Westwood - July 1996
To: The Ixtlan Mailing List
A note on the notes: I wrote this stuff down after getting home from the
seminar. I left a lot out but still, it seemed that someone else might
like to read them. I did not write them verbatum this time so please for
give the lack of detai and any errors you might perceive. There is some
irrelevant personal comments so don't pay attention to them. Sincerely V.
CARLOS CASTANEDA'S TENSEGRITY -- THE WESTWOOD SEMINAR
On July 20, 1996 a group of about 700 persons met for a week long seminar
with the nagual Carlos Castaneda and his group which included Carol Tiggs,
Florinda Donner, Taisha Abelar and the Energy Trackers - a group of 8 women
and 6 men who would lead the seminar's movement sections. Each day would
usually begin with a lecture of about 1 to 2 hours though on one occasion
Carlos talked for 3 hours until lunch, a welcome gift. Each of the women
seers gave lectures that outlined their particular orientation into the
sorcerers' world. Carol conceptualized the seers realm as the capacity to
see energy as it flows in the universe. Florinda, a phenomenonally direct
being discussed our unalterable position and the need for the utilization
of the fact that we are beings that are going to die. Carlos stated that
we are, at our cores, perceivers of energy and that through silence we can
break the ties that bind us to our habitual interpretation system and on
our habitual self reflection. Taisha Abelar presented to us the
possibility of entering into other worlds, other peels of the onion.
She outlined the ways in which this is done and provided the realization
of this as a bona-fide possibility.
The auditorium was arranged with four platform stages. Four, according to
Carlos is a number representing permanence. On each stage were two energy
trackers. The women formerly known as the chacmools were there as well as
the blue scout (Brett) and two new members. They were all very lean and
thin with short hair. Their movements were very powerful and were executed
with their best effort.
Carlos said that we would cover five core areas during the seminar. These
five areas he said held all that was necessary to reach the desirable state
of inner silence and to encourage the regrowth of the energy body. The five
areas are:
1.TENSEGRITY
Carlos Castaneda spoke about the differences between men and women. Women
have a straight bar of energy running from back to lower center by the womb.
Men, unlike women have a swanlike curvy bar of energy which relates to their
complexity and vulnerability. In both men and women, however, this bar of
energy appears to seers, to be damaged. They have been broken or mangled.
In woment the break is uniform and about eight inches in length. It was
pointed out that in all women wherever they may live i.e USA, Japan, Russia,
the South Pole, wherever, all (except Argentinians {a joke}), had this
problem, this break in their energy bar. The question then is why and what
or who, is responsible. In men also there is damage and the breaks in this
bar of energy can be seen.
In a later lecture as Carlos discussed the flyers, entities that consume
our sheen of awareness, the breaks in our energy bar were further explained.
Carlos said that it was due to the maneuvers of the flyers that the damage
was universal. He said that once someone asked him about whether or not he
should be celibate and Carlos replied that he already was. He said that
most of us are only masterbators. The damage to that bar keeps us from
having real orgasms, real jolts of energy. He pointed out that we do the
same thing the flyers do to us, to our own pets. We castrate them, we fix
them so they won't go outside the yard and will like us. They are
controllable until they die. Those breaks in our energy are one of the
means the flyers "fix" us.
The results from these breaks are lowered energy and frigidity in men and
in women. Carlos Castaneda reported that their are so many women haters.
Women hate other women and men hate women too, a comment that caused a
great deal of laughter. He talked about the TV show where two cops just
love each other to death and the women is put in the show as a hooker or
dies or something and everyone loves it. Women are insignificant or
incidental in the movies he said. And he said, that the break in women
results in women being frigid.
Carlos said that sex was for procreating. It is our bodies one best shot
and that people, as a result of a cogent leap or shift, do it for
deleterious reasons i.e.., recreation. This results in energy being lost.
Carlos says it does not matter if one has sex unless you have made the
decision (see V spot) to become a warrior/sorcerer.
Carlos Castaneda stress a number of times and with vehemence, that we
suspend judgment. He implored us to not heal anybody (joking), lend energy,
do yoga or chi kung, etc. for just the next few days and said that after
the seminar they could get as mad or upset as they wanted and hate Carlos
Castaneda. But for the length of the seminar he requested we refrain from
our judgments and criticisms.
I feel it is important that I state that before coming to the seminar I had
resolved to do just what he had asked regarding judgment. Last year at the
three week encounter with Carlos and his people I feel I was incapable of
getting the most out of the seminar. I could list many reasons and
variables and yet they would all point to a single reason. I was battling
the "me" problem. On the one hand there would be a part of me that knew
Carlos was right on target. Another part of me wanted to hurt them, to
discredit or disprove them. It was as if there was a voice in my mind
which sounded like my mind itself that was doing everything possible to
inject doubt, hate, whatever it took to block out their efforts. This to
me, after a year of fighting, I would not go there with my "know-all"
attitude. Carlos himself stated at the beginning of the seminar that the
energy was not as bad as it had been in the past. He said our loud ME!!!
was now a more quiet and subdued "me" and would, if we kept it up, become a
tiny little "me". So it seemed that I was not the only one who was
leaving their greatness, their wonderfulness, their uniqueness, at the
door this time.
People stress their "ME" idealities in their acts, Carlos stressed. This
occurs as the sheen of awareness that should, right fully cover our luminous
cocoons, is eaten down below our toes. It is this area, this last vestige
of our sheen of awareness, where the focus on our self-reflection occurs.
The new nagual said that now, a year after Culver City, that persons big
"ME" had been reduced to a little "me" and that it would get smaller and
that many persons energies were in a position to shift to something else.
Carlos talked about the assemblage point and the band of man, a strip of
energy that is about a foot wide running down the luminous egg. He talked
about alignment of new worlds and the force that holds us and galaxies
together. He talked about psychology and developmental psychology and the
socialization process along with what it does to us. Examples included the
little girl who, at five years old says "Mommy I'm bored". He talked about
what "audacity" really was to him, that holding the little flame of one's
awareness against that immense and terrifying universe was true audacity.
He said that Don Juan would say "because its all I have". That, he said
is real audacity. The idea of some absolute "Word of God" or the like,
was terrifying to him. Finalities were something he abhorred. Carlos
said that we are in a universe that is changing every second.
A humorous story was told about a class he was once teaching in an
auditorium-like classroom. There were three girls in there that fidgeted
a lot. He said their dogs, which they took with them there, were the
perfect students not moving during the entire class. He said that they
were or thought they were witches. Some guy came up to Carlos and said
"Carlos, what if I told you that someone was fucking with your mind?"
Carlos replied "Well, I think, I, I, I,,, I think I'd like it". The guy
tried to convince Carlos that they were doing something and told him, no
matter what, not to scratch his ear. So Carlos started scratching his
ear in class finally going bananas. Once someone, maybe that same guy
asked Carlos "Carlos, what do you think about eeevill?" Carlos replied
"I, well, I, I don't know, I think I like it". Finally Carlos told us
that there is no good and no evil. There is only energy out there and a
predatorial universe. It is useless to get mad at it.
Another very humorous story involved Don Juan's maneuvers to get Carlos
to quit smoking. Don Juan told Carlos that they were going for a trip to
the desert and that he (Carlos) should take plenty of cigarettes. Carlos
wrapped up a magnificent bundle of cigarettes in foil because the old nagual
told him that coyotes would smell the tobacco and carry them off. The first
night the coyotes carried off Carlos' bundle and the next day they spent
looking for it. Carlos was going crazy for a cigarette. Don Juan told him
that there was a town nearby and they could go there and get some cheap
Mexican cigarettes there if Carlos did not mind smoking them. Carlos, at
that point would have smoked anything and was reduced to making noises,
hardly able to talk at all.
Unfortunately, somehow Don Juan lost their way and they could not find the
town. By then quite a number of days went by and their concern turned to
simply staying alive. In the light of that new development, Carlos
eventually forgot about his craving and finally told Don Juan "you know, I
don't even want a cigarette now". With that, don Juan said "its time to go
home". The highway was only a mere twenty feet away. They had gone in circles.
The center of energy between the toes is where we all are" don Juan told
Carlos. "But for men it depends on which way their dick is pointing".
"It could be a little to the right or the left" Carlos actually tried to
determine where his was. Carlos laughed recounting this and the other ways
Don Juan would amuse himself. Carlos also joked about how people think they
can "lend and heal" with their energy. "Carlos, let me heal you with my
energy". "Your energy is weak Carlos. I can Heeaall you". Stupid ideas
all relating to our insane beliefs that we are unique and special.
Carlos said that he was well on his way to becoming a professor. He had
his hush puppies, his jacket with the patches on the sleeves as well as a
pipe. To top it all off he had a leather briefcase. When he told Don Juan,
he said "You look ridiculous".
We all have this weird tendency and obsession to "look for love" Carlos
said. We sell ourselves. If someone says "I love you", that's it, we give
them everything. Carlos said his mother was a communist and that she freed
him by dying when he was 5 years old. He said that because of her, he
would never be able to stay in the penthouse. It was this social mentality
that influenced his consideration that for only four or five mortals to
escape in the way of Don Juan's lineage, was unacceptable for him..
Carlos talked about youth being related not to age but to vitality. He
told us how Don Juan was infinitely younger than him. He, Carlos, was
chubby and don Juan said "You're kind of chubby. Why don't you do the
magical passes?". Carlos replied "what magical passes. What are you
talking about don Juan?' Don Juan reminded Carlos of the way he taught him
to crack his joints. That was his entrance into the realm of the magical
passes. Carlos said that the idea that he and Kylie sat around thinking up
the movements was absurd. He explained that the passes, Tensegrity, were a
generic form of the sorcerers' ancient magical passes previously shrouded
in secrecy. In ancient times the passes were designed for specific
temperaments and body types.
Carlos Castaneda stated to us that he is closing shop and that don Juan
never got to deal with mass like he was doing with us. This meeting, this
mass was an explosion for him, an explosion of something else. He told us
that this person (referring to the image of Carlos Castaneda on the stage)
was an apparition. He said "I'm already gone. All I have to do is shut my
eyes". He talked about his appointments with Infinity and said that he
and the rest were not even friends with one another. They just got
together for the seminars and sometimes they went to the movies. He was
only the chauffeur, the bus boy.
Carlos talked some about violence and movies with stars like Arnold
Swartzenegger who never got hit by all the high tech. machine gun bullets
and weapons fired at him. Carlos pointed out that in the movies of today
they obligatorily say "let's kick ass!" and "Fuck you". In his time, he
said, all they could say was "gee wiz!".
A member of the Spanish speaking audience said to Carlos something to the
effect that it made her sad that the lineage was ending. Carlos replied
that it made him sad too.
Carlos told us that he used to eat 17 bacon sandwiches a day and he smoked
since he was eight. He joked about how he would say "let me catch my breath".
Panting, he would lite up a cigarette and puff madly on it.
Carlos said that rituals obscured the real issues.
Taisha Abelar talked about inorganics and the fact that we have the
capacity to move into other layers of the onion, so to speak. For Carlos
it is the fact that - we are perceivers -, for Florinda that - we are
beings that are going to die - and for Carol that - we can stop the world
to see energy as it flows in the universe.
Taisha mentioned Glovis and Flebis (sp?), two allies or inorganic beings
who she says, have accompanied her or attached themselves to her awareness,
not as leeches though. She said that they are impeccable and are dealing
with her world which, for them, is the unknown. Taisha said they would
hover outside the jet plane on the wings discovering its speed. But now
she gets them to go inside, just, they will not put on their seatbelts.
Taisha described three ways to move in and out of the cousins world
(inorganic realm). The cousins, she said are very much like us, but
inorganic, slower and infinitely older. their world is as is our own, a
layer of the onion. The three ways are dreaming (a natural hatchway),
internal silence, and finding cracks in the world. Florinda in her lecture
said that all of them had a mini-breakdown before Taisha's lecture.
Taisha wanted to bring this huge pigeon, one with no legs, to the lecture.
Florinda said during her evening lecture, that Taisha got it in some other
world and it was as big as a dog. She said that we, or some of us, might
not even have been able to see it but that they had at least left it in
the car. She said it moved by waddling on its belly.
Taisha spoke of a place where there are three legged dogs. Florinda said
that those things are very sophisticated and never to make fun of a three
legged dog. In that world it is not nonsensical. It is a part of that world.
Taisha said that in the sorcerers house that they always talked about
another wing of the house and that she, with her reporter mentality of
the time, was interested in the how, what, where, why, factual questions
and in finding no wing, believed that the sorcerers in their house in
northern Mexico were referring to a potential or maybe a past wing. She
took her tools and looked, tapping on walls for secret passageways and
digging outside for an old foundation, etc. She concluded, finding
nothing, that they were all cracked or lying. But one day she was pushed
by one of the sorcerers of don Juan's party into this room, a room without
four walls and yet it was a room where the walls were undulating. There
was a man on the floor moving like a marionette and besides him were two
disc like things which were trying to imitate him. Her body or her
awareness told her this, since the discs had no head or limbs. The man
was don Genaro and she said the floor was pristine like it had never been
walked on. For them, the sorcerers, the room was their entrance to the
other world.
Taisha said there were cracks, vortices of sorts into the other world,
all over the place, even on there in the San Bernadino mountains. and
near the botanical gardens at UCLA. She joked about almost making us a
map to the spot. Taisha described how she was going up this hill there
where the water no longer flowed. The energy, the flowing energy was
still there however, making cars go much faster than normal. She ended
up in another layer of the onion and finally left. She said that, finding
oneself in such a position i.e., having gone through a crack, one has to
be sober and use the tools of a warrior when doing this kind of thing.
One can choose to look around or one can return by simply sitting still
or staying put Taisha said warriors do not lose their minds, that that
is a result of obsession with the self. One needs energy though.
Taisha told the story of how once she and Carlos were driving to the
airport and they found themselves placed far away from there, even though
they had been close. Carlos used to be a cab driver before and did not
get lost so they concluded that something had happened. Taisha, during
the incident had said "We flew! We flew!" and Carlos just said something
like "You did it again Taisha!"
Two friends of theirs, a microbiologist and an insurance salesman, two
ordinary persons, came to Carlos with a story of what had happened to them.
They had been driving on the highway. The landscape seemed wrong or
different to them after a while and they tried to turn back found that
they could not find the way. They were on this gravel road and decided
to go to this cottage they saw and ask. As they drove up to the cottage
a monstrous looking and very tall man was at the door and his voice was
weird. He was saying "Go back". Go back". They were so frightened that
they just backed up out of there and out of that other layer of the onion.
Taisha said there was a front door and a back door into that realm. One
door was dreaming and she joked about having to get in line and say "Get
out of my way!" Dreaming was one of those doors then. Taisha talked about
the third way of entering these worlds which is inner silence. She talked
about a blackness that would occur when one's inner threshold was reached
anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. One could find oneself in another
layer as she and Florinda had done. Florinda wanted to leave the mall
they had found but couldn't until Taisha had finished her inspection
shopping. Taisha spoke of other worlds, infinite worlds out there,
perceivable and potential via shifts or movements of the assemblage point.
In one world people would sit in a sort of gallery to watch the sun
rise as it took up two thirds of the horizon. There was already a sun
in the sky and the giant rising sun did not burn anything or affect in
ways like our own universe would.
Taisha mentioned that that early on in her apprenticeship, the sorcerers
would say the other world(s)) were not in "this space". But she, with her
mentality, thought they meant that the other worlds were in another
galaxy or something. She found out though.
She talked about a new technology of another world where people, working
for a company there, named Soni, were watching what at first, looked like
a drive in movie picture, but turned out to be a projected image;
projected from some distance behind. Many worlds to go to when one gains
the energy and the control and the sobriety Taisha told us that we each
had to take these individual journeys and then, maybe, we'd all leave
together.
Florinda talked about the fact that we are beings that are going to die.
We act immortal so we don't do anything. She told the story of how old
Florinda told her no to drive a car and how she drove her car off a cliff.
Her brand new car with no insurance. How they locked her out of the house
and she cried since it had never been locked on her. And then how she had
found it open. How her hammock was gone and she cried again.
Florinda discussed practical actions such as old Florinda's dramatic
actions or how speaking her name "my name is Florinda Donner" were
gestures for It. This reminded us of this or towards the feeling of
the sorcerers' world.
She talked about her car, John Tuma, Genaro, finding the perfect husband,
energy, family and no kids, awareness is physical, men sublime joke but...
knowing knowledge so one can't let it go. Professors, cracked cunts,
egomania, a weird apparition of a woman in her house, sobriety, not
loosing one's mind. She said "oh hell, another navigator".
Taisha said they gave her a nickname "Wow wow". It meant, she thought,
either that she whined like a baby, or barked like a dog. She said she'd
rather be the dog.
Florinda mentioned how they, the four of them, were not real for the
sorcerers unless they were standing right in front of them.
Carlos she said, is not there anymore. Florinda said that it was
fascinating to see the change. The old nagual was like that when she
met him. But to see it happen, to Carlos, was very weird.
Florinda said that warriors do think ponder, consider... but when they
act, they don't care about outcomes. Sometimes they forget why they are
doing what they are doing.
Carol Tiggs' song:
I've been bad, I've been bad,
A song we sang a few times with Carol, the nagual woman tonight. She
was dressed in black seemingly overflowing with energy. Like the others,
she had short cropped hair and was lean, catlike. She looked better
than last year.
After a few words she brought out the starlight trackers. They were the
blue scout and the mother of the little girl. The blue scout is CC's
daughter and the other is the cyclic being from last year, I think.
They had leather gloves with silver tips on each finger as well as mod
looking mirrored sunglasses (snake eyes) They were strange looking and
serious about the form they did which we were told was the snake.
Then Renata and Nyie Murez did the crab set. They were the pre-dawn
trackers and squeaked as they did their strange set. Carol spoke after
they were done. Oh, by the way, Florinda and Taisha seemed very
delighted with the sets. Anyhow, Carol said that properly, the order
should have been that set, the Crab first and then the snake and then
the next which was a knife set, but that costume changes necessitated
the order.
The knife set involved double daggers and was very beautiful, and was
Carol indicated, originally done with human bones, rounded on one end
for the Vspot, with writing. The nagual Luhan designed them as attempts
to kinesthetically get to the state of internal silence and to the
abstract, he substituted metal knives.
Carol later in the lecture said that the sets gave some energy for the
things she would say and do that night.
Carol talked about her absolutely terrible "me" ness when she first met
don Juan. She said he'd make up derogatory nick names for her but she
would always try and make them into something admirable Names like
"Prickwithears", or "Seven Layer Butt", or "Fat Butt". Ultimately,
Carol pointed out that our minds, no matter our perceived notions, are
all alike. She described those awareness that consume us as food, the
flyers. She said that they should be called the leapers or the jumpers
because that's what they do. She said their awareness is so heavy that
it sinks right through us like lead. She was repulsed by them. When
their friend, Tony gave her a picture to show CC, she thought that to
see one in a photo was very horrible.
The flyers keep us in Humaneros (pro:Umaneros), like we keep chickens
in galleneros. Those humaneros are cities. She said it was strange
how we thought it was "that's stupid" that there could be such entities.
Even stranger how weird that we viciously cling to beliefs like gods,
god, and guilt (thus the song) that have nothing to do with us or our
wellbeing. She told a joke about the god Thor (I'm Thor!!)
The flyers give us our minds - one size fits all - Carol said, which she
really did not like. It was as she said this that I realized my suspicions
about the vibrating plate over the heads of people. Carlos is the morning
had said that there was a center of energy, unlike the swirling centers
of liver/pancreas, spleen, adrenals (and womb for women), at the top of
our heads which moves side to side faster tan our heart beats. I realized
that that was the energy center or false mind we identify with the "me",
given to us by the flyers.
Carol said that we imitate our captors and impose horrible fates on our
pets. That we castrate and fix, declaw and defang and descent them so
they will be docile and like us until they die. So they won't try and
leave. She said sorcerers of old found this out and that don Juan hated
them as they had sold out to that they themselves wouldn't be eaten.
He said that they were the caretakers of this knowledge and sold out to
them for personal gain and power.
The picture of the flyer was the omen they needed for them to tell more
about the flyers. Carol said, that like a cheap B movie, she had said to
CC, "but what do they want with us?"
She said that they all were skeptical and did not do anything about them
for a long time (as apprentices). But when they finally 'saw' them they
were horrified. Those things with their heavy awareness sunk right
through us. Carol's conclusion to the question of whether or not they
ate other organic beings was no because of the unique nature of the human
energy which was like a giant cutout or machine stamp, something like
clear edges. "Why?" How the hell should I know why? They just do it seems.
The sorcerers did know and discover one thing the flyers detested which
was and is awareness grown via discipline. The magical passes do this.
The recapitulation does this. Inner silence does this. Mankind, said
Carol, could possibly return to his pre-sentient state as a brilliant
and fully covered entity, luminous, and escape the cosmic manglers.
Carol was being funny, singing and joking, obviously pleasing her cohorts
a great deal. A great deal of her information was vital and struck home.
Bullseye! Besides the critical jumper information, was the horrible
sense of self-importance we maintain, wasting gobs and gobs of energy.
Who loves me? Who will see and tell me how special and wonderful I am,
when or how can I get picked? One day they'll see how much I've changed
and apologize. They'll see how wonderful I am!" PHLEGGH!! It really
is disgusting and not our fault, according to CC and Carol. But it
would be our fault, since we know, not to do anything about it.
At one point in the lecture Carol said "no, I'm not going to talk about
it", obviously talking to someone on the stage that we could not see.
She told the story about her and some man, a musician and how she
supported him, looking for love, I think.
There are beings in the universe(s) that are predators and they go
throughout the universe looking for food. Carol picked four people
and made them look into her eye before having them fall backwards into
a state of silence. Her act plunged the whole audience into silence.
The group got up and left. That silence was palpable and stayed with
me for the rest of the night. It was great..
You, only live twice, |