Arquivos nagual - Page 3 of 4

The Sorcerers’ Explanation – The Predilection of Two Warriors

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By Carlos Castaneda / 27 minutes of reading

Don Juan and Carlos meet Don Genaro, Pablito, and Nestor for what Don Juan declares will be their last journey together. Don Juan offers a poignant farewell, reminding Carlos of a cherished memory and the warrior’s way of accepting fate. Don Genaro shares a story about warriors facing a death sentence, emphasizing the importance of impeccability when confronting the unknown. As dusk settles, Don Juan and Don Genaro prepare Pablito and Carlos for their final plunge into the unknown, explaining that this is where the “bubble of perception” opens, and one can directly experience their totality as a cluster of feelings. They perform a final demonstration of “swimming” with the earth, revealing the warrior’s ultimate love for the world as the antidote to loneliness and the key to freedom. The chapter concludes with Pablito and Carlos, having bid their farewells, taking a final leap into the unknown, leaving Carlos alone in a new, unquantifiable state of being.

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The Tonal and the Nagual – The Island of The Tonal

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By Carlos Castaneda / 47 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Don Juan introduces the concepts of “tonal” and “nagual” as the two fundamental aspects of every human being, dispelling my anthropological preconceptions. He explains that the tonal is the “social person,” the organizer of the world, encompassing everything we know, perceive, and can talk about, forming an “island” of our known reality. Conversely, the nagual is the indescribable, unknown part of ourselves, existing “beyond the island,” the source of power and creativity that cannot be grasped by reason but only experienced. Don Juan uses various analogies, like items on a table, to illustrate these abstract concepts, emphasizing that the tonal, though crucial for navigating the world, often becomes a “guard” rather than a “guardian,” suppressing the awareness of the nagual. He stresses that true knowledge lies in recognizing and balancing these two aspects, a challenge for any warrior.

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The Tonal and the Nagual – Shrinking the Tonal

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By Carlos Castaneda / 26 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Castaneda recounts a disorienting experience in which Don Juan “shrinks” his tonal, causing him to be instantly transported a mile and a half away from an airline office to a bustling market. Don Juan explains this phenomenon as a deliberate manipulation of Castaneda’s tonal—the organizing principle of his known world—by startling it into a state of “shyness” or contraction, thereby allowing the nagual to temporarily take over and perform extraordinary feats. Castaneda struggles to reconcile this inexplicable event with his rational mind, prompting Don Juan to emphasize that such experiences exist beyond the realm of reason and are apprehended only through the body, in what he calls “nagual’s time.” The chapter concludes with Don Juan reiterating the importance of a fluid, balanced tonal for a warrior, and hinting at further explorations of the nagual with Don Genaro.

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The Tonal and the Nagual – In Nagual’s Time

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By Carlos Castaneda / 32 minutes of reading

Carlos recounts his Thursday return to the market where don Juan had “shoved” him, only to find the coin and book stands only appear on Sundays, confirming the unreality of his previous experience. Don Juan and don Genaro appear, teasing him about his physical appearance. Don Genaro demonstrates extraordinary feats like standing horizontally on a tree trunk and gliding through the air, which Carlos struggles to comprehend and often experiences with physical discomfort or an altered state of perception. Don Juan explains that these are manifestations of the nagual, a non-rational aspect of reality, and emphasizes the importance of a clean tonal (the rational self) to interact with the nagual without being overwhelmed or destroyed. He clarifies that while his role as teacher is to work with Carlos’s tonal, don Genaro, as Carlos’s benefactor, introduces him to the nagual, demonstrating its boundless possibilities, even if the “how” remains indescribable and outside the realm of rational understanding.

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The Requirements of Intent – Intending Appearances

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Nagualismo / 34 minutes of reading

In this account, Castaneda describes an extraordinary experience where his reasoning faculties ceased, and he felt a profound physical elation, being propelled through the chaparral without fatigue, a state don Juan later calls entering “silent knowledge” due to a movement of his assemblage point. During this, Castaneda perceives himself “looming over the bushes” and experiences being “here and here,” simultaneously observing the desert floor and the tops of shrubs, and being in two places at once (his standing spot and the jaguar’s location). This state allowed him to witness a real jaguar that he pursued, despite his academic mind trying to rationalize it as a mountain lion due to the unusual fauna. Don Juan explains that this spontaneous shift of Castaneda’s assemblage point was a result of the “spirit” moving it, and that for a sorcerer, intent—which is the spirit—can manipulate this point. He clarifies the difference between a profound “movement” and a smaller “shift” of the assemblage point and introduces the “third point” as freedom of perception, intent, and the spirit, which allows for a tridimensional perception beyond the usual two-dimensional reality. Don Juan emphasizes that while Castaneda’s experience was vital for him to access silent knowledge, the jaguar itself was the true manifestation of the spirit, a source of awe and magic, serving as a vehicle for his realizations. He also highlights the “macabre connection between stupidity and self-reflection” in average men who are blind to the existence and manipulability of the assemblage point and fear the freedom that sorcery offers.

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The Requirements of Intent – The Two One-Way Bridges

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Nagualismo / 24 minutes of reading

Castaneda reflects on his “here and here” experience, prompting don Juan to explain that such a “movement of the assemblage point” is a sorcerer’s goal, achieved through impeccability and curtailing self-reflection to access inner energy. Don Juan recounts his own initiation by nagual Julian, who, to teach him about the spirit, threw him into a raging river, forcing a shift into silent knowledge and split perception. Don Juan later learns from nagual Elías that Julian’s act was a masterful display of “waking up intent” to bring him to the “third point”—freedom of perception. This “third point” is a bridge from “reason” (the current human state) back to “silent knowledge,” accessible through “concern” and “pure understanding,” with the spirit responding to “gestures” of true abandon rather than words.

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The Requirements of Intent – The Third Point

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Nagualismo / 42 minutes of reading

Castaneda recounts an experience where his reason ceased, leading to a state of “silent knowledge” where his assemblage point shifted, allowing him to perceive “here and here”—being in multiple places at once. This enabled him to perceive a real jaguar, which don Juan explained was a manifestation of the spirit that moved Castaneda’s assemblage point through intent. Don Juan emphasizes that this “third point” is freedom of perception, beyond typical two-dimensional reality, and highlights how average men’s self-reflection prevents them from recognizing this accessible freedom.

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The Requirements of Intent – The Ticket to Impeccability

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Carlos Castaneda / 36 minutes of reading

In “The Ticket to Impeccability,” don Juan continues to explain to Castaneda that a warrior’s journey involves moving the assemblage point and invalidating their old continuity to achieve impeccability, which he likens to a sorcerer’s symbolic death. Don Juan recounts his own “death” experience, wherein, as a young man, he was tricked by the nagual Julian and his cohort of women into believing in a terrifying monster, living in fear and working as their valet for three years. This intense period, marked by a loss of self-importance and a developing detachment, ultimately led to don Juan’s confrontation with the “monster,” which he discovered was merely an energetic surge, a manifestation of his own fear. After this realization and a period of trying to live a “normal” life, characterized by a loss of detachment and deep poverty, don Juan underwent a profound recapitulation of his life, which culminated in a literal “death” in a field. This symbolic death, which the Eagle then “spat out” due to his impeccable recapitulation, served as his “ticket to impeccability,” a state of heightened awareness that allowed him to return to Julian’s household as a true sorcerer, “dead” to the world, and prepared to face the world as a warrior.

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The Requirements of Intent – Breaking the Mirror of Self-Reflection

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Nagualismo / 22 minutes of reading

In this continuation, Don Juan further explains the process of breaking the mirror of self-reflection, emphasizing that the assemblage point can be moved by the nagual’s presence, but ultimately, it’s the spirit that makes the actual movement. He clarifies that instruction isn’t what moves the assemblage point; instead, it’s the curtailment of self-importance, which then releases energy, launching the assemblage point into a new perception. Don Juan illustrates this by recounting his manipulative tactics in Guaymas, which shattered Castaneda’s continuity and forced his assemblage point to the “place of no pity.” He reveals that his feigned senility was a deliberate act of masked ruthlessness, designed to bypass Castaneda’s rationality and lead him to a state of detached hardness, thereby beginning his journey into a “dreaming state” and the world of sorcery.

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The Descent of the Spirit – The Place of No Pity

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Power of Silence / By Carlos Castaneda / 29 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Don Juan orchestrates a dramatic scenario to teach Castaneda about ruthlessness and the “place of no pity.” By feigning a debilitating stroke, Don Juan forces the narrator into extreme discomfort and self-pity, pushing his assemblage point—a key concept in Castaneda’s work representing the focal point of perception—away from its usual position of self-reflection. This intense experience reveals to the narrator a dualism within himself: an old, indifferent part and a new, anxious part. Don Juan explains that this shift allows access to silent knowledge and frees one from self-importance, which is revealed as disguised self-pity. The lesson culminates in Don Juan’s swift recovery, exposing the entire event as a deliberate act to initiate the narrator into a deeper understanding of sorcery and a state of being characterized by detachment and sobriety.

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