Hello, its very interesting that I received a communication from Sorcery on this day as my intention was to return today to talk about what I have learned in my practice of becoming a warrior on this very day. What an omen.
My History:Before I was introduced to Carlos Castaneda's Books , for over five years I have had a real interest in adapting the screenplay for a film called  "Stalker". An modern adaptation of Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker" and The PC Game Series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. But I wanted strengthen the spiritual component of the idea of the Stalker that originated in the book Tarkovskys Film was based on called Roadside Picnic. Back then I had a real interest in understanding what happens after the body dies in my own life that I want to some how convey in the screenplay.
It was then that I stumbled upon The Teachings of Don Juan in a bookstore. The Stalker concepts in the book were surprising to me in two ways: 1. That my story centers around the word "Stalker" and how each are used in different ways in the two different works and 2. That I think I might have found a good interpretation of what happens to the body after death. I read though all the books in about a year and afterwards I came to the realization that I was living my life very carelessly. I still have to this day a strong desire to indulge in self-importance. Im lazy, not consistent, I get distracted often and I could do better in living a disciplined life. Either way it has really help me to continue writing this project and I hope to include Don Juans methods into the metaphorical aspects of the film I am currently working on hoping to wake people out of the sleep I found myself in for many years.
I get the concept of the books, but I could do better at applying them to my life. As it stands right now. I'm reading a book "The teachings of Don Carlos" by victor sanchez to help me apply the practices to my life. I'm currently working on cataloging my energy expenditures. which involves a timer that alerts me every 30mins to inquire on paper my thoughts, my actions, and questioning myself on my actions. I get sidetracked easy and lose track of the fact that I am taking this inventory from time to time.

I wondered if anyone else found them selves having trouble becoming a warrior and how they are handling it in modern society? I think the biggest issue is being so close to a large population of people. On the weekends I go walking with my wife in the park my lack of practice diminishes. One day I would like to find a quieter place to practice Don Juans methods. 
Anyway I am happy to be back and look forward to learning a much as I can from everyone here. Thank you for keeping this site alive. Its a real help for me right now as things get worse on the planet.

Not sleeping so doing some stalking. I was back on some of the bark figures my dad had from his time in mexico. I showed them to an anthropologist on the huichal once. He said they were ones they dont sell to tourists, and never did in the 1960's.  My father had a friend who was from the lowland huichal, and he eventually ended up living with them and some time with the highland ones, who avoided even mexicans at the time. Whatever y father may have learned passed with him, and in all honesty, he thought about such things only as cultural art. Anys way using google to reflect a bit, as i dont feel like music or sleep or games or doodling atm, i found a interesting article. Well title, but also ravenmoons thread about aids and other things. Im jsut going to copy paste it here if anyone is interested.

Just for kicks i used to hang out on a forum dedicated to monsters and people who hunted them. Psychic investigators, werewolves, demon hunters and the like. It had its fair share of fruitcakes and a few casualities of the psychic romance section. In all though it was an interesting place to learn about the recording of altered states.Hanging out with the crazies one friend used to call it. I used to refer to it as an open air lunatic asylum. One that never shut.
What was interesting was witnessing how people spoke about their experiences, how they described them to themselves and others. Demon hunters would talk about liberating victims from possession, werewolves would describe their hunger and awesome shifts, vampires would talk about psychic feeding. What all of them did was in fact describe expereinces according to their over-arching beliefs. They would describe an experience via explanations from their paradigms. That was actually a very important destinction that i learned to differentiate between. I now understand there is a vast difference between a description and an explanation.
Occaisionally on this forum a real fruitcake would turn up and start mixing systems in a wild frenetic smorgasborg of explanatory word salad. It was funny at times but sad when you realised their was a real person on the other side of it all trying to come to terms with some genuinely wierd ****. What hardly ever happened was someone who would reduce themselves to a position of not knowing anything and simply describe what they saw heard felt, sans explanations. For some strange reason what i witnessed over and over again was that people have a need to appear to be in control. In the face of wierd experiences this urge to have an explanatory discourse was overbearing. I know because i have been there myself at times.
Which brings me ironically here. Here the paradigms are much more narrow. The common one is Castaneda. Others include zen, christianity etc. Each of these ways of viewing the world has an accompanying discourse, an explanatory set or words and concepts that we use. Again though what is rare is the individual who describes their experience without resorting to using explanations.
 
So to stay within the paradigm of sorcery for a moment i just want to look at the idea of 'sorceric writing', what its might be, how it might be done, its benefits and challenges. Its something i get a few ants in my pants over because so much writing on this subject is truly dreadful, and it needn't be. Its truly painful when people murder with words subjects that are dear to me. But enough of my pain and angst.
In the past i have referred to the act of talking about wierd experiences as 'perceptual phenomenology'. Its  a long word which sounds very clever and i have no idea if it is correct or not, i am merely hijacking the meaning because it feels right for the purposes i have for it, (a bit like the changed meaning of  'tensegrity'). Basically in its purest form it is merely describing our perceptions during an experience. It is a witness statement. We stay away from conclusions, we stay instead with the unadulterated evidence of our senses and awareness. For me just describing experiences is the purest form of communication possible. It allows us a very clear view of what has happened. In fact it may even be the most rational scientific approach to wierd events that we have. 
What is more these records are like open holograms that we as aware witnesses can enter into. They are energetic records of an event. We as readers of such sorceric writing can even help the writer to probe the experience further. Our questions about specific sensations thoughts etc are invitations for the writer to look deeper to recapture even more of the experience, to recapitulate (in a way)

Hey its late and i am being told off for typing late into the night. The first part of this thread is i feel unfinished. I will come back to clean up my mess tomorrow.

One starts with reading and exploring the world's knowledge. The ancient beliefs and texts. Learning about the mysteries of life. Relating to the living beings in your world. Trees, animals, insects, fish, how they relate to the world and to us. Learning to silence your mind so you can listen.

 Dreaming is key. You create a dreaming body and practice lucid moments in dreaming. Advancing this is to leave the body and be aware of the "complete" double you do this with. Once you have passed certain "gates" in dreaming the awake world becomes more fluid and your perception begins to change, waver.


 You will begin to change and realize what extent your control of your human mind is really yours. If you become a warrior you will seek to battle your inner "demon or foreign installation". Once you win this battle you will have to reconstruct your inner dialogue because it is how you have learned to function all those years. You will realize nothing matters. Death of the human body is final. You may seek escape from death. This will take learning to shift your awareness. 

A New Seer embraces the dreaming challenge. Learns to control the internal dialogue. Forms intent and becomes a fluid warrior/person. The expression "man of knowledge" applies to the new seers as it means they know the world for what it is and how it relates to the universe.
The new seers now must use this transformation and create the new path with heart for that is what the old seers lacked...heart.


Comments and questions are appreciated!

I want to learn about power animals, please anyone who is moved to speak.




thanks

"This forum is devoted to discussion of Carlos Castaneda and his books that revealed the teachings of the Nagual Don Juan
Matus."




Hey folks, Lone Wolf has asked me to moderate this forum, and I figured I'd give it a try. Not that it really seems to need moderating, but maybe I can
help draw some focus onto its original theme. So, I guess I'll start off with a post about my take on the man.




I've always pegged Castaneda as a "winner," as well as being somebody who sided with winners. His behavior, over the years, seemed to be guided
by this overall principal. The reason that I bring this up is because of the dreams I had that took place in the world of the death defiers. They are the
ultimate winners, in that it is actually their collective intent to take the path that gives every possible advantage. It had been a question in my mind, as I
experienced more and more within dreaming, how could somebody like Castaneda, start off knowing nothing about sorcery, but end up having learned the best of
all of sorcery's principals. It is not an accident that his books are basically the cream of sorcery, because what I believe is that his primary role
model was a death defier, and that Don Juan was probably aware of that.




As I see it, the entire spectrum of dreaming covers quite a bit of ground, but the part that operates through power is called sorcery. It is within that realm
of power that we cross paths with inorganic beings, sorcerers, naguals, death defiers and other inexplicable awareness. So, power is like a large river into
which other smaller rivers of awareness flow. This is where human and inorganic awareness can intermingle, but only within that main river of power.
Sorcerers therefore treat power as a medium, not a commodity. Within that river, I believe that Carlos was very discerning about what his intent was, and this
would probably serve as a good lesson to anyone that wants to accomplish something with dreaming and the nagual.




From what I can tell, a nagual man or woman must first be connected with some sort of lineage or path before they can become a nagual, they cannot be some sort
of free-floating nagual that is not an expression of any direction in particular. It's like, the fact that somebody is a nagual reveals that they have
taken a side, so to speak. The only difference between a possible nagual and an actual nagual, only being the ingredient of energetic commitment. So, first
and foremost, Castaneda was about his lineage, the only question being, what exactly was his specific direction within it?

"One of the marks of the Rainbow Body practise is excellent physical health and lately I'm reminded that this is important. I've been shoveling snow and chipping ice and today it was very clear that I needed to spend some time dealing with my own health. So I called in and told my boss I'm home for a day to get well. Makes me feel much less guilty knowing the storm cleanup is done and the only people who showed up today spent the storm riding around on snowplows.
I spent some time this morning doing my Rainbow meditations, and I began them in a very tired and worn and painful physical condition. I sat in full lotus, focused on a point in the sky miles away from here, and kept my attention on that point. I think the simplest rules are the best and the one that applies most often is that chi follows mind. If you place your attention on your fingertip and hold it there, your awareness of your fingertip intensifies and it begins to accumulate energy. If you place your attention on a point a few thousand feet up and a few miles away in the early morning sky, and hold it there, chi flows to that point and your awareness of that point intensifies. But you've placed your attention outside yourself so the energy that gathers there is universal energy, not personal energy.
I did that until without trying to, I saw a point of golden light come into existence there, and I kept my attention on it and watched what happened as rainbow spectrums of light swirled into it. It kept growing in intensity, radiating as much white as gold, with spikes of energy shooting off in six directions, a diamond pattern of light. After I held it a considerable length of time I began to bring it back, and I noticed as I drew it closer that it naturally traveled in a spiral path. It settled into the top of my head finally and, well, that's hard to describe. Felt good, though, and right away it seemed that the damage of the past few days began to right itself. So I got up and put on water for tea and stood in Embracing the Tree a few minutes while the pot worked itself up to a boil.
I hadn't expected anything to happen, just stood there and focused on the dantien as we do in that practise, but in the dantien I began to see something new, a very complex shape like a double pyramid created from smaller pyramids. I've seen the pattern in pictures of crop circles I think, and I saw something like it when I was first encountering the crystal console back at the Lost City. But I didn't expect it, a very complex multi faceted crystalline shape of electric blue energy etched with lines of golden light, with points of golden energy on the tip of each pyramidal point.
As I watched, a point of greater radiance appeared on the southern side of the structure and the radiance expanded outward in a circular pattern. A beam of golden light shot out of that opening as though the core of the structure had been revealed, and slowly the entire thing began to rotate, sweeping that beam of energy into the far distance and completing at least three slow revolutions.
OK, I admit that I don't know what this means, and that I'm likely the only one who saw it, but it was a great experience. For me, the Rainbow meditations are like that, they develop into forms which are consistent with ancient traditions but with which I am not familiar, and I see the effect by living it. I don't reject what happens, and I don't try to hammer all this flat so it fits the form of the traditions I have been taught. This is a process of evolution and it should acquire changing forms, so I let it do that.
There's a simple way to start, a method called Precious Vessel Qigong by some, and simply Pot Shaped Breathing by others. It's very likely a Tibetan method, meaning it may date back to the Dakini. Many of the old Tibetan yogas begin with it as a way of charging the energy body, and in Chi Kungs we have done already we accomplish much the same purpose with bellows breathing or dantien breathing. This is said to be a more powerful method but with more powerful methods comes more risk. The wiser teachers were satisfied with calmer methods, and I find the calmer methods more to my own taste.
Anyway, here it is:
Sit or stand in a comfortable meditation posture. Imagine that the air around you is charged with energy, that literally it glows with spiritual light. When you breath normally that charged air goes in and out and does not accumulate within you. Instead, breathe from the dantien in bellows breath for awhile, nine deep slow breaths from the lower abdomen without moving the chest, equal emphasis on inhalation and exhalation. On the last breath, fill your dantien almost full and hold. Do not press down forcefully with the chest during any of this breathing exercise. That can cause harmful increases in blood pressure. Do this sort of thing gently.
As you hold, pull your belly in until it almost flattens against your backbone. That expands the chest in a relaxed way, not a tense way. If you've taken in too much air you can't do this. Take in a few sips of air as you hold this posture, until the chest is full, and then visualize that your lungs are filled with the luminous energy of the air. Very gently press down into the left lung and push the energy farther into it, then press down into the right lung and do the same thing. Guide the energy of the lungs into the heart chakra at the center of the chest and into the middle channel that links the front chakras together. When you've seen the energy enter the channel, then you can exhale forcefully, breath normally for awhile, and begin another "pot shaped breath."
Other precautions associated with this method are that once and only once during a practise session you visualize the middle channel as full and the energy soaring up to the crown of the head but not beyond it. During the other breaths of a session you visualize the energy shooting out your nose like arrows. You pay attention to which side of the nose most of the air enters and leaves. If the left side dominates, you are OK. If the right side dominates, you can't do this practise. I don't know the reasons but it likely has to do with which side of the brain you are energizing and maybe you could fix the trouble by closing the right nostril with the pressure of a fingertip. I don't have that problem because Freddy Trueblood flattened the right side of my nose way back in sixth grade. You also do not do this in order to hyperventilate or experience oxygen starvation so if you are doing that you haven't got it right. This is an energy practise and the physical part of it should be gentle, not forced. It's a good initial practise for any other form of meditation or chi kung.
Keep doing this until you feel your body so charged with light energy that it radiates from the pores of your skin and every strand of your hair. With repeated practise over long periods of time, this energy will manifest in the lower dantien as a hot point of red light, four fingers width below the navel. When you have that ball of energy you can will it to move upward from chakra to chakra by being aware of where it is and being aware of where you want it to go next. It follows your attention. You lead it up and out of the top of your head and into the sky, and that is the energy vehicle which is used in the Rainbow meditation. Ask politely for energy to come to it, and wait awhile. If nothing happens bring it home again and try again some other day. Mostly a warrior waits, anyway.
I think that many of us who practised the Academy training have already done things this complex and already have the essential energy for this. It's a simple outgrowth of what we've already done. The benefits accrue over a lifetime of practise. I get really cranky when ordinary life interferes with it in any way.

Last night was an uncomfortable night for me because I kept being awakened by stabbing pains that were not supernatural in any way, had more to do with heavy lifting and a very humourous fall on the ice. Times like that I often dream more intensely but the memory of what I dream is murky, so I just now remembered something from all of that which seems to apply to these higher meditations in some strange way.
I was helping to prepare a meal for the Dalai Lama, who wanted to eat turtle meat. It seemed strange to me that he would want meat for supper but who am I to argue? so I collected a sea turtle big enough for an individual's meal. The turtle seemed rather unhappy about it and I didn't want to dwell on the problem so I put him in a box and closed the lid. I had no more to do with the dinner beyond catching it, and was grateful I was not the one who slaughtered the hapless victim. The cook was someone we know from the forums, who is a rampant vegetarian, and I was surprised and disturbed that this person would even participate, but who am I to argue? so I just sat down respectfully at the table and did as the Romans do, in Rome.
The cook brought in the turtle in a big covered silver dish and set it before the Dalai Lama, who was beaming at it with anticipation, and then removed the cover with a wonderful flourish. To my great surprise the turtle was very alive, decorated with flowers of many colors, sitting on a bed of rainbow gemstones, radiating the purest white light as it spoke respectfully to the enlightened fellow before it. "Master," the turtle said politely, "as my humble gift to you, I ask that you spare my life."
The Dalai Lama laughed and clapped his hands and said, "My! What a wonderful meal that was!" The staff came to collect the empty dishes, and the turtle rode off to his eventual liberation in some peaceful sea.
I was still hungry, but who am I to argue? Some people understand these things better than I do.
I've been privileged to meet some good teachers in my time here. I'm surprised when I read back over these higher practise meditations, that I have encountered many of them already. In the short descriptions of the Great Perfection meditations that are the core of the Rainbow practise I see many things that I know. The practise of the first month is to face the sun (but not directly) and visualize a white spot of light exiting your heart and rising into the sky to unite with the Luminous Spots that circle there, globes of energy in many colors that dance around in the sky.
I used to have a garden and worked very hard at it until I learned that yields were unlikely. Few things prosper in this climate and this poor soil, even with six inches of turkey litter on the ground, but for a few years I had a nice green spot that was half strawberries and half veggies for the groundhogs and secluded enough that I could take a lawn chair down there and do some Taoist sunbathing, which is naked sunbathing because the sexual organs are the most receptive areas for energy of that kind. It was a nice thing to do on a summer afternoon when the bees were humming about in the strawberry patch.
Dozing in my chair there in the garden I would be looking up but not quite at the sun, through closed eyelids and a pair of sunglasses, and after awhile I would see a spot of light that I couldn't quite associate with the sun. That's not unusual, because I see flows of energy when I do the Greater and Lesser Heavenly circulations and I use those flows in many ways. They happen on their own most of the time and are not a surprise to me. But one day, lying there in the garden, it occurred to me that Don Juan had mentioned something about gazing at the sunset in order to acquire the energy for Dreaming. He taught a passive practise, leaning against posts driven into his front yard, and he taught an active practise which was a vigorous "running in place" while facing the setting sun. I don't know the details because he didn't teach the details, he just did those things. I wondered then if I might put that concept into practise somehow from my lawn chair. I began to visualize that spot of light as moving away from me into the sky, and after awhile I thought of it as connecting with the solar energy. Then it came back to me intensified and I saw a constant flow of energy from it to me, a white light that was hot but not too hot and which lasted so long as I kept my focus without becoming very excited about it. It just seemed a natural thing to do, and I found that it helped my Dreaming.
Then there is Pore Breathing, I already mentioned that. Some call it the Golden Light method, which fits the visualization I've used most often of a sun like sphere of golden light in the center of my body that radiates through me as a tangible expanding pressure of golden energy. I've read several versions of this practise and many speak of it as though it were very difficult to achieve. Maybe it is, or maybe you have to become aware of it.
One day I was sitting in an easy chair doing trancework, not expecting anything to happen, when I suddenly felt I should get up and did, leaving my physical self in the chair and walking out onto the front porch in my spirit body. To my surprise I had visitors, men for whom I have acquired great respect over the years, two of my Elders were there to meet me, wearing their ceremonial clothing, fringed white deerskin and beaded moccassins, headdresses of eagle feathers sweeping behind them, patterns of porcupine quills across their chests. They each had their war lances with them, a feather bound to the shaft for each brave deed they had done as warriors, and each lance carried maybe fifty of those white feathers. Without a word the man to my right handed me a simple stick with one feather on it, a gesture of great honor to me, and I accepted it feeling that I might not deserve even that much. I told him that. "Thanks," I said, "but I don't feel like I earned this." He smiled just a little and did not argue with me.
I turned to go back in the house, and then he spoke. "Hey," he said, "Are you blind? Look over there." He tilted his head toward the West and when I looked that way I saw an old man sitting crosslegged in the dirt beyond the concrete porch. When I saw who he was I forgot everything and rushed to him. I did not know what to say or do, I fell to my knees in front of him and bowed my head almost to the ground. "Grandfather," I said in a breaking voice full of tears, "Please teach me." He sang some words for me in a language I do not understand and as my tears fell to the ground I felt the touch of sacred feathers on my shoulders. He radiated a light that was purest gold.
I experience these things but I do not always understand them. The next day I was sitting in that chair again, wondering at what any of this meant, and again I fell into one of those "enforced naps" as Kookaburra got to calling them. I stood up without me, as I did the day before, and I went out onto the porch. The dog spirit was with me this time, and when we went through the doorway into the open air there was only golden light. We soared into it like birds, the earth disappeared from beneath our feet, and we were golden light in a universe of golden light. I stopped thinking of it as something I had to achieve. We are all blessed.
I used to meditate on the concrete floor of a garage, surrounded by dust and farm tools, and very often in the edges of my vision that golden light would manifest without any fanfare and I would just sit in the glow for awhile, not knowing anything to do with it or caring that I should. Sometimes spirits would visit for awhile as I did that, sometimes I played with contacting people who seemed to be knowledgable. One day I thought of a Reiki healer whose books I had enjoyed, tried to make contact with her through meditation, and out of a cloud of golden light she appeared for a moment, sitting in meditation a couple of yards in front of me. She raised her eyes and for a very short time was obviously coming to grips with a new reality, a strange man in front of her and a strangely decorated temple around her. Then I guess I grinned too much and she realized she was only wearing a string of beads and vanished out of embarrassment. It was a nice moment, though.
I've had a lot of nice moments. Once doing that golden light meditation I opened my eyes to see a small Asian man sitting in front of me, an older fellow with a long white wispy beard and eyes that glinted in the half light. He didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Chinese so we were having some trouble holding a conversation. Then he waved his hands in polite dismissal of the problem, sat up straight and held my attention with his eyes. He put his hands out to either side in the light gathering posture of Tsai Shen, and as he bowed forward he swept his hands to the front, scooping up that golden energy and pressing it into his forehead with his fingertips. It reminded me very much of some of the things I've seen Tensegrity people do. I watched for awhile and then he paused and waved me into the practise, with a silent Here, do this! gesture of his hands. And, for long minutes we bowed and practised there together even though I was a little embarrassed about it, until finally he smiled widely and, sitting in a relaxed meditation posture, vanished. I saw his picture on a book cover later. He was a noted master of Hsing Yi when he was alive.
I suppose these things are secrets, and I'll likely get into trouble for talking about them."
-Heyoka

Hi, I wasn't sure whether to post this in Dreaming or Stalking since dreaming is the same as near-death experiences, but near death experiences I plan to post here are excellent means of stalking the self.
So I'll post it in Separate Reality.
What follows will be, as I get the time, a collection of NDEs that have reports that approximate different aspects of sorcery as described by Castaneda.
"The subtitle "village ****" is a petty backlash from Ghost Dog's inability to successfully debate me. And a de facto acknowledgement by him that I am his better."

Arrano let me to write this post. Thanks ))
Its in the instincts of animals and humans to use or avoid powerspots. Energybody connections does the work.
But as humans often times is lost in the FI's darkness of ignorance and their feelings and Tonal, they get confused and can't connect to their intuition.
So can we find or recognice Powerspots?

Meditation is something that obviously each of us do probably every day in order to improve skills for entering higher attentions.
There are a lot of types of meditation and it is completely individual decision which one to take.
Any way, it is not bad thing to talk about them and about what we experience during meditation.
We all here maybe have questions about it, there is maybe something that we don't understand and maybe we could help each other in it.
So if anyone would like to talk about meditation, we can do that here.
All the best,
Castor