Heads Up Castenada Fans

[cheya]

An Untitled Sequel To The Sorcerer's Crossing

is due out at the end of this month.

 

Taisha Abelar's first book, The Sorcerer's Crossing, a Woman's Journey, was the story of her training with Castenada's teacher Don Juan and his party of sorcerers, who taught sorcery as a pragmatic endeavor by means of which you can directly perceive energy. Actually doing that demands an enormous amount of energy, which you can acquire by freeing yourself from your normal capacity to perceive. The Sorcerer's Crossing describes Taisha's training to acquire enough energy to make the Sorcerer's Crossing.

 

The Sorcerer's Crossing refers in part to the corpus callousm where right and left brains communicate.

 

The first book was a life changer for me, and I can hardly wait to read this one!

 

 

[Starjumper]

I enjoyed The Sorcerer's Crossing a lot and saw in their training some good parallels with some Taoist methods of chi kung and kung fu. My #1 student and I did their chi kung a few times when I rented the DVD. The movements are more sudden than chi kung and the intents they use are very interesting. There are three women in the video and my student calls them the scary women because they never smile.

[fiveelementtao]

An Untitled Sequel To The Sorcerer's Crossing

is due out at the end of this month.

 

Taisha Abelar's first book, The Sorcerer's Crossing, a Woman's Journey, was the story of her training with Castenada's teacher Don Juan and his party of sorcerers, who taught sorcery as a pragmatic endeavor by means of which you can directly perceive energy. Actually doing that demands an enormous amount of energy, which you can acquire by freeing yourself from your normal capacity to perceive. The Sorcerer's Crossing describes Taisha's training to acquire enough energy to make the Sorcerer's Crossing.

 

The Sorcerer's Crossing refers in part to the corpus callousm where right and left brains communicate.

 

The first book was a life changer for me, and I can hardly wait to read this one!

 

Here's another good book.

My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace

I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

[Spirit Ape]

Hi Starjumper,

 

What did you think of the dvd magical passes?

 

Spirit Ape

[Starjumper]

Hi Starjumper,

 

What did you think of the dvd magical passes?

 

Spirit Ape

 

I didn't get much out of it but then it could be because I wasn't tuned in to the right thing and I only practiced it a couple of times, not a fair trial. What I like to get from doing an energy practice is to get a lot of energy going in my body and head and I didn't feel that. Have you tried it?

 

Of course magical passes does not describe itself as chi kung but it does describe energy work as being done. One thing that is a bit funny is that during part of the program they yell the word 'intent', and they do it with a lot of intent =)

Edited November 16, 2008 by Starjumper7

[Starjumper]

Here's another good book.

My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace

I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

 

I just read a few chapters of one of his books ... of all the pros and cons I heard about him what felt like truth to me was that he met several shamans of the tradition, who he learned from, but lumped them all together under one name.

 

One thing that impressed me was that Don Juan would go out in the desert at night and see if he could locate energy fields caused by some shaman practicing in that location. I know that is probably true because wherever I practice the location remains energized for quite a while and most people would probably not know enough about it to make it up. Scanning an area with my hand can reveal to me where people have practiced. I can also go to camp sites in the mountains and I can tell, by scanning with my hand at waist level, which ones were slept in the previous night and whether there was one or two people in a tent, due to the energy they left in the ground. I can also tell if they were healthy or sick. Backpackers in remote areas all leave healthy and energetic imprints, but I scanned a tent site in a car camp area and could tell the person was sick so I only did that once.

[Spirit Ape]

Hi Mate,

 

Nah, i havent tried the Magical passes i watched it found it strange indeed!'

 

Interesting about scanning site though...

 

Ape

[Apech]

Here's another good book.

My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace

I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

 

 

I read Amy Wallace's book and found it very gossipy and a little bit spiteful. To be honest an ex-lover is never going to be a big fan.

 

It seems to me that CC was surrounded by scary women at the end of this life and I have seen on youtube an interview with the three cagoules (or whatever they call themselves) and I find transegrity (?) completely unconvincing. Too tense, too overtly dramatic and would not stand up against any half decent Qi Gong practice.

 

For me CC's books are very inspiring and no 'fraud' could do that, in that way. They are full of powerful ideas which stand up to my scrutiny (and I am very hard to please!). I don't think he was a genius - I think he encountered one or possibly more than one genuine practitioners and enough rubbed off on him to write the books - but when left to his own devices it all went pear shaped - which is basically what the books describe as the 'three pronged nagual'. So in that sense I would take the books at face value - up to and not including 'Magical Passes'.

[cheya]

An Untitled Sequel To The Sorcerer's Crossing

is due out at the end of this month.

 

Taisha Abelar's first book, The Sorcerer's Crossing, a Woman's Journey, was the story of her training with Castenada's teacher Don Juan and his party of sorcerers, who taught sorcery as a pragmatic endeavor by means of which you can directly perceive energy.

 

After writing this, I reread the Sorcerer's Crossing, which I last read in the early 90s. It means so much more to me now! Abelar is are talking about "the double", which is the repository of your body's energy, and separating the Double (energy body) from the physical body so that you can move your attention back and forth between the two precisely. Reading this, I realized that is exactly what I've beenteaching myself to do in my chi and bodywork practices!

 

Some time ago I noticed I could not think and feel chi flow at the same time. This helped me pay more attention to which state I was in. Then recently I discovered that if I got totally into Sudoku puzzles for an hour or two, I had trouble reconnecting with the chi flow. This fascinated me, that I could get so deeply into the left brain that I would have trouble switching over to the right. So I've been practicing, switching modes between deep mental concentration over to feeling the chi flow. To do that quickly, I use the short cut to chi flow provided by chinese exercise balls! (I know! What a weird chi practice! Do some Sudoku, and then play with the exercise balls to see how long it takes me to feel the chi flow!) Sounds goofy, but this is really helping me facilitate the right brain left brain switch!

 

I'm in a Diamond Heart style inquiry group, working with questions like "What's right about limiting the immediacy of your experience?" and "How are you limiting the immediacy of your experience in this very moment?" This addresses the same thing, the ability to stay out of the thinking conditioned mind of everyday agreements, and remain AMAP in pure perception. (HA! Maybe someday!) An example of immediacy is seeing a spoon as color and shadow without the interpretation of it as a spoon. (Question: get stuck in that perception and how do you EAT?) So how to be able to switch intentionally between different levels of immediacy (uninterpreted perception) back to perceiving the everyday world in a way that allows me to function?

 

Abelar says the Sorcerer's Crossing involves bringing the Double, the energetic body, into our daily awareness. Both at the same time? I don't know yet, but I'm hot on the trail. Are other people able to manage this?

 

I tried the Tensegrity exercises for about 10 minutes, and was never interested in them, but I'm fascinated by the doorway Castenada's tradition opens into direct perception and dropping the conditioning that prevents us from "seeing" energy directly. Abelar says that actually doing that demands an enormous amount of energy, which you can acquire by doing the process she calls the Recapitualtion, which involves reviewing your entire life and drawing back all the energy you have invested in the past. Sorcerer's Crossing provides detailed instructions for the Recapitulation process.

[Apech]

I just googled Taisha Abelar and it said on Wiki:

 

"Taisha Abelar, born Maryann Simko, is an American author and anthropologist who was a close associate of Carlos Castaneda. She disappeared shortly after Castaneda's death in 1998."

 

Is there any explanation as to where she has been for the last 10 years?

[宁]

An Untitled Sequel To The Sorcerer's Crossing

is due out at the end of this month.

 

 

tell me please, where and who did you find this out from?

[cheya]

tell me please, where and who did you find this out from?

 

I found it online trying to Google search the actual text of Sorcerer's Crossing. It seems to have been published in Europe earlier in the year, and to be out in the states end of this month. You can google it as below. Amazon has a listing. Overstock.com is offering it as a preorder. Very odd!

 

Untitled Sequel Sorcerer's Crossing by Taisha Abelar

 

By Taisha Abelar, Abelar Taisha - Penguin Group USA (2008) - Paperback - ISBN 0140193677

[Mal]

Since we were having a bit of fun with Sorcerer's Crossing recently in the book club I happened across this thread again.

 

Searching for the ISBN reveals a publishing date of August 2010 (amazon UK) did the 2008 one ever get published?

[Apech]

From what I can determine the book was withdrawn and never published.

[cheya]

Since we were having a bit of fun with Sorcerer's Crossing recently in the book club I happened across this thread again.

 

Searching for the ISBN reveals a publishing date of August 2010 (amazon UK) did the 2008 one ever get published?

 

I had the book on order for months and months.... every couple months they'd send a new projected publication date, but I eventually cancelled.

[goldisheavy]

Well, all the best ideas were already spelled out in the Castaneda books we already have. They are missing some of the links. For example, the books teach you to disconnect from your history. So as you review your history, and you ritualistically move your head left to right and breathe in tune with the movement, you are mentally releasing the "hooks" that those historical events have on you. That's a very interesting teaching, but they don't tell you why and how this releases the power.

 

And something like that does release the power, because what it does is weaken the rigidity of the structure that your mind/being has. Those historical events are not just things that merely happened. They are things we believe in. They are things we believe are real. They are things we believe are important. They are things we believe define who we are today. They are things that limit us by defining us. If I define water as wet, it can no longer be dry. That's a limit. A sorcerer is someone who weakens the limitations to allow for experience to be more creative and less rigid (with fewer rules).

 

Another example is a teaching on self-importance. Why is self-importance undesirable for a sorcerer? Again this is not explained. They tell us it's bad, but not why so. It's bad because if you take yourself seriously, you will be too afraid to take risks or to do strange things, that's why. For a sorcerer, that's bad, because a sorcerer is someone who seeks freedom. If I am very important, then I cannot recklessly endanger myself, and from the point of view of self-importance, even the slightest danger is seen as reckless stupidity, and thus an entire life is spent like a turtle in its shell mentally and of course, as a consequence, "physically" as well (not that there is a real distinction between the mind and the matter, but that's our language of today).

[Apech]

GiH,

 

Good points. But I understood this from CC's books so without checking I would say all these points are in there somewhere.

 

A.

[NoIdea]

Watch this:

 

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=8575648331106173390&ei=MMGJS96SLoicqQOT2Mk-&q=castaneda+%22tales+from+the+jungle%22&hl=en#

 

 

castaneda "tales from the jungle" bbc documentary on google video

 

www.sustainedaction.org is down at the moment but has lots of info on it too.

 

Some good ideas, but not much heart in it, even though don Juan says to choose "a path with heart", I wonder where the so called "heart" is in those teachings.

Edited February 28, 2010 by NoIdea

[cheya]

Today I came across a free link to what is supposed to be Taisha Abelar's unpublished book, presumably the one mentioned when this thread started in 2008!
I haven't read it yet, have no idea what to think.

 

But here ya go...

https://archive.org/details/taishas-unpublished-text/page/n11/mode/2up

[silent thunder]

On 11/15/2008 at 12:29 PM, cheya said:

An Untitled Sequel To The Sorcerer's Crossing

is due out at the end of this month.

 

Taisha Abelar's first book, The Sorcerer's Crossing, a Woman's Journey, was the story of her training with Castenada's teacher Don Juan and his party of sorcerers, who taught sorcery as a pragmatic endeavor by means of which you can directly perceive energy. Actually doing that demands an enormous amount of energy, which you can acquire by freeing yourself from your normal capacity to perceive. The Sorcerer's Crossing describes Taisha's training to acquire enough energy to make the Sorcerer's Crossing.

 

The Sorcerer's Crossing refers in part to the corpus callousm where right and left brains communicate.

 

The first book was a life changer for me, and I can hardly wait to read this one!

Are you familiar with the work of Julian Jaynes? 

His work: The Origin of Consciouness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind  was an absolute game changer for me.  Your sharing resonates the focus of Julian's insights in this work. 

 

I highly recommend it.

Edited March 7, 2021 by silent thunder
added link to the book

[manitou]

On 11/15/2008 at 7:04 PM, fiveelementtao said:

 

Here's another good book.

My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace

I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

 

 

As many people, including myself,  received benefit from Castaneda, he wasn't a fraud.  This argument comes up every single time Castaneda's name is brought up here.  There's nothing fraudulent about Carlos' self-examination, the inner work, the self-tracking, that he writes about.  The books are masterful, IMO.  Colorful and masterful.  The poor man may have lost it later in life.  Hey, I'm losing it too.  Any of us may be.  His teaching Carlos to 'stop the world' is akin to wei wu wei.

 

My husband and I studied those books, read multiple times.  That path will bring you to the same place that they all do.

[manitou]

On 2/21/2010 at 5:28 PM, goldisheavy said:

 

Another example is a teaching on self-importance. Why is self-importance undesirable for a sorcerer? Again this is not explained. They tell us it's bad, but not why so. It's bad because if you take yourself seriously, you will be too afraid to take risks or to do strange things, that's why. For a sorcerer, that's bad, because a sorcerer is someone who seeks freedom. If I am very important, then I cannot recklessly endanger myself, and from the point of view of self-importance, even the slightest danger is seen as reckless stupidity, and thus an entire life is spent like a turtle in its shell mentally and of course, as a consequence, "physically" as well (not that there is a real distinction between the mind and the matter, but that's our language of today).

 

 

Self importance involves ego.  Achieving clarity is something that is achieved with ego in the back seat.  The ability to transcend ego and not see something from specifically your point of view is what is required here.  To do it masterfully takes many years of self-examination and further work to send set dynamics within yourself into a different direction.  The ability to feel, to know, that all beings are one and the same, enables a person to see things from any viewpoint, not just the one created by their own conditioning.

 

Carlos didn't spend much time at all explaining the inner workings of his particular 'recapitulation', as they called it.  In AA we call it 'working the steps of recovery'.  It's the same thing.  Particular tendencies within ourselves must be rooted out because it skews our vision if we still have a lot of 'buttons' inside - those buttons that can easily be pushed by anybody with a mind to.  You'll know if you're making progress on getting rid of your buttons when you find that you're not getting angry anymore over something that would have really made you react in an earlier time.  Carlos first got tasked with his life recapitulation early on in the books - maybe the first or the second book - and then periodically throughout the series he would mention something about the inner work, but not very often at all.  It would be easy to miss this part of the instruction, unless one was ready to see it at the particular moment it was read.

 

Recapitulation involves making apologies when required - especially if it's something huge in your life, a tendency that really gets in the way.  Things like 'taking offense easily', getting feelings hurt often.  This is the hallmark of one who is still ruled by their early-in-life reactions, and whose vision is always colored by this button.

 

I would venture to say that the recapitulation part of Carlos' instruction was the most important of all.  It is the one thing in my own life that has had the most dramatic effect on my choices and my development.  I don't know why it was that Carlos didn't emphasize this a little more.  But on the other hand, if one is truly ready for that path, it will reach out and grab you one way or the other.

 

It could very well be that Carlos didn't realize the power of these actions - recapitulation of his life - until he achieved the type of clarity he was seeking.  That would have been much further along in his books, and by then they were all already written.  It has taken me 40 years of inner watchfulness to achieve any degree of clarity at all.

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by manitou

[Apech]

@manitou

 

I like the way you are replying to posts from ten years ago.  That's timeless indeed.

[manitou]

On 3/9/2021 at 3:26 PM, Apech said:

@manitou

 

I like the way you are replying to posts from ten years ago.  That's timeless indeed.

 

 

LOL.  You know that linear time is an illusion, don't you?