The Time of the Nagual
You open your eyes… and you don’t seek the reflection in the mirror of the mind.You don’t chase the clock.You don’t ask what time it is, nor if today is a useful day.The time of the tonal no longer dictates […]
Authors
The Active Side of Infinity – Inorganic Awareness
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 – The Clear View
In this final chapter of the book, Castaneda finds himself in a quandary, unable to deal with the world of everyday people after being influenced by don Juan. His new perception causes him to judge everyone by don Juan’s standards of impeccability, leading to a crisis in his academic and personal life. He recounts his experiences with a kind but passive boss, Ernest Lipton, whose helplessness reminds him of his own father, forcing him to quit his job. Don Juan advises him that the issue is not with others but with his own “self-reflection,” and that the challenge is to accept people as they are. The climax occurs one day on the UCLA campus when Castaneda is overcome by a strange tremor, loses his normal sight, and for the first time, consciously “sees” energy directly—perceiving people as luminous, furry spheres. He has the shocking realization that he has always perceived energy this way but was never aware of it. The experience ends with him inexplicably waking up in his apartment miles away. Don Juan confirms that he “stopped the world,” traveled from inner silence, and experienced “the clear view” or “losing the human form,” where human pettiness vanishes, leaving him with the maddening question of what had prevented him from accessing this perception all his life.
The Active Side of Infinity – Mud Shadows
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.
The Active Side of Infinity – The Active Side of Infinity
In this chapter, Carlos Castaneda visits his teacher, don Juan Matus, who introduces the shamanic task of creating an “album of memorable events.” Don Juan explains that such a collection helps a warrior redeploy unused energy by focusing on events that are impersonal and universally significant, rather than egocentric. After Castaneda struggles and fails to produce a suitable story, don Juan prompts him to recount a specific memory from his time in Italy. Castaneda tells the story of being taken by a friend to a bordello to see a prostitute named Madame Ludmilla perform “figures in front of a mirror.” Her sad, clumsy, yet sweet performance to a haunting melody profoundly moves Castaneda, causing him to flee in despair. Don Juan confirms this event is perfect for the album because it has the “dark touch of the impersonal,” reflecting the condition of all human beings who, in their own way, make senseless figures in front of a mirror.
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The Active Side of Infinity – Starting On The Definitive Journey: The Jump Into The Abyss
In this climactic chapter, don Juan announces that his time on Earth is over and he is leaving on his “definitive journey.” On a remote mesa, he tells Castaneda that his final task as an apprentice is to jump into an abyss, an act that will plunge him into infinity. Before the jump, however, Castaneda must say good-bye to all those he is indebted to. He recounts three formative relationships from his childhood: with Mr. Acosta, a hunter who taught him about solitariness; with Sho Velez, a young friend whose courage taught him that one must have something to die for; and with his grandmother and her adopted son Antoine, whose dramatic departure taught him about the finality of time. After shouting his thanks to these “ghosts,” don Juan gives his final words of advice, urging Castaneda to be impeccable and to forget the self. Then, don Juan and his party of fifteen sorcerers transform into luminous beings and ascend into the sky. Knowing his time has also run out, Castaneda runs at full speed and leaps into the abyss.
The Active Side of Infinity – A Tremor in The Air: A Journey of Power
In this chapter, Carlos Castaneda recounts the events leading to his first meeting with don Juan Matus. Initially, his academic ambitions to conduct fieldwork on medicinal plants are dismissed by his anthropology professors as outdated and irrelevant. Feeling defeated, Castaneda is persuaded by his friend and fellow anthropologist, Bill, to join him on a road trip through Arizona and New Mexico. During their journey, Bill reveals a hidden, personal side, sharing unsettling and unexplainable stories of his encounters with shamans who could transform or appear as apparitions, which deeply affects Castaneda. The trip culminates at a bus depot in Nogales, where Bill points out a mysterious old man he believes to be a powerful sorcerer. Acting on a strange impulse, Castaneda confronts the man, who introduces himself as Juan Matus and cryptically invites him for a future meeting before vanishing onto a bus. This brief, powerful encounter leaves Bill jealous and perplexed, and instills in Castaneda a profound and unfamiliar sense of longing and anxiety.
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The Active Side of Infinity – The Return Trip
This final chapter of the book details Castaneda’s experience immediately following his jump into the abyss. He awakens in his Los Angeles apartment with no memory of the return trip from Mexico, his body wracked with pain but his mind strangely calm and detached. The jump has shattered his linear perception of time and self, leaving him with quasi-memories and the stark realization that his old life is over. At a diner, he experiences a total unification of his being, as all his fragmented memories from states of heightened awareness become a single, continuous stream. He understands that this integration is a direct result of the jump. He now fully grasps his new condition as a “warrior-traveler,” for whom only energetic facts matter. He feels don Juan not as a person to be missed, but as an impersonal, silent passageway that he must now travel alone. The chapter ends with a strange, mentally unbalanced man screaming in terror upon seeing him, confirming Castaneda’s new, altered state of being and his ultimate aloneness.
The Active Side of Infinity – The Intent of Infinity
In this chapter, don Juan asks Carlos Castaneda to recount in great detail his initial journey to find him, specifically his encounters with two men, Jorge Campos and Lucas Coronado. Castaneda describes how his search led him to Guaymas, where he met Jorge Campos, a charismatic but deceitful Yaqui entrepreneur who promised to lead him to don Juan for an exorbitant fee. Campos first introduced him to Lucas Coronado, a truculent Yaqui shaman and mask maker. After a series of manipulative events, Castaneda eventually finds don Juan through Lucas Coronado and his son, Ignacio. Upon hearing the full story, don Juan reveals that Campos and Coronado were not mere obstacles but essential parts of a map laid out by the “intent of infinity.” He explains that Campos, the ruthless con man, and Coronado, the sensitive, suffering artist, represent the two conflicting ends of Castaneda’s own being, and that their actions, guided by infinity, were necessary to bring Castaneda to his path as a sorcerer.
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The Active Side of Infinity – Syntax and The Other Syntax
This consists of two poems that explore the relationship between language and the perception of reality. The first poem, “Syntax,” posits that our scientific understanding of the universe—having a definite beginning (the Big Bang), a development, and an end—is not an objective discovery but a mere reflection of the linear syntax of our language, which structures everything in terms of birth, growth, and death. The second poem, “The Other Syntax,” proposes an alternative worldview based on a different linguistic structure. In this other syntax, the universe is understood not through linear events but through “varieties of intensity.” From this perspective, there are no true beginnings or endings, only endless fluctuations of intensity.
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