booklist/physical_paper_books
On Having Physical Paper Books
Daniel Lawton:
I have a strange recommendation.
Use physical books if you can afford them. But get the pdf too, for research. You can search that copy.
The partial reason for my recommendation is that your intent gets embedded into the books as you read.
They become power objects.
And those books are a map. What I mean by that is, they tell you want to pay attention to, in any situation you might encounter.
Especially stuff that you've been trained to ignore, or deny.
Once you have the map in your mind, you'll know it's a choice to ignore those things. And you can make the opposite choice, and possibly get the rewards shown on the map.
Let's say you had a wild berry map, for Washington.
There's a lot of juicy berries up there in Washington! For free!
But, and this is just an analogy, let's say your parents are paranoid, and have trained you from youth to NEVER eat the wild berries.
In one hand you have the map, showing you that at the other end of a particular trail are the sweetest berries of all.
There's even a picture of a man with his lips stained by berry juice, holding a big handful.
But as you try to take a step for the trail, your parents training gives you a little ache in your stomach. You feel that it's wrong. You even start to make excuses. The trail is dangerous. Too long.
But, you have the map! So you know, it's a choice. And maybe your parents are kind of crazy.
That’s what the books are. Maps. And your intent can go into them.
Cholita has a little shrine for her old books, with a necromancer's pyramid black candle to protect it.
From me I supposed. If you come across La Catalina in the books, that's Cholita. For me at any rate.
She's decided that we're mortal enemies, except when we're shopping. When that happens, she merely loathes me with a passion, shouting insults from the other end of the store.
And I have absolutely no doubt that if I snuck into that area of the house around 4AM, where she keeps her book shrine, there's a 1 in 4 chance Cholita herself would show up, in her dreaming body.
Her dreaming body is solid enough to push those books if she had the inclination.
...
I'll paraphrase Carlos on this:
At night, you can sometimes see Cholita's copies of Carlos' books walking around the house.
Just kidding. But then now that I said it...
...
u/DreamingTheDouble
>From me I supposed. If you come across La Catalina in the books, that's Cholita. For me at any rate.
>She's decided that we're mortal enemies, except when we're shopping. When that happens, she merely loathes me with a passion, shouting insults from the other end of the store.
LOL, I can't stop laughing at the visual this puts in my mind. I love it!
Also, I read another of your posts the other day where you said out of nowhere she yelled something in the store about liking sex, and what would you have of her? To be a virgin? Or something to that effect. And the fact you compare her to La Catalina instead of say, La Gorda. I don't envy you in the least!
Oh, and I'm glad you said that about the physical books. As, I too have had this feeling as well, but, it was nowhere near close enough to the surface to put words to it, like Tolteka17 said. It's something, a feeling, almost completely ineffable and hard to explain, but definitely palatable. Glad you clarified it!
Years ago, I loaned out the first book to a friend and his dog tore it up. Since then, I don't let anyone touch my Castaneda books!
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