Interested but don’t know where to start with this.

Start with the wiki page in the about section of the subreddit. It’s where I started and has a very comprehensive amount of information in it, you could probably learn solely from the wiki page and related topics found in the about section without ever even reading the books, that’s how much information and work the mods here have put into this sub. You’ve come to the right place friend. This is the only real door into the other side that I’ve found that isn’t diluted with people looking for material gain, and I’ve been looking for a door into the other side my entire life.

You got my attention while I was in the middle of darkroom practice. I saw something amazing and had to write about it in the private chat group, because when you move into other realities, it's hard to remember later.

In particular, I was remote viewing a group of practitioners not related to this group. They had a different technique than we do, and I didn't want to lose it.

So I'll give you very strange advice, since I have some right now. It would sound so nutty to a person stuck in a single reality, that they'd wonder why you would even say such a thing.

We're always very anxious for new people to see some real magic as fast as possible, so they move from being doubtful and confused, to realizing they found the real thing.

There's a barrier of effort for a beginner. Once they're watching real fairies and dragons flying around their dark room, we're done. It's up to them at that point.

But before that, they've been fooled before (everywhere else), and need to figure out, there is such a thing as real magic.

People will advise you how to proceed, from a technical point of view.

But the real battle is inside you. To find the time to practice, practice seriously, and not spend your time daydreaming instead of forcing silence.

If you don't get rid of that internal dialogue, that little talking voice in your head, you can't shift your perception of reality.

So I suggest that you try to identify which thoughts in your mind contain a high, "ME" content. Which thoughts are mostly an obsession with defending or getting something for, "YOU".

As if YOU were a thing, and all your efforts had to go into protecting it from other people's thoughts and actions.

Just try not to allow those thoughts for too long, and focus on something else instead. That in itself can lead to a weird form of magic.

For a newbie, those thoughts might include, "This isn't going to work, why am I wasting MY time like this."

Or, "That's too crazy! Am I supposed to believe Fairies and Dragons are going to appear in the darkness? They expect ME to be that stupid?"

Gently relax those. Take a look at this picture in the link below. See the beam of awareness focused down in the middle? But there's a larger circle of possible things to be aware of:

https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/pg2ppp/my_favorite_technique_lately/

Moving that beam is not the same as moving your assemblage point. The assemblage point is what we use to summon magic. We move it along the J curve shape, down the back and up the front.

But at any given location, there's a whole reality you can experience.

So within that, try to avoid noticing, ME.

Or maybe more obvious, don't be self-absorbed or self-obsessed.

That's what makes people give up, before they get to see the dragons and fairies.

Which sends them back to places like the shamanism subreddit, where it's virtually all pretending.

(unfortunately).

Don't think of advice not to be self-absorbed, the way a religions person or saint might mean it.

They're worse! Even more self-absorbed.

When we speak of "ego" in here, we don't mean your table manners. Or how pushy you are. Or how aggressive you are around other people.

We mean, a tiny little copy of yourself who lives only in your mind. A hurt, worried, afraid child trying to keep up with his family members, as a baby. He knows he need to have that weird copy of himself in mind, so he can predict what bad or good things might happen next, if he keeps that comparison going in his mind.

Instead of simply gazing around the room at the wonders, the way babies do.

He stops watching the world as much, in order to defend himself against those around him.

That produces a miniature "him" in his thinking.

A "ME".

That obsession over defending himself as a separate thing, causes the baby do stop looking at the wonders he's been born into, and focus only on the human aspects of it.

So if someone says, "eliminate ego" in here, they don't mean anything at all like someone who practices Buddhism means.

The ego is like a stow away on a ship, causing engine troubles all the time. Like a gremlin.

It'll sabotage your chances to find real magic also.