Hi,
First, let me talk about my own experience. Since childhood, the double has always been with me. In my teenage years, when I was living with my aunt, who had the ability to see certain things, she saw me several times sitting next to myself, but my clothes were different, or I was thinner, and I smiled at her. She was scared at the time because we didn't know what that was.
But now I know that it was my energy body. Also, the double has saved me several times. Once, when I was crossing the street, a car ran over my foot, but nothing happened, and I didn't feel any pain. Another time, I was falling down the stairs of a commercial complex when it grabbed me from behind and held me. I quickly turned around, and there was no one there; I just felt a force holding me. Until I read the books and got acquainted with Carlos, I didn't know I had an active double. When I read the books, my energy body became intensely activated. When it was activated, I could see with my eyes closed, and I could involuntarily move my hands, which were actually the double's hands. Many times, when I was on the verge of sleep, I saw that it communicated with me and sat next to me. Whenever I ask it to switch, and of course, provided that I have done mental silence and the passes beforehand, I can have lucid dreaming where I am conscious. Then, suddenly, it's as if the double switches places with me in the real world, but I experience sleep paralysis and I can't move at all, and my body locks up.
I wanted to know what this means, why my double is already active, and how can I use this situation to improve in my practices?
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I can't remember if I read it in here, that the double loves tensegrity but in my (limited !) experience I have found tensegrity to be a much more positive experience. Like I will see colours faster when I do it. If I lie down to try other techniques I usually have a very frustrating experience and one weird thing that happens to me is if I lie down to meditate my feet starts doing the running man passes lol.
This is a very interesting experience. I am at the beginning of the path, and so far in the darkroom I have only seen the puffs, except that in some cases I have felt that a part of my body goes numb, for example my tongue or my left hand.
Much like how you describe in your experiences, the second attention is much more accessible when the double is closer to our tonal and physical body.
Having more easily available access to the second attention, potentially makes learning sorcery easier.
If you practice with it, using practices like tensegrity, recapitulation, gazing, womb dreaming, and “darkroom” practice, among others that are shared here in the subreddit and from the books, then you should be able to gain better control of your assemblage point, moving it and holding it more deliberately where you want to. Meaning, your overall perception and the way the world works around you, and how you interact and exist in the world, are more controllable to you.
And practicing all of that, increases the range and limits your assemblage point can move, which can lead you to leave/change the world completely, as well as leave/change yourself, while being able to return to where you started as you learn that control of your AP.
Thank you for your response. Yes, I listen to your advice and I take the practices seriously. I do the darkroom practice and womb dreaming almost every day, and I also do the magical passes before them. I just don't know if there is a specific order for doing the magical passes, or if I can choose any series I want, and how much time should I spend on each practice to get good results? Before sleep, I try to talk to my double to switch, and I have succeeded two or three times, but I get stuck in sleep paralysis and can't move at all
It sounds like you are starting well! And with a good amount of self discipline--working on deepening and sustaining silence is likely always the most helpful practice we can do, of course!
This might be a good place to figure out where to start with magical passes: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda_instruction/comments/1mj2itw/magical_passes_for_beginners/
There is no necessary order required for doing the magical passes, but there are recommendations about when and how frequently to use certain ones, that are talked about in the book(s), workshop/lecture notes, and discussion amongst experienced practitioners here.
You will likely start to figure out on your own as you practice them and try new ones, which ones you are drawn to and that give you what you need, and which ones you may need to take more care not to overdo.
Yes, I try to practice three different groups of the magical passes every night, and after that I do the darkroom and womb dreaming. Regarding the magical passes, there is one that involves shifting the assemblage point by spinning a sphere above the head. I actually did this one before I even knew about the passes—before I got to the book of magical movements. It was done by my double while I was in a state between sleep and wakefulness. My eyes were closed and I could see, and my double started doing this movement, though with a slight difference. This has made me really love this particular pass. Thank you for your guidance.
Carlos never found a way, and neither did I when I ran into someone who has a double which "just comes around".
I suppose it's around 1 in 200 people, based on comments Carlos made in private classes and on him looking over a workshop audience and noticing there were only 2 people like that. I'm guessing the audience was 400 or so.
Carlos tried to induce this at the end, with his "Naked Running Man Series" class. Only women were invited as far as I know. Most likely he figured the oddity and threat of being naked on their back wiggling their legs would worry their doubles, which would come around.
But if he got any advantage from it, he didn't say. And those in the class say he wasn't optimistic about the results. He said it was his "last chance".
That class included Corolla (sp?) which caused complaints by the anti-Carlos crowd after he died. Corolla was only 10.
He explained that for sorcerers, the benefit of someone who has a double which visits their tonal body, is that you gain access.
But he clearly couldn't translate that into an advantage for teaching them, since at his death we had absolutely no one who could move their assemblage point for real, on demand. Not even in leadership.
Cholita has a double that comes around, and I've tried to make use of that perhaps 20 times.
But it didn't come out to anything. When asked about our interactions when she's in her double (I'm awake), she claims she can't remember anything.
So if anything, this possibly gives you a slight disadvantage for learning sorcery.
Which the people who have been reading this subreddit a while, instantly saw when they read your post.
They're just too polite to say so.
Sorcery is so much work that anyone who believes they have an advantage, is highly unlikely to be willing to actually do what's needed to master it.
Thank you for your response. I have just started practicing, and yes, I completely agree with you. I must put in all my effort to achieve results, and that's the only way. Because I had previously read on Reddit that there are people like me who have an active double, I thought maybe there could be a shortcut to reaching sorcery. But as it turns out, I have to work really hard, and I will do that. By practicing the magical passes and combining them with the darkroom and womb dreaming, I hope to achieve good results
So far, the only people I know like this are women!
And this is yet another woman?
Maybe this doesn't happen to men?
It's possible that you could learn to do "double's tensegrity" with your own double! That might start out as you seeing a third arm, but no full copy of yourself. The third arm would be copying your movement.
If you can learn to make it fully visible and independent of your physical version, then I won't have to figure out how to do that.
It's on my todo list.
I've never gotten my own double to stand to the side and practice with me, but I do get to see it to some extent nearly every time I practice. And can certainly summon it, if I can think of a reason to be doing that.
Ideally it eventually forms a blue ball of energy around your torso, and you don't see the stray version much.
Which group of magical passes are suitable for me as a beginner, and also for starting in the darkroom? If I get good results, I would be very happy to share them with you. Thank you for your time.