sorcery

The Eagle’s Gift – Prologue

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Eagle's gift / By / 7 minutes of reading

In the prologue to his work, Carlos Castaneda recounts the shift of his academic focus from anthropology to a personal journey into the world of sorcery under the tutelage of Don Juan Matus and Don Genaro Flores. After his teachers depart, Castaneda discovers nine other apprentices who now expect him to assume the role of their leader, the Nagual. This new responsibility, marked by intense clashes with the other apprentices, forces him into a state of profound self-discovery and obliges him to thoroughly review everything he has learned about the arts of dreaming and stalking in order to guide the group.

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The Active Side of Infinity – The Measurements of Cognition

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 20 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Castaneda explores the clash between two cognitive worlds: the academic world of Professor Lorca and the sorcerers’ world of don Juan. He becomes an admirer of Professor Lorca, a brilliant academic who lectures on the insular nature of different cognitive systems. Don Juan cautions him against admiring from afar and urges him to “test” the professor to see if he lives as a “being who is going to die,” arguing that this acceptance is the only way to have a true grip on the world. Professor Lorca, though intellectually brilliant, proposes a scientific study to measure and quantify the cognition of shamans. Don Juan finds this laughable, explaining that sorcerers’ cognition—based on perceiving energy directly—is experiential and cannot be measured by the tools of the everyday world. He concludes that the professor is an “immortal scientist” who, by not truly accepting his own mortality, cannot grasp the sorcerers’ path. Don Juan uses the metaphor of a Roman slave whispering “all glory is fleeting” to a victorious general, stating that for a sorcerer, death is that infallible advisor.

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The Active Side of Infinity – Beyond Syntax: The Usher

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 31 minutes of reading

In this chapter, don Juan introduces Castaneda to the sorcery technique of “the recapitulation”—a formal, meticulous recounting of one’s entire life in order to create a “space” for new knowledge. He explains the sorcerers’ view of the universe, where perception is assembled at the “assemblage point” as energy filaments from the “dark sea of awareness” are interpreted. The goal of the recapitulation is to offer one’s life experiences back to this cosmic awareness at the moment of death, thus saving one’s life force. To begin this process, don Juan tells Castaneda he must first find an “usher,” a single, powerfully clear memory that will illuminate all others. Left to the task, Castaneda vividly recalls a formative event from his childhood: being a billiards prodigy secretly employed by a notorious gambler, Falelo Quiroga. This arrangement culminates in Quiroga threateningly demanding that Castaneda throw a high-stakes game. Before Castaneda is forced to choose, his family moves away, leaving the dilemma unresolved. Don Juan explains this memory is the perfect usher, as it encapsulates the central, unresolved conflict of Castaneda’s life: being trapped between the desire to embrace infinity and the simultaneous urge to run away from it.

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The Active Side of Infinity – The Interplay of Energy On The Horizon

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 28 minutes of reading

In this final chapter, Castaneda describes the culmination of his recapitulation. The initial “usher” memory has unlocked an unstoppable and maddeningly clear flow of recollections, each one relived with an intensity greater than the original experience. He recounts traumatic memories of a near-fatal fall from a scaffold and a terrifying encounter with a dog, realizing he was literally re-experiencing them and “jumping” through time. Don Juan explains this is his “true mind” emerging and that a “foreign installation” is collapsing, a process that pulls sorcerers “out of their syntax.” Later, a series of vivid recollections reveals Castaneda’s deeply ingrained, lifelong need to control everyone around him. One night, this process climaxes as he experiences the “interplay of energy on the horizon” that don Juan had described: a pomegranate-red dot explodes into unreadable text and garbled voices. Don Juan confirms this was infinity’s “takeover” and tells him he must now learn to “read energy” directly, a perception that is an event “beyond the syntax of our language.”

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The Active Side of Infinity – Journeys Through the Dark Sea Of Awareness

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 19 minutes of reading

In this chapter, don Juan clarifies that Castaneda’s previous “dream-fantasy” of meeting him in town was, in sorcery terms, a real “journey through the dark sea of awareness,” made possible by his accrued inner silence. He distinguishes this from “dreaming,” which he redefines as the art of deliberately displacing the assemblage point to perceive other worlds. After Castaneda recounts a memory of “seeing” a sleeping person’s assemblage point shift, don Juan prompts him to undertake a deliberate journey. From a state of inner silence, Castaneda finds himself transported with don Juan to a hostile Yaqui town where he can suddenly understand their language, not word by word, but in patterns of thought. He then finds himself in another town, where he perceives people not as luminous eggs, but as strange, insectlike cores of geometric shapes with a stringlike filament on top. After these inexplicable journeys, don Juan explains that this is what inner silence does: it breaks the continuity of time and allows one to travel through the dark sea of awareness, guided by the force of intent.

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The Active Side of Infinity – Inorganic Awareness

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 21 minutes of reading

In this chapter, don Juan reveals that he is the leader of a group of fifteen sorcerers and did not actually live in the shack where they first met. He then introduces Castaneda to the concept of “inorganic awareness.” He explains that our world is a twin world, coexisting with a complementary world populated by “inorganic beings”—entities that possess awareness but no organism. He further classifies these beings, distinguishing between the “first cousins” from our twin world and the “scouts” or “explorers” from the depths of the universe, some of whom sorcerers call “allies.” To give Castaneda a direct experience, don Juan guides him on another journey from inner silence. In the Sonoran desert, Castaneda meets two beings who identify themselves as his allies. By staring at them, he is able to see past their humanlike appearance to their true form: vibrating, shapeless blobs of luminosity. Don Juan explains this is seeing energy directly, and that our normal cognition limits our perception by interpreting everything. He instructs Castaneda to henceforth gaze at any apparition with an inflexible attitude to see its true energetic nature.

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The Active Side of Infinity – Mud Shadows

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Active side of Infinity / By / 32 minutes of reading

In this chapter, don Juan introduces Castaneda to what he calls the “topic of topics”: a predator from the depths of the cosmos that has taken over the rule of human lives. He explains that sorcerers can see these beings as fleeting, dark shadows, which he encourages Castaneda to perceive. According to don Juan, these predators, or “flyers,” consume the “glowing coat of awareness” that surrounds human beings, leaving only a narrow fringe which is the epicenter of our self-reflection. They keep humans docile and weak by giving us their mind—a foreign installation filled with contradiction, greed, and cowardice—and then feeding on the flares of awareness produced by our inane, self-absorbed problems. Don Juan states that the only deterrent is discipline, which makes a sorcerer’s awareness unpalatable. The ultimate goal is to tax the “flyer’s mind” with inner silence until it flees permanently. To give Castaneda a direct experience, don Juan guides him to “see” a flyer from a state of inner silence, resulting in a terrifying encounter with a gigantic, leaping “mud shadow” that leaves Castaneda physically and emotionally shattered, weeping for the helplessness of mankind.

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Author’s Note – The Art of Dreaming

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming / By / 8 minutes of reading

In this introductory note, Carlos Castaneda clarifies his use of the term “sorcery” to describe the teachings of his mentor, don Juan Matus, distinguishing it from conventional definitions. He explains that for don Juan, sorcery is about manipulating perception to access other real worlds, a practice called “the art of dreaming.” Castaneda recounts his own experiences learning this art, his interactions with two distinct groups of apprentices, and the challenges of reconciling his experiences in the “second attention” with everyday reality. He states that the purpose of this book is to rearrange and present don Juan’s lessons on dreaming in a linear fashion, made possible by years of dedicated practice, and to ultimately explain the legacy don Juan left to his final students as an act of gratitude.

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The second gate of dreaming – The Art of Dreaming

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming / By / 33 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Carlos Castaneda details his journey through the “second gate of dreaming.” After mastering the first gate by developing his “dreaming attention,” he is instructed by don Juan that the next task is to learn to move from one dream into another. This practice leads him to experience jolts of fear, which don Juan reveals are the initial contacts from conscious, non-biological entities called “inorganic beings.” These beings are attracted to the energy charge created by dreamers. After Castaneda’s dreams become fixated on two candle-shaped inorganic beings, don Juan guides him to confront them in the waking world. Castaneda physically wrestles one of the beings, an act which establishes a “watery” or emotional connection that don Juan warns is dangerous and can lead to dependency, even as it opens the door to forming alliances and exploring other worlds.

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The Blue Scout – The Art of Dreaming

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming / By / 19 minutes of reading

Following a perilous dream experience, Carlos Castaneda wakes up severely depleted of energy in don Juan’s home, discovering he was pulled out of the inorganic beings’ world. His companions, especially Florinda Grau, explain his “energetic wounding” and how he became “charged again” but with a disturbing new energy. Don Juan eventually reveals that Castaneda’s physical body was abducted by inorganic beings after his energy body entered their realm to free the **blue scout**. Don Juan, along with Carol Tiggs and others, intervened to rescue him by displacing their assemblage points. The chapter highlights the unprecedented nature of this event within their lineage and the grave implications for Castaneda’s future, as he is now tasked with freeing the scout, a challenge don Juan suggests he can resolve by consulting the emissary.

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