The third subject of profound interest for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico was the Recapitulation. Those sorcerers believed that, just like the magical passes, it prepared the ground for silent knowledge. The Recapitulation was, for them, the act of reliving past experiences in order to achieve two transcendental goals. The first was an effort to conform with their overall view of the universe and life and awareness, and the other was the extremely pragmatical goal of acquiring perceptual fluidity.
Their overall view of the universe and life and awareness was that there existed an indescribable force which they metaphorically called the Eagle, and which they understood as the force that lends awareness to all living beings, from viruses to men. They believed that the Eagle lends awareness to a newborn being, and that this being enhances that awareness by means of its life experiences until a moment in which the force demands its return. All living beings die, in the understanding of those sorcerers, because they are forced to return the awareness lent to them.
The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that to recapitulate meant to give to this force, the Eagle, what it was seeking: our life experiences, but to give them under a degree of control that permitted those sorcerers to separate awareness from life. They claimed that awareness and life are not inextricably intertwined, but that they are joined only circumstantially. They affirmed that the Eagle doesn’t want to take our lives; it wants only our life experiences. But lack of discipline in human beings doesn’t permit them to separate their life force from the force of their life experiences, and they lose their lives, when it was meant that they would lose only the force of their life experiences. The recapitulation is the procedure by which sorcerers give the Eagle a substitute for their lives.
Don Juan said that there were thousands of sorcerers who had accomplished the feat of retaining their life force after they had given the Eagle the force of their life experiences. This meant to don Juan that those sorcerers didn’t die in the usual sense in which we understand death, but that they transcended it by retaining their life force and vanishing from the face of the earth, embarked on a definitive journey of perception. The belief of sorcerers is that when death takes place in this fashion, all of our being is turned into energy, but a special kind of energy that retains the mark of our individuality. He called that state total freedom.
Don Juan stated that the second aspect of the Recapitulation was the acquisition of fluidity. He told me that the sorcerers’ rationale behind this had to do with one of the most elusive subjects of sorcery: the assemblage point. Don Juan said that to recapitulate was to relive every, or nearly every experience that one had, and that in doing so, the assemblage point was displaced, ever so slightly, or a great deal, propelled by the force of memory to adapt the position it had when the event being recapitulated took place. This act of going back and forth from previous positions to the one which is current gives the practitioner the necessary fluidity to withstand unusual odds in their journey into infinity.
The Recapitulation as a formal procedure was done in ancient times by recollecting every person the practitioners knew and every experience in which they took part. Don Juan suggested that I make a written list of all the persons that I had met in my life, as a mnemonic device. Once the event was arranged, he stated that one should enter into the locale itself, as if one were actually going into it, paying special attention to any relevant physical configuration.
The actual recapitulation of the event requires that one breathe deeply, fanning the head, so to speak, from right to left, then from left to right again, as many times as needed, while remembering all the details accessible. Don Juan said that sorcerers talk about this act as breathing in all of one’s feelings spent in the event being recollected, and expelling all the unwanted moods and feelings that were left with us. Recapitulating convinces one, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that one is at the mercy of forces which ultimately make no sense. Sorcerers affirm that if any behavioral change is going to be accomplished, it has to be done through the Recapitulation as the only vehicle that can enhance awareness by liberating one from the unvoiced demands of socialization.
(Carlos Castaneda, Silent Knowledge)
