I’d like to share my recent experience and hear opinions. I am a new practitioner. And I am a woman. I have been reading the books and currently I am reading “The Eagle’s Gift”. I have treated those as manuals to sorcery and didn’t doubt a thing that happened there so far. I also have been following posts in this channel for the past months. I don’t do Tensegrity or Recapitulation yet - I don’t fully understand them well and I am fine with discovering these in the books later step-by-step.
Meanwhile I have been practicing daylight gazing for at least 1-2 hours a day for the past few weeks. I also made some progress in the dark room: I can see purple whitish lights as the background of black silhouettes. I don’t give them much importance as it seems like a very beginner's thing to experience - but I am still mentioning it for context.
Yesterday something important happened. This is why I am writing the post here. I was just trying to sleep but I had coffee in the evening and I had a very uncomfortable 2 hours trying to succeed. I was not very awake but also definitely not asleep. From time to time, out of frustration and boredom, I was checking if I could see the purple lights with my eyes closed. I could - anytime I wanted to I could do that.
I was laying down on my back with my right hand on my stomach (naturally) and my head tilted a bit to the left side. I was seeing some “well-known” silhouettes with purple lights. At one point I remember I “agreed”(to let it be, to surrender of some kind) to something unreasonable. I remember feeling that “this is absurd, but I don’t care”. I just really wanted to sleep. So, I didn’t evaluate (obviously I forgot what it was or/and I don’t have the ability to comprehend it at this state). At that point I felt my hand curling on my stomach and some energy concentrating on my belly. It felt like my hand was gathering something in the center of my body. Even though there was no reason why I would curl my fingers - I am not even sure that I did. I simultaneously felt the immeasurable pressure in my head, I thought I was gonna pass out or worse. I resisted by realising. Then I heard the cracking sound from my neck. I snapped out of it immediately and was wide awake. I scanned my body and everything was fine, I had a bit of numbness in my legs and arms. Nothing unusual. I remembered that I had read about this in the books, but I didn’t fully grasp what it was. I was not scared, I knew that something happened. I fell asleep instantly.
I later remembered that I have read about this “cracking neck sound” in “The Second Ring of Power” when Carlos was attacked by Dona Soledad and his double took over (as far as I understand). From the posts here I understand this is the AP moving. Is this correct? My concern is that I felt unprepared in that specific moment, when I was very close to something but still resisted. So, I am wondering what is the preparation for that and what can happen to the physical body at that moment? One may just black out? I intend to approach these practices with caution.
Thanks!
7 Comments
That cracking sound almost surely doesn't mean anything to people who weren't "split" by powerful sorcerers, the way Carlos was. Don Juan and Genaro did that to him.
It's likely some old seer magic.
So there's no application to your situation other than you read about it, so that it's a trace concern in your mind which can come out when you are in the second attention. Which happens when you fall asleep, or have just woken up.
More likely is that the click/crack is what we call the "evil clown effect". Where because you were told the inorganic beings might take the shape of an evil clown, that's what you end up seeing.
As for that cracking sound being an indication something "came out", I really doubt that.
My double comes and goes, as does a clear view of the second attention.
I could have shook my double's hand last night, it was so clear.
Whatever else might have come out of Carlos, other than his double, isn't written in any of the 20 books and publications.
And your double coming out (happens during several tensegrity forms), has no connection to a clicking sound.
I've tried to determine if you get better results when you do in fact hear the clicking sound, because perhaps once a month I hear it while gazing.
But it really doesn't seem to have any importance at all.
That's just your neck bones settling to a different position.
Common in meditation. And if it produces any effect that way, it's only because you were dozing off (meditation produces such meager effects it's inevitable to fall asleep), your head fell, and the clicking sound startled you out of being half asleep.
I'd take it as specific to Carlos, and only because of what don Juan and don Genaro did to him.
Which we really don't know anything about.
Keep in mind, I was in private classes with Carlos himself for 3+ years, at least weekly. But sometimes several times a week.
And attended every workshop after 1994, which is pretty much when he started giving them for real. Except Barcelona...
Carlos never bought that clicking thing up, in any lecture I heard.
By over-analyzing this experience, I realized I was excited about reaching a state that may not mean anything at all. :)
You’re right that I was startled by the sound of it. But I actually had a realization before that sound - I was trying to resist something else. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like I ruined the moment with that realization. The cracking sound was just the aftermath, the thing that fully snapped me out of it.
I wanted to confirm whether it’s safe to experience something like this, and whether this feeling is some kind of gateway to “going somewhere else.”
For now, I’m fine and I’ve moved on from this. Your answer helped me in its own way. Thank you.
So read posts.
I do stuff like you mentioned perhaps 100 times every single night...
Other magical systems are total frauds, which only have some primitive "green zone" effects you can get by easier methods which don't lead to pretending you are a "master".
And certainly, anyone selling magic "lessons" is an absolute fraud.
You need to study until you realize, the path of real magic is infinite.
All you can do is try to get as far as the last generation got.
But even if you go back to the "old seers", you'll realize t hey were quite confused about things.
They had the opposite of what I'm warning you about.
They had TOO MUCH magic, not too little.
The right amount is somewhere in the middle, unless you want to get lost.
Here's some research on "layers" from the books, done b y an AI.
An experienced practitioner in hedre will realize that it's a confused topic, and that most likely Genaro and don Juan were just giving Carlos another lecture about what the old seres and men of knowledge believed.
And it was a bit silly...
It's pretty much nonsense, so don't anyone get confused.
It might not be a bad idea to take care to prevent yourself from overthinking about that too much and not giving too much importance to sensations, but it's good to notice and keep track of those anomalous perceptions and experiences, because being vigilant in your awareness is part of what you're working towards!
Someone else may have better insight on this, but recapitulation in particular will really help you with that sort of preparation. You will free up more energy that will help you be physically prepared for unpredictable experiences, and you will remain more dispassionate and grounded in the face of the unknown. You'll have more resources at your disposal in the sort of events like you described.
It sounds like you already know you need to practice that, though! Maybe your experiences are a sign you're ready for it, but it sounds like you'll know the right time to start.
Are you exploring and experimenting much with what you're seeing during daylight gazing and darkroom practice? Have you tried interacting with the silhouettes or lights with your hands?
Some of the tensegrity movements really are simple, fun, and pleasurable! 😁 I often feel like a giddy toddler when I get going lol I really enjoy the simple, dance-y movements
How has everything been going with learning to silence your internal dialogue/monologue?
Thank you for answering!
Maybe this is a sign, and it’s time for me to fast‑track Recapitulation and Tensegrity - to finally do things properly. :)
For the gazing, I don’t try to reach any specific threshold. I usually go to a park, look at the trees, and let my eyes unfocus while I “try not to think.” Almost instantly, I start seeing distortions in the shapes, and reality begins to lose its usual form, though I still know what I’m looking at. It’s when I feel like another space starts to form that I back off. I feel it in my stomach, like things are shifting, and I get the sense I might get sick because I no longer know where I stand physically. I also don’t want to attract the attention of other people in the park. So I’ve just been playing around with it so far. I thought it might be enough practice - until I read more in the books. Maybe I’m looking for a bit of encouragement with this post.
After posting, I did more digging and even asked AI to summarize the Recapitulation for me. It seems like I’ve already been doing something similar to what recapitulation aims to achieve. Still, I’ll re‑evaluate it once I understand it better.
Here’s a bit more context:
By “something similar,” I mean this: I’ve done five years of therapy (mostly Gestalt). I’ve lived through most of my major painful life events. At one point, when I finally let go of my “last” unresolved thing, I realized there was no more pain left in my body. And for about two weeks, I had this unusual freedom, calmness, and silence. I could hear myself think whenever I wanted. I couldn’t listen to music or watch videos - everything felt too noisy.
Then I noticed something even bigger. That was when my life completely changed. I thought I understood how life worked, almost as if the rules of the game had been revealed to me. I discovered something like “intent” (I’m not sure it’s the same as in Castaneda’s context, and I don’t want to mislead anyone), but it made perfect sense. I felt as if I could do anything I intended. I could also feel when I couldn’t do something - when my intent wasn’t clear, when I had doubts or fear, when something simply wasn’t going to happen.
Around the same time, I became fascinated by a concept in quantum physics: the idea that a particle instantly stops existing in multiple simultaneous possibilities (the superposition) and snaps into a single, definite reality. I remember thinking there had to be a reason for this madness. What a bliss! :D
I also felt the range of my life expanding endlessly, stretching to the limits of my wishes. It felt powerful, and it was the greatest achievement of my life. When I tried to describe some of the excitement of this experience to my friend, he gave me The Journey to Ixtlan - and that’s how I discovered Castaneda.
Since then, I’ve noticed I no longer feel pity for myself. I usually don’t do things I don’t want to do. I’ve been saving my energy, exercising, and even getting massages - so the feeling of deep relaxation is familiar now, though still new to my body.
About the night I described in the original post: I wondered whether I had generally become so calm that “the magic” could happen at the slightest wish. I remembered that the day before, I had imagined seeing my double - it felt like it would be amazing. I didn’t expect it or think much about it. I just had this sense that it would happen someday, once I got better at practicing.
But after that night, I asked myself: Did I intend it? Did it almost happen? Because of everything I described above, I had been convinced that I had some kind of “personal power.” But maybe I’m overthinking it - and maybe it’s even more likely that I was just pretending, which I hear is very common for beginners. :)
At the same time, as a woman, I’ve spent much of my life pretending - underestimating everything I did. Now that I’ve learned to trust myself, I don’t want to discard anything too quickly.
As for internal dialogue - I can silence it for a few seconds, sometimes more, but I see a lot of room for improvement. I haven’t engaged with the purple things yet. It happened only once: after an hour or so, I felt the pull, and the purple lights and black silhouettes brightened into what looked like a tropical forest at dawn. I instantly lost it. I just evaluated it as being lucid for the first second of a dream, nothing more.