Quick midnight reflexion: just as Don Juan said, once you start walking along the way of the warrior, it'll haunt you forever and won't let you go. You'll get back on track eventually, one way or another.
They've been some rough times lately, and a couple moments ago, as I was ready to wallow within my self compassion, listening to some music, it kicked in again: I don't relate to this anymore. I don't relate to the feeling of self pity, or letting myself fall for others to pick me up. Then the fire within came around, and now I face a new insight: what does one do when you stop relating to others? Or stop relating to stuff like music, books, art, whatever? Kind of makes you feel out of place, and when you feel that way, where do you go and what do you do? For I've been letting life go by, flowing with it, laughing at it, and I'm planning on doing it again once I recover my will.
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Get some stones/crystals and force silence! Get or make a padded stick! Do recap! Do tensegrity!
This sub is filled with things to DO! Pick one (or more!) and work on it daily. That's how you develop will, by laboring at something difficult/interesting to the double...and not stopping.
Your ennui is because half of you is lost somewhere out there in infinity.
Work to bring it back 😤
For me, it hit hard when I was out walking on a trail with my girlfriend and we came across what looked like a beaver just sitting on a log, looking away from the trail. As we got closer with the dogs, it was strange because the creature didn't move at all. Slowly it dawned on us that it was dead. I had to be curious and walk full circle around to see the face -- big mistake, most of it was eaten away and red and gory. In all this, and having felt a slight shock, I thought, "what is this trying to tell me" .. having been sort of in that position questioning how I'm doing my work -- I do a quick google 'what does seeing a beaver mean' to which I was gifted an excellent article describing one man's encounters with beavers on land that he walks on, and the message that jumped out of the page from the article was 'beavers when they work, they have the often incorrect reputation that they are hard workers, and achieve this work in the same fashion as ants, or assembly line workers: tireless devotion to a single task, never ceasing.' What the author of the piece suggested was that 'if you observe beavers you find this to be completely untrue. The way that beavers actually work is to float from task to task around the pond, helping others where they are able, but oftentimes if another beaver is in the way, they move on to other tasks and keep working rather in this way. '
so be flexible in your task when the world is throwing you curveballs, and when you're not directly in charge of your time
easier for some, hellish for others 😣
So I'm expecting you to learn to shapeshift into a beaver.
We're going to be able to do that!
My inorganic being "Fancy" is working on teaching me.
Last night she was turning into insects for me, so I could watch the process. It's more about dark energy, then human energy.
I suspect what happens is, you play with your inorganic being a bunch in their "ghost" form, and it's all fun and games (except when they try to scare you).
As your assemblage point moves further along the J curve, your double starts to participate more.
They figure out how to use it's energy, to become solid.
Vicente's allies could even act independently of him, on a que from plants being put into the ground.
Carlos was fully awake, not in heightened awareness, and thought they were just ordinary people stuck on the side of the road.
Currently no one's inorganic being can do that, at least, not in this subreddit.
But it's coming!
Juan should be on the lookout for moths. I believe that's Fairy's old form.
Made some guest appearances on book covers for the witches.
Not true. I wish it was.
Don't forget, don Juan said that if you give up along the path of the warrior, you forever get to keep your gains.
If you conquered the first enemy, fear, you will always be somewhat fearless.
If you gained clarity, you will get to keep that.
But if you quit, you join the ranks of the petty tyrants forever.
I've seen that first hand!
I can't get ANYONE from private classes to return. I can't even get them to help a tiny bit, by reminding me of something, or making a picture with their cellphone that would be easy for them.
The entire community is dead. No magic.
Some very old practitioners. Practiced almost as long as I did (53 years).
Some already dead. Some dying. Cholita's friends have become old, blind, and fat.
All of private classes gave up.
All of the "inner circle" failed to learn anything convincing.
No magic. Gone and angry.
But, don't let that be you!
Go for it!!!
Let me repeat a point I made yesterday, in an obscure location in here.
Sorcery is all about the position of the assemblage point.
If you stop practicing, no matter how far you got, it all goes away and seems like a dream. That's because the assemblage point moves back to its normal position.
Stupidity will take you back in a manner of months.
In weeks you won't be sure why you were doing all that nonsense.
In days, you'll be feeling sorry for yourself again.
Sorcery is possibly, the most temporary and fragile thing you can learn to do.
Dan, can you give us some more general advice on how to conquer fear? My sister is a naval psychologist and she always says that exposure therapy actually works, but what would CC say? I know he spoke a lot in the books about winning clarity and defeating fear but I'm curious about what he had to say concerning the matter in his private classes.
Carlos didn't like to add to our inventory.
I didn't understand why very well, until I started working in this subreddit.
So he never mentioned that topic at all!
I never had that problem.
Fancy, my inorganic being, pounced on me at 5 years old.
In the form of Satan himself, pitchfork and all.
Did it nightly for months, until I kind of liked the fear sensation.
I am of course assuming it was Fancy. No way to tell for sure at my level.
The way you identify them is by their "hue", but you have to be able to see those.
It'll be some very refined variety of pink in her case.
I'd say, become a roller coaster fan.
Watch all of the hell raiser movies several times.
Go look at dead people somewhere.
But who knows if that would really work.
Funny you should suggest that because I've seen so many gruesome pictures and videos around the web that not even the most horrific ISIS beheading videos phase me anymore, yet I still fear what I might see in the darkroom.
I guess the only way to get over it is to just keep practicing
But please do me a favor.
Notice carefully what you are thinking when you are afraid, and share it with us once you overcome it.
A lot seems to be motivated by the Judeo/Christian myth.
So let me say right now, I've seen everything the prophets saw, and can interact with it daily.
They made a bunch of stuff up!
It was for the good of society, but don't let the judeo/christian description of demons worry you.
It's completely false. Obscene if you ask me.
I'm not afraid of eternal damnation or red monsters poking me with pitchforks if that's what you mean. My rational brain knows that nothing I see will hurt me but there's some small part of me that fears an IOB might rip my soul out of my body or something.
But I'll pay close attention and report back when I have more to say
Great! We need to figure this out.
My conclusion: You aren't afraid at all. It's the assemblage point moving, and you're used to that only happening when you are afraid.
So it's like Pavlov's dogs.
In fact, I'm sorry to say, our whole existence is a lot like Pavlov's dogs.
That inspirational quote about the "unknown Tonal", posted in the last day or two, has an explanation.
It was something like, "We can't even understand the Tonal, let alone the Nagual."
You don't need a demonstration to learn that. You slowly see it in the darkroom, when you play with intent.
We react like Pavlov's dogs to everything. And that creates our reality.
When we believe we "understand it", it only means, we trust that the snack is soon coming because the bell is ringing.
Thanks for the Pavlov analogy, I think that'll help me push further
[deleted]
You were definitely right about the Pavlov analogy, I reminded myself that my reaction of fear was only conditioning and what I was feeling was actually movement of the AP, I was still a bit skeptical but I felt more confident than before. When I practiced that night I saw my first full on phantom (or maybe an actual IOB, it didn't last long enough for me to say for sure). It was a rotten zombie with a swollen head and missing it's jaw. I was more excited than anything, but of course the excitement broke my silence and it faded out rather quickly. Shortly after that I saw another phantom in the shape of the head and upper torso of a Hispanic woman. That one faded quickly too. Unfortunately that was the best night I've had so far. Soimetimes I'll see tiny specks of color that seem like they're starting to form into a monster or a person, but never in full detail like that night.
Yesterday I was driving home and I remembered I haven't tried yelling "Intent!" yet so I yelled and yelled until I couldn't anymore because I had started coughing. That night I saw a tiny speck of bright white light as I was sitting in my chair. I was staring at it and then it zoomed downward. I was disappointed that it was gone but then I thought maybe it was an IOB trying to get me to do something so I layed down on the floor on my stomach and looked at the spot it zoomed toward. It appeared again and seemed to lead me to the spot between my bed and my dresser. I just started reading the books so I thought maybe it was trying to lead me the best "spot" in my room. I had some stuff there that I had to move, namely my bass guitar and a trash can so I moved the trash to the opposite corner of my room and I picked up my bass and was about to put it on my bed when I had the thought that maybe the IOB wanted me to play it instead. I have some musical talent but I don't actually know how to play the bass, so I kind of just noodled around playing what felt right. The colors intensified and vague details of a face phased in and out. After a while
I decided that I wasn't getting any worthwhile results and went and sat in the spot where my bass was. I sat in a bunch of different positions there and didn't notice anything special, so perhaps it really was an IOB trying to get me to play bass. I haven't read anything here regarding a connection between IOBs and music, do you think there is any connection there or were my results simply because playing an instrument I don't know how to play forced my internal dialogue silent?
I'll do more experimentation with the bass/trying different spots in my room over the next few days, hopefully I can get more results.
God I love those!!!
Better if they are female, and sort of hot.
"intent" liked your efforts, and rewarded you.
At first, it will be very frustrating that you can't repeat it the next night or two.
But over time, you learn "the how", and give up on worrying about "the what".
"How" is whatever you were doing, that caused intent to gift you.
"What" is the gift.
Being able to repeat the gift is witchcraft. And takes far too much effort to be worth it.
Being able to repeat the "how" is sorcery. You learn how to invoke intent.
So a witch might learn how to do a single magical thing. Which is very cool!
But a sorcerer can listen to what you want to do, and simply shout, "Intent!!!"
And it happens.
Sounds like you have read one of the first 4 books.
Those are the point of view of the old "Men of Knowledge", who were in fact, not seers. They were tradesmen, trading in ritualistic magical services.
And so, they understood "finding your spot" as a way to gather "energy" from around you. A ritual.
A seer can make his own "spot", anywhere he likes. He can even make a portal into another world, where his "spot" will go.
Cholita, my witch friend, did that!
And for a seer, the importance of "finding your spot", is just the same as darkroom gazing.
No different. Don Juan taught Carlos dark room gazing, as the very first thing he did.
Think about it! He was crawling around gazing at the dirt, look for colors.
He didn't find them, until it got dark outside.
Music?
Should be possible to use that, but so far no one has.
In fact, the music seems to get stuck in people's heads, and is harder to remove than the internal dialogue.
And be careful. You are "trying" an awful lot in that account.
Trying prevents the downward movement of the assemblage point, along the "J Curve".
We are after that. The downward movement.
Trying moves it horizontally.
That can be fun, but you can get "stuck" there.
Focus mostly on perfecting silence at first.
If a zombie with a rotten eye shows up, and threatens to murder you, just say, "Hey, you're always welcome here!"
And go back to forcing silence.
By the way, drugs make it harder to learn. For instance, a 50mg THC gummy bear, is like putting a neutral density filter over the colors in the darkroom. And damages them for a good 12 hours.
You can still find them, but they're very dull.
Stronger stuff such as shrooms, burn trails that go horizontally, messing things up when you try to do it sober.
I've never seen a big shroom user, keep going until they learn sorcery.
They always flake out.
Yeah I thought that was a no-go. The whole idea of a "not-doing" is a real brain buster.
Not sure why you mentioned the drugs, I dabbled in them in the past but that stuff is way behind me now. Were you perhaps thinking of someone else?
One more question for you, the point of practice is to loosen the AP, so it doesn't matter whether I do darkroom or recap as long as I do one of the two every day, correct? I wish I had the time to do a few hours of both each day but it just isn't feasible during the week
You sounded too talented, that's all.
It was sort of a compliment, if it's true you didn't use them to help you out.
If you stick around, you'll find that there are people with fantastic experiences in here, who fail to mention the use of drugs.
So it wasn't aimed at you. I was just trying to make sure you weren't wasting my time.
Which to do, recap or darkroom "puffery"?
That depends on you. If you are going to keep going, do recap first.
My darkroom stuff is notoriously realistic looking. So much so, people probably assume I'm exaggerating. But I'm not.
That's from doing recap. I did an obsessive one.
First I made a list of every event in my life that I could remember.
It was 35 pages of tiny writing, each one just the topic, not the specifics.
It's been a long time. My numbers might be off on how many pages something was.
As I recapped each item on the list, the list expanded.
It didn't shrink!
I'd guess, it expanded to 80 pages, but I was tossing them out as I finished each one, so who knows...
When it was done, I went to visit every place I ever lived, and walked around to get more.
I visited every park, vacation spot, movie theater, and any other category I could find, each one producing several new pages.
When that was done, I went to the grocery store and looked at every single item on the shelf. That created at least 30 more pages.
By then, recap was amazing for me. Filled with the sort of magic I posted in the recap wiki. Vortexes, magical beings, body splitting into 2 beings, voices speaking loudly to me. Going into the recap crate, only to find myself walking around in another part of the house.
It wasn't boring at all!
Finally, I got a small travel dictionary, and took it one word at a time, from the As.
I stopped at the Ms, because of something Carlos was doing, which got my interest.
But by then, my life was like a giant spider web in front of me, with an event at each junction. I could gaze at each one, and daydream that event.
Meaning, I got most of my energy back from my life's events.
On the other hand, if you don't get real magic right in your face as soon as possible, including a few "impossible" events happening to you, there's a danger life will suck you back up, and you won't practice.
So I suggest dark room gazing is safer.
You may simply have to accept "transparent" inorganic beings and objects.
And when you assemble another world on the walls, it'll be difficult to see the details of it.
BUT, Zuleica told the truth.
Once the assemblage point moves to where the dreaming double is present, recap is irrelevant.
I guess it all goes back to what DJ always said which was to use death as your advisor. This was always enigmatic to me to some degree but I guess the problem is it's hard for me to assume a ruthless mood on the spot. But I think that practicing dreaming more will help. DJ would force Carlos to assume this mood by playing tricks on him as we all know, and I have the best petty tyrant for life with 24/7 access, but I honestly don't need her anymore.
The real problem is that I'm so out of practice these days because I'm on a nasty medication (due to a misdiagnosis years ago after what some would call shaman sickness or "initiation") that makes intent inert for me unless I'm off the drug. It'll be a long year or possibly two to get off of it, but gradually things will get better--it just feels like I'm sitting on the sidelines right now. I've been able make progress over the past couple of years by using sleep deprivation but I'm too old for that shit now, ha.
I'm afraid to say, you just have to work twice as hard as everyone else.
Sorry to say that, because it's already too much work for nearly all people!
The only strategy for you would be, to get to the fun stuff as fast as possible.
I can't begin to describe how fun it gets!
I've had a little gnat in my dark room for more than a week now.
I keep the door open, but it won't leave.
I come home, it greets me, then leaves me alone.
It flies up to my eyes, doesn't land, I say hello, and it leaves. And I can't even find where it's gone.
But last night, Fancy picked up on it. Or she was the cause.
She demonstrated turning into a gnat for me, over and over.
And put the idea in my head, that all inorganic beings can become "real".
It's just an evolution that all sorcerers will encounter.
So there was no reason to mention it in the books, although they do have inorganic being behavior we couldn't explain, until now.
Like how they can be given to someone as a "real" object, but then hours later turn out to be IOBs.
That's the kind of fun you can have. There's plenty of new stuff to discover.
This is likely wrong but it's so fascinating, I'll mention it in case Cholita finally kills me off and I don't get another chance.
Inorganic beings have a "daytime" appearance. A real one.
Little Smoke looks like a white puff of smoke, which somehow holds itself together, and flies around.
I've seen it a bunch of times. I've even seen it push things, to help out Cholita.
Minx has a smoke shape too. It's flat like a very small cloud. Bluish, although you'd have to gaze closely to conclude it was blue.
Fancy is a twist of dark smoke. Like the very dark smoke that might come from a firework that had run of out steam, and was just emitting some left over dark smoke.
No more than 3 inches tall, and only 1/2 inch around, with twists and turns all along it. Dark like asphalt, but not jet black. So far it's always vertical, never horizontal like Minx.
When she transforms into a gnat, the dark smoke falls from just above my head where I can't see the origin, twists like smoke might normally twist in air currents, but then it takes on the movements of a mosquito, looking for a landing spot.
Instead of just falling, it twists and it seems to be trying to put it's legs in the right spot to set down.
Actually she turned into several flying insects last night. Mosquito, fly, gnat.
Between each transformation she flew around in a circle for me, around a person that wasn't actually there.
I was so far along the J curve, I didn't realize that she can't fly around me in a circle, all entirely in front of me.
I was located in 2 spots, as if I were kneeling in front of my self, sitting on the bed.
Who she was flying around is beyond my knowledge. He wasn't visible. And yet, he blocked her when she went around his back side.
So if you get an IOB and you make it to where the double is visible, keep an eye out for insects.
With Minx on the other hand, keep an eye out for rodents.
I always thought don Juan was just trying to scare Carlos in order to move his assemblage point, with his tale of IOBs riding on busses like ordinary people.
Now I have to think, maybe it was literal!
Maybe it's a dreaming double "assist".
To keep them, your double, focused on this realm, instead of drifting off into an alternate copy of reality.
Like an anchor for the double so they can be more useful?
I've recently been getting deeper into the r/aliens scene and after all these years the thought never occurred to me that IOBs are aliens in the broadest sense of the term. Do you know where Fancy came from? Also, how do you two communicate? I really hate r/aliens and wouldn't recommend you visit there because it's a toxic community, but I would be interested in your thoughts on aliens vs IOBs.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/aliens using the top posts of the year!
#1:
I'll never forget the day I watched Signs
#2:
Visiting my parents atm, start talking about Alien disclosure and my dad whips out his Naval Academy School Yearbook and starts telling me stories of him & Fravor back in the day 🤯
#3:
Aliens
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^Contact ^^me ^^| ^^Info ^^| ^^Opt-out
I believe that one day, real aliens will show up here.
The same as they did with the Toltecs.
And wiped them out. The Spanish invaders, that is.
So we can't get complacent and laugh when we hear about aliens.
They are in fact "out there". And I don't believe laws of physics put any limitations on us at all.
So they'll find a way here.
Here on earth, likely 99.999999 of encounters are surely IOBs.
And no, it never occurred to me to ask Fancy where she comes from.
She's shown me. It's an ice cave, on a dying world. Very cold. Probably methane gas, because the ice is "slick" and has no sharp edges anywhere.
I've seen Fairy's world. Little Smoke that is.
It's warm, and crowded.
Fancy has only Bob as far as I know. Everyone else is gone.
If I remember while she's around, I'll ask where it's located.
But you don't have the same motivations once you can see them. The "details" that might be interesting when you are in normal consciousness, seem irrelevant and harmful to learning more actual magic.
Or a better analogy: If you've been working for years to get your girlfriends clothes off, you don't stop in the middle of it, and ask where she's from originally.
Carlos said that Little Smoke and Devil's Weed come from the center of the universe.
But he also said that inorganic beings live here, with us, in other bands of emanations.
Does that mean that Little Smoke is special, because he doesn't actually come from here?
Could be.
But it could also be, our understanding of physical locations is not right.
And there's actually no "center of the universe".
I think it has to do with why they were there, and how they came to be on-board.
You were different because you were asked if you wanted to come in after they told you to stop with the Nagualist Newsletter. They were mostly referred people who were brought in by those already in classes or the circle, or who were enamored by Carlos the man and his prestige and allure.
Prestige and Allure Gone = No More Interest.
It's similar to how Kylie was rescued and brought in. And she is also steadfast (assuming).
Witch???
I hope that means female.
These days, you just don't know for sure. Male one day, female the next.
Like the death defier.
But Cholita needs a playmate either way.
Cholita needs a playmate? I’m up for the challenge (because I’m sure it will be a challenge lol)
You have no idea!
I pulled Cholita's copy of the house over into my room, thinking I could make an orderly darkroom to practice in. And that when she made a guest appearance, she couldn't get away by fleeing back into her virtual copy.
Her virtual copy was perfect. Like her living room. Nothing is wrong with it, except for an occasional rodent making noise.
And her vast hotel empire stretches for miles off the garage, but is realistic in all details. You can enter there, and never lose lucidity or wake up.
It's not like dreaming at all. You go in awake, and you can come out awake, and go to a different place than you started at.
When I pulled her living room into my room, from the floor, I thought I'd then get to "decorate it" as I wanted.
But it turned into a vast black wasteland of glowing fibers of light, stretching off into a very blurry copy of her part of the house. With a wind blowing all the time.
She noticed I'd done it, and didn't like it. So she did something about it.
It's the same as she did when she realized I could see her energy body.
Without even looking my direction, she'd hold up her palm to stop me. Just point it my direction, and the view of her energy body was gone.
Eventually all she had to do was point a finger back there, until finally she just refused to be around me long enough for me to see that.
Westerly witches can do that. Block your seeing.
She's done something similar with the room addition I made.
I don't suppose she figured, I'd like it better that way!
I like a vast wasteland of luminous fibers, with a wind always blowing!
New people: Don't try this at home.
Stick with the puffs until you get there. You'll probably find something even better on your own.
Didn't CC say that after you spin with an ally that there's no turning back or am I misremembering?
Once you embark on the way of the warrior, there is no turning back, was the OP's title for this user-deleted post. And the content was:
Quick midnight reflexion: just as Don Juan said, once you start walking along the way of the warrior, it'll haunt you forever and won't let you go. You'll get back on track eventually, one way or another.
They've been some rough times lately, and a couple moments ago, as I was ready to wallow within my self compassion, listening to some music, it kicked in again: I don't relate to this anymore. I don't relate to the feeling of self pity, or letting myself fall for others to pick me up. Then the fire within came around, and now I face a new insight: what does one do when you stop relating to others? Or stop relating to stuff like music, books, art, whatever? Kind of makes you feel out of place, and when you feel that way, where do you go and what do you do? For I've been letting life go by, flowing with it, laughing at it, and I'm planning on doing it again once I recover my will.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210404150634/https://old.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/lsu5gz/once_you_embark_on_the_way_of_the_warrior_there/