Tensegrity is the modernized version of some movements called “magical passes” developed by Indian shamans who lived in Mexico in times prior to the Spanish Conquest. Don Juan Matus, a Mexican Indian sorcerer, introduced Carlos Castaneda, Carol Tiggs, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar to the cognitive world of these shamans. Don Juan explained to his four disciples that those shamans, or sorcerers, discovered that it is possible for human beings to perceive energy directly as it flows in the universe.
Once those sorcerers of ancient times had established the validity of perceiving energy directly, which they called seeing, they perceived one another as a conglomerate of energy fields, appearing as gigantic luminous spheres. Within these spheres, they discovered a point of intense luminosity called “the assemblage point,” because they concluded that it is there that perception is assembled. This point transforms the inflow of pure energy into the perceivable world through a system of interpretation. Their next observation was that the assemblage point displaces naturally during sleep, leading to the pragmatic action of volitional displacement, which they called the art of dreaming. In practicing the art of dreaming, they experienced states of physical prowess and well-being, which they found they could replicate through certain body movements, which they called magical passes.
The magical passes became their most prized possession, surrounded by rituals and taught in secrecy. Don Juan’s disciples, being the last link of his lineage, concluded that further secrecy was counter to their interests and decided to make the passes available. They created Tensegrity, a term from architecture that is a mixture of two terms: tension and integrity, which connote the two driving forces of the magical passes.
(Carlos Castaneda, The Warrior’s Way – A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics)
