Nagual (Castañeda)
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'Nagual' (pronounced nah-wa'hl) is also a term used in the books by Carlos Castaneda to describe a person [1] who is able to lead people to new areas of consciousness. Carlos Castaneda's guide “Don Juan Matus” often referred to himself as the Nagual for his "party of warriors". Also, Nagual is considered by Castaneda's followers to be related to Eastern concepts of Tao, meditation, or infinity. As Castaneda's teacher says: "We cannot understand the Nagual, we can only see for ourselves that it exists". Even the term 'Nagual' exists only as a very inaccurate way of talking about 'what really isn't any-thing at all.' In Casteneda's books one reference to the meaning of nagual is: "... Turn everything into what it really is: the abstract, the spirit, the nagual." don Juan Matus
In the modern New Age beliefs based off of the works of Carlos Castaneda reality is seen as multi-dimensional or multi-faceted. Usually it is said that a person is only able to see a certain limited aspect of the multi-faceted reality during any given experience. The Nagual is considered an alternate "unknown" side or dimension of reality, as opposed to the Tonal, which can be considered the everyday "known" dimension of reality. It has also been said that the Nagual is all that is, and that it condenses to form what is called the Tonal. The Nagual and the Tonal as dual aspects of reality and being are perceived either through the First Attention, where we experience the Tonal, or the Second Attention where we experience the Nagual. To the Toltec of Castaneda the Tonal is often associated with the masculine aspect of the universe and the Nagual to the feminine. The Tonal can roughly be linked to the concept of Ego, the conscious mind, and subconscious minds.
A Nagual is the "benefactor" of an apprentice in Castaneda's system and is also the great unnameable Spirit. The "benefactor" is born to be a direct link to the great unnameable spirit and guide an apprentice to obtain what has been called Total Freedom. The Second Attention or Nagual awareness is a goal that the warrior apprentice strives to attain. In some Mesoamerican traditions hallucinogenic plants or as Castaneda called them "power plants" where utilized to experience the Nagual as well as other states of awareness. When one is able to perceive the Second attention they are considered a "seer". Castaneda's books as well as the books of Victor Sanchez, Don Miguel Ruiz, Theun Mares and others have detailed techniques to use to come into an experience of the Second Attention.
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[edit] Nagualism Techniques
"A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting." don Juan Matus
Since the Nagual is something truly unnameable we can never accurately understand it through the use of words alone it is believed necessary to experience it. Here are some techniques that may aid in accessing the Nagual aspect of reality and being.
[edit] Alternate Death
In the writings of Carlos Castaneda, the Nagual Juan Matus explained several energetic facts (perceived by directly seeing energy in the universe). He explained that seers perceive a conglomerate of luminous fibers enclosed in a luminous egg, which in this reality would be a human being. They said these luminous fibers are conscious of themselves and never touch each other when they are not encased in luminous eggs. There are an incalculable number of fibers in the void. There is a spot in the luminous egg that in a human body is at arms length in the direction towards the back of the left shoulder blade. It is the assemblage point where reality is assembled. The conglomerate of luminous fibers match the fibers outside, whichever the assemblage point is at, it becomes real. Don Juan said to Carlos that there are millions of realities around us all we needed to do was to move our assemblage point to perceive them; children for example, have the assemblage point very flexible and it moves around until any adult forces the assemblage point to stay in one place just by being in the same room with the child. It is through the manipulation of this assemblage point that it is said Naguals can go through walls, fly around, turn in to animals, or be in two places at the same time, or visit other realities. Some seers of antiquity for examples became trees, others made their assemblage point to stretch and illuminate almost all the fibers within their luminous egg and became luminous lines or inorganic beings; it is said that they walk among us and one can see them when they make their luminous line in to a circle. There is also an alternate way of dying. By illuminating the entire conglomerate of luminous fibers inside the luminous eggs, a seer would die instantly in a ball of fire, Burning from Within.
One way to become a Nagual (Manifestation of the Cosmic Spirit) might be by the act of Alternate Death, a process in which the seeker's awareness dies, becomes formless, and is imprinted with the qualities of the five elements in the following fashion:
- Earth (white, north) sinking into Water (Green, West) Enemy: Fear
- Water (Green, West) sinking into Fire (Red, South) Enemy: Clarity
- Fire (Red, South) sinking into Air (Blue, East) Enemy: Power
- Air (Blue, East) sinking into Space (infinite expansion in all ten directions) Enemy: Old Age
- Space sinking into mind (Infinite contraction) Enemy: Death
Also known as the Grand Banishing followed by
- Air sinking into Fire (life)
- Fire sinking into Water (liberty)
- Water sinking into Earth (love)
- Earth sinking into Space (light)
- Space sinking into Mind (Atonement)
Also known as the Grand Invocation
This is the process through which the Nagual produces the energy necessary to administer the "Nagual's Blow". Nagual's Blow refers to the shamanic act of blowing one's "Spirit" into somebody's body (Note: Castaneda changed it to being a slap between the shoulder blades) causing a state of Heightened Awareness.
[edit] Right Brain-Left Brain
Anyone who has experienced left-brain-dominance AND right-brain-dominance will recognize Don Juan's left-side = Nagual ( left-side crossing-over neurologically to right-brain ) and right-side = Tonal mind as simply different modes-of-knowing.
Left-field-of-view is processed by right-brain, and that means a non-words, totality mode-of-knowing.
Right-field-of-view is processed by left-brain, and that means words, and words-cognition, controlling what one can-know.
Recent tests[citation needed] of colour-identification in right-field-of-view vs left-field-of-view has proven that words control our perceptions at a low-level.
Working through The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards, ISBN 0-87477-424-1, one gets to experience the fundamental difference between Tonal-knowing and Nagual-knowing directly.
[edit] Inner Silence
Inner silence is a key technique for Nagualism as noted in The Active Side Of Infinity, by Carlos Castaneda:
"Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called stopping the world, the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's been. It is this moment when man the slave becomes man the free being, capable of feats of perception that defy our linear imagination."
And in: The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda
Inner silence is often achieved in the New Age community through meditation. The meditation used does not matter so long as it induces a state where thoughts are temporarily still. As the above books describe Castaneda was taught various techniques to induce inner silence including walking while gazing at single point in the distance while at the same time using your peripheral vision to see as much of your surrounding as you can.
Energetically speaking: The goal is to dislodge one's assemblage point from where this reality is perceived. One's incessant internal dialogue is what keeps the assemblage point stuck there. Once Inner Silence is achieved and mastered, one can assemble different realities by moving one's assemblage point.
[edit] Dreaming
The Art of Dreaming is an area of great interest to the Nagualist community. Dreaming is believed to be the easiest gate into states like the Second Attention since in dreaming the Assemblage Point moves freely.
[edit] External links
- Nagualism (Collection of information, interviews and forum discussion on Nagualism, Carlos Castaneda, and Shamanism)
- Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity (site maintained by ClearGreen Inc., the direct apprentices of Carlos Castaneda, who also inherited his estate and currently conduct Tensegrity seminars and classes)
- Introduction to Nagualism
- Nagualism (A Study in Native-American Folklore and History, by Daniel G Brinton)
- The Toltec Nagual(The Toltec Nagual site run by author Kristopher Raphael)
