Update: it's a mixed bag, and less than 5 minutes. The host mentions his two interviews with Nyei. Daniel obviously isn't current on his reading of Castaneda's material, still stuck (opinion-wise) on the early books which he read in childhood. Hasn't gone deep enough, so still has the crust of the current general postmortem consensus view of Carlos.
He should come read some of the posts here.
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u/TechnoMagical_Intent
1 points2020-11-13 17:37
Confirmation that it's best to interest new people rather than old ones that have a lot of baggage from back in Castaneda's heyday.
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u/TovanZero
1 points2020-11-13 18:23
As such, if you were to recommend the books to someone new, which would you start with? In your opinion is it best to skip the first book/few books? I’ve been thinking of reading the books again & have been wondering the same thing for myself.
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u/TechnoMagical_Intent
2 points2020-11-13 19:06
Read the Silent Knowledge pdf linked in the Wiki's publications section first.
Then pick something and practice.
The Wiki has a glossary page(s) that can give a crib-note introduction to the unfamiliar terminology
Juann is then recommending Abelar's The Sorcerer's Crossing, followed by the Unpublished Text that recently came to light.
Then maybe the last 4 books of Castaneda's?
Then practice some more!
Later, delve into Donner's books, the last two of which are also excellent.
Then circle back to the earlier books of Castaneda's chronologically...after you have some firsthand experiences.
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u/danl999
4 points2020-11-13 19:15
You can't really say which is important, because every single page potentially has the answer to a problem you will encounter when practicing for real.
There's intent behind the books.
For example, if you learn to play with inorganic beings and you even get them to teach you, it's very important to remember the story about the lizards, and how they answered a different question than Carlos had in mind.
I suspect that very often happens when making requests of inorganic beings.
Example: this dark room gazing thing. I asked Fairy to help me figure out how to move people's assemblage points, by using her.
So I proceeded to teach her to form a pumpkin, so I could toss it at people's shoulders. And to create a pretty little Fairy, so no one would be afraid of her.
She did what I wanted, but by the time I had learned to form her into a ball I could toss, I realized it was the process of playing with her that could move people's assemblage points. And all the way to heightened awareness.
It wasn't an accidental discovery.
She flew around the room teaching me how to play with the puffs of color.
The important thing is, when reading the early books keep in mind don Juan was teaching him about the old sorcerers.
He even told us that! He was teaching him to become a "man of knowledge".
That's merely a sorcery guild member, back in the day. At least 1000 years ago, and maybe even more.
People gloss over that and think it's the goal.
And then they go around bullying others with "man of knowledge" shaming.
Shame on you, you nasty old sorcerer! I'm not like that, I'm a "man of knowledge"!
Except that the men of knowledge were in fact more like the nasty old sorcerers than what we want to be.
They were profiteers too.
But our goal is to be like the "new seers". That's in the later books. Don Juan only talked about it when Carlos was in heightened awareness, so it didn't come out until he regained those memories.
Men of knowledge never learned to see very well, as I recall. Not much of a goal.
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u/danl999
2 points2020-11-13 17:48
I complimented his practices on his web page, mentioning I was a student of Carlos.
And he kept the comment there.
Later I encouraged him to go further than chi balls, giving the crazy specifics on what we do in darkroom gazing, without mentioning the technique.
Not sure if he kept that one.
It made what he was doing with students look sort of beginnerish.
I didn't go back to look.
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u/aRLYCoolSalamndr
2 points2020-11-13 21:15
Not sure if everyone is aware, but the end results of his fire kasina practice sounds very similar to what is described with the dark room practice (he goes into massive detail on his fire kasina website), as well as his book more than the podcast. It might not be obvious but he's mentioned elsewhere it's actually one of his primary practices. Although the beginning phases sound very different and terminology / framework is very different, and he uses just more or less standard concentration skills to achieve inner silence (he uses the term concentration). Basically the deeper into inner silence / concentration you go, the more you can alter the images of the candle, enter into wake-dreaming (but he doesn't frame it that way) creating all sorts of visuals and altering of reality, and it seems to attract the interaction with magical beings (aka IB's). I had been wondering if it might be a good alternative for those who can't fully create a dark room. But I'll leave that for high level members to comment on.
TLDR Anyways, from reading the details of his fire kasina practices, he sounds like he's a lot closer to the dark room practice than most might realize.
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u/TechnoMagical_Intent
2 points2020-11-13 22:41
Candle gazing is covered in Taisha's newly uncovered manuscript, available in the Wiki. Search the PDF for candle. Though Daniel Ingram certainly goes into more detail. So build on the intent channeled by Taisha with Ingram's direct experience working with it more intensely.
An alternate path is good! The more the better.
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u/kkbolito
1 points2020-11-14 16:10
It seems fire Kasina and dark room practice achieve very similar results. However, from what I’ve heard from Daniels interviews, it takes intense retreat in order for the fire kasina to produce magical results. Like candle flame gazing 14 hours a day or something like that. From what I’ve heard on this sub, all you need is about 3 hours of dark room practice a day for a couple weeks to get results. Is that correct?
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u/Gnos_Yidari
1 points2020-11-14 17:58
If you can hold a good level of silence, yes. That comes first.
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u/kkbolito
1 points2020-11-14 19:07
And “silence” in Castaneda terms is equal to “concentration” in Daniel ingrams terms?
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u/Gnos_Yidari
1 points2020-11-14 19:22
Maybe awareness/interest would be more accurate, where it is placed or lingers.
"Is this the uncensored video of Ingram that he's taking flak for in the buddhist comminities? He sounds pretty confident and confirms that he'd see that before but filtered out to focus on buddhist insight practices. .
50th minute of video he confirms eyes-open too. Play at double speed as they both talk pretty slow. He probably was in the state of "not caring" silence: eyes open he saw a "garuda" on his bed, but ignored it and went to sleep.
Ingram calls buddhist/traditional teaching humans like growing mushrooms, the Mushroom Culture: "Keep them in the dark, feed them shit."
Around 1h31m40s mark he says for entrance price of 140-150 hours you get into a level of "of course it works", but if not pursuing further not long after, level decreases and it seems inconceivably far."
15 Comments
He discusses Castaneda at the 1:26:29 mark
I hope it's positive 🙏
Update: it's a mixed bag, and less than 5 minutes. The host mentions his two interviews with Nyei. Daniel obviously isn't current on his reading of Castaneda's material, still stuck (opinion-wise) on the early books which he read in childhood. Hasn't gone deep enough, so still has the crust of the current general postmortem consensus view of Carlos.
He should come read some of the posts here.
Confirmation that it's best to interest new people rather than old ones that have a lot of baggage from back in Castaneda's heyday.
As such, if you were to recommend the books to someone new, which would you start with? In your opinion is it best to skip the first book/few books? I’ve been thinking of reading the books again & have been wondering the same thing for myself.
Read the Silent Knowledge pdf linked in the Wiki's publications section first.
Then pick something and practice.
The Wiki has a glossary page(s) that can give a crib-note introduction to the unfamiliar terminology
Juann is then recommending Abelar's The Sorcerer's Crossing, followed by the Unpublished Text that recently came to light.
Then maybe the last 4 books of Castaneda's?
Then practice some more!
Later, delve into Donner's books, the last two of which are also excellent.
Then circle back to the earlier books of Castaneda's chronologically...after you have some firsthand experiences.
You can't really say which is important, because every single page potentially has the answer to a problem you will encounter when practicing for real.
There's intent behind the books.
For example, if you learn to play with inorganic beings and you even get them to teach you, it's very important to remember the story about the lizards, and how they answered a different question than Carlos had in mind.
I suspect that very often happens when making requests of inorganic beings.
Example: this dark room gazing thing. I asked Fairy to help me figure out how to move people's assemblage points, by using her.
So I proceeded to teach her to form a pumpkin, so I could toss it at people's shoulders. And to create a pretty little Fairy, so no one would be afraid of her.
She did what I wanted, but by the time I had learned to form her into a ball I could toss, I realized it was the process of playing with her that could move people's assemblage points. And all the way to heightened awareness.
It wasn't an accidental discovery.
She flew around the room teaching me how to play with the puffs of color.
The important thing is, when reading the early books keep in mind don Juan was teaching him about the old sorcerers.
He even told us that! He was teaching him to become a "man of knowledge".
That's merely a sorcery guild member, back in the day. At least 1000 years ago, and maybe even more.
People gloss over that and think it's the goal.
And then they go around bullying others with "man of knowledge" shaming.
Shame on you, you nasty old sorcerer! I'm not like that, I'm a "man of knowledge"!
Except that the men of knowledge were in fact more like the nasty old sorcerers than what we want to be.
They were profiteers too.
But our goal is to be like the "new seers". That's in the later books. Don Juan only talked about it when Carlos was in heightened awareness, so it didn't come out until he regained those memories.
Men of knowledge never learned to see very well, as I recall. Not much of a goal.
I complimented his practices on his web page, mentioning I was a student of Carlos.
And he kept the comment there.
Later I encouraged him to go further than chi balls, giving the crazy specifics on what we do in darkroom gazing, without mentioning the technique.
Not sure if he kept that one.
It made what he was doing with students look sort of beginnerish.
I didn't go back to look.
Not sure if everyone is aware, but the end results of his fire kasina practice sounds very similar to what is described with the dark room practice (he goes into massive detail on his fire kasina website), as well as his book more than the podcast. It might not be obvious but he's mentioned elsewhere it's actually one of his primary practices. Although the beginning phases sound very different and terminology / framework is very different, and he uses just more or less standard concentration skills to achieve inner silence (he uses the term concentration). Basically the deeper into inner silence / concentration you go, the more you can alter the images of the candle, enter into wake-dreaming (but he doesn't frame it that way) creating all sorts of visuals and altering of reality, and it seems to attract the interaction with magical beings (aka IB's). I had been wondering if it might be a good alternative for those who can't fully create a dark room. But I'll leave that for high level members to comment on.
TLDR Anyways, from reading the details of his fire kasina practices, he sounds like he's a lot closer to the dark room practice than most might realize.
Candle gazing is covered in Taisha's newly uncovered manuscript, available in the Wiki. Search the PDF for candle. Though Daniel Ingram certainly goes into more detail. So build on the intent channeled by Taisha with Ingram's direct experience working with it more intensely.
An alternate path is good! The more the better.
It seems fire Kasina and dark room practice achieve very similar results. However, from what I’ve heard from Daniels interviews, it takes intense retreat in order for the fire kasina to produce magical results. Like candle flame gazing 14 hours a day or something like that. From what I’ve heard on this sub, all you need is about 3 hours of dark room practice a day for a couple weeks to get results. Is that correct?
If you can hold a good level of silence, yes. That comes first.
And “silence” in Castaneda terms is equal to “concentration” in Daniel ingrams terms?
Maybe awareness/interest would be more accurate, where it is placed or lingers.
[deleted]
And he's now under attack as being delusional https://www.guruviking.com/ep73-daniel-ingram-dangerous-and-delusional/ with the intention of "making sure nobody believes him ever again."
From Public Chat
(username withheld for privacy):
"Is this the uncensored video of Ingram that he's taking flak for in the buddhist comminities? He sounds pretty confident and confirms that he'd see that before but filtered out to focus on buddhist insight practices. .
50th minute of video he confirms eyes-open too. Play at double speed as they both talk pretty slow. He probably was in the state of "not caring" silence: eyes open he saw a "garuda" on his bed, but ignored it and went to sleep.
Ingram calls buddhist/traditional teaching humans like growing mushrooms, the Mushroom Culture: "Keep them in the dark, feed them shit."
Around 1h31m40s mark he says for entrance price of 140-150 hours you get into a level of "of course it works", but if not pursuing further not long after, level decreases and it seems inconceivably far."
Danl999:
>50th minute of video he confirms eyes-open too.
That's good news!