The Journey, The Path, and The Practice

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” ― Carlos Castaneda

Many years ago I was introduced to Carlos Castaneda's works by a close friend. His works introduced me to a world that up until that point I had only glimpsed. Having visited the deserts of Arizona as a child the Sonoran desert in which Castaneda meets a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus seemed familiar.

At that time in the early 90's the world had yet to make it's transition into the technical age we know today. Reality was very much analog, and the ubiquity of information we enjoy today existed only in the depths of the library stacks. Knowledge required that you sought it out and often the journey revealed as much as any book on a shelf.

It was this drive to explore something greater than myself that first led me to research hypnosis. Having rarely experienced an altered reality of any kind beyond the occasional hit of a joint or "normal" alcohol experimentation. Hypnosis was the closest thing I could find that would let me experiment with consciousness. I quickly realized that I had some talent in the skill and I could successfully place people in a light hypnotic trance where I could do the normal tricks of implanting a code word that would cause them to quack like a duck on command. At the time is wasn't always obvious whether or not the subject was actually hypnotized or just playing along. I suspect there was a bit of both. After months of staying up to all hours in the dorms, the way I thought about the mind and the the power of suggestion had changed drastically.

Hypnosis had opened the door ever so slightly into a world where anything was possible and the nature of reality became just a bit less certain.

First Initiation

“The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.” ― Carlos Castaneda

Another significant aspect of this time was it marked my first experimentation with psychedelics. By the time I tried LSD for the first time I was 17 and a group of us in the high school dorms got a bunch of sugar cubes. Somehow shortly after taking them everyone I was with disappeared out a second story window for a wild night hang out at the college dorms down the hill. I spent my first trip alone in my dorm room. My sound track, The Beatles Revolver. For anyone reading this isif you want to get the full picture, listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows" with headphones on as loudly as possible and imagine tripping on LSD for your first time, alone.

The dorms at NCSA were pattered after a women's prison built in High Point, NC shortly before the school opened. The high school dorms in particular were designed to keep us kids in. The ceilings were covered in popcorn plaster texture. For hours that night my mind expanded into the a 4 dimensional veil descended from the ceiling and in the lace work one could get lost in the patterns and shapes for an eternity.

In many mystical orders and esoteric traditions there is the concept of initiation, where one crossed the boundary from ordinary reality to another. Castaneda recognized that drugs were a tool which could be used to allow the shift in reality necessary to start down the path laid out by Don Juan Matus. I remember realizing, or more accurately remembering, that we are surrounded by other realities and within them lay entire worlds that could be explored.

While drugs are one path to these different realities, they do not provide a means to control or actualize those realities. Drugs loosen what Castaneda calls the assemblage point and with some practice one can see the energetic nature of the universe, however beyond a recognition and certainty of it's existence, drugs do little else with few exceptions.

However, once this awareness of other realities is certain in the individual, one can begin to learn to be a Man of Knowledge, as Don Juan Matus called the sorcerers of his lineage. One became a Man of Knowledge by becoming a Warrior.

In Don Juan's teachings, a Warrior is not a combatant in the conventional sense, but rather an individual who embodies specific qualities and attitudes:

Impeccability: A Warrior acts with utmost care and self-control in all aspects of life.
Detachment: A Warrior remains unattached to outcomes, free from self-importance and personal history.
Awareness: A Warrior cultivates heightened perception and alertness to the world around them.
Responsibility: A Warrior takes full responsibility for their actions and decisions.
Strategic use of power: A Warrior conserves and directs their energy wisely, avoiding wasteful behaviors.
Acceptance of death: A Warrior lives with the constant awareness of their mortality, using it as a advisor.
Fluidity: A Warrior remains adaptable, capable of flowing with the ever-changing circumstances of life.

By cultivating these qualities, an individual transforms into a Warrior, and through this transformation, gains the capacity to become a Man of Knowledge - one who can perceive and navigate multiple realities with wisdom and power.

The Art of Stalking

“A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ” ― Carlos Castaneda

In Carlos Castaneda's teachings, stalking is a fundamental practice of the warrior's path. Unlike its common usage, stalking in this context refers to a set of techniques and attitudes aimed at self-transformation and the dismantling of one's ego.

Stalking involves:

Heightened awareness of one's thoughts and behaviors
Breaking free from habitual patterns
Conserving and redirecting personal energy
Developing impeccability in one's actions

The goal of stalking is to achieve a state of fluid perception, allowing the practitioner to navigate both ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality with equal ease. This practice requires patience, discipline, and a willingness to face one's deepest fears and attachments.

The Petty Tyrant: A Tool for Stalking

“The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.” ― Carlos Castaneda

The concept of the "petty tyrant" is closely linked to the practice of stalking. A petty tyrant is someone who oppresses, irritates, or challenges us, often holding a position of power or authority in our lives. While seemingly negative, petty tyrants serve a crucial role in a warrior's development.

Key aspects of the petty tyrant concept include:

Opportunity for growth: Interactions with petty tyrants provide chances to practice stalking techniques in real-world situations.
Ego dissolution: Dealing with difficult individuals helps break down the practitioner's sense of self-importance.
Energy conservation: Learning to navigate challenging personalities without emotional drain preserves personal power.
Impeccability training: Responding to petty tyrants with control and awareness hones the warrior's impeccable behavior.

By reframing encounters with petty tyrants as spiritual exercises, practitioners one can transform everyday annoyances into powerful catalysts for personal evolution. This approach exemplifies the warrior's path of turning obstacles into opportunities for growth and self-mastery.

Recapitalization

“the recapitulation, which consisted of a systematic scrutiny of one’s life, segment by segment, an examination made not in the light of criticism or finding flaw, but in the light of an effort to understand one’s life, and to change its course. Don Juan’s claim was that once any practitioner has viewed his life in the detached manner that the recapitulation requires, there’s no way to go back to the same life.” ― Carlos Castaneda

In Castaneda's later works recapitalization became something quite different from what I remember reading in his original novels. His later works focused on movements to bring about different states of awareness in lieu of using drugs. Recaptitualization there was a particular movement, but when I first read about it. It suggested to me that what we learn in higher states of awareness is not always available in our current one. Recapitualization is to remember that knowledge in your current state of awareness.

It made sense to me that as you shifted to a different state of awareness that the knowledge that you learned while in that state didn't follow you back and once back in "normal" reality is sort of came back as memories, deja vu, and synchronicity.

What Have I Learned

It's often said that the more you learn, the less you know. However the path to Knowledge is more about a rediscovery or what you already know. Don Juan viewed us as luminous shells of energy, with ribbons emanating from a spot close to our navels. It's through this spot, he called the assembly point, that we as conscious beings assemble reality. The goal of becoming a Warrior, and the Knowledge a Man of Knowledge seeks is the ability to move the assembly point at will and thus access other realities. Since each of the other realties are still your reality, this process is an exploration of yourself and who you are. As you learn to shift in and out of these realities, your ability to come back to your natural state quickly grows until you master awareness. In this state it's possible to overcome the last vestiges of your human body and escape the eagle and thus explore the universe with all of your memories and identities in tact.

The wonder of this framework however, is what it can teach you about your self in our shared reality. As you learn to shift in and out of other realities you are given a new perspective of self, you see yourself and the masks and Identities you wear. You can snap back quickly, emotional trauma has less effect as your ability to move your assembly point out of the reality in which the trauma exists gives you the ability to reduce or removed it's effects. Whether or not this happens in a measurable way is of course up for debate, but the system and the viewpoint is creates has really helped me stabilize a core being and given me a set of tools to try to correct myself without diving into the excruciating analysis modern psychiatric practices would require.

The Nagual

“This is the sorcerers’ explanation. The nagual is the unspeakable. All the possible feelings and beings and selves float in it like barges, peaceful, unaltered, forever. Then the glue of life binds some of them together. You yourself found that out last night, and so did Pablito, and so did Genaro the time he journeyed into the unknown, and so did I. When the glue of life binds those feelings together a being is created, a being that loses the sense of its true nature and becomes blinded by the glare and clamor of the area where beings hover, the tonal. The tonal is where all the unified organization exists. A being pops into the tonal once the force of life has bound all the needed feelings together. I said to you once that the tonal begins at birth and ends at death; I said that because I know that as soon as the force of life leaves the body all those single awarenesses disintegrate and go back again to where they came from, the nagual.” ― Carlos Castañeda

During battle this skill is immeasurable as since you are aware your your exact nature and the extent to which your energy extends into the world, other being become instantly recognizable. Often I see a person's entire time track laid out. And sadly I often see it's inevitable conclusion. Nothing makes me sadder than knowing that a person's path leads to destruction. Don Juan called this ability seeing . For him it was the ability to see awareness and the luminous egg directly. This is certainly one way to look at it. I find I am sensitive to energy and I recognize a beings space. Often I can shift awareness and understand where they are in their own journey. Another skill Don Juan speaks about is the Nagul's shove. A Nagul is a teacher among a group of sorcerer's, Don Juan was the Nagul of his group, and Carlos Castaneda was to be the Nagul of a new generation of sorcerers.

While I don't know the truth of it, I do know that sorcerer's of similar lineages do often form groups. These groups form naturally with a Nagul, or teacher. The Nagul uses the shove to alter the awareness of another person. Personally I don't think it's limited to Nagul's as I have been able to shove individuals off of their path's of destruction by introducing a higher state of awareness.

The specific method used varies, from an actual shove located at the assembly point to another ritual or practice entirely. The effect has been the same to momentarily alter the consciousness of the other person long enough for them to correct their own path. Unfortunately it doesn't always work, and staying in close proximity to a failed shove is a difficult task.

But this is what stalking is. It's the application of reason to alter the awareness of ourselves and those around us. The more we learn about our selves the better stalkers we become because we are no longer confused by identity. We recognize ourselves in all states and the more we practice the more we recognize it in others.

The practical applications are limitless. I've recently relearned many of these lessons, recapitalization continues to happen, if we stop stalking for any length of time we get rusty, and the work must be done again.

Several years ago I realized a truth about myself. Somewhere along my path I really started to dislike myself. This was odd because one would think that this would occur while using drugs or drinking oneself to death, but for me it just sprung up out of a fairly successful life. I was alone of course, which led to being lonely, but despite opportunity I couldn't change that reality. I tried stalking myself, I used intention and postulates and dozen's of other practices but I still did not like myself. After years of this I became frantic, I knew that if I continued down this path that I would eventually return to drug use and that I likely would not make it back our of that world again. Out of desperation I began exercising and I was able to drop 50 pounds and this bought me some time. I began stalking myself, first I tried making money, and at one point I was making over $250,000 a year with no bills. Spending the money as quickly as I made it, I realized I should buy a house and so I did. My stalking allowed me to purchase a house, which thanks to the pandemic immediately increased in value by $100,000, but I still didn't like myself but now I was keenly aware of it. I began working through the petty tyrants in my life, again recognizing them for what they were and I gradually resolved their lessons for me. One thing that had terrified me was living alone, so I kept a roommate for years. He was an alcoholic but somehow had made it through the program thinking his only problem had been teh cocaine he had faced charges for. My ego wanted to help this guy, it made me feel responsible for him and to ignore his deeply narcissistic tendencies. At times he seemed to act as if I owned him something and signs of delusion and codependency were all around him.

My ego thought that perhaps I didn't like myself people I had failed this guy when he went to the treatment center I worked at. Slowly I realized it was not even that complicated. I didn't want to be alone and the money he paid me made most of the other problems easier to deal with. Having a half crazy guy living in the spare bedroom in my basement fulfilled some strange need. It was this realization that made me realize just how insane it was to try to build a support group with an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking a job at a treatment center where the director was seeing magical elves while taking ketamine and an insane psychiatrist who thought they every addict need to stop smoking. It was completely dumb and I realized that I had to get rid of it all no matter how vulnerable or scared about living along or paying my bills I was. Stalking myself led me to this conclusion. Once I had removed all of these people from my life and focused on myself I found that I didn't dislike myself so much anymore.

Stalking allowed me to easily remove these beings from my life because I knew where I ended and they began. I simply removed them and no matter what they said, I have help the line. I feared my roommate would die, and thought by boss my kill people if I wasn't there to stop it. It seems crazy that I would be this wrapped up, but as I said I disliked myself.

Full Circle

Once they were gone, and I mean every last connection to them gone I was able to see that I really did not like the fact that I could not control my weight, so that was the next task I took on. Over the next year I lost another 100 pounds in addition to the 50 I lost years ago. Now I exercise nearly every single day and I have made sure that any medical issues I might have related to years of obesity have been handled. Somewhere along the line I started to remember the person I liked, a recapitulation of who I was if you will. And the stalking continues, I see myself fall in and out of old patterns almost daily. Very real emotions triggered by past Trauma emerge and I have to deal with it. Through stalking myself I grew aware that my weight was not the result of a weakness or an inability to control my eating, it was a tactic I used, a mask I wore to keep myself from being triggered to my past trauma. This came as a recapitualation of a memory I have of working with someone who knew Castaneda and who spent the last years of her life with him. The bruja as Castaneda would have called her, told me a story about her drastic weight gain upon learning of her husband cheating on her. This connection to Carlos Castaneda's books is one of those things that just doesn't make sense. That I would meet this woman, that this woman would actually be the mother of one of my friends has always blown me away. This woman using what she learned from Casteneda himself was able to overcome Lupus and Parkinson's for years, hidden away in her Cabin in the North Carolina mountains with her half wolf dog Lupe.

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