Magical Passes

OTHER BOOKS BY CARLOS CASTANEDA

The Teachings of Don ]uan

A Separate Reality

Journey to Ixtlan

Tales of Power

The Second Ring of Power

The Eagle's Gift

The Fire from Within

The Power of Silence

The Art of Dreaming

MAGICAL PASSES

The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico

CARLOS CASTANEDA

Note: To avoid the risk of injury, consult your physician before beginning this or any physical movement program. Special caution is advised to pregnant women to consult a physician before practicing these movements. The instructions presented are in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling. The Author, Publisher, and Copyright Holder of this work disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the movements described herein.

Photographs by Photo Vision and Graphics, Van Nuys, California

The two practitioners of Tensegrity demonstrating the magical passes are Kylie Lundahl and Miles Reid.

MAGICAL PASSES. Copyright (c) 1998 by Laugan Productions. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

FIRST EDITION

Designed by Jessica Shatan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Castaneda, Carlos

Magical Passes : the practical wisdom of the Shamans of ancient Mexico / Carlos Castaneda : photographs by Photo Vision and Graphics in Van Nuys, California.  -  1st ed. p.        cm.

ISBN 0-06-017584-2

1. Shamanism - Mexico.    2. Exercise - Religious aspects.    3. Juan, Don, 1891- . 4. Castaneda, Carlos.    5. Mexico - Religion.    6. Indians of Mexico - Religion. I. Title. BF1622.M6C37    1998 97-26884

98 99 00 01 02 +/KKH 10987654 U I

To every one of the practitioners of Tensegrity,

who, by rallying their forces around it,

have put me in touch with energetic formulations

that were never available to

don Juan Matus or the shamans of his lineage.

CONTENTS

Introduction • 1

Magical Passes • 9

Tensegrity • 21

Six Series of Tensegrity • 29

The First Series: The Series for Preparing Intent • 37

The First Group: Mashing Energy for Intent • 40

The Second Group: Stirring Up Energy for Intent • 49

The Third Group: Gathering Energy for Intent • 58

The Fourth Group: Breathing In the Energy of Intent • 66

The Second Series: The Series for the Womb • 71

The First Group: Magical Passes Belonging to Taisha Abelar • 75

The Second Group: A Magical Pass Directly Related to Florinda Donner-Grau • 79

The Third Group: Magical Passes That Have to Do Exclusively with Carol Figgs • 81

The Fourth Group: Magical Passes That Belong to the Blue Scout • 84

The Third Series: The Series of the Five Concerns: The Westwood Series • 89

The First Group: The Center for Decisions • 90

The Second Group: The Recapitulation • 102

The Third Group: Dreaming • 115

The Fourth Group: Inner Silence • 127

The Fourth Series: The Separation of the Left Body and the Right Body: The Heat Series • 139

The First Group: Stirring Energy on the Left Body and theRifjht Body • 143

The Second Group: Mixing Energy from the Left Body and the Right Body • 154

The Third Group: Moving the Energy of the Left Body and the Right Body with the Breath • 165

The Fourth Group: The Predilection of the Left Body and the Right Body • 172

The Five Magical Passes for the Left Body • 173

The Three Magical Passes for the Right Body • 187

The Fifth Series: The Masculinity Series • 194

The First Group: Magical Passes in Which the Hands Are Moved in Unison but Held Separately • 197

The Second Group: The Magical Passes for Focusing Tendon Energy • 204

The Third Group: The Magical Passes for Building Endurance • 210

The Sixth Series: Devices Used in Conjunction with Specific Magical Passes • 217

The First Category • 219

The Second Category • 224

INTRODUCTION

Don Juan Matus, a master sorcerer, a nagual, as master sorcerers are called when they lead a group of other sorcerers, introduced me to the cognitive world of shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times. Don Juan Matus was an Indian who was born in Yuma, Arizona. His father was a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, Mexico, and his mother was presumably a Yuma Indian from Arizona. Don Juan lived in Arizona until he was ten years old. He was then taken by his father to Sonora, Mexico, where they were caught in the endemic Yaqui wars against the Mexicans. His father was killed, and as a ten-year-old child don Juan ended up in Southern Mexico, where he grew up with relatives.

At the age of twenty, he came in contact with a master sorcerer. His name was Julian Osorio. He introduced don Juan into a lineage of sorcerers that was purported to be twenty-five generations long. He was not an Indian at all, but the son of European immigrants to Mexico. Don Juan related to me that the nagual Julian had been an actor, and that he was a dashing person - a raconteur, a mime, adored by everybody, influential, commanding. In one of his theatrical tours to the provinces, the actor Julian Osorio fell under the influence of another nagual, Elias Ulloa, who transmitted to him the knowledge of his lineage of sorcerers.

Don Juan Matus, following the tradition of his lineage of shamans, taught some bodily movements which he called magical passes to his tour disciples: Taisha Abelar, Florinda Donner-Grau, Carol Figgs, and myself. He taught them to us in the same spirit in which they had been for generations, with one notable departure: he eliminated the excessive ritual which had surrounded the teaching and performance of those magical passes for generations. Don Juan's comments in this respect were that ritual had lost its impetus as new generations of practitioners became more interested in efficiency and functionalism. He recommended to me, however, that under no circumstances should I talk about the magical passes with any of his disciples or with people in general. His reasons were that the magical passes pertained exclusively to each person, and that their effect was so shattering, it was better just to practice them without discussing them.

Don Juan Matus taught me everything he knew about the sorcerers of his lineage. He stated, asserted, affirmed, explained to me every nuance of his knowledge. Therefore, everything I say about the magical passes is a direct result of his instruction. The magical passes were not invented. They were discovered by the shamans of don Juan's lineage who lived in Mexico in ancient times, while they were in shamanistic states of heightened awareness. The discovery of the magical passes was quite accidental. It began as very simple queries about the nature of an incredible sensation of well-being that those shamans experienced in those states of heightened awareness when they held certain bodily positions, or when they moved their limbs in some specific manner. Their sensation of well-being had been so intense that their drive to repeat those movements in their normal awareness became the focus of all their endeavors.

By all appearances, they succeeded in their task, and found themselves the possessors of a very complex series of movements that, when practiced, yielded them tremendous results in terms of mental and physical prowess. In fact, the results of performing these movements were so dramatic that they called them magical passes. They taught them for generations only to shaman initiates, on a personal basis, following elaborate rituals and secret ceremonies.

Don Juan Matus, in teaching the magical passes, departed radically from tradition. Such a departure forced don Juan to reformulate the pragmatic goal of the magical passes. He presented this goal to me not so much as the enhancement of mental and physical balance, as it had been in the past, but as the practical possibility of redeploying energy. He explained that such a departure was due to the influence of the two naguals who had preceded him.

It was the belief of the sorcerers of don Juan's lineage that there is an inherent amount of energy existing in each one of us, an amount which is not subject to the onslaughts of outside forces for augmenting it or for decreasing it. They believed that this quantity of energy was sufficient to accomplish something which those sorcerers deemed to be the obsession of every man on Earth: breaking the parameters of normal perception. Don Juan Matus was convinced that our incapacity to break those parameters was induced by our culture and social milieu. He maintained t hat our culture and social milieu deployed every bit of our inherent energy in fulfilling established behavioral patterns which didn't allow us to' break those parameters of normal perception.

"Why in the world would I, or anyone else, want to break those parameters?" I asked don Juan on one occasion.

"Breaking those parameters is the unavoidable issue of mankind," he replied. "Breaking them means the entrance into unthinkable worlds of ,1 pragmatic value in no way different from the value of our world of everyday life. Regardless of whether or not we accept this premise, we .ire obsessed with breaking those parameters, and we fail miserably at it, hence the profusion of drugs and stimulants and religious rituals and ceremonies among modern man."

"Why do you think we have failed so miserably, don Juan?" I asked.

"Our failure to fulfill our subliminal wish," he said, "is due to the fact that we tackle it in a helter-skelter way. Our tools are too crude. They .ire equivalent to trying to bring down a wall by ramming it with the head. Man never considers this breakage in terms of energy. For sorcerers, success is determined only by the accessibility or the inaccessibility energy.

"Since it is impossible," he continued, "to augment our inherent energy, the only avenue open for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico was the redeployment of that energy. For them, this process of redeployment began with the magical passes, and the way they affected the physical body."

Don Juan stressed in every way possible, while imparting his instruction, the fact that the enormous emphasis the shamans of his lineage 11 ad put on physical prowess and mental well-being had lasted to the present day. I was able to corroborate the truth of his statements by observing him and his fifteen sorcerer-companions. Their superb physical and mental balance was the most obvious feature about them.

Don Juan's reply when I once asked him directly why sorcerers put so much stock in the physical side of man was a total surprise to me. I had always thought that he himself was a spiritual man.

"Shamans are not spiritual at all," he said. "They are very practical beings. It is a well-known fact, however, that shamans are generally regarded as eccentric, or even insane. Perhaps that is what makes you think that they are spiritual. They seem insane because they are always trying to explain things that cannot be explained. In the course of such futile attempts to give complete explanations that cannot be completed under any circumstances, they lose all coherence and say inanities.

"You need a pliable body, if you want physical prowess and level headedness," he went on. "These are the two most important issues in the lives of shamans, because they bring forth sobriety and pragmatism: the only indispensable requisites for entering into other realms of perception. To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness. In order to establish a balance between audacity and recklessness, a sorcerer has to be extremely sober, cautious, skillful, and in superb physical condition."

"But why in superb physical condition, don Juan?" I asked. "Isn't the desire or the will to journey into the unknown enough?"

"Not in your pissy life!" he replied rather brusquely. "Just to conceive facing the unknown - much less enter into it - requires guts of steel, and a body that would be capable of holding those guts. What would be the point of being gutsy if you didn't have mental alertness, physical prowess, and adequate muscles?"

The superb physical condition that don Juan had steadily advocated from the first day of our association, the product of the rigorous execution of the magical passes, was, by all indications, the first step toward the redeployment of our inherent energy. This redeployment of energy was, in don Juan's view, the most crucial issue in the lives of shamans, as well as in the life of any individual. Redeployment of energy is a process which consists of transporting, from one place to another, energy which already exists within us. This energy has been displaced from centers of vitality in the body, which require that displaced energy in order to bring forth a balance between mental alertness and physical prowess.

The shamans of don Juan's lineage were deeply engaged with the redeployment of their inherent energy. This involvement wasn't an intellectual endeavor, nor was it the product of induction or deduction, or

logical conclusions. It was the result of their ability to perceive energy .is it flowed in the universe.

"Those sorcerers called this ability to perceive energy as it flowed in the universe seeing," don Juan explained to me. "They described seeing as a state of heightened awareness in which the human body is capable of perceiving energy as a flow, a current, a wind like vibration. To see energy as it flows in the universe is the product of a momentary halt of the system of interpretation proper to human beings."

"What is this system of interpretation, don Juan?" I asked.

"The shamans of ancient Mexico found out," he replied, "that every part of the human body is engaged, in one way or another, in turning this vibratory flow, this current of vibration, into some form of sensory input. The sum total of this bombardment of sensory input is then, through usage, turned into the system of interpretation that makes human beings capable of perceiving the world the way they do.