Hey everyone! I’m new to this subreddit. Someone close to me suggested I join because they felt I’d really connect with the ideas shared here. Lately, I’ve been diving deeper into spirituality and self-awareness, and Carlos Castaneda’s teachings have really caught my attention. For those who’ve been on this path longer, what are some of the core concepts or practices that define this community? I’d love to learn more and start exploring with an open mind.
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Everything an average person “knows” is a construct. We are reality building machines.
The difficult part is that the very mechanism we use to grasp this idea (thought, analysis, perception) is itself part of that construct. Our sense making apparatus isn’t objective. It’s built into the same system it’s trying to observe. It’s so deeply embedded that we rarely notice we’re doing it.
I only truly realized this through psychedelics. Before that, my “understanding” of the concept was just updating my inventory of concepts and definitions. Which is what we are doing right now.
This teaching is bias to action vs talking. If you talk and think about driving a car, you’d get good at talking about driving a car vs actually driving.
Read all the books and wiki for this sub, then it will make more sense (if what I said was confusing).
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/index/goal/?share_id=QegWvHT1aYLdCmmLMJoie&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
As much as I like to throw links to the Wiki around, you're not as likely to "get" the full motivations of those who post in here without either reading or listening to the narrative of the books, first:
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/booklist/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/audiobooks
There's a reason Castaneda chose that structure over a DIY instruction book format, and it has to do with how humans are hard-wired "storytelling apes."
In my opinion, the core objective of this path is to learn to distinguish "paths with heart" among the multitude of impulses which arise in ones consciousness. And to have the energy to follow them.
This requires two sustained activities.
The more important of these is examination of one's social interactions, especially those which have involved intense exchanges of energy - sexual, anger, fear, for example. The objective is to retrieve the energy that one fired into the interaction, and to return the other's to him or her. There is a formal technique called "recapitulation" which is very effective for this purpose. It is described in detail in "The Sorcerers' Crossing", by Taisha Abelar. I was motivated to perform this outlandish technique on the unhappy interactions I had experienced with my father, only because he suddenly seemed on the point of death. By the time he died a year later, my judgements concerning him were disrupted to the point where our true energetic connection shone thru, enabling me to accept from him with gratitude the gift of our lineage.
Later I had the good fortune to participate in many Tensegrity workshops, in which we worked with partners who acted as neutral witnesses to descriptions of our social interactions and helped to find a viewpoint from our spirit. These were in the nature of recapitulation. Not sure if Cleargreen still is in the business of organizing these meetings.
I can also vouch for the pranayama breathwork promoted by David Elliott, which I described at the time as turbocharged recapitulation. The workshops are wonderfully effective, though rather expensive; you can also download mp3 recordings to work alone.
The underlying function of these techniques is to free yourself from the ideas about yourself that you have learned as a child.
Performing the so-called Magical Passes leads to redeployment of personal energy to where it helps you on your paths. It is important to do them regularly, and crucial to BREATH while doing them. There are good descriptions in the book Magical Passes.
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The practices are already described in the wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/introduction-practices/
In this public SubReddit, magic is practical, real, and free of charge.
So why are you commenting on a new member’s post — someone who’s "looking to learn more" — by advertising David Elliott?
Does mixing the real thing with the fake, work well for you? Do you like feeding monetary intentions that have nothing to do with sorcery? Do the scammers give you discounts in exchange for promoting them?
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KISS: keep it simple smarty
Read the books, they’re awesome.
Learn/practice: Inner silence + tensegrity = 🤯 change you won’t believe
You don't need an "open mind".
That's only needed when you study a fake magical system.
All you need for this, is to work hard and follow the instructions as closely as you possibly can.
Then regardless of whether you believed it, didn't believe it, or even if you thought it was "evil" as some religious people tend to (which includes Buddhists!), you'll end up in the same place.
Realizing that mankind is helpless without this 8000 year old Olmec technology.
And that it's been deliberately erased from the earth, by unidentified forces.
DJ told Carlos that "Self importance is the nemesis of mankind." After investigation the new sorcerers determined that upholding self importance is the biggest waste of energy which could otherwise be available to develop other sorcery skills such as enhancing volitional control of the assemblage point or dreaming. Reducing self importance is also consistent with other teachers like Buddha or Carl Jung who taught first you develop a functional ego then transcend it. Best regards on your journey.