TAISHA ABELAR WITH ALEXANDER BLAIR-EWART PART II
Dr shhvago
To: ixt...@sashimi.wwa.com
Subject: Taisha Abelar interview from Dimensions Magazine, Part Two
From: Annie...@aol.com
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 18:23:15 EDT
The Sorcerer's Crossing
TAISHA ABELAR IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEXANDER BLAIR-EWART PART II
In the long years when Carlos Castaneda first informed the world of the
wonders of American aboriginal spirit knowledge, many recognized that a
tradition of great significance had begun to reveal itself to the world.
Over the years Castaneda has progressively shown the all-engulfing
worldview
of the Toltecs in its reformed state as a work of spiritual art, shaped by
the new seers, who have survived the devastating encounter with European
colonial civilization.
Taisha Abelar is one of the new seers whose designation "stalker" balances
the world of the "dreamer" [see Dimensions Feb.'92 interview with the
"dreamer" Florinda Donner]. It is with true delight that we witness the
emergence into the world of a new and genuine way of the spirit.
ALEXANDER BLAIR-EWART: Recognizing that this is a complex subject that can
be understood only by people who are genuinely interested, can I get you
to
talk about stalking?
TAISHA ABELAR: That's a question that comes up often when I give lectures.
People want to know exactly what is stalking. And there's two ways of
approaching this. First, just a general definition is that a stalker is
really someone who has made an art out of being inobtrusive. And that is
he
puts himself in the background, and there's a certain training that is
involved in order to become inobtrusive, and I can tell you why it is
necessary to be inobtrusive. Let me give you a couple other ways of
talking
about stalking. It's designed to give the sorcerer or the practitioner a
jolt,
and by a jolt we mean a push or a slight burst of energy, so that the
assemblage point shifts ever so slightly. Now, I think I have to talk
about
the assemblage point because that is exactly what the stalkers are aiming
at.
They're aiming to move or shift the assemblage point, and through that to
change the perception of the world. Perception, of course, can be changed
through dreaming, but stalkers do it while they're awake. So the way
sorcerers perceive the world is that they say that everything we see,
while
we are awake in this reality is a question of the position of the
assemblage
point. I'm sure you're familiar with Castaneda's books, and you know what
the assemblage point is, but let me just describe it again. It is the
focused
awareness point of luminosity on the luminous cocoon (aura--ed).
We believe that the human being's energetic body is a mass of fibres of
light
that have infinite number, and each one of those is a specific awareness.
So
that they're not just light like electricity, but they're actually light
like
awareness. And on the luminous egg shape that makes up the energetic body
there is a point of extra luminosity where the concentration of the
person,
his awareness, is assembled, and that point of luminosity is about the
size
of a golfball, from the point of view of the 'seer' who sees the person's
luminous being. But it can change size; it also can change position on the
luminous body. Now, where that is located determines what is perceived,
because there's a matching of the fibres that are lit up within the
luminous
body and the fibres that are out in the universe at large, because
sorcerers
also maintain, of course, that the universe us a whole is an infinite
number
of both energetic fibres, some of which are perceivable, and others which
are
absolutely beyond our capacities as human beings to perceive. But where
the
position of this assemblage point is, this lighted up area on the luminous
being, when that matches what is outside, then perception takes place.
ABE: Would this apply to everyone?
TAISHA A: We all have our assemblage point at pretty much the same place,
because as an infant is born, by virtue of the fact that he is going to be
a
human infant and a human being, a social person, he has to match the
location
of his assemblage point to that of other human beings in the world so that
he
can interact with them, and perceive the same world, the same segment of
the
possibility of perception that is open to him, so that we can all agree as
to
what we are perceiving. Because our assemblage points are in the same
place,
we can have language, we can talk about trees and cars and solid walls and
floors, and we can have a spatial and temporal continuity; we know that
there
was a yesterday, there'll be a tomorrow. All of that has to do with the
position of the assemblage point. Time, our conception of everything we
know
to be so, is determined by where that heightened point of concentration
awareness is located. And if by some anomaly it is not in the place where
the
human assemblage point ought to be, then these people are either
sorcerers,
(and we'll talk about that in a moment), or they're a candidate for the
mentally ill. So you find these people in asylums, because their
assemblage
points are not fixed at the position where other human beings have theirs
fixed. Therefore they don't have this intersubjectivity in terms of
perception.
And they can't have the agreements to what constitutes reality. There's a
mandate, let's say, even a biological mandate that says that all human
beings
should have their assemblage point at this particular position so they can
be
what we call human. Animals have it at different places, and that's what
fixes
their species of animal. Trees have their assemblage point at a certain
place
in their luminous shell, and that makes them trees.
ABE: So could we also call the assemblage point the position of collective
persona reality agreement?
TAISHA A: Exactly. It's our persona, it's our person. Now this person,
sorcerers say, is not all that we are humanly capable of being. So we can
we
be more than just a social person. Now, in order to be more than what
society,
or what our birthright, has put forth for us, we have to move or shift the
place of the assemblage point. We have to move it out of its position
where
it is stuck. So, not only is the assemblage point capable of moving
elsewhere,
but when it does, other luminous intelligent fibres of awareness are lit
up
and matched with the universe, and therefore other realities are
constituted,
and these other realities are as real and solid as the one we are in now,
because the reason this reality where we are now is what we call
undeniably
real is because of the agreement that we have that this is what the world
is
like. And that is based on the fixation of the assemblage point. If it
moves-
and it does; it moves in dreams, by itself- we call that dream reality, to
be
separated of course from the waking state. So we acknowledge that there
are
other realms of experience, but we always refer to them from the position
of
everyday reality. But sorcerers don't do that. They say that you can move
the
everyday reality while you're awake. You don't have to do drearning...
Dreaming, of course, is the control of the movement of the assemblage
point
in sleep, in dreams, and the fixation of it elsewhere.
ABE: And you can do it without being insane.
TAISHA A: Absolutely.
ABE: That in itself is an enormously revolutionary statement.
TAISHA A: Because our agreement says that yes, there's crazy people out
there
that have hallucinations. They see monsters and what not. But they're
somehow
deficient and in this sense, from the point of view of the social order,
yes,
they're deficient in the sense that they have not stabilized their
assemblage
point where everyone else has placed it. Somehow their assemblage point is
in
flux, it's constantly shifting, and therefore of course they're crazy
because
they're hallucinating, and they don't have the energy to maintain it at
any
one given position. If they did have that energy and the control, then
they
would be sorcerers, because they would be stalking that new position.
ABE: Yes, I see that.
TAISHA A: So what this all really boils down to is a question of having
the
energy to perceive more than we are allowed to perceive given the fact
that
we are born as human beings. Our social order doesn't allow us to venture
into
other realms except through insanity or through dreams, which they don't
really
count as real anyway. So those are two avenues that are open, but they're
not
really viable avenues. Now sorcerers say you can move the assemblage
point,
provided you have enough energy to fix it at another position, because you
don't want to end up crazy and absolutely lost in these worlds upon worlds
that they maintain exist out there, like the layers of an onion. So what
is
needed is control, energy and fluidity. And what they call 'unbending
intent'.
Now the fluidity enables one to shift the assemblage point to move away
from
the given spot that makes us persons, and we'll get back to this, because
what
this given spot that makes us persons really is is what we call the self.
And
that's where self-importance has to go out the window because as long as
we
maintain our allegiance to the self, what we're really doing is
maintaining
our allegiance to that particular position of the assemblage point. We'll
never
be able to perceive anything beyond what the taken-for-granted reality out
there is. We're allowed only to perceive what is permissable by our given
position within the social order. So we need fluidity to move the
assemblage
point elsewhere, and then we need the stability, the concentration, the
energy
to fix it on another position. And this is what sorcery really is, the
movement
and the fixation, fixing again the assemblage point at the different
positions,
thereby lighting up different realities that are just as concrete and real
as
what we take as reality of the everyday world.
ABE: So sorcerers foster and cultivate energy in unique ways, and there's
a
way of fostering and cultivating dreaming energy, and your book is
primarily
about the way in which you foster and cultivate stalking energy. Would
that
be right?
TAISHA A: Precisely. There are techniques, there are devices that
sorcerers
do, and they include 'not doing' techniques, 'recapitulation', which is
the
fundamental technique of enabling the assemblage point to move off its
spot
of the self, things like 'losing personal history', which also enables one
to
move away from what our expectation or our idea is of the self. Losing
self-
importance is the key, of course, because as I said, as long as we have
this
idea of a self, a strong self, an ego, a personality with which we
interact
with others in terms of an intersubjective agreement, they hold us. You
see,
the strength of the world, of the social order, is so gigantic through the
agreement of billions of people holding that assemblage point at that
particular spot.
ABE: So, at a really crass level, you could call it 'peer pressure', and
at
a universal level you could call it 'the spirit of the times'.
TAISHA A: Yes. At a very individual level you could call it
'self-indulging'
or one's idea of the self, and then peer pressure. Exactly, all that, and
then at a larger level the language itself, on a cultural level, and we
have
to get to the family, because that's fundamental, and you have to break
through each of those barriers- individual, peer, family, cultural- and
then
some gigantic collective unconsciousness that holds everything in place.
A sorcerer has to jump out of all of that onto a different level.
And then even behind this collective unconscious, you have the biological
mandate that we're really trapped in this 'ape mold'. We have our
biological
drive, we need to be social, gregarious beings because we're social
animals.
Solitude is something that frightens people to death. I mean, that's one
of
the killers of neophytes, the idea that they have to have a solitary
journey,
a solitary quest, because the recapitulation is done in absolute solitude.
But people think, well, they can meditate together, do things together, as
long as they still have a group concensus. But you see, it's that very
group
concensus that prevents the subtle movement of the assemblage point. So
you do
have to get beyond that force, and you have to have the energy, and the
energy
comes from all the things that I mentioned before, including
impeccability,
and also using your death. You give a death, because you'll end up giving
a
death anyway. If you follow the sorcerer s path, if one wishes to move
away
from the self, from that given position of the assemblage point, and
venture
into the unknown, then it is like dying. The self has to capitulate, and
it's
a horrendous feeling. Emotionally, physically, it is like, you know, man
against the universe.
ABE: And that death is protracted, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't happen in
one
miraculous moment. It's something that progressively occurs. It will take
years. When do you know you've really done it? When do you know that
you've
finally died to that old self, or become what is called in the literature
a 'formless warrior'?
TAISHA A: You have to be formless. You have to not have a self. First of
all,
like you say, it's not a sudden process, although it can be. The movement
of
the assemblage point can be, in some people, in some anomalous cases,
sudden,
or under a great shock all of a sudden it moves elsewhere, and a different
reality is constituted in front of the person. All of a sudden he's
somewhere
else. But that usually doesn't last because it comes from an external
force,
and it usually shifts back. If it does last, he won't know what happened
to
him, and those are the cases for the asylums, the institutions. So, a
gradual
change is best
ABE: I take it that drugs, power plants, can also induce this?
TAISHA A: Yes, exactly. That too. Under the influence of psychotropic
drugs
you see different worlds, and the assemblage point is absolutely blasted
out
of its position. But you are not doing that, you don't have the control,
again
it's an external agent. The sheer presence of a Nagual moves the
assemblage
point, too. His impeccability can move the assemblage point in his
students.
He doesn't have to give them the slap on the back or anything like that.
Sheer
energy can cause apprentices to assemble different worlds. But you see,
there
again, whenever we were in the presence of Don Juan and his people, their
force
made us do fantastic things. Those things 1 write about in my book. But,
when
I came back to Los Angeles and they weren't around, there I was. I had the
force of the social order on top of me, and my assemblage point moved back
into
the 'first attention'. And the tragedy, of course, is that unless you move
your
assemblage point back to the places that it was under the influence of don
Juan
and his people, you barely remember what you did or what those worlds
consisted
of. They're like dreams. So you have to store the energy to allow it to
move
into heightened awareness, so that you can maintain it there on your own,
and
venture. And then you move it further, and it's a gradual shift.
ABE: How do you store or keep the energy to move your assemblage point?
TAISHA A: The 'recapitulation' is the major one. I just want to mention
that
another way of moving it is sheer impeccability, by intending the
movement.
Intent is really a line, a force that connects one directly with the
energy
out there at large. And, because it has an intelligence, a guiding order
of
sorts. They call it the Spirit, the Eagle. But when man links his
personal
energy to the energy out there through impeccable acts, then the Spirit
itself
moves the assemblage point for him, because in a sense he has relinquished
control. He has relinquished himself, his ego. He has let go, and is
allowing
the guiding force of intent to move him. And all of these sorcery
activities
that I mentioned, the recapitulation, all the not-doings, all those have
the
sorcerer's intent already linked to them. So a person just has to do these
things and let the intent take him, and his assemblage point will move,
because these are ancient techniques that have been handed down from
generations
within Don Juan's lineage, and they have already that link to the Spirit
out
there inherent in them. So the necessity of storing energy we already
know,
because that's the only way to get out of the mold that we are born into
as
humans. We always like to talk in terms of the human ape, because it
really
puts man in a proper perspective.
ABE: Are you using that, though, as a metaphor, in the sense that what I
understand is that these luminous beings that we are actually, in the
process
of "time", took on the form that we now have, that at some point we
intended
ourselves human or flesh and blood, but that what we intrinsically are is
something that comes from that vast 'out there', but that we haven't, in
the
normal sense of evolution, evolved from monkeys? I mean, is that
something
that you deal with at all? I accept the ape metaphor very well. But the
theory
of evolution has never managed to explain to me how come we have these
other
capacities in us.
TAISHA A: Ah hah. And what sorcerers say is that we are continually
evolving.
Therefore we should not stay or limit ourselves to that ape-like position
of
the assemblage point. As you say, within the luminosity of human beings is
the
potential for an infinite number of other possibilities. Yes, I would
agree
with you, that from the point of view of evolution we have sort of stopped
there, and encrusted ourselves at that position. But the force of
evolution
continues. Sorcerers are beings who at one time were human beings. But
they
have evolved to something else. They are no longer human beings in the
strict
sense of the word, because they can move their assemblage point elsewhere
and
maintain those positions, and actually change their form. They don't have
to
maintain their human form. They can move downwards, shift down to the
animal
level, and they can change shape into animals, into crows, into birds, or
any
other animal or entity. Or they can shift into inconceivable realms that
have
no physical counterparts, but are abstractions.
ABE: So there are old and new seers?
TAISHA A: What the new sorcerers are doing...there is a distinction
between
the old sorcerers and the new sorcerers in Don Juan's lineage, or the
modern
day sorcerers, Don Juan and his teacher the Nagual Julian, and Don Juan's
apprentice, the new Nagual Carlos Castaneda. These are all modern day
sorcerers, and what they're interested in is this evolution towards the
abstract, away from any of these downward shifts that are so easy to do in
dreaming when the assemblage point by itself finds these positions. And
for
that reason all of the people associated with Carlos Castaneda, we're
university graduates, educated, clear thinkers (hopefully). I mean, that
is
one of our tasks. An actual sorcery task is to be able to think
coherently,
to think clearly, to see where we are as human beings, and what our
potential
is, and be able to see and get to this level of actual truth, not only
through
reason, but using reason in its strictest sense, and not in the shoddy
sense
of reasoning something and then acting some other way totally in
contradiction,
which is what human beings do.
End of part 2
ObsidianV
Is there a tabulated list somewhere of available
transcripts of magazine and radio interviews
with CC et al ?
don Pequeno
> obsi...@aol.com (ObsidianV) wrote:
I hope you don't mind, Bob. :-)
BTW I can mirror some of this stuff if you want... at this point I
see no reason to, but if it would help you, I'll be glad to do so. :)
ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/rjp/ixtlan/
The files in this directory belong to the Ixtlan mailing list.
Note: You will need an "unzipping" program such as unzip or pkunzip,
to extract the text files from the .zip file archives.
Try /pub/utils/pkunzip.exe (for ms-dos) on ftp.rmi.net.
Filename: Contents:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helpfile - Information about the Ixtlan mailing list.
Index - This file.
concordance - A directory containing a Castaneda concordance.
12/5/94
dreaming - A directory containing dreaming techniques and
experiences.
misc - A directory containing miscellaneous (related)
information.
music - A directory containing information related to music.
abelar.zip - Two text files of notes taken at lectures given by
Taisha Ablear on 11/19/93 and on 1/7/94.
bms.zip - A text file containing the interview with Carlos
Castaneda from Body Mind Spirit magazine, April 1995.
carlos68.zip - A text file containing a transcription of an
interview with Carlos Castaneda from 1968.
corval.zip - Two text files, containing a two-part interview with
Carlos Castaneda from Magical Blend magazine,
issues #14 and #15.
details.zip - A text file containing an interview with Carlos
Castaneda from Details magazine, March 1994.
dimension.zip - Two text files, containing a two-part interview
with Taisha Abelar from Dimension magazine.
donner.zip - A text file containing an interview with Florinda
Donner from Dimension magazine.
electro.zip - A text file containing a transcription of an
interview with Carlos Castenda by the University of
Calif. press.
kindred.zip - A text file containing an interview with the
Chacmools from Kindred Spirit magazine,
summer 1995.
la-times.zip - Two interviews with Carlos Castaneda and a
response from Merilyn Tunneshende,
from Dec 1995 L.A. Times Newspapers.
najourn.zip - Interview with Carlos Castaneda from the
New Age Journal magazine, March/April 1994.
phoenix.zip - Two text files containing notes taken at two
lectures given by Carlos Castaneda at the
Phoenix Book Store in LA.
psytoday.zip - A text file containing a reprint of an interview
with Carlos Castaneda from Pyschology Today, 1972.
radio.zip - Transcript of a 1993 radio interview with
Taisha Abelar.
recap.zip - A text file of quotes on the technique of
recapitulation.
sedona.zip - A text file containing a review of Tensegrity
published in the Sedona Journal, October 1996.
spasses.zip - A text file of sorcery passes from
"The Sorcerer's Crossing".
sunmag.zip - A test file containing an interview with Carlos
Castaneda from Sun Magazine, Feb. 1996.
taisha.zip - A text file containing an interview with
Taisha Abelar from Magical Blend Magazine,
issue 40, Oct. 1993.
tenseg1.zip - Notes taken at Tensegrity workshops (early 1995).
tenseg2.zip - Notes taken at Tensegrity workshops (8/95).
tenseg3.zip - Notes taken at Tensegrity workshops (9/95 to 12/96)
time.zip - A text file containing an interview with Carlos
Castaneda, from Time Magazine, March 5th, 1973.
toltec.zip - Interview with Florinda Donner from Magical Blend
magazine, issue #35, 1992.
video1.zip - Descriptions of the sorcery passes from Volume 1
of the Tensegrity video tape series.
--
For more information send email to: ixtlan...@nagual.com
I have a link to this stuff within THE ADC FAQ. ;-)
ME ME ME Hee Hee Hee :-D
http://members.aol.com/donpequeno/justfaqs.html
Anyway, I hope this helps. :)
dP
Attila Edvi-Illés
ObsidianV wrote:
>
> Is there a tabulated list somewhere of available
> transcripts of magazine and radio interviews
> with CC et al ?
Visit http://www.castaneda.de/
rjp
In article, don Pequeno offered...
>> obsi...@aol.com (ObsidianV) wrote:
>> Is there a tabulated list somewhere of available
>> transcripts of magazine and radio interviews
>> with CC et al ?
>
>
> BTW I can mirror some of this stuff if you want... at this point I
> see no reason to, but if it would help you, I'll be glad to do so. :)
>
> ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/rjp/ixtlan/
No problemo.
Once you get to the above ftp site, the files will be listed and
short descriptions of each file can be found in the Index file
(snipped here for brevity). :)
Bob
An oak tree in the garden.