01-15-2014, 12:00 AM
Return of the warriors. Theun Mares. full free PDF from bookos.org
CHAPTER ONE
ORIGIN OF THE TOLTEC WARRIORS AND THEIR KNOWLEDGE
'There are, scattered throughout the world, a handful of thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in obscurity, far from the rumours of the world, studying the great problems of the physical and spiritual universes. They have their secret records in which are preserved the fruits of the scholastic labours of the long line of recluses whose successors they are.'
H.P.
BLAVATSKY
1
For those amongst us who prefer things to be done in the accepted manner, let me begin this account in the age-old fashion which I am sure will more than likely be deemed proper for a tale such as this.
Once upon a time.........eighteen million years ago, several groups of people, who would by today's standards be known as priests and priestesses of the ancient temples of humanity, came to this world together with mankind as we know mankind today.
How this all came about and from where mankind originated are questions that go far beyond the scope of this book, but what can be said is that the arrival of man upon this planet was something akin to a semi-voluntary exile from his home-world.
This planet, however, imposed such severe limitations upon the life-forms which came here that man became utterly immersed in that prison we have come to call matter. So drastic was the effect of this that man even forgot his home-world and who and what he really is.
Lost and bewildered, mankind turned to the priests and priestesses for spiritual guidance, only to find that they too had been affected in the same adverse way as the rest of mankind. This was a dark period of seemingly endless struggle and hopelessness.
All of this took place in that far distant time when humanity was at that stage of evolution which is today known as Lemurian and was living upon the ancient continent of Shalmali.
The immersion in matter, and man's struggle against the debilitating effect of this, took place over millions of years. In this time there were seven sub-races born within the civilization of Lemuria.
The fourth sub-race of the Lemurians was known as the Barhishads, or Divine Hermaphrodites, and it was from these that there was born the Rmoahal Race, the first sub-race of the Atlanteans.
From the Rmoahals were born the Tlavatli, and it was from within this stock that the priests and priestesses of old began to incarnate and slowly to regain some of their former memories.
As they gradually regained their memories, so the priests and priestesses once again began to lead their people, and so it was that they became known as Toltecs, meaning men and women of knowledge.
As more of their memories were restored, the Toltecs then took it upon themselves to lead mankind back to its true home as soon as this was possible. Thus it was that they also became known as warriors of the Spirit fighting for freedom.
So this was how the history of the Toltec warriors began upon this planet in an era when mankind was just beginning to measure time as we know time today.
On recalling their former training, the Toltecs began developing the ability to see, for they were equipped with what is today known as the third eye. It was only in the period of becoming immersed in matter and the resultant loss of memory that the Toltec seers experienced a temporary psychic blindness. However, once some of them
began to remember, this natural ability to see returned and enabled them rapidly to recall the former knowledge they had acquired upon their home-world.
This knowledge consisted almost entirely of what is called will-power, mathematics, astronomy and astrology. So adept were the Toltecs in the use of will-power that they had no difficulty in levitating either themselves or solid objects of immense size and weight, and it was this ability which was much later used to build structures such as the Great Pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in England.
The Toltecs then started to teach their fellow men the mundane but practical crafts required for physical prosperity, such as fishing, hunting, cooking, healing, building, the fundamentals of mathematics, and many of the arts, notably sculpture.
The Toltecs had one serious problem though, for although their knowledge was extremely comprehensive, it was as yet entirely atavistic and of another world.
The Toltecs had little understanding of the intricacies of life upon the physical plane, for even though they had already spent millions of years upon the earth, this time meant practically nothing to them because of their initial loss of memory.
As a consequence, their knowledge of matter was limited. Toltecs at this time had no understanding of the abstract, for they saw things entirely as they were, and therefore for them everything was very clear, but nevertheless also one-sided.
Due to this limitation Toltecs did not grasp the implications of duality, or its purpose. As a result, concepts such as the interrelationship and the interaction of all life, although instinctively practised by them, were not understood.
In time this ignorance of the abstract was to lead to the first downfall of the Toltecs, for it gave rise to the worst form of selfishness imaginable.
For thousands of years the Toltecs led their people superbly, and the whole of their world, by then known as Atlantis, prospered in great material wealth and power. It was from this rule by the Toltecs that their world derived its name, for the word atl means 'head' or 'ruler'.
The people of Atlantis had an Emperor, known as the White Emperor by virtue of the fact that his knowledge was the greatest ' amongst the Toltecs, and as such he was likened to a great white light.
The Emperor ruled his people from the capital city of the Toltecs, known as the City of the Golden Gates.
Because die crafts they had been taught by the Toltecs were specialized, the people had been divided into clans, much like guilds, and each of these guilds was governed by a small group of Toltecs. These clans lived in cities, each city being governed by a senior Toltec who had a status equivalent to a king.
These kings in turn were ruled by the Emperor, who was surrounded by a group of the more learned and powerful of the Toltecs.
As time went on, and as the knowledge of the people grew, so some of the clans, together with their kings, became ambitious for more knowledge and power.
No longer content with the knowledge and the power they had, these people started to look at their neighbours and more advanced Toltecs with envy. It was not long before greed drove some of the Toltecs to start experimenting with ways in which to increase their psychic abilities in an attempt to gain superiority over others.This was the beginning of sorcery, and the practice of the black art.
Having no real grasp of the abstract, Toltecs on the whole did not understand their psychic abilities any more than a duck understands how it swims. Consequently, the Toltecs who turned their hand to sorcery began to develop the most elaborate and intricate rituals with which to boost their power*.
Even though they did not realise that these rituals served no purpose other than to strengthen their will*, these sorcerers nevertheless managed to increase their power to such an extent that they began to overrun and dominate other cities and Toltecs.
* Will and power are synonymous terms for the product of perception.
Rebellion and strife spread rapidly as Toltec fought Toltec for supremacy. Warfare had been discovered and launched full-scale, but as this was a war fought not only with physical weapons but also with psychic weapons, the destruction was terrible.
The White Emperor and his group of Toltec advisors were eventually driven from the City of the Golden Gates, after which the sorcerers put one of their own upon the throne.
The White Emperor, his advisors, and many of the kings, were by this time sufficiently aware of the interrelationship of all life, and could therefore foresee the consequences of sorcery. This led to the start of the great Toltec migration, for the White Emperor and his followers started to move north into Egypt, and west into North and South America in an attempt to save themselves and their people from the disasters they could foresee.
So great had become the black Toltecs' command over the forces of nature, and so limited was their understanding of the interrelationship of all, that it did not take them long to unbalance the forces of the earth to such an extent that natural cataclysms started to occur.
The first great catastrophe struck in approximately 800,000 B.C.E.
The cataclysm of earthquakes and tidal waves shattered the main continent into a great many islands of varying size and destroyed the City of the Golden Gates, togedier with the Black Emperor and his sorcerers.
For a while this warning kept sorcery at bay, but relatively speaking it was not too long before greed once again surfaced, and in approximately 200,000 B.C.E. the second great cataclysm reduced the remains of Atlantis down to two huge islands, Daitya and Ruta.
This time the warning was not heeded for quite so long. The Toltecs upon Ruta, by then hopelessly addicted to the black art, brought about another cataclysm in 75,000 B.C.E., destroying both Ruta and Daitya, and heaving up die large island that was to become known as Poseidonis.
In 9,564 B.C.E., Poseidonis also met its fate as it sank beneath massive tidal waves brought
about by violent volcanic eruptions. Atlantis and her black sorcerers were finally gone forever.
At various times during the destruction of the mother continent the remnants of the Atlanteans migrated to other parts of the world, some of which had emerged as a result of the major cataclysms that destroyed Atlantis.
On the whole, these remnants, led and guided by their Toltec kings and priests, did not fare at all well. Some, however, did manage to find lands where they could settle and even flourish. Notable amongst those who prospered were the Egyptian dynasties, the Chaldeans, Peruvians, Akkadians, Tibetans, and to a lesser extent various smaller groups scattered throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
It is not the purpose of this book to give detailed accounts of all these various lines, but merely to point out how it came about that Toltecs became so scattered throughout the world. Even to this day Toltecs are found the world over, and it is due to this fact that at least some of the lines managed to survive the rigours of the subsequent centuries.
In time, most of the weaker lines lost their Toltec kings and priests, either through wars or natural causes. Where there were no descendants of the seers the people started to fall into barbaric ignorance.
This same fate also befell many of the stronger lines, and in time they too were likewise impoverished.
The number of truly learned seers diminished rapidly as finding and training suitable successors became increasingly difficult. The atavistic abilities of the original seers had moreover started to die out due to the steady development of the rational mind, This development of rational thought had become necessary in order to gain greater knowledge of the abstract, of matter and of the forces of duality.
By the time Poseidonis met its end there were only a handful of natural seers left in the world, and in time these too died out. This meant that most of the Toltec descendants, although extremely knowledgeable and capable of leading, were now no longer seers.
This lack of seers was obviously a serious setback. In their endeavour to regain the abilities of their ancestors, the Toltecs used their knowledge of medicinal plants and drugs to enable them to see. The drugs worked after a fashion, but the cost to the physical body and brain from using these plants continuously was soon found to outweigh the benefits. Even so, Toltecs had no other means by which to see, and although the rate of mortality, insanity and failure kept escalating, they desperately continued with their experiments.
Dark and terrible as this time was, it nevertheless brought Toltecs face to face with the hard facts of life on the physical plane, and thus the effects brought about by the necessary development of the rational mind finally caught up with the Toltecs, exacting a heavy toll. Yet this also meant that even though Toltecs had lost their atavistic abilities, they were for the first time faced with the opportunity to discover what those abilities had really consisted of in the first place, and exactly how these worked in practice.
It was not until much later that Toltecs could see in retrospect what a gift this dark time had been, for it was during this period of constant struggle and failure that they learned to look deep within themselves and to find there faculties they never knew they possessed. Without realising it at the time, Toltecs had taken a huge step forward in their development and had in addition defined one of the fundamentals of the Toltec Path, namely that a warrior lives by challenge.
As time went on, Toltecs became more selective in their use of drugs, and therefore more proficient. The rate of failure and mortality started to decline, whilst the numbers of seers increased. But by this time Toltecs were faced with yet another problem; one which was so subtle that they did not identify what it was until it was already too late.
Toltecs had become obsessed with their desire to see to such an extent that seeing had become for them more important than
knowledge itself. With this obsession, the sobriety of their former knowledge quickly became replaced by the same arrogance and self-importance that had been the downfall of the sorcerers in Adantis.
The black art had once again reared its ugly head, and now even the remaining Toltecs succumbed to sorcery. This was the era which Carlos Castaneda describes in his books as that of the Old Seers.
Using their newly rediscovered ability to see, the Old Seers began reviving most of the old practices, and it did not take them long to reinstate the rituals and incantations which had been the specialized knowledge of the sorcerers of Atlantis.
These rituals allowed the Old Seers to manipulate their awareness in such a manner that they could achieve what we today call altered states of perception.
By using these rituals and entering into different states of awareness, the Old Seers learned an enormous amount, not only about themselves but also about the other life-forms, both organic* and inorganic, which share the planet with man.
* Life-forms which have biological functions. t Life-forms which do not have biological functions.
Like their Atlantean predecessors, the Old Seers were remarkably clever at amassing facts and information but, since their sense of self-importance was so great, the Old Seers used this knowledge to dominate and manipulate everyone and everything luckless enough to catch their attention.
During this period in Toltec history the Old Seers re-established themselves to a great extent within the same clan or guild systems that had been in use in ancient Atlantis. So powerful were these guilds that they invariably dominated even the leaders of the people, whether king or emperor. This was equally true regardless of where in the world Toltec history was unfolding.
In this respect it should be realised that the Toltec civilization in the Valley of Mexico as described by Carlos Castaneda was but one of many later civilizations.
Historically this was the only lineage that went under the name of Toltec but, as has been explained previously, all civilizations the world over, whatever their name, had their roots in Toltec migrations from Adantis.
Therefore, at the core of all these civilizations were priest-seers trained in the Toltec tradition.
As a result of this common heritage and tradition, and in spite of the fact that dates obviously vary enormously between one civilization and the next, Toltec knowledge the world over has nevertheless always unfolded in more or less an identical pattern.
The Old Seers ruled for a long period during which they continued to gather a vast amount of information about the manipulation of awareness, but they mostly used this knowledge for the furtherance of the black art. Many of the rituals and magical incantations found in the world today are watered-down versions of the techniques that were used at one time or another by these Old Seers.
Sorcery flourished and, depending upon which civilization they happened to be a part of, many of these Old Seers lasted right up until, and even beyond, the advent of Christ and the Christian Church.
It was because of the unscrupulous actions and the unwholesome pursuits of these Old Seers that the Christian Church began its great persecution of paganism.
It was, however, not only the Christian Church, as is commonly assumed, that brought about the demise of the Old Seers. Even in the absence of the Christians, the Old Seers often found themselves at the mercy of other conquerors.
The reason for this was that although the Old Seers had become just as powerful as their Atlantean predecessors, they still had one serious disadvantage which they had not managed to overcome.
This disadvantage amounted to the fact that the Old Seers could not entirely master the force of will, which the old Atlanteans had done with such ease. This was in many ways a blessing, for if the Old Seers had conquered the force of will, the evils of Atlantis would have been repeated, since the Old Seers would undoubtedly have unleashed upon their enemies the full force of their knowledge. It was this lack of being able to command will which saved the world from yet more psychic warfare and which ultimately brought about the destruction of the Old Seers.
Powerful as the Old Seers' rituals were, they were also cumbersome and impractical. Whenever physically confronted by their enemies, the lack of the necessary time in which to incant and perform their rituals rendered the Old Seers just as defenceless as the people they ruled.
During these times of trouble, and especially during the persecution of paganism by the Christian Church, some of the more far-sighted Toltecs broke away from their age-old tradition and began to review their situation within the world. These were the Toltecs which marked the beginning of that era Carlos Castaneda termed the age of the New Seers.
The New Seers could clearly see the disadvantages of lengthy and cumbersome rituals. But more important still was the fact that they could also see the futility of trying to control and manipulate others, because of the continuous strife which this inevitably brings about.
This split in the Toltec tradition was by far the most important event in the history of the Toltecs, for it constituted that turning point in their knowledge, and provided that magical key which Toltecs had been seeking ever since the destruction of Atlantis.
As has already been stated, the Old Seers had enough knowledge and ability to manipulate the awareness of their victims, and this they, did without scruple. The fact that awareness can be manipulated is a vitally important tenet of Toltec knowledge, but man is today generally still sceptical about this truth.
Although arts such as telepathy and hypnosis have done much to eradicate this scepticism, man still finds it hard to believe that someone can manipulate his awareness without his consent or knowledge. Yet this is exactly what the Old Seers had been capable of doing.
Today Toltecs no longer adhere to the endless techniques of the Old Seers, for although these techniques remain powerful tools, they have nevertheless outlived their purpose. However, in spite of the fact that Toltecs now spurn this aspect of their heritage, these techniques still form an integral part of their knowledge, by virtue of tradition.
Another important fact to be stressed is that Toltec knowledge, because of a peculiarity of the Toltec tradition, has never been and can never be lost.
This has always been one of the strengths of the Toltecs, since this accumulated knowledge has been the principal medium through which they have been able to acquire their power. However, for the Old Seers, as we have seen, it was also their weakness, for it was this part of the Toltec tradition which tempted them back into the abominations of the Atlantean sorcerers.
In their arrogance and conceit the Old Seers aspired to a kind of power which was abusive, and although it would in some respects be an exaggeration to label the Old Seers as evil, they came close enough to being exactly that.
One of the most costly mistakes the Old Seers made was to fail to acknowledge the importance of having to make their knowledge more streamlined and practical for use upon the physical plane. Instead, owing to their self-importance and obsession with power, their methods of manipulating awareness became ever more complex and impractical. Furthermore, the Old Seers were far too lazy to bring any order into their already vast and rapidly-growing knowledge.
Eventually it came to the point where they could no longer see the wood for the trees. Self-importance had undermined their strength, so that even though they had at their disposal knowledge that was quite awesome, chaos precluded them from being able to put it to any real practical use.
Although today we no longer condone the aberrations of the Old Seers, we must give the devil his due, for the Old Seers discovered some truly amazing facts about awareness knowledge without which the Toltec tradition would be much impoverished.
The task that faced the New Seers was to take stock of their overburdened tradition and to re-evaluate their vast heritage of knowledge. From their experience the New Seers could see that the Old Seers had gone very far astray, but, so vast was their knowledge by this time and so utterly chaotic, that none of the New Seers were sure what was valid and what was useless. The only logical thing they could do was to start working from the hypothesis that everything their predecessors had done was questionable, and to start classifying the immense amount of knowledge available to them. This marked the end of chaos and the beginning of a long-needed order and sense of sobriety.
The New Seers discarded all the many theories the Old Seers had formulated and held as being central to their knowledge,
and began searching for practical ways in which to apply this knowledge. Consequently they managed to condense the greater
part of their heritage into a few fundamental concepts which could be applied practically.
The first of these concepts concerned what the Old Seers called the Eagle. In their attempts to fathom the purpose of existence, the Old Seers actually managed to see the source of all life, which when interpreted by the rational mind resembles
something akin to a black and white eagle.
Consequently, the Old Seers metaphorically termed this source the Eagle.
Seeing the Eagle was an act which cost a great many of the Old Seers their sanity, or their lives, or both.
However, from what they managed to see they worked out that the purpose of existence is to enhance the quality of awareness. This was an invaluable discovery, and one which has become fundamental to everything that Toltecs today know and practise.
The Old Seers could see that it is the Eagle which endows all beings with awareness at the moment of birth and which also reclaims this awareness at the moment of death, having become enriched by the being's experiences during life. The Old Seers understood this as meaning that the Eagle feeds off awareness, and that the sole purpose of existence is therefore to keep recycling awareness so as to bring out all latent potential.
It is important to realise that there is of course no Eagle as such, nor is there anything visual about the incomprehensible source of life. Nevertheless, even a seer is subjected to the conditions of the rational mind, which must by its very nature interpret things, and the result of such interpretation is a visual impact of the Eagle.
The manifested universe is an infinity beyond our understanding of time and space, for its size and complexity cannot be rendered comprehensible in terms of words or mortal concepts. It is not God, for God after all is part of what we know.
The churches, ministers of religion, and even other people, are constantly trying to describe God to us, so therefore God becomes something within the scope of words, within the sphere of conceptualization.
But beyond words, beyond description, beyond concept, lies that indescribable, incomprehensible No-Thing, which can only be termed the Unspeakable.
This was yet another error on the part of the Old Seers. In their arrogance they never stopped to consider that most of what constitutes the manifested universe is utterly incomprehensible and unknowable within the framework of our human condition.
The New Seers corrected this mistake by identifying and demarcating three distinct levels of awareness.
The first of these levels they termed the known, which consists of everything the human being can register within normal awareness. The second level, termed the unknown, is a truly vast and mysterious area, but which can and does become the known gradually and sequentially as the seer gains in his proficiency to see it. The third level, on the other hand, termed the unknowable, is a level of awareness which can never be known to man whilst he still retains his humanness. To enter into the unknowable is to lose our humanness, which is why so many of the Old Seers lost their sanity.
The Old Seers had, over generations, gathered a vast number of facts about awareness, which they never formulated into an ordered structure. As the New Seers started to rearrange these facts another very important set of concepts emerged, which were condensed into an ordered whole to form a set of precepts which were termed the Truths of Awareness.
The New Seers regarded these precepts as paramount to all of their understanding, and to this day these truths form the foundations of the Toltec Teachings.
Most of the Truths of Awareness are based upon the act of perception and the way in which this takes place. The New Seers found that the whole mystery of perception can be summarized quite adequately in the following nine precepts:
1. The universe consists of an infinite number of energy fields,resembling threads of light.
2. These threadlike energy fields radiate from a source of unimaginable dimensions metaphorically called the Eagle. As such these energy fields are known as the Eagle's Emanations.
3. Human beings are likewise composed of the same infinite number of these threadlike energy fields which manifest in the shape of a large luminous egg. The height of this egg is equal to the length of a man's body with his arms fully extended above his head on the vertical axis, and its width is that of a man with his arms extended outwards from the centre of his body along the horizontal axis. This egg is known as the cocoon of man.
4. Only a small group of the energy fields inside the cocoon are lit up at any one time by a brilliant point of light located on the surface of the cocoon.
5. Perception takes place when the energy fields which are illuminated by the point of light extend their light to illuminate corresponding energy fields outside the cocoon. This point of light is termed the point where perception is assembled, normally abbreviated to the assemblage point.
6. It is possible to shift the assemblage point to any other position on the surface of the cocoon, or even into its interior. Because the assemblage point illuminates any energy fields with which it comes into contact, the new energy fields it illuminates as a result of such shifting constitute therefore a new perception. It is this new level of perception that is known as seeing.
7. When the assemblage point shifts sufficiently far a totally new world is perceived, which is as real as the one man normally perceives.
8. There is a mysterious force known as intent which exists throughout the entire universe. It is this force which brings about perception, for it is intent which,firstly, aligns the energy fields, and secondly, causes awareness of that alignment.
9. The goal of warriors is to experience all possible perceptions available to man. This constitutes what is known as Total Awareness, inherent within which is an alternate way of dying.
In order to see, the Old Seers had to use hallucinogens to move their assemblage points, but the New Seers realised that this was as impractical as the rituals of the Old Seers. More than anything else, practical ways of moving the assemblage point were now needed, and in order to find these the New Seers began by studying the assemblage point through seeing, even though at the outset they still had to make use of drugs. This research turned out to be most worthwhile, for not only did they find the necessary techniques to enable them to move the assemblage point, but they also uncovered the mystery of willpower.
The Old Seers had known about the mysterious force which their Atlantean predecessors had used with such facility. Through observation, they also knew that this force exists throughout all of nature and the manifested universe. The Old Seers termed this force power, but they never understood it or managed to figure out how to use it.
The New Seers discovered that this mysterious force is in fact the energy of alignment, that is, the force that is released when energy fields inside the cocoon become aligned with energy fields outside the cocoon. The New Seers termed this force will, and defined it as 'a continuous flow of energy which can be guided by the intent of the seer'.
The New Seers also discovered that will is the force that makes us behave in the ways we do when we perceive. It is therefore this force that determines our perception of the world. Thus it is will which fixes the assemblage point at the exact spot where it is located. Here it is important to realise that although there is a definite area within which the assemblage point can always be found, the exact position is brought about by habitual action and repetition.
Habits obviously vary between one
individual and the next, and consequently no two people will have their assemblage points fixed in exactly the same spot.
The assemblage point of man is generally found on the surface of the cocoon, roughly opposite the point between the
shoulder blades.
In the development of the normal child, the child first learns where it seems most suitable to place the assemblage point and then fixes it there through repetition. This repetition is at first mostly dictated by encouragement from elders and later by habitual internal dialogue.
Toltecs today know that man can only maintain his view of the world by constantly confirming this view to himself by means of his internal dialogue. This means that the world always appears to be exactly what man constantly tells himself it is.
By far the most important aspect of Toltec knowledge is that once the internal dialogue has been stopped the assemblage point is free to move. This enables man to experience altered states of perception quite spontaneously and is the magical key the Old Seers had searched for so ardently.
Had they but realised that the only real value of their rituals lay in their ability to shift the assemblage point the Old Seers would have discovered this key, as well as the secret of will or power.
Once this discovery had been made, Toltec knowledge became transformed, and the New Seers were well on their way to correcting the mistakes of their predecessors.
In order to move the assemblage point, the New Seers defined three principal techniques based upon the nine Truths of Awareness.
The first technique is termed the Art of Stalking, the second is the Art of Dreaming and the third is the Mastery of Intent.
From these three techniques evolved three distinct areas of activity in which every apprentice must become totally proficient
if he is to succeed in becoming a Toltec - namely, the Art of Stalking, the Mastery of Awareness and the Mastery of Intent. In this scheme the Art of Dreaming is incorporated into the Mastery of Awareness and is used only as a means by which the assemblage point can be moved in order to achieve altered states of perception.
These three areas of activity have been defined traditionally as the three riddles which warriors must face and answer as they walk the Path of Power.
The Art of Stalking is termed the riddle of the heart. It is described as the bafflement warriors experience when they become aware, firstly, that the world appears to be what it is only because of our perception and, secondly, that if a different perception is brought to bear upon the world, then our view of the world, which seems to be so inviolable, changes dramatically.
The Mastery of Awareness is termed the riddle of the mind. This is the awesome infinity warriors perceive when they realise the incomprehensible mystery and extent of man's awareness.
The Mastery of Intent is the riddle of the spirit of man. It is the ultimate paradox in that it is the ability of man to project his actions, physical, emotional and mental, beyond normal human comprehension.
As far as the process of learning is concerned, the most important discovery of the New Seers was something which the Old Seers had already uncovered, namely that man has two types of awareness, which they termed the right and left side of man.
The right side is the thinking, logical, rational side of man's mind. On the right side all knowledge flows in a linear and sequential mode.
The left side, on the other hand, is the feeling, irrational side of man's mind which operates entirely independently of any logical or linear progression of sequential thought patterns.
The best way in which to understand the right side, as opposed to the left side, is to consider an example of each.
Consider a mother who receives a telephone call informing her that her son has had an accident.
On the right side the mother will experience more or less the following: The telephone rings and the mother answers it not expecting anything untoward. When told of the accident she first experiences shock and fear, then concern for her son's safety. Many questions flood through her mind in sequence; 'Is he hurt? Where is he? What happened? Is he in hospital?' This is a very simplified, but nonetheless typically logical reaction in which one thought triggers off another.
But had the mother been able to register the left side, her experience would have been completely different and something like the following: Before her son left home that morning the mother had an uneasy feeling concerning his safety, and even though there was no logical reason why she should feel uncomfortable, she could not shake off the feeling. Then suddenly, mid-morning, she experiences a feeling of alarm. In that moment she senses the presence of her son and can feelthat he is deeply distressed.
The mother does not pause to question this, but instinctively starts walking towards the telephone, wondering how best she may reach her son or someone who can put her mind at rest. Even before she reaches the telephone it rings, and as she picks up the receiver a cold shiver runs down her spine, for she knows she is going to hear that her son has had an accident. However, even as she answers the telephone, the mother somehow knows that he is not seriously injured, just shocked.
From these two examples it is plain to see the difference between right and left.
The right is a rational reaction to concrete evidence which sets up a sequence of logical thoughts; the left is an irrational feeling which has nothing to do with either logic or concrete evidence to begin with. Only later will such irrational feelings be corroborated by the necessary evidence.
In trying to understand these concepts it is important to realise that the terms 'right' and 'left side' are terms used for the luminous cocoon of man, and not the right and left hemispheres of the brain and their respective functions.
The Old Seers termed the left side heightened awareness, and since the absence of logical thought enhances clarity, they used to force their apprentices into this state so that the apprentices could achieve the level of concentration required in order to learn sorcery.
The only justification for this method of teaching lies in the fact that the apprentice has great difficulty in remembering teachings communicated to him whilst in a state of heightened awareness. This lack of memory creates a kind of obstacle course, since before the apprentice can utilize his knowledge he has to struggle to recall it.
Such a struggle often takes years and, as a result, by the time the apprentice does remember the teachings, he has, through his long struggle, become totally committed to them.
Today Toltecs have a different view, for now we know that man always learns upon both levels simultaneously. However, learning and remembering what we have learned requires energy, just like anything else.
This creates a problem in that the vast majority of people simply do not have enough energy to register what they are learning on the left side as well as on the right side.
Sometimes a person's energy is at such a low ebb that he cannot even remember what he has learned on the right side, let alone also the left side. Because of a peculiarity of our awareness, the right side always takes precedence over the left side. All available energy is primarily used firstly to register, and secondly to recollect the right side.
Only surplus energy is used for the left side.
In the teaching scheme in use today, apprentices are very rarely forced into heightened awareness simply because the time factor involved in recollecting is too costly. From the very first day of their training apprentices are given instruction which
enables them to bring about a natural and spontaneous movement into heightened awareness. Although in the beginning such a movement is invariably minute, the apprentice soon begins to gain proficiency in this art.
Consequendy, as the apprentice gains in the ability to move deeper into heightened awareness, so the instruction given is stepped up in complexity.
This new method has two great advantages: firstly, the apprentice learns right from the beginning to handle his own awareness, and secondly, time is not lost in lengthy recollections.
This very briefly outlines the new approach and teaching scheme the New Seers constructed out of the knowledge they inherited from their tradition. The New Seers' work was just beginning to take effect when the Christian Church began its long-standing persecution of paganism.
Unhappy as this persecution was, it nonetheless provided the New Seers with the unparalleled opportunity of being able to hone their new-found skills into instruments of the most exacting precision. Mistakes and sloppy technique resulted in torture and death at the hands of the persecutors. Those warriors who were slow to learn, or were just not proficient enough in their new skills, died very quickly.
This was a most uncompromising period in the history of the Toltecs, for although they were forced into learning excellence, the persecution in most parts of the world was so devastating that Toltecs everywhere had to make some far-reaching decisions.
In their attempts to survive, Toltecs the world over at one time or another during the following centuries took the decision to disband.
Consequendy, every leader dissociated himself and his unit from all other units. This was a drastic move which not only resulted in the founding of the different lineages, but which also brought about, for the first time in Toltec history, the isolated development of knowledge.
This move and its effects have become known as the Doctrine of Separate Development. So far-reaching has been the ripple effect of this development that today every Toltec unit exists in solitary confinement, well-hidden from the eyes of the public. Apart from a telepathic mind-link which still exists between most Toltec leaders, there is no communication between one unit and another.
However, even this mind-link is of such a tenuous nature that it is not possible for the user to establish the personal identity or physical location of another.
One more aspect of Toltec knowledge needs to be understood at this point if the historical development of the Toltec tradition is to be grasped as a whole. The new method of teaching which is in force today has another very important advantage in that it allows for the proper instruction to be given to certain 'new' types now coming into incarnation. This point is mentioned here only as a matter of curiosity, for as yet it has no bearing upon the majority of appprentices.
These so-called new types are today still extremely rare. They are Toltecs who have undergone highly specialized training in a former incarnation and the power they wield is of a vastly different quality to that which is generally known. These Toltecs have been given the name Warriors of the Third Attention.
Much confusion will in the future be avoided if it is made clear that although it may appear as if all Toltecs are the same, this is not strictly true. Toltecs are classified into three distinct categories depending on their level of training and proficiency. These three categories of Toltec existence are termed courts.
The first, or outer court, is comprised of what are called Warriors of the First Attention; the second, or inner court, are the Warriors of the Second Attention; and the third, or the Sanctum Sanctorum as it were, are the Warriors of the Third Attention.
These three courts must not be confused with what are known as the three stages in the development of a warrior, namely, the hunter, the warrior and the man of knowledge. Strictly speaking, these three stages tend to overlap the extent of the courts. Therefore, by going through the three stages, the apprentice first becomes a Toltec of the First Attention and from there graduates to the level of the Second Attention, and finally to the Third Attention
.
This training is naturally not something which is normally possible in the space of one lifetime. Toltecs the world over have therefore moved progressively forward through the courts, although there have always been those rare individuals who have moved forward faster than most. These individuals invariably become leaders, even amongst Toltecs.
For example, the Old Seers were predominantly Warriors of the First Attention, but had amongst them leaders of the Second Attention who defined for them the course of action to be followed.
The New Seers were, correctly speaking, Warriors of the Second Attention, and they in turn had leaders who were beginning to master the Third Attention.
The three levels of proficiency, or courts, are better understood when the three stages in the training of an apprentice are viewed as a whole.
Every apprentice starts his training in normal awareness, termed the First Attention, because this teaching is within the grasp of everyone. It is, as it were, at the level of the average man in the street, and handles both the theory and practical application of all the basic concepts pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge or personal power.
This training covers every aspect of the Toltec tradition known as the teachings for the right side, and is generally grasped with relative ease, as it is directed at the rational mind. This section of the teachings is what is known as The Way of the Hunter.
Proficiency in being able to master the instruction given in this section, together with the ability to move the assemblage point, earns for the apprentice the title of a Warrior of the First Attention.
Running parallel to this training is that section of the teachings which deals with awareness from the angle of heightened awareness or, more accurately, the Second Attention. In this section the apprentice is constantly being manipulated into shifting his assemblage point into left side awareness, and whilst in this state is made to review everything which has been learned in normal awareness.
It is in this section of the work that the apprentice is taught the concepts of stalking, dreaming and intent. This training covers that knowledge known as The Way of the Warrior, and generally prepares the apprentice for the more advanced work.
Proficiency in both the Way of the Hunter and the Way of the Warrior constitutes that knowledge which is recognized by the title of a Warrior of the Second Attention.
If in addition to having mastered this section of the work the warrior is also able to see unaided, then he is regarded as a Toltec, which it will be remembered implies a seer, or man of knowledge.
From this point onwards the warrior no longer needs instruction as such, because everything stands revealed to his power of inner sight. However, the conferment of Toltec status at this point in the development of the warrior, although widely used in the past by the New Seers is, strictly speaking,. not correct. According to tradition, such status is only justified when the seer also takes upon himself the responsiblity of leading his people.
Having reached this level in his development the warrior is already a master in his own right, and as such the next section of his training is not instruction in the normal sense of the word. Such instruction is rather guidance towards the unfolding of his full power and responsiblity as a magical being of the universe.
The knowledge covered in this section deals primarily with altered states of perception and their uses, together with alternate worlds and the denizens of those worlds as they interact with man.
In this part of their training warriors are also guided into performing their true function as one of the four different types of men or women within a Toltec unit*, and are given instruction on the purpose and destiny of the unit and group** to which they belong.
Whilst the initial training of a warrior deals primarily with the development of the individual, this section of the training involves the concept of group effort. It has as its basis intelligent co-operation in the guiding of the race, and man's responsibility towards the other life-forms who share the planet with him.
Proficiency in this section of knowledge is what truly constitutes The Way of the Toltec. It is the pinnacle of the Toltec Path and, if successfully completed, leads the warrior to that crossroad known as The Ultimate Choice.
The Ultimate Choice involves the warrior having to choose between the two paths which are available to Toltecs who reach this point in the unfoldment of their power.
The one path is known as The Path of Freedom, whilst the other is termed The Path of High Adventure.
The latter path is the paramount temptation for warriors, for it is a brilliant and most enticing path offering its devotees dazzling power which can only be described as intoxicating, but it does not lead warriors to freedom.
* This is the technical term used for warriors working under the guidance of a nagal upon the physical plane.
**The awareness of mankind is divided into seven different qualities of awareness, termed groups. Units of warriors are sub-divisions of these greater groups.
Followers of The Path of High Adventure develop the Second Attention to its ultimate potential, enabling those practioners to enlist the aid of inorganic entities, to effect
transformations of the human body, and even to slow the aging process down to such an extent as to achieve relative immortality.
On the other hand, those warriors who choose to turn away from these formidable powers continue their search, rather than becoming obsessed with the glamour of the Second Attention. In time, these warriors find themselves entering that level of awareness termed the Third Attention.
These are the warriors who walk the Path of Freedom, and who are also known as
Warriors of the Third Attention.
Warriors of the Third Attention always remain within the unit to which they belong and continue research work which cannot easily be rendered comprehensible in terms of words, for it entails the projection of thought patterns and the manipulation of awareness and perception beyond the normal comprehension of mankind.
It is work which can best be described as being exclusively group orientated, but not in the sense in which this isnormally
understood.
Suffice it to say that although all Warriors of the Third Attention have for a long, long time been working from the understanding that their power does not entitle them to interfere where they are not needed, nonetheless they have always willingly undertaken any tasks periodically assigned to them by Those they have come to call the Guardians of the Race.
As has already been mentioned, world evolution today stands at a crucial crossroad. Toltec evolution finds itself confronted by this same crisis, since the challenge facing the world is identical to the one facing the Toltecs.
Today, Toltec Warriors of the Third Attention acknowledge the fact that if Toltec evolution is to proceed according to universal law, and if Toltecs are once again to take their rightful place in society, then the Doctrine of Separate Development must be spurned. Toltecs the world over must re-unite and pool their knowledge and power if Toltecs as a whole are to fulfil their true purpose in the unfolding of planetary destiny.
Likewise, if world prosperity and peace is to be established, mankind must drop its sectarianism, racialism and separativeness, and must instead adopt a universal policy which will bring all the peoples of the world and their knowledge together to form one pool of common human endeavour.
This is not to say that there must necessarily be one world government, or even for that matter one world religion, but rather that mankind must endeavour to recognize the interrelationship and interdependence of all life and of all true knowledge.
There is after all but one humanity, and only one truth. What separates and divides, what causes misunderstanding and hatred, is man's inability, as yet, to recognize the fact that there is more than the one frame of reference to which he so dogmatically adheres.
If man will only pause to consider that perhaps the world is not what he has always forced himself to believe it is, then he will come to the realisation that a multiplicity of religious beliefs, or differing political ideologies, does not mean that one is right and the other is wrong, but rather that all contain one particular facet of an overall truth.
Once this has been understood it is not so difficult to see that all facets are needed if the whole truth is to stand revealed. Then too will the concept of universal brotherhood not seem quite so idealistic and unachievable.
Toltecs have ever known that understanding is relative to the frame of reference used. If this frame of reference is altered, then so is our perception of the world, and for that matter, of truth.
At the end of the day the only truth that is worth defending and striving for is that overall perception born from the fluidity of the assemblage point — a fluidity which is needed in order to achieve total awareness.
This highly specialized knowledge is the gift Toltecs bring to mankind, and in their experience of handling this knowledge lies man's hope for future prosperity and world peace.
As experience has shown, such peace cannot be enforced by political treaties based upon empty promises. Lasting peace will only be achieved if it is mutually accepted by all and grounded in the universal understanding of the interrelationship and interdependence of all life.
This concept is of course far from new, for mankind has been speaking about universal brotherhood for ever and a day. However, as long as man dogmatically holds on to the idea that physical plane reality is the only frame of reference there is, he will always be fighting to make his brother accept his views, his beliefs, his ideologies, as the only ones that are correct.
The Christian Church is a prime example of this, for although there has been but one Christ bringing one message to the world, there are today so many different denominations of the Christian Church all claiming to possess the one truth that the mind boggles. In this respect, other world religions have not fared much better, especially the New Age movements and esoteric schools of thought.
Anyone seeking the truth today is invariably bombarded with the most fantastic claims made by a whole host of movements and individuals who quite unscrupulously trade upon man's general confusion as to what he should be following.
In view of what has happened to mankind's religious structures, it is not so surprising that scientists the world over have more or less divorced themselves entirely from all beliefs which have their basis in ethico-religious thought.
Yet here, too, Toltecs can be of invaluable assistance to science. Toltecs' knowledge of the human psyche and its reflection within the universe and in nature generally is not something which has been based upon haphazard assumption and superstition. Should orthodox science wish to do so, this knowledge can be corroborated systematically and scientifically.
The same is also true of medicine, but again it is understandable that orthodox medicine should snort indignantly at the hocus-pocus which, unfortunately, is sometimes publicised under the name of alternative medicine. This is not to infer that alternative medicine is nonsense, but rather that there are sadly far too many ignorant people who fancy themsleves as healers.
Should mankind be willing to accept the interrelationship of all life as at least a working hypothesis, then education too will automatically undergo the much-needed and many changes necessary if it is to equip up-and-coming generations with the knowledge required in order to fulfil present and future world needs.
In all of this the world at large should today turn its attention fully to that little understood orphan of the world, namely South Africa.
That strange country of mixed peoples, mixed beliefs, conflicting political ideologies and socio-economic variances has long been groping around in the darkness of human failings and despair, but in that darkness it has begun to find the hope engendered by universal reconciliation and the interdependence of all life.
In this country will be born a totally new order of human society based upon that tolerance and acceptance which comes from a people who have finally come to grasp the importance of every individual as a unit necessary to the well-being of the whole. By the year 2000 it will be to South Africa that the world will look for guidance in all matters of a humanitarian nature.
South Africa has, through its practice of gross separativeness, been brought face to face with the meaning of brotherhood and world goodwill. It is to this effect that the Guardians of the Race have bent all effort over the past few decades. Therefore, it is also in this country that Toltecs will launch their endeavour to re-unite and to resume their long-abandoned leadership in world thought.
This then concludes the account of the historical development of Toltec knowledge throughout the ages right up to the present time, and through this it is hoped that the reader now has at least some idea of the backdrop against which to view the work of Toltecs as they strive to walk the Path of Knowledge.
If one were to summarise the Toltec Path in a few words one could never do it justice, and yet perhaps one could say that ultimately it is the Path of Power, which is also the Path of Freedom.
It is the Path of Power because, firstly, upon this path we learn to achieve the power which enables us to become aware of the hidden potentials within ourselves, and secondly, we learn to use those hidden potentials to unlock within ourselves the formidable powers of awareness and perception. Once the mystery of perception has been understood and mastered, our power and ability to bring about world peace and prosperity stands fully revealed and ready for use.
It is also the Path of Freedom, because upon this path we learn that we have a choice. We can, if we wish, remain victims of fate by doggedly holding on to our one and only view of the world. Alternatively, we can expand our awareness to include all the possible perceptions available to man and so ally ourselves with that fate. When we ally ourselves with our fate we in a sense rise above it, and thus gain a measure of freedom.
Toltecs teach that each of us has the ability and the right to make our command the Eagle's command, for this we say is the Eagle's gift to man. However, it is the rare man indeed who realises that the only thing required of us in order to accept this truly priceless gift is the knowledge and energy with which to move the assemblage point.
In this respect those of us who have dedicated our allegiance to the Guardians of the Race in helping to uplift all of life upon this planet stand ready to guide humanity however best we may.
Toltecs are willing to put all their knowledge at the disposal of the world so that mankind may finally benefit from its rightful heritage. For far too long have Toltecs had to play the role of custodians of this heritage, and as such been forced to carry the heavy burden of accepting sole responsibility for their people. In the past this has been necessary, but today this is no longer true.
Mankind has come of age, and thus the time is now ripe for man to accept joint responsiblity in the peaceful and successful furtherance of all evolution of life upon this magnificent planet.
Toltecs will therefore play their part in revealing to mankind what exactly its heritage entails, and so will the age-old secrets stand revealed.
This book is but the first step in this direction. Now indeed is mankind's hour of power. This is the hour in which mankind must seize the fleeting moment of chance -
a chance which he must not let slip if he is indeed to come into his own as the magical being of the universe which he is by divine birthright.
All of this is according to Divine Law, and thus will the ancient prophecy be fulfilled.
CHAPTER ONE
ORIGIN OF THE TOLTEC WARRIORS AND THEIR KNOWLEDGE
'There are, scattered throughout the world, a handful of thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in obscurity, far from the rumours of the world, studying the great problems of the physical and spiritual universes. They have their secret records in which are preserved the fruits of the scholastic labours of the long line of recluses whose successors they are.'
H.P.
BLAVATSKY
1
For those amongst us who prefer things to be done in the accepted manner, let me begin this account in the age-old fashion which I am sure will more than likely be deemed proper for a tale such as this.
Once upon a time.........eighteen million years ago, several groups of people, who would by today's standards be known as priests and priestesses of the ancient temples of humanity, came to this world together with mankind as we know mankind today.
How this all came about and from where mankind originated are questions that go far beyond the scope of this book, but what can be said is that the arrival of man upon this planet was something akin to a semi-voluntary exile from his home-world.
This planet, however, imposed such severe limitations upon the life-forms which came here that man became utterly immersed in that prison we have come to call matter. So drastic was the effect of this that man even forgot his home-world and who and what he really is.
Lost and bewildered, mankind turned to the priests and priestesses for spiritual guidance, only to find that they too had been affected in the same adverse way as the rest of mankind. This was a dark period of seemingly endless struggle and hopelessness.
All of this took place in that far distant time when humanity was at that stage of evolution which is today known as Lemurian and was living upon the ancient continent of Shalmali.
The immersion in matter, and man's struggle against the debilitating effect of this, took place over millions of years. In this time there were seven sub-races born within the civilization of Lemuria.
The fourth sub-race of the Lemurians was known as the Barhishads, or Divine Hermaphrodites, and it was from these that there was born the Rmoahal Race, the first sub-race of the Atlanteans.
From the Rmoahals were born the Tlavatli, and it was from within this stock that the priests and priestesses of old began to incarnate and slowly to regain some of their former memories.
As they gradually regained their memories, so the priests and priestesses once again began to lead their people, and so it was that they became known as Toltecs, meaning men and women of knowledge.
As more of their memories were restored, the Toltecs then took it upon themselves to lead mankind back to its true home as soon as this was possible. Thus it was that they also became known as warriors of the Spirit fighting for freedom.
So this was how the history of the Toltec warriors began upon this planet in an era when mankind was just beginning to measure time as we know time today.
On recalling their former training, the Toltecs began developing the ability to see, for they were equipped with what is today known as the third eye. It was only in the period of becoming immersed in matter and the resultant loss of memory that the Toltec seers experienced a temporary psychic blindness. However, once some of them
began to remember, this natural ability to see returned and enabled them rapidly to recall the former knowledge they had acquired upon their home-world.
This knowledge consisted almost entirely of what is called will-power, mathematics, astronomy and astrology. So adept were the Toltecs in the use of will-power that they had no difficulty in levitating either themselves or solid objects of immense size and weight, and it was this ability which was much later used to build structures such as the Great Pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in England.
The Toltecs then started to teach their fellow men the mundane but practical crafts required for physical prosperity, such as fishing, hunting, cooking, healing, building, the fundamentals of mathematics, and many of the arts, notably sculpture.
The Toltecs had one serious problem though, for although their knowledge was extremely comprehensive, it was as yet entirely atavistic and of another world.
The Toltecs had little understanding of the intricacies of life upon the physical plane, for even though they had already spent millions of years upon the earth, this time meant practically nothing to them because of their initial loss of memory.
As a consequence, their knowledge of matter was limited. Toltecs at this time had no understanding of the abstract, for they saw things entirely as they were, and therefore for them everything was very clear, but nevertheless also one-sided.
Due to this limitation Toltecs did not grasp the implications of duality, or its purpose. As a result, concepts such as the interrelationship and the interaction of all life, although instinctively practised by them, were not understood.
In time this ignorance of the abstract was to lead to the first downfall of the Toltecs, for it gave rise to the worst form of selfishness imaginable.
For thousands of years the Toltecs led their people superbly, and the whole of their world, by then known as Atlantis, prospered in great material wealth and power. It was from this rule by the Toltecs that their world derived its name, for the word atl means 'head' or 'ruler'.
The people of Atlantis had an Emperor, known as the White Emperor by virtue of the fact that his knowledge was the greatest ' amongst the Toltecs, and as such he was likened to a great white light.
The Emperor ruled his people from the capital city of the Toltecs, known as the City of the Golden Gates.
Because die crafts they had been taught by the Toltecs were specialized, the people had been divided into clans, much like guilds, and each of these guilds was governed by a small group of Toltecs. These clans lived in cities, each city being governed by a senior Toltec who had a status equivalent to a king.
These kings in turn were ruled by the Emperor, who was surrounded by a group of the more learned and powerful of the Toltecs.
As time went on, and as the knowledge of the people grew, so some of the clans, together with their kings, became ambitious for more knowledge and power.
No longer content with the knowledge and the power they had, these people started to look at their neighbours and more advanced Toltecs with envy. It was not long before greed drove some of the Toltecs to start experimenting with ways in which to increase their psychic abilities in an attempt to gain superiority over others.This was the beginning of sorcery, and the practice of the black art.
Having no real grasp of the abstract, Toltecs on the whole did not understand their psychic abilities any more than a duck understands how it swims. Consequently, the Toltecs who turned their hand to sorcery began to develop the most elaborate and intricate rituals with which to boost their power*.
Even though they did not realise that these rituals served no purpose other than to strengthen their will*, these sorcerers nevertheless managed to increase their power to such an extent that they began to overrun and dominate other cities and Toltecs.
* Will and power are synonymous terms for the product of perception.
Rebellion and strife spread rapidly as Toltec fought Toltec for supremacy. Warfare had been discovered and launched full-scale, but as this was a war fought not only with physical weapons but also with psychic weapons, the destruction was terrible.
The White Emperor and his group of Toltec advisors were eventually driven from the City of the Golden Gates, after which the sorcerers put one of their own upon the throne.
The White Emperor, his advisors, and many of the kings, were by this time sufficiently aware of the interrelationship of all life, and could therefore foresee the consequences of sorcery. This led to the start of the great Toltec migration, for the White Emperor and his followers started to move north into Egypt, and west into North and South America in an attempt to save themselves and their people from the disasters they could foresee.
So great had become the black Toltecs' command over the forces of nature, and so limited was their understanding of the interrelationship of all, that it did not take them long to unbalance the forces of the earth to such an extent that natural cataclysms started to occur.
The first great catastrophe struck in approximately 800,000 B.C.E.
The cataclysm of earthquakes and tidal waves shattered the main continent into a great many islands of varying size and destroyed the City of the Golden Gates, togedier with the Black Emperor and his sorcerers.
For a while this warning kept sorcery at bay, but relatively speaking it was not too long before greed once again surfaced, and in approximately 200,000 B.C.E. the second great cataclysm reduced the remains of Atlantis down to two huge islands, Daitya and Ruta.
This time the warning was not heeded for quite so long. The Toltecs upon Ruta, by then hopelessly addicted to the black art, brought about another cataclysm in 75,000 B.C.E., destroying both Ruta and Daitya, and heaving up die large island that was to become known as Poseidonis.
In 9,564 B.C.E., Poseidonis also met its fate as it sank beneath massive tidal waves brought
about by violent volcanic eruptions. Atlantis and her black sorcerers were finally gone forever.
At various times during the destruction of the mother continent the remnants of the Atlanteans migrated to other parts of the world, some of which had emerged as a result of the major cataclysms that destroyed Atlantis.
On the whole, these remnants, led and guided by their Toltec kings and priests, did not fare at all well. Some, however, did manage to find lands where they could settle and even flourish. Notable amongst those who prospered were the Egyptian dynasties, the Chaldeans, Peruvians, Akkadians, Tibetans, and to a lesser extent various smaller groups scattered throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
It is not the purpose of this book to give detailed accounts of all these various lines, but merely to point out how it came about that Toltecs became so scattered throughout the world. Even to this day Toltecs are found the world over, and it is due to this fact that at least some of the lines managed to survive the rigours of the subsequent centuries.
In time, most of the weaker lines lost their Toltec kings and priests, either through wars or natural causes. Where there were no descendants of the seers the people started to fall into barbaric ignorance.
This same fate also befell many of the stronger lines, and in time they too were likewise impoverished.
The number of truly learned seers diminished rapidly as finding and training suitable successors became increasingly difficult. The atavistic abilities of the original seers had moreover started to die out due to the steady development of the rational mind, This development of rational thought had become necessary in order to gain greater knowledge of the abstract, of matter and of the forces of duality.
By the time Poseidonis met its end there were only a handful of natural seers left in the world, and in time these too died out. This meant that most of the Toltec descendants, although extremely knowledgeable and capable of leading, were now no longer seers.
This lack of seers was obviously a serious setback. In their endeavour to regain the abilities of their ancestors, the Toltecs used their knowledge of medicinal plants and drugs to enable them to see. The drugs worked after a fashion, but the cost to the physical body and brain from using these plants continuously was soon found to outweigh the benefits. Even so, Toltecs had no other means by which to see, and although the rate of mortality, insanity and failure kept escalating, they desperately continued with their experiments.
Dark and terrible as this time was, it nevertheless brought Toltecs face to face with the hard facts of life on the physical plane, and thus the effects brought about by the necessary development of the rational mind finally caught up with the Toltecs, exacting a heavy toll. Yet this also meant that even though Toltecs had lost their atavistic abilities, they were for the first time faced with the opportunity to discover what those abilities had really consisted of in the first place, and exactly how these worked in practice.
It was not until much later that Toltecs could see in retrospect what a gift this dark time had been, for it was during this period of constant struggle and failure that they learned to look deep within themselves and to find there faculties they never knew they possessed. Without realising it at the time, Toltecs had taken a huge step forward in their development and had in addition defined one of the fundamentals of the Toltec Path, namely that a warrior lives by challenge.
As time went on, Toltecs became more selective in their use of drugs, and therefore more proficient. The rate of failure and mortality started to decline, whilst the numbers of seers increased. But by this time Toltecs were faced with yet another problem; one which was so subtle that they did not identify what it was until it was already too late.
Toltecs had become obsessed with their desire to see to such an extent that seeing had become for them more important than
knowledge itself. With this obsession, the sobriety of their former knowledge quickly became replaced by the same arrogance and self-importance that had been the downfall of the sorcerers in Adantis.
The black art had once again reared its ugly head, and now even the remaining Toltecs succumbed to sorcery. This was the era which Carlos Castaneda describes in his books as that of the Old Seers.
Using their newly rediscovered ability to see, the Old Seers began reviving most of the old practices, and it did not take them long to reinstate the rituals and incantations which had been the specialized knowledge of the sorcerers of Atlantis.
These rituals allowed the Old Seers to manipulate their awareness in such a manner that they could achieve what we today call altered states of perception.
By using these rituals and entering into different states of awareness, the Old Seers learned an enormous amount, not only about themselves but also about the other life-forms, both organic* and inorganic, which share the planet with man.
* Life-forms which have biological functions. t Life-forms which do not have biological functions.
Like their Atlantean predecessors, the Old Seers were remarkably clever at amassing facts and information but, since their sense of self-importance was so great, the Old Seers used this knowledge to dominate and manipulate everyone and everything luckless enough to catch their attention.
During this period in Toltec history the Old Seers re-established themselves to a great extent within the same clan or guild systems that had been in use in ancient Atlantis. So powerful were these guilds that they invariably dominated even the leaders of the people, whether king or emperor. This was equally true regardless of where in the world Toltec history was unfolding.
In this respect it should be realised that the Toltec civilization in the Valley of Mexico as described by Carlos Castaneda was but one of many later civilizations.
Historically this was the only lineage that went under the name of Toltec but, as has been explained previously, all civilizations the world over, whatever their name, had their roots in Toltec migrations from Adantis.
Therefore, at the core of all these civilizations were priest-seers trained in the Toltec tradition.
As a result of this common heritage and tradition, and in spite of the fact that dates obviously vary enormously between one civilization and the next, Toltec knowledge the world over has nevertheless always unfolded in more or less an identical pattern.
The Old Seers ruled for a long period during which they continued to gather a vast amount of information about the manipulation of awareness, but they mostly used this knowledge for the furtherance of the black art. Many of the rituals and magical incantations found in the world today are watered-down versions of the techniques that were used at one time or another by these Old Seers.
Sorcery flourished and, depending upon which civilization they happened to be a part of, many of these Old Seers lasted right up until, and even beyond, the advent of Christ and the Christian Church.
It was because of the unscrupulous actions and the unwholesome pursuits of these Old Seers that the Christian Church began its great persecution of paganism.
It was, however, not only the Christian Church, as is commonly assumed, that brought about the demise of the Old Seers. Even in the absence of the Christians, the Old Seers often found themselves at the mercy of other conquerors.
The reason for this was that although the Old Seers had become just as powerful as their Atlantean predecessors, they still had one serious disadvantage which they had not managed to overcome.
This disadvantage amounted to the fact that the Old Seers could not entirely master the force of will, which the old Atlanteans had done with such ease. This was in many ways a blessing, for if the Old Seers had conquered the force of will, the evils of Atlantis would have been repeated, since the Old Seers would undoubtedly have unleashed upon their enemies the full force of their knowledge. It was this lack of being able to command will which saved the world from yet more psychic warfare and which ultimately brought about the destruction of the Old Seers.
Powerful as the Old Seers' rituals were, they were also cumbersome and impractical. Whenever physically confronted by their enemies, the lack of the necessary time in which to incant and perform their rituals rendered the Old Seers just as defenceless as the people they ruled.
During these times of trouble, and especially during the persecution of paganism by the Christian Church, some of the more far-sighted Toltecs broke away from their age-old tradition and began to review their situation within the world. These were the Toltecs which marked the beginning of that era Carlos Castaneda termed the age of the New Seers.
The New Seers could clearly see the disadvantages of lengthy and cumbersome rituals. But more important still was the fact that they could also see the futility of trying to control and manipulate others, because of the continuous strife which this inevitably brings about.
This split in the Toltec tradition was by far the most important event in the history of the Toltecs, for it constituted that turning point in their knowledge, and provided that magical key which Toltecs had been seeking ever since the destruction of Atlantis.
As has already been stated, the Old Seers had enough knowledge and ability to manipulate the awareness of their victims, and this they, did without scruple. The fact that awareness can be manipulated is a vitally important tenet of Toltec knowledge, but man is today generally still sceptical about this truth.
Although arts such as telepathy and hypnosis have done much to eradicate this scepticism, man still finds it hard to believe that someone can manipulate his awareness without his consent or knowledge. Yet this is exactly what the Old Seers had been capable of doing.
Today Toltecs no longer adhere to the endless techniques of the Old Seers, for although these techniques remain powerful tools, they have nevertheless outlived their purpose. However, in spite of the fact that Toltecs now spurn this aspect of their heritage, these techniques still form an integral part of their knowledge, by virtue of tradition.
Another important fact to be stressed is that Toltec knowledge, because of a peculiarity of the Toltec tradition, has never been and can never be lost.
This has always been one of the strengths of the Toltecs, since this accumulated knowledge has been the principal medium through which they have been able to acquire their power. However, for the Old Seers, as we have seen, it was also their weakness, for it was this part of the Toltec tradition which tempted them back into the abominations of the Atlantean sorcerers.
In their arrogance and conceit the Old Seers aspired to a kind of power which was abusive, and although it would in some respects be an exaggeration to label the Old Seers as evil, they came close enough to being exactly that.
One of the most costly mistakes the Old Seers made was to fail to acknowledge the importance of having to make their knowledge more streamlined and practical for use upon the physical plane. Instead, owing to their self-importance and obsession with power, their methods of manipulating awareness became ever more complex and impractical. Furthermore, the Old Seers were far too lazy to bring any order into their already vast and rapidly-growing knowledge.
Eventually it came to the point where they could no longer see the wood for the trees. Self-importance had undermined their strength, so that even though they had at their disposal knowledge that was quite awesome, chaos precluded them from being able to put it to any real practical use.
Although today we no longer condone the aberrations of the Old Seers, we must give the devil his due, for the Old Seers discovered some truly amazing facts about awareness knowledge without which the Toltec tradition would be much impoverished.
The task that faced the New Seers was to take stock of their overburdened tradition and to re-evaluate their vast heritage of knowledge. From their experience the New Seers could see that the Old Seers had gone very far astray, but, so vast was their knowledge by this time and so utterly chaotic, that none of the New Seers were sure what was valid and what was useless. The only logical thing they could do was to start working from the hypothesis that everything their predecessors had done was questionable, and to start classifying the immense amount of knowledge available to them. This marked the end of chaos and the beginning of a long-needed order and sense of sobriety.
The New Seers discarded all the many theories the Old Seers had formulated and held as being central to their knowledge,
and began searching for practical ways in which to apply this knowledge. Consequently they managed to condense the greater
part of their heritage into a few fundamental concepts which could be applied practically.
The first of these concepts concerned what the Old Seers called the Eagle. In their attempts to fathom the purpose of existence, the Old Seers actually managed to see the source of all life, which when interpreted by the rational mind resembles
something akin to a black and white eagle.
Consequently, the Old Seers metaphorically termed this source the Eagle.
Seeing the Eagle was an act which cost a great many of the Old Seers their sanity, or their lives, or both.
However, from what they managed to see they worked out that the purpose of existence is to enhance the quality of awareness. This was an invaluable discovery, and one which has become fundamental to everything that Toltecs today know and practise.
The Old Seers could see that it is the Eagle which endows all beings with awareness at the moment of birth and which also reclaims this awareness at the moment of death, having become enriched by the being's experiences during life. The Old Seers understood this as meaning that the Eagle feeds off awareness, and that the sole purpose of existence is therefore to keep recycling awareness so as to bring out all latent potential.
It is important to realise that there is of course no Eagle as such, nor is there anything visual about the incomprehensible source of life. Nevertheless, even a seer is subjected to the conditions of the rational mind, which must by its very nature interpret things, and the result of such interpretation is a visual impact of the Eagle.
The manifested universe is an infinity beyond our understanding of time and space, for its size and complexity cannot be rendered comprehensible in terms of words or mortal concepts. It is not God, for God after all is part of what we know.
The churches, ministers of religion, and even other people, are constantly trying to describe God to us, so therefore God becomes something within the scope of words, within the sphere of conceptualization.
But beyond words, beyond description, beyond concept, lies that indescribable, incomprehensible No-Thing, which can only be termed the Unspeakable.
This was yet another error on the part of the Old Seers. In their arrogance they never stopped to consider that most of what constitutes the manifested universe is utterly incomprehensible and unknowable within the framework of our human condition.
The New Seers corrected this mistake by identifying and demarcating three distinct levels of awareness.
The first of these levels they termed the known, which consists of everything the human being can register within normal awareness. The second level, termed the unknown, is a truly vast and mysterious area, but which can and does become the known gradually and sequentially as the seer gains in his proficiency to see it. The third level, on the other hand, termed the unknowable, is a level of awareness which can never be known to man whilst he still retains his humanness. To enter into the unknowable is to lose our humanness, which is why so many of the Old Seers lost their sanity.
The Old Seers had, over generations, gathered a vast number of facts about awareness, which they never formulated into an ordered structure. As the New Seers started to rearrange these facts another very important set of concepts emerged, which were condensed into an ordered whole to form a set of precepts which were termed the Truths of Awareness.
The New Seers regarded these precepts as paramount to all of their understanding, and to this day these truths form the foundations of the Toltec Teachings.
Most of the Truths of Awareness are based upon the act of perception and the way in which this takes place. The New Seers found that the whole mystery of perception can be summarized quite adequately in the following nine precepts:
1. The universe consists of an infinite number of energy fields,resembling threads of light.
2. These threadlike energy fields radiate from a source of unimaginable dimensions metaphorically called the Eagle. As such these energy fields are known as the Eagle's Emanations.
3. Human beings are likewise composed of the same infinite number of these threadlike energy fields which manifest in the shape of a large luminous egg. The height of this egg is equal to the length of a man's body with his arms fully extended above his head on the vertical axis, and its width is that of a man with his arms extended outwards from the centre of his body along the horizontal axis. This egg is known as the cocoon of man.
4. Only a small group of the energy fields inside the cocoon are lit up at any one time by a brilliant point of light located on the surface of the cocoon.
5. Perception takes place when the energy fields which are illuminated by the point of light extend their light to illuminate corresponding energy fields outside the cocoon. This point of light is termed the point where perception is assembled, normally abbreviated to the assemblage point.
6. It is possible to shift the assemblage point to any other position on the surface of the cocoon, or even into its interior. Because the assemblage point illuminates any energy fields with which it comes into contact, the new energy fields it illuminates as a result of such shifting constitute therefore a new perception. It is this new level of perception that is known as seeing.
7. When the assemblage point shifts sufficiently far a totally new world is perceived, which is as real as the one man normally perceives.
8. There is a mysterious force known as intent which exists throughout the entire universe. It is this force which brings about perception, for it is intent which,firstly, aligns the energy fields, and secondly, causes awareness of that alignment.
9. The goal of warriors is to experience all possible perceptions available to man. This constitutes what is known as Total Awareness, inherent within which is an alternate way of dying.
In order to see, the Old Seers had to use hallucinogens to move their assemblage points, but the New Seers realised that this was as impractical as the rituals of the Old Seers. More than anything else, practical ways of moving the assemblage point were now needed, and in order to find these the New Seers began by studying the assemblage point through seeing, even though at the outset they still had to make use of drugs. This research turned out to be most worthwhile, for not only did they find the necessary techniques to enable them to move the assemblage point, but they also uncovered the mystery of willpower.
The Old Seers had known about the mysterious force which their Atlantean predecessors had used with such facility. Through observation, they also knew that this force exists throughout all of nature and the manifested universe. The Old Seers termed this force power, but they never understood it or managed to figure out how to use it.
The New Seers discovered that this mysterious force is in fact the energy of alignment, that is, the force that is released when energy fields inside the cocoon become aligned with energy fields outside the cocoon. The New Seers termed this force will, and defined it as 'a continuous flow of energy which can be guided by the intent of the seer'.
The New Seers also discovered that will is the force that makes us behave in the ways we do when we perceive. It is therefore this force that determines our perception of the world. Thus it is will which fixes the assemblage point at the exact spot where it is located. Here it is important to realise that although there is a definite area within which the assemblage point can always be found, the exact position is brought about by habitual action and repetition.
Habits obviously vary between one
individual and the next, and consequently no two people will have their assemblage points fixed in exactly the same spot.
The assemblage point of man is generally found on the surface of the cocoon, roughly opposite the point between the
shoulder blades.
In the development of the normal child, the child first learns where it seems most suitable to place the assemblage point and then fixes it there through repetition. This repetition is at first mostly dictated by encouragement from elders and later by habitual internal dialogue.
Toltecs today know that man can only maintain his view of the world by constantly confirming this view to himself by means of his internal dialogue. This means that the world always appears to be exactly what man constantly tells himself it is.
By far the most important aspect of Toltec knowledge is that once the internal dialogue has been stopped the assemblage point is free to move. This enables man to experience altered states of perception quite spontaneously and is the magical key the Old Seers had searched for so ardently.
Had they but realised that the only real value of their rituals lay in their ability to shift the assemblage point the Old Seers would have discovered this key, as well as the secret of will or power.
Once this discovery had been made, Toltec knowledge became transformed, and the New Seers were well on their way to correcting the mistakes of their predecessors.
In order to move the assemblage point, the New Seers defined three principal techniques based upon the nine Truths of Awareness.
The first technique is termed the Art of Stalking, the second is the Art of Dreaming and the third is the Mastery of Intent.
From these three techniques evolved three distinct areas of activity in which every apprentice must become totally proficient
if he is to succeed in becoming a Toltec - namely, the Art of Stalking, the Mastery of Awareness and the Mastery of Intent. In this scheme the Art of Dreaming is incorporated into the Mastery of Awareness and is used only as a means by which the assemblage point can be moved in order to achieve altered states of perception.
These three areas of activity have been defined traditionally as the three riddles which warriors must face and answer as they walk the Path of Power.
The Art of Stalking is termed the riddle of the heart. It is described as the bafflement warriors experience when they become aware, firstly, that the world appears to be what it is only because of our perception and, secondly, that if a different perception is brought to bear upon the world, then our view of the world, which seems to be so inviolable, changes dramatically.
The Mastery of Awareness is termed the riddle of the mind. This is the awesome infinity warriors perceive when they realise the incomprehensible mystery and extent of man's awareness.
The Mastery of Intent is the riddle of the spirit of man. It is the ultimate paradox in that it is the ability of man to project his actions, physical, emotional and mental, beyond normal human comprehension.
As far as the process of learning is concerned, the most important discovery of the New Seers was something which the Old Seers had already uncovered, namely that man has two types of awareness, which they termed the right and left side of man.
The right side is the thinking, logical, rational side of man's mind. On the right side all knowledge flows in a linear and sequential mode.
The left side, on the other hand, is the feeling, irrational side of man's mind which operates entirely independently of any logical or linear progression of sequential thought patterns.
The best way in which to understand the right side, as opposed to the left side, is to consider an example of each.
Consider a mother who receives a telephone call informing her that her son has had an accident.
On the right side the mother will experience more or less the following: The telephone rings and the mother answers it not expecting anything untoward. When told of the accident she first experiences shock and fear, then concern for her son's safety. Many questions flood through her mind in sequence; 'Is he hurt? Where is he? What happened? Is he in hospital?' This is a very simplified, but nonetheless typically logical reaction in which one thought triggers off another.
But had the mother been able to register the left side, her experience would have been completely different and something like the following: Before her son left home that morning the mother had an uneasy feeling concerning his safety, and even though there was no logical reason why she should feel uncomfortable, she could not shake off the feeling. Then suddenly, mid-morning, she experiences a feeling of alarm. In that moment she senses the presence of her son and can feelthat he is deeply distressed.
The mother does not pause to question this, but instinctively starts walking towards the telephone, wondering how best she may reach her son or someone who can put her mind at rest. Even before she reaches the telephone it rings, and as she picks up the receiver a cold shiver runs down her spine, for she knows she is going to hear that her son has had an accident. However, even as she answers the telephone, the mother somehow knows that he is not seriously injured, just shocked.
From these two examples it is plain to see the difference between right and left.
The right is a rational reaction to concrete evidence which sets up a sequence of logical thoughts; the left is an irrational feeling which has nothing to do with either logic or concrete evidence to begin with. Only later will such irrational feelings be corroborated by the necessary evidence.
In trying to understand these concepts it is important to realise that the terms 'right' and 'left side' are terms used for the luminous cocoon of man, and not the right and left hemispheres of the brain and their respective functions.
The Old Seers termed the left side heightened awareness, and since the absence of logical thought enhances clarity, they used to force their apprentices into this state so that the apprentices could achieve the level of concentration required in order to learn sorcery.
The only justification for this method of teaching lies in the fact that the apprentice has great difficulty in remembering teachings communicated to him whilst in a state of heightened awareness. This lack of memory creates a kind of obstacle course, since before the apprentice can utilize his knowledge he has to struggle to recall it.
Such a struggle often takes years and, as a result, by the time the apprentice does remember the teachings, he has, through his long struggle, become totally committed to them.
Today Toltecs have a different view, for now we know that man always learns upon both levels simultaneously. However, learning and remembering what we have learned requires energy, just like anything else.
This creates a problem in that the vast majority of people simply do not have enough energy to register what they are learning on the left side as well as on the right side.
Sometimes a person's energy is at such a low ebb that he cannot even remember what he has learned on the right side, let alone also the left side. Because of a peculiarity of our awareness, the right side always takes precedence over the left side. All available energy is primarily used firstly to register, and secondly to recollect the right side.
Only surplus energy is used for the left side.
In the teaching scheme in use today, apprentices are very rarely forced into heightened awareness simply because the time factor involved in recollecting is too costly. From the very first day of their training apprentices are given instruction which
enables them to bring about a natural and spontaneous movement into heightened awareness. Although in the beginning such a movement is invariably minute, the apprentice soon begins to gain proficiency in this art.
Consequendy, as the apprentice gains in the ability to move deeper into heightened awareness, so the instruction given is stepped up in complexity.
This new method has two great advantages: firstly, the apprentice learns right from the beginning to handle his own awareness, and secondly, time is not lost in lengthy recollections.
This very briefly outlines the new approach and teaching scheme the New Seers constructed out of the knowledge they inherited from their tradition. The New Seers' work was just beginning to take effect when the Christian Church began its long-standing persecution of paganism.
Unhappy as this persecution was, it nonetheless provided the New Seers with the unparalleled opportunity of being able to hone their new-found skills into instruments of the most exacting precision. Mistakes and sloppy technique resulted in torture and death at the hands of the persecutors. Those warriors who were slow to learn, or were just not proficient enough in their new skills, died very quickly.
This was a most uncompromising period in the history of the Toltecs, for although they were forced into learning excellence, the persecution in most parts of the world was so devastating that Toltecs everywhere had to make some far-reaching decisions.
In their attempts to survive, Toltecs the world over at one time or another during the following centuries took the decision to disband.
Consequendy, every leader dissociated himself and his unit from all other units. This was a drastic move which not only resulted in the founding of the different lineages, but which also brought about, for the first time in Toltec history, the isolated development of knowledge.
This move and its effects have become known as the Doctrine of Separate Development. So far-reaching has been the ripple effect of this development that today every Toltec unit exists in solitary confinement, well-hidden from the eyes of the public. Apart from a telepathic mind-link which still exists between most Toltec leaders, there is no communication between one unit and another.
However, even this mind-link is of such a tenuous nature that it is not possible for the user to establish the personal identity or physical location of another.
One more aspect of Toltec knowledge needs to be understood at this point if the historical development of the Toltec tradition is to be grasped as a whole. The new method of teaching which is in force today has another very important advantage in that it allows for the proper instruction to be given to certain 'new' types now coming into incarnation. This point is mentioned here only as a matter of curiosity, for as yet it has no bearing upon the majority of appprentices.
These so-called new types are today still extremely rare. They are Toltecs who have undergone highly specialized training in a former incarnation and the power they wield is of a vastly different quality to that which is generally known. These Toltecs have been given the name Warriors of the Third Attention.
Much confusion will in the future be avoided if it is made clear that although it may appear as if all Toltecs are the same, this is not strictly true. Toltecs are classified into three distinct categories depending on their level of training and proficiency. These three categories of Toltec existence are termed courts.
The first, or outer court, is comprised of what are called Warriors of the First Attention; the second, or inner court, are the Warriors of the Second Attention; and the third, or the Sanctum Sanctorum as it were, are the Warriors of the Third Attention.
These three courts must not be confused with what are known as the three stages in the development of a warrior, namely, the hunter, the warrior and the man of knowledge. Strictly speaking, these three stages tend to overlap the extent of the courts. Therefore, by going through the three stages, the apprentice first becomes a Toltec of the First Attention and from there graduates to the level of the Second Attention, and finally to the Third Attention
.
This training is naturally not something which is normally possible in the space of one lifetime. Toltecs the world over have therefore moved progressively forward through the courts, although there have always been those rare individuals who have moved forward faster than most. These individuals invariably become leaders, even amongst Toltecs.
For example, the Old Seers were predominantly Warriors of the First Attention, but had amongst them leaders of the Second Attention who defined for them the course of action to be followed.
The New Seers were, correctly speaking, Warriors of the Second Attention, and they in turn had leaders who were beginning to master the Third Attention.
The three levels of proficiency, or courts, are better understood when the three stages in the training of an apprentice are viewed as a whole.
Every apprentice starts his training in normal awareness, termed the First Attention, because this teaching is within the grasp of everyone. It is, as it were, at the level of the average man in the street, and handles both the theory and practical application of all the basic concepts pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge or personal power.
This training covers every aspect of the Toltec tradition known as the teachings for the right side, and is generally grasped with relative ease, as it is directed at the rational mind. This section of the teachings is what is known as The Way of the Hunter.
Proficiency in being able to master the instruction given in this section, together with the ability to move the assemblage point, earns for the apprentice the title of a Warrior of the First Attention.
Running parallel to this training is that section of the teachings which deals with awareness from the angle of heightened awareness or, more accurately, the Second Attention. In this section the apprentice is constantly being manipulated into shifting his assemblage point into left side awareness, and whilst in this state is made to review everything which has been learned in normal awareness.
It is in this section of the work that the apprentice is taught the concepts of stalking, dreaming and intent. This training covers that knowledge known as The Way of the Warrior, and generally prepares the apprentice for the more advanced work.
Proficiency in both the Way of the Hunter and the Way of the Warrior constitutes that knowledge which is recognized by the title of a Warrior of the Second Attention.
If in addition to having mastered this section of the work the warrior is also able to see unaided, then he is regarded as a Toltec, which it will be remembered implies a seer, or man of knowledge.
From this point onwards the warrior no longer needs instruction as such, because everything stands revealed to his power of inner sight. However, the conferment of Toltec status at this point in the development of the warrior, although widely used in the past by the New Seers is, strictly speaking,. not correct. According to tradition, such status is only justified when the seer also takes upon himself the responsiblity of leading his people.
Having reached this level in his development the warrior is already a master in his own right, and as such the next section of his training is not instruction in the normal sense of the word. Such instruction is rather guidance towards the unfolding of his full power and responsiblity as a magical being of the universe.
The knowledge covered in this section deals primarily with altered states of perception and their uses, together with alternate worlds and the denizens of those worlds as they interact with man.
In this part of their training warriors are also guided into performing their true function as one of the four different types of men or women within a Toltec unit*, and are given instruction on the purpose and destiny of the unit and group** to which they belong.
Whilst the initial training of a warrior deals primarily with the development of the individual, this section of the training involves the concept of group effort. It has as its basis intelligent co-operation in the guiding of the race, and man's responsibility towards the other life-forms who share the planet with him.
Proficiency in this section of knowledge is what truly constitutes The Way of the Toltec. It is the pinnacle of the Toltec Path and, if successfully completed, leads the warrior to that crossroad known as The Ultimate Choice.
The Ultimate Choice involves the warrior having to choose between the two paths which are available to Toltecs who reach this point in the unfoldment of their power.
The one path is known as The Path of Freedom, whilst the other is termed The Path of High Adventure.
The latter path is the paramount temptation for warriors, for it is a brilliant and most enticing path offering its devotees dazzling power which can only be described as intoxicating, but it does not lead warriors to freedom.
* This is the technical term used for warriors working under the guidance of a nagal upon the physical plane.
**The awareness of mankind is divided into seven different qualities of awareness, termed groups. Units of warriors are sub-divisions of these greater groups.
Followers of The Path of High Adventure develop the Second Attention to its ultimate potential, enabling those practioners to enlist the aid of inorganic entities, to effect
transformations of the human body, and even to slow the aging process down to such an extent as to achieve relative immortality.
On the other hand, those warriors who choose to turn away from these formidable powers continue their search, rather than becoming obsessed with the glamour of the Second Attention. In time, these warriors find themselves entering that level of awareness termed the Third Attention.
These are the warriors who walk the Path of Freedom, and who are also known as
Warriors of the Third Attention.
Warriors of the Third Attention always remain within the unit to which they belong and continue research work which cannot easily be rendered comprehensible in terms of words, for it entails the projection of thought patterns and the manipulation of awareness and perception beyond the normal comprehension of mankind.
It is work which can best be described as being exclusively group orientated, but not in the sense in which this isnormally
understood.
Suffice it to say that although all Warriors of the Third Attention have for a long, long time been working from the understanding that their power does not entitle them to interfere where they are not needed, nonetheless they have always willingly undertaken any tasks periodically assigned to them by Those they have come to call the Guardians of the Race.
As has already been mentioned, world evolution today stands at a crucial crossroad. Toltec evolution finds itself confronted by this same crisis, since the challenge facing the world is identical to the one facing the Toltecs.
Today, Toltec Warriors of the Third Attention acknowledge the fact that if Toltec evolution is to proceed according to universal law, and if Toltecs are once again to take their rightful place in society, then the Doctrine of Separate Development must be spurned. Toltecs the world over must re-unite and pool their knowledge and power if Toltecs as a whole are to fulfil their true purpose in the unfolding of planetary destiny.
Likewise, if world prosperity and peace is to be established, mankind must drop its sectarianism, racialism and separativeness, and must instead adopt a universal policy which will bring all the peoples of the world and their knowledge together to form one pool of common human endeavour.
This is not to say that there must necessarily be one world government, or even for that matter one world religion, but rather that mankind must endeavour to recognize the interrelationship and interdependence of all life and of all true knowledge.
There is after all but one humanity, and only one truth. What separates and divides, what causes misunderstanding and hatred, is man's inability, as yet, to recognize the fact that there is more than the one frame of reference to which he so dogmatically adheres.
If man will only pause to consider that perhaps the world is not what he has always forced himself to believe it is, then he will come to the realisation that a multiplicity of religious beliefs, or differing political ideologies, does not mean that one is right and the other is wrong, but rather that all contain one particular facet of an overall truth.
Once this has been understood it is not so difficult to see that all facets are needed if the whole truth is to stand revealed. Then too will the concept of universal brotherhood not seem quite so idealistic and unachievable.
Toltecs have ever known that understanding is relative to the frame of reference used. If this frame of reference is altered, then so is our perception of the world, and for that matter, of truth.
At the end of the day the only truth that is worth defending and striving for is that overall perception born from the fluidity of the assemblage point — a fluidity which is needed in order to achieve total awareness.
This highly specialized knowledge is the gift Toltecs bring to mankind, and in their experience of handling this knowledge lies man's hope for future prosperity and world peace.
As experience has shown, such peace cannot be enforced by political treaties based upon empty promises. Lasting peace will only be achieved if it is mutually accepted by all and grounded in the universal understanding of the interrelationship and interdependence of all life.
This concept is of course far from new, for mankind has been speaking about universal brotherhood for ever and a day. However, as long as man dogmatically holds on to the idea that physical plane reality is the only frame of reference there is, he will always be fighting to make his brother accept his views, his beliefs, his ideologies, as the only ones that are correct.
The Christian Church is a prime example of this, for although there has been but one Christ bringing one message to the world, there are today so many different denominations of the Christian Church all claiming to possess the one truth that the mind boggles. In this respect, other world religions have not fared much better, especially the New Age movements and esoteric schools of thought.
Anyone seeking the truth today is invariably bombarded with the most fantastic claims made by a whole host of movements and individuals who quite unscrupulously trade upon man's general confusion as to what he should be following.
In view of what has happened to mankind's religious structures, it is not so surprising that scientists the world over have more or less divorced themselves entirely from all beliefs which have their basis in ethico-religious thought.
Yet here, too, Toltecs can be of invaluable assistance to science. Toltecs' knowledge of the human psyche and its reflection within the universe and in nature generally is not something which has been based upon haphazard assumption and superstition. Should orthodox science wish to do so, this knowledge can be corroborated systematically and scientifically.
The same is also true of medicine, but again it is understandable that orthodox medicine should snort indignantly at the hocus-pocus which, unfortunately, is sometimes publicised under the name of alternative medicine. This is not to infer that alternative medicine is nonsense, but rather that there are sadly far too many ignorant people who fancy themsleves as healers.
Should mankind be willing to accept the interrelationship of all life as at least a working hypothesis, then education too will automatically undergo the much-needed and many changes necessary if it is to equip up-and-coming generations with the knowledge required in order to fulfil present and future world needs.
In all of this the world at large should today turn its attention fully to that little understood orphan of the world, namely South Africa.
That strange country of mixed peoples, mixed beliefs, conflicting political ideologies and socio-economic variances has long been groping around in the darkness of human failings and despair, but in that darkness it has begun to find the hope engendered by universal reconciliation and the interdependence of all life.
In this country will be born a totally new order of human society based upon that tolerance and acceptance which comes from a people who have finally come to grasp the importance of every individual as a unit necessary to the well-being of the whole. By the year 2000 it will be to South Africa that the world will look for guidance in all matters of a humanitarian nature.
South Africa has, through its practice of gross separativeness, been brought face to face with the meaning of brotherhood and world goodwill. It is to this effect that the Guardians of the Race have bent all effort over the past few decades. Therefore, it is also in this country that Toltecs will launch their endeavour to re-unite and to resume their long-abandoned leadership in world thought.
This then concludes the account of the historical development of Toltec knowledge throughout the ages right up to the present time, and through this it is hoped that the reader now has at least some idea of the backdrop against which to view the work of Toltecs as they strive to walk the Path of Knowledge.
If one were to summarise the Toltec Path in a few words one could never do it justice, and yet perhaps one could say that ultimately it is the Path of Power, which is also the Path of Freedom.
It is the Path of Power because, firstly, upon this path we learn to achieve the power which enables us to become aware of the hidden potentials within ourselves, and secondly, we learn to use those hidden potentials to unlock within ourselves the formidable powers of awareness and perception. Once the mystery of perception has been understood and mastered, our power and ability to bring about world peace and prosperity stands fully revealed and ready for use.
It is also the Path of Freedom, because upon this path we learn that we have a choice. We can, if we wish, remain victims of fate by doggedly holding on to our one and only view of the world. Alternatively, we can expand our awareness to include all the possible perceptions available to man and so ally ourselves with that fate. When we ally ourselves with our fate we in a sense rise above it, and thus gain a measure of freedom.
Toltecs teach that each of us has the ability and the right to make our command the Eagle's command, for this we say is the Eagle's gift to man. However, it is the rare man indeed who realises that the only thing required of us in order to accept this truly priceless gift is the knowledge and energy with which to move the assemblage point.
In this respect those of us who have dedicated our allegiance to the Guardians of the Race in helping to uplift all of life upon this planet stand ready to guide humanity however best we may.
Toltecs are willing to put all their knowledge at the disposal of the world so that mankind may finally benefit from its rightful heritage. For far too long have Toltecs had to play the role of custodians of this heritage, and as such been forced to carry the heavy burden of accepting sole responsibility for their people. In the past this has been necessary, but today this is no longer true.
Mankind has come of age, and thus the time is now ripe for man to accept joint responsiblity in the peaceful and successful furtherance of all evolution of life upon this magnificent planet.
Toltecs will therefore play their part in revealing to mankind what exactly its heritage entails, and so will the age-old secrets stand revealed.
This book is but the first step in this direction. Now indeed is mankind's hour of power. This is the hour in which mankind must seize the fleeting moment of chance -
a chance which he must not let slip if he is indeed to come into his own as the magical being of the universe which he is by divine birthright.
All of this is according to Divine Law, and thus will the ancient prophecy be fulfilled.