, as two conglomerates of energy fields."

Stated in the vein of teasing, his explanation was nonetheless an extremely accurate phenomenological description of processes inconceivable to our linear minds, yet continually accomplished by our hidden energetic resources. Sorcerers maintain that the link between the physical body and the energy body is a mysterious agglutinating force which we use incessantly without ever being aware of it.

It has been stated that when sorcerers perceive the body as a conglomerate of luminous energy fields, they perceive a sphere the size of both arms extended [actual page 6/12] laterally and the height of the arms extended upwardly. They also perceive that in this sphere exists something they call the assemblage point ; a spot of even more intense luminosity, the size of a tennis ball, located towards the back, at the height of the shoulder blades, at an arm's length away from them.

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Sorcerers consider the assemblage point to be the place where the flow of direct energy is turned into sensory data and interpreted as the world of everyday life. Don Juan said that the assemblage point, aside from doing all this, also has a most important secondary function: it is the linking connection between the physical body and the assemblage point of the energy body. He described such a connection as being analogous to two magnetized circles, each the size of a tennis ball, coming together, attracted by forces of intent.

He also said that when the physical body and the energy body are not joined, the connection between them is an ethereal line, which sometimes is so tenuous that it seems not to exist. Don Juan was certain that the energy body is pushed farther and farther away as one grows older, and that death comes as the result of the severance of that tenuous connection.

QUERIES ABOUT THE WARRIORS' WAY

There has been a series of questions posed by different people on the same topic. This concern could be classified in general terms as, "What's going to happen to me?" People have asked me this question personally, they have written to me about it, or I have heard about this worry through third persons.

The following question was asked in this vein: "I understand that you are trying to gather a mass of people, because your original sorcerers' plan failed. I am hooked by what you do. What do you plan to do with me?"

This is a question that should be addressed to a guru, to a spiritual teacher. I see myself as neither a guru nor a spiritual teacher, but as someone who is trying to fit a definition given by don Juan. He was referring to my role in relation to the rest of his disciples, my cohorts, when he said :

"All you can aspire to be is a counselor. You must point out an error if you see one; you must advise about the proper way to do something, because you will be viewing everything from the vantage point of total silence. Sorcerers call this a sight from the bridge. Sorcerers see the water - life - as it rushes under the bridge. Their eyes are, so to speak, right at the point where the water goes under the bridge. They cannot see ahead. They cannot see behind. They can see only the now."

I have made the utmost effort, and I will continue to do so, to fulfill this role. When a person is interested and says, "I am hooked," I don't dare believe that that person is hooked onto me. To have a personal link with a teacher is a response that all of us have learned and practiced. It stems, no doubt, from, being personally attached to Mother or Father, or both, or to someone else who fulfills that role in the family or in our circle of friends.

If I have given, in my books, the impression that don Juan was personally related to me, it was my own unconscious misinterpretation. He worked incessantly, from the moment I met him, to exterminate this drive in me. He called it neediness and explained that it is developed and sponsored by the social order, and that neediness is the most obscene manner of creating and nourishing a slave's mentality. He said that if I believed that I was "hooked," I was hooked not to him personally, but to the idea of freedom, an idea which sorcerers had spent generations formulating.

With regard to the original plan failing, all I can [actual page 7/12] say is that I have indeed stated that don Juan's lineage terminates with me and don Juan's other three disciples, but this is not the indication of a failure of any plan. It's simply a situation which sorcerers explain by saying: "it is a natural condition of any order to come to an end."

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The fact that I have said that I would like to reach as many people as possible and create a mass of consensus is a consequence of realizing that we are the end of a most interesting line of thoughts and actions. We do feel that we are the undeserving recipients of a gigantic task : the task of explaining that the sorcerers' world is not an illusion, nor is it wishful thinking.

Another question is: "You had a teacher. How can I advance without one? I worry because I don't have a don Juan."

To worry is a bona fide way of interacting in our social milieu, thus, we worry about everything. To "worry" is a syntactical category, similar to saying, "I don't understand." To worry doesn't mean to be preoccupied with something ; it's simply a way of underlining a topic that has importance to us. To say that you worry because there is not a don Juan available is already a declaration of possible defeat. It is as if that statement opens a way out which remains ready for use at any time.

Don Juan himself told me that all the force he put into guiding me was a mandatory procedure set up by the sorcerers' tradition. He had to prepare me for continuing his lineage. Throughout the years, there have been scores of people who traveled to Mexico to look for don Juan. They took the narration in my books as a description of an open possibility. That is again my fault. It is not that I wasn't careful, but rather, that I had to abstain from making bombastic claims that I was in any way special.

Don Juan was interested in perpetuating his lineage, not in teaching his knowledge. I have already made this point, but it is important that I stress it repeatedly : don Juan was not a teacher at all. He was a sorcerer passing on his knowledge to his disciples, exclusively for the continuation of his lineage.

Since his lineage comes to an end with me and his other three disciples, he himself proposed that I write about his knowledge. And it is precisely because his line comes to an end that his disciples have opened the otherwise closed door to the sorcerers' world, and are now endeavoring to explain what sorcery is and what sorcerers do.

Sorcerers say that the only possible teacher or guide that we can have is the spirit, meaning an abstract, impersonal force that exists in the universe, conscious of itself. Perhaps it could be called by another name, such as awareness, consciousness, cognition, life force. Sorcerers believe that it permeates the total universe, and can guide them, and that all they need to reach this force is inner silence ; thus their assertion that our sole worthwhile link is with this force, and not with a person.

Another question asked quite often is : "How come you never talked about Tensegrity in your books, and why are you talking about it now?"

I had never talked about Tensegrity before because Tensegrity is don Juan's disciples' version of some movements called magical passes, developed by shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times, and who were the initiators of don Juan's lineage. Tensegrity is based on those magical passes, and it stems from an agreement reached by don Juan Matus' four disciples to amalgamate the four different lines of movements taught to each of them individually to fit their physical and mental configurations.

Following don Juan's request, I have abstained throughout all these years from mentioning the magical passes. The highly secretive manner in which they were taught to me entailed an agreement on my part to surround them with the same secrecy. The closest I ever came to mentioning them was when I wrote about the way don Juan "cracked his joints." In a joking manner he suggested that I refer to the magical passes, which he practiced incessantly, as "the way in which he cracked his joints." Every time he [actual page 8/12] executed one of those passes, his joints used to make a cracking sound. He used this as a device to entice my interest and to hide the true significance of what he was doing.

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When he made me aware of the magical passes by explaining to me what they really were, I had already been trying compulsively to replicate the sound his joints made. By arousing my competitiveness, he "hooked me," so to speak, to learn a series of movements. I never achieved that cracking sound, which was a blessing in disguise because the muscles and tendons of the arms and back should never be stressed to that point. Don Juan was born with a facility to crack the joints of his arms and back, just like some people have the facility to crack their knuckles.

When don Juan and the rest of his companion sorcerers formally taught me the magical passes, and discussed their configurations and effects, they did it in accordance with the strictest procedures ; procedures which demanded utmost concentration and were cushioned in total secrecy and ritualistic behavior. The ritualistic part of those teachings was quickly cast aside by don Juan, but the secretive part was made even more emphatic.

As previously stated, Tensegrity is the amalgamation of four lines of magical passes which had to be transformed from highly specialized movements that fit specific individuals into a generic form that would fit everybody. The reason why Tensegrity, the modern version of the ancient magical passes, is being taught now is because don Juan's four disciples agreed that, since their role is no longer that of perpetuating don Juan's lineage of sorcerers, they had to lighten their burden, and do away with the secrecy about something which has been of incommensurable value to them for their well-being.

TENSEGRITY LOG
HOW TO DO TENSEGRITY

The magical passes were treated by the shamans of ancient Mexico from the start as something unique, and were never used as sets of exercises for developing musculature or agility. Don Juan said that they were viewed as magical passes from the first moment that they were formulated. He described the "magic" of the movements as a subtle change that the practitioners experience on executing them; an ephemeral quality that the movement brings to their physical and mental states, a kind of shine, a light in the eyes. He spoke of this subtle change as a "touch of the spirit" ; as if practitioners, through the movements, reestablish an unused link with the life force that sustains them. He further explained that the movements were called magical passes because by means of practicing them, sorcerers were transported, in terms of perception, to other states of being in which they could sense the world in an indescribable manner.

"Because of this quality, because of this magic," don Juan said to me once, "the passes must be practiced not as exercises, but as a way of beckoning power."

"But can they be taken as physical movements, although they have never been taken as such?" I asked.

I had faithfully practiced all the movements that don Juan had taught me, and 1 felt extraordinarily well. This feeling of wellbeing was sufficient for me.

"You can practice them as you wish," don Juan replied. "The magical passes enhance awareness, regardless of how you take them. The intelligent thing would be to take them as what they are : magical passes that on being practiced lead the practitioners to drop the mask of socialization."

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"What is the mask of socialization?" I asked.

"The veneer that all of us defend and die for," he said. "The veneer we acquire in the world ; the one that prevents us from reaching all our potential ; the one that makes us believe we are immortal."

Tensegrity, being the modernized version of those magical passes, has been taught so far as a system of movements because that has been the only manner in which this mysterious and vast subject of the magical passes could be faced in a modern setting. The people who now practice Tensegrity are not shaman practitioners ; therefore, the emphasis of the magical passes has to be on their value as movements.

The point of view that has been adopted in this case is that the physical effect of the magical passes is the most important issue for the purpose of establishing a solid base of energy in the practitioners. Since the shamans of ancient Mexico were interested in other effects of the magical passes, they fragmented long series of movements into single units, and practiced each fragment as an individual segment. In Tensegrity, the fragments have been reassembled into their original long forms. In this manner, a system of movements has been obtained, a system in which the movements themselves are emphasized above all.

The execution of the magical passes, as shown in Tensegrity, does require a particular space or prearranged time, but ideally, the movements should be done in solitariness, on the spur of the moment, or as the necessity arises. However, the setting of urban life facilitates the formation of groups, and under these circumstances, the only manner in which Tensegrity can be taught is to groups of practitioners. Practicing in groups is beneficial in many aspects and deleterious in others. It is beneficial because it allows the creation of consensus of movement and the opportunity to learn by examination and comparison. It is deleterious because it fosters the emergence of syntactical commands and solicitations dealing with hierarchy ; and what sorcerers want is to run away from subjectivity derived from syntactical commands. Unfortunately, you cannot have your cake and eat it, too ; so Tensegrity should be practiced in whatever form is easier : either in groups, or alone, or both.

In every other respect, the way Tensegrity has been taught is a faithful reproduction of the way in which don Juan taught the magical passes to his disciples. He bombarded them with a profusion of detail and let their minds be bewildered by the amount and variety of movements, and by the implication that each of them individually was a pathway to infinity.

His disciples spent years overwhelmed, confused, and above all, despondent, because they felt that being bombarded in such a manner was an unfair onslaught on them. Don Juan, following the traditional sorcerers' device of clouding the linear view of practitioners, saturated the kinesthetic memory of his disciples. His contention was that if they kept on practicing the movements, in spite of their confusion, some of them, or all of them, would attain inner silence. He said that in inner silence everything becomes clear to the point that we are able not only to remember, with absolute precision, magical passes already forgotten, but that we know exactly what to do with them, or what to expect from them, without anybody telling us or guiding us.

Don Juan's disciples could hardly believe such statements. However, at one moment, every one of them ceased to be confused and despondent. In a most mysterious way, the magical passes, since they are magical, arranged themselves into extraordinary sequences that cleared up everything. The concern of people practicing Tensegrity nowadays matches exactly the concern of don Juan's disciples. People who have attended the seminars and workshops on Tensegrity feel bewildered by the amount of movements. They are clamoring for a system that would allow them to integrate the movements into categories that could be practiced and taught.

I must emphasize again what I have been emphasizing from the beginning : Tensegrity is not a standard system of movements for developing the body. It indeed develops the body, but only as a byproduct of a more transcendental purpose. The [actual page 10/12] sorcerers of ancient Mexico were convinced that the magical passes conduce the practitioners to a level of awareness in which the parameters of normal, traditional perception are canceled out by the fact that they are enlarged. And the practitioners are thus allowed to enter into unimaginable worlds ; worlds which are as inclusive and total as the one in which we live.

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"But why would I want to enter into those worlds?" I asked don Juan on one occasion.

"Because you are a traveler, like the rest of us human beings," he said, somewhat annoyed by my question. "Human beings are on a journey of awareness, which has been momentarily interrupted by strenuous forces. Believe me, we are travelers. If we don't have traveling, we have nothing."

His answer didn't satisfy me in the least. He further explained that human beings have decayed morally, physically and intellectually since the moment they ceased to travel, and that they are caught in an eddy, so to speak, and are spinning around, having the impression of moving with the current, and yet remaining stationary.

It took me thirty years of hard discipline to come to a cognitive plateau in which don Juan's statements were recognizable and their validity was established beyond the shadow of a doubt. Human beings are indeed travelers. If we don't have that, we have nothing.

Tensegrity must be practiced with the idea that the benefit of those movements comes by itself. This idea must be stressed at any cost. At the beginner's level, there is no way to direct the effect of the magical passes, and there is no possibility whatsoever that some of them could be beneficial for one organ or another. As we gain in discipline and our intending becomes clearer, the effect of magical passes can be selected by each one of us personally and individually, for specific purposes pertinent to each of us only.

What is of supreme importance at the present is to practice whatever Tensegrity sequence one remembers, or whatever set of movements comes to mind. The saturation that has been carried on will give, in the end, the results sought by the shamans of ancient Mexico : entering into a state of inner silence and deciding from inner silence what the next step will be.

Naturally, when I was told, in more or less the same terms, about the sorcerers' maneuver to saturate the mind into inner silence, my response was the response of any person who is interested in Tensegrity today : "It's not that I don't believe you, but it's something very hard to believe."

The only answer that don Juan had to my more than justified queries and the queries of his other three disciples was to say, "Take my word, because mine are not arbitrary statements. My word is the result of corroborating, for myself, what the sorcerers of ancient Mexico found out : that we human beings are magical beings."

Don Juan's legacy includes something that I have been repeating and I will continue to repeat : human beings are beings unknown to themselves, filled to the brim with incredible resources that are never used.

By saturating his disciples with movement, don Juan accomplished two formidable feats : he brought those hidden resources to the surface, and he gently broke our obsession with our linear mode of interpretation. By forcing his disciples to reach inner silence, he set up the continuation of their interrupted journey of awareness. In this manner, the ideal state of any Tensegrity practitioner, in relation to the Tensegrity movements, is the same as the ideal state of a practitioner of sorcery, in relation to the execution of magical passes. Both are being led by the movements themselves into an unprecedented culmination : inner silence.

From inner silence, the practitioners of Tensegrity will be able to execute, by themselves, for whatever effect they see fit, without any coaching from outside sources, any movement from the bulk of movements with which they have been saturated ; they will be able to execute them with precision and speed, as they walk, or eat, or rest, or do anything.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Cleargreen, Incoeporated is organizing and sponsoring an intensive six-day seminar and workshop on Tensegrity.

It will take place from July 20th to July 25th of this year in Los Angeles. The seminar and workshop will consist of two parts. The first will be a concentrated practice of a group of magical passes entitled "The Westwood Series" ; a series which will be taught in all the seminars and workshops that will be given during the current year. The goal pursued by practicing the same series is to gain an instant of homogeneity of movement. The consensus derived from this homogeneous effort is something of untold value to all the participants.

The second part of the seminar and workshop will consist of an intensive examination of key aspects of the warriors' way, including Recapitulation and Dreaming. The key premises of the warriors' way that will be emphasized will entice or even lead the participants to attain the most coveted state that shamans of ancient Mexico sought: inner silence.

Topics include :

"Optimal Positions for Recapitulating."

"The Implications of the Warriors' Way."

"The Need for Ultimate Pragmatism on the Warriors' Way."

"Reaching the Threshold of Inner Silence."

"The Beginning of Dreaming."

"The Magical Possibilities of Human Beings when Seen as a Conglomerate of Energy Fields."

"Relaxation Techniques Used by Shamans of Ancient Mexico."

"The Sum Total of the Realizable Options Offered by the Warriors' Way."

The persons who will conduct this seminar and workshop are Carlos Castaneda, Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and the Blue Scout. The Tensegrity movements will be taught and demonstrated by six Energy Trackers.

To register, please call Cleargreen at (310) 264-6126. Fax: (310) 264-6130. For a complete schedule and description of this workshop, please visit our web site (address listed on following page).

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Cleargreen also announces the release of the third videocassette on Tensegrity called Energetically Crossing from One Phylum to Another.

The movements of the third videocassette were selected because they are a natural sequence of magical passes, which sorcerers use to enhance the scope of their awareness. Sorcerers contend that it is possible for the awareness of man to take a giant leap of perception and actually perceive the world under conditions that defy the imagination. They believe, for example, that it is possible to perceive and interpret the world in the terms of other organisms that belong to different phyla.

According to don Juan Matus, such beliefs were not mere assertions of the intellect. He said that sorcerers were not involved in any way in wishful thinking, but that they were genuine navigators of the unknown. One of the points on their navigation charts, so to speak, was crossing, perception-wise, from one phylum to another. This claim staggers the linear mind. It seems inconceivable that something like this could take place. Don Juan asserted that it was inconceivable merely in the syntax of our languages, because the pragmatic option of crossing from one phylum to another was never selected as a feasible alternative.

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The purpose of the movements of the second volume on Tensegrity, Redistributing Dispersed Energy, is to redistribute the energy which the wear and tear of daily living drives away from our natural centers of energy : the liver and gallbladder ; the pancreas and spleen ; and the kidneys and adrenals.

The purpose of the movements shown in the first volume, Twelve Basic Movements to Gather Energy and Promote WellBeing, is to condition the muscles and tendons to respond quickly and efficiently to other sequences of movement that require greater concentration and kinesthetic memory.

There is also available an instructional booklet in Spanish that accompanies the first videocassette, Twelve Basic Movements to Gather Energy and Promote Well-Being. It consists of a translation of the explanatory text that goes along with the movements shown on the videocassette.

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Two new videocassettes on Tensegrity are in production at the present and will be released at the end of the year. One is about movements for women. Most of the movements in this series were taught in the Women's Seminar that took place in March of this year in Los Angeles. The second videocassette is entitled The Oakland Series, and consists of the magical passes which were taught in the Oakland seminar of April of this year.

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For continuing Information about forthcoming events and other announcements, please visit the Cleargreen web site at http://www.webb.com/Castaneda

Cleargreen's e-mail address is : infinity@webb.com

All articles in the journal were written by Carlos Castaneda and edited by Nyei Murez.

journal design © Elaby Gaethen.

Published by Cleargreen, Incorporated. © 1996, Laugan Productions, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part of this text cannot be done without permission of the publishers.

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