Category: Shamanism

Introduction

This is post number five of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

To start from the beginning of this series please see post one here.

Historical influences and lineage.

PAA: Can you share some insights into your learning journey and how you became a teacher of Toltec shamanism?

There were definitely some key points, some key turning points in my learning journey, in my encounter with Toltec shamanism. Initially I didn’t even have a clear idea of what I was looking for, what I had stumbled upon, what I was dealing with. Over time this all became clearer. 

I had become interested in Nagualism, as mentioned above, at a very young age, reading Castaneda’s books and having my own experiences as I could. The real turning point, of course, came when I met my teachers in Mexico, when I was welcomed into the lineage of Felipe Amezcua. 

Some of these points, these major turning points in my journey, I have talked about in the books, also about meeting with my teachers. Several times in the books I come back to the subject and also tell about some episodes that were particularly significant for me. 

My interest from the very beginning was to be able to access the world of Toltec shamanism as fully and completely as possible. And this note I tried to do first on my own, or with some friends occasionally. Consider that in those days the various disciplines dealing with personal evolution or alternative ways of relating to the world and ourselves were not as widespread as they are today. So it was all rather artisanal, pass me that term. 

On the one hand, perhaps it was even more interesting, in the sense that it had a much more “pioneering” flavor. Today, if we get on the Internet, we can find anything, or at least apparently we can find anything. Back in the day it was really like moving into completely unknown territory, not having any idea how to move, which way to go. 

As far as nagualism was concerned, Castaneda’s first books had come out, but obviously that did not give an exact direction. Many people maybe went to Mexico hoping to meet their Don Juan. I don’t know how many succeeded. It happened to me by accident. 

At the time, when I met my teachers, I was not in Mexico to look for any teachers of Toltec shamanism. I thought of it as very remote, unattainable, and so, who knows, maybe it was this lack of expectation that brought me into the right condition to meet my group of teachers, this lineage. 

There have been several moments along my experience, my relationship with nagualism that have marked milestones. Usually moments that can’t be called moments of enlightenment, rather they have been the occasions when the hard-earned information came together. 

Or moments when something within us finally gives way and allows us to access a certain kind of further knowledge. 

Of course, after meeting the lineage I attended in Mexico everything changed. I spent ten years with them, not all the time in Mexico. I was going back and forth between Italy and Mexico, also to find the economic resources to stay there. I would spend some months in Mexico and some months in Italy. 

This mode was very useful, because this kind of approach allowed me to have moments of decanting, periods of relative quiet, of space to let the things I was learning settle in the right place. 

The periods I spent with them, of course, were very intense on the level of the experiences they gave me, although in reality, even when I was in Mexico, there were alternating moments of greater intensity in learning with much more relaxed moments in which the challenges posed by nagualism were not directly addressed. 

They also had other ways, more strategic ways, to get me inside the knowledge system. But the long periods that I was also spending in Italy, periods of several months, allowed me to see how I was reacting, how I was actually using what I had learned in Mexico. Obviously when I was in Italy I had no way to get in touch with them, to ask for clarification, to get advice on how to deal with certain conditions that were obviously changing in my existence. 

New directions, new spaces, new ways of existing were presenting themselves, opening up. And so I necessarily had to fend for myself and learn how to put everything in its place in order to use it in the right way. 

When I returned to them, it was as if I had digested the previous time I had been with them and was thus ready for further advancement in the learning journey. It was an ideal combination, an ideal mode of learning. 

When I came to the end of my relationship with them, because then, as I explain in the books, at a certain point they disappeared from my existence, very simply, without me even knowing that they were going to leave, and so I was definitely on my own to fend for myself with all the knowledge they had left me. 

However, I still by no means thought of setting out to pass on the knowledge I had received. It took another ten years to decide to do so, and it was, in part, as if my teachers directed me, in ways that I actually still do not fully understand. 

On the other hand, it had become necessary for me to somehow get rid of all the events that had concatenated over those years, and, the best way to do that, was just to offer them to other people, then to distribute this intense experience. 

Another reason I started teaching, showing what I learned, is that I simply realized that I could not keep this knowledge just for myself. By nature, in fact, I would have a tendency not to put myself so much in the spotlight and continue to use only for myself and a few others what I had received, however, it became clear to me that I would have to put aside my personal inclinations and proceed in a new direction. 

There were very clear indications about this so it was impossible to avoid making oneself available to pass on this knowledge. I also understand very well that, for anyone who has read Castaneda, there is a need to also have another key, another way to approach Toltec shamanism. A way, at least seemingly, more accessible, more responsive to our way, to the way we know how to approach knowledge, even if then, over time, even this way that seems more linear turns into something else. 

The books I wrote, as well as the online courses or in-person meetings, have a totally pragmatic approach, in short, they are geared toward “how to do things.” By the time I had decided to put the content of my experience in writing, it was clear to me what kind of approach I should give it, just based on what my path had been.

At the time when I was reading Castaneda’s books it was all very fascinating, however, there was one big question that remained hanging: how do I accomplish these feats? How do I enter the world of Toltec shamanism?

This was the big apparent shortcoming of Castaneda’s books, so I decided to try to fill this gap and, instead of recounting my own field experience, which would just be a bad copy of Castaneda’s books, I realized that the best thing I could do for all people interested in nagualism was to reveal “how” the maneuvers are done, what the techniques are, what behaviors to adopt. In short, offer pragmatic access to the Toltec world.

Then, when I finally decided to start teaching attendance as well, I did some small tests first, to see first of all if I could do it; because it was certainly not a given that I could do it. And then to try to find the best form of doing it as well. So for a while, for still two or three years I did small meetings, small trials, experiments with small groups. And when I saw that it was working, then I decided to definitely open up, to give my total willingness to pass on what I learned through my teachers and my personal experience.

PAA: What were some of the most influential experiences and teachers that shaped your understanding of Nagualism?

As for teachers, first of all, of course, Carlos Castaneda and all his work, which continues to be a very important source of knowledge for me. I periodically reread his books because anyway over time I continue to access more and more intense levels, more and more behind the description, more and more beyond the syntax. 

Now reading Castaneda’s books for me is no longer reading in the sense of language, but has become seeing streams of information flowing through his words, his writings, seeing streams of information flowing that I simply let into my setup so that they then settle where they need to settle. Afterwards they have their effect over time. So in some ways Castaneda for me was the first teacher, the fundamental one. 

Then of course the other fundamental teachers for me were my teachers, the ones in my lineage, the people who made me what I am today. So particularly Felipe and Rocio. 

Rocio was my teacher for the art of ambush and she was instrumental, central, perhaps the most important person or at least the one with whom I was in the most special relationship within the group of lineage teachers I came in contact with. 

Clearly, if I can extract from Castaneda’s work today what I extract from it is because of them. I could not have done it any other way. After meeting me they operated a profound process of perceptual and cultural re-education that completely changed my perception not only of the world but also of myself. We always keep in mind that with the lemma “world” we must also include ourselves. We are part of it all. This is something we often forget, considering human beings as if they are not an element of the world on the same level as everything else.

As far as the most significant experiences are concerned, they have always been those times when I have been able to carry out a certain maneuver consciously, of any kind, whether it involved recapitulation, or dreaming, or the mastery of awareness, any aspect of the art of the Toltecs. All the times I was able to complete a maneuver in the area of nagualism deliberately and consciously. 

I have learned to consider experiences that do not contain this level of awareness to be of almost no value. 

Let me explain further. What Toltecs try to do is to make their existence a work of art. To do this they must be able to deliberately, voluntarily and with full awareness shape their own existence. Their every act must have this same quality; be full of intensity, conscious, deliberate. So they consider of little value the moments when we have experiences that are merely exploits, things that happen in which we, however, have no degree of understanding and control. 

I am not talking about mental understanding, I always mean the term understanding in the sense that we are together with the experience and have an appropriate level of control and surrender. We are able to flow along with the event we are not undergoing it. We are active elements within what we are doing and have full awareness of the forces at play, the elements that are moving, the directions the action is taking. 

In short, we know in what direction what we are dealing with is going, how it evolves and whether we have the opportunity to intervene or not; we decide how to adapt so that we are conscious actors in what is happening. 

If these conditions are not in place that experience is worth very little. It will remain at a superficial level or a very confused level and we will not be able to take much advantage of it. It will just be a memorable memory that we put in our safe of memorable memories, but then it stays there unopened. Every now and then we take it out, dust it off, watch it shine. But it is not fully connected to the whole of our existence and our evolutionary process. So for me, the highlights, the really significant moments, were the ones where I put all the elements together, the ones where I was able to connect the forces at work. Seeing them clearly and being a part of them, being one of the forces at work. 

In this case the experience has full value. It means that one has put together the result of what we have done previously. This then is the application of what the Toltecs call patience. 

Patience is not passively waiting. For the Toltecs it is something very dynamic. It is the condition of consciously, actively putting together all the elements that are needed to proceed to perform a certain action. 

When all the elements are put together, then timing comes into play. But if there is not the application of patience first, there are not the avenues open to get the pieces of knowledge we need to get to that action, that maneuver, to accomplish that feat or that technique we want to accomplish. 

So I could say that the significant moments were always those in which the attributes of ambush, because that’s what I was talking about, the attributes of the art of ambush, fulfilled their action to the fullest and opened up a new, fully conscious way for me to act in the world along with the world.

PAA: How does your lineage and the teachings you received compare with the historical Toltec tradition?

The lineage to which I belong, the lineage that has taken me in and formed me is deeply rooted in the historical Toltec tradition. 

This lineage originally originated in the town of Cantona, which was in central Mexico. It is currently an archaeological site and is at least 2,000 years old. And that is the place where the separation between ancient and new seer lineages took place. 

My lineage originated in that very period, in the course of this split. It originated at that time on the lines of the new seers, so in terms of renewing and evolving what had been nagualism up to that time. 

So, like many of the current lineages, including the one Castaneda had come in contact with, mine is also part of these lines of the new seers whose specific imprint is precisely to pursue a constant evolution, a renewal, an adaptation of the human species to the mode of the time of the planet in which we find ourselves and thus to pursue an adaptation to the spirit of the time. 

This makes it so that over the ages, with the succession of generations of warriors, each generation in my lineage has made those adaptations and renewal in the approach to nagualism that was necessary to flow together with the mode of time in place. 

This does not mean that we have disengaged ourselves from the legacy of the generations of warriors who came before us. On the contrary, it means that we maintain a very firm connection with the fundamental knowledge that was discovered by those who came before us, rather taking this knowledge to a deeper and more accurate level. 

That is, adjustment to the spirit of the times this, let’s call it, lineage modernization, pursues a refinement, an improvement of what already exists, evaluating what actually works, what is effective, and discarding what is no longer akin to the current time, then inserting those adjustments or new things that can be helpful and supportive to new lines of practitioners as well. 

Of course, times have changed and so lineages necessarily adapt as well, at least those of the new seers. Nagualism is not a religion, it has no dogma to defend, it has nothing to hold on to. It pursues knowledge from the perspective of effectiveness, pragmatism and cohesion with real life. So yes, there is a strong connection with historical knowledge, with knowledge accumulated over thousands of years. But part of this knowledge, though, is an awareness of the need to adapt to the spirit of the times, and so within the fundamental knowledge, forms are adapted to approach this fundamental knowledge in the manner of the times we find ourselves living in.

PAA: What role did your encounters with contemporary Toltec practitioners play in refining your approach to the teachings?

I must say that the relationship and rapport with current practitioners is still of great importance to me. My current teaching activity leads me to refine the minute details of the discipline deeper and deeper. 

I mainly deal with practitioners who come to my meetings in a face-to-face way, and that is the most interesting thing of course, because during face-to-face meetings there are also interactions that take place that are not verbal. Interactions that not everyone is aware of. 

There is an interaction between our basic energy entities, between our bodies as awareness, that takes place in attention of the second kind. And this is the very interesting thing to see, to witness. 

There is a clear discrepancy between the more superficial, more visible level of the person and instead his energetic depth, his real body, his real mind. 

Often those who practice do things without even knowing it, or it happens that at the level of internal dialogue and linear thinking people apply a certain description of certain things happening that does not correspond to the action they actually performed. 

This gives me very important and precise indications of the direction to take and support in teaching. Because a fundamental energetic fact is being able to bring people to the level of awareness of their deepest actions, their energetic acts. When that happens there is another self, let’s call it that, that takes over from our image, our description, how we normally describe ourselves. That description is not us. 

In the course of existence we do a lot of things that we are not aware of. Magical, power, energy actions that are related to intent and the energy body. The question is to bring them to the full level of consciousness. But these experiences, these acts done in the world of energy reality, cannot be associated with the consciousness of ordinary awareness. That is of no use, that is a wrong direction. 

The big difficulty actually, one of the biggest difficulties in apprenticeship and even then in teaching, is to get people to give up ordinary control, which is a kind of dictatorship, and allow a higher level of control to come into operation. This higher level of control, of course, concerns our energy body and our existence as beings made of attention, not described. 

What we usually try to do instead, because the linear mind wants to maintain control, wants to continue to maintain its dictatorship, well, what we usually do is to try to bring these actions and experiences to the ordinary level of awareness. But this cannot be done because, in the world of ordinary awareness, in the world we usually live in, there simply cannot be that kind of action, there cannot be that kind of experience. 

There is really an impediment of a perceptual nature. Magic exists in another side of the world, and, the only way to reach it, is to shift, to shift our awareness to the other position, the one where attention of the second kind comes into operation, where we are the being that actually performed those actions, those feats, that had those experiences. That is the only way to bring it to the level of consciousness. 

Then there is a whole middle ground in which we have a more or less complete vague awareness of what happens when the energy body begins to function. But it is not a complete awareness. So we have somewhat altered memories of the fact that something extraordinary has happened. 

In my interactions with people I hang out with, with current practitioners I learn so many things. I could say that this is a new apprenticeship or a new phase of apprenticeship for me. 

After spending many years as a basically solitary practitioner, in the sense that I certainly had the meeting and teaching of my teachers but I was the apprentice and they were the teachers, now The role has been partially reversed. 

I say partially because when you have the practice meetings, there is a more equal interaction, as far as I’m concerned, in the sense that that experience is had together with those who are practicing. This I have to say, in mysterious ways, happens in the online path as well. 

This leads me to refine so many aspects of nagualism that perhaps I already knew, but in this way they are processed and taken deeper, they acquire more precision. 

The operation of knowledge refinement happens in any interaction with any practitioner. It does not matter whether the practitioner is just starting out or has already had experience; that is not the discriminating factor. The point is that there is always this double level of interaction where things happen. The only difference between those who are just starting out, those who have already had perhaps a long experience, is that the latter person begins to be aware of this double level, while those who are just starting out generally absolutely not. 

However, here, on the other side, nothing changes. That’s why for me there are no beginner or advanced practitioners. When interacting on that underlying plane, which has a foundation of energetic reality, any person expresses potentialities. Then of course, whether they are fully and consciously expressed, that is a whole other matter and requires a real apprenticeship path.

PAA: How do you think modern practitioners can honor and build on the legacy of historic Toltec shamanism?

What they can do is practice humility. But I must explain what the Toltecs mean by this term. The humility of the warrior is to be on the same plane as anything else, neither above nor below. When we are equal to everything else, then we also begin to extend ourselves over the world. In short, we achieve what we were talking about earlier about harmony. 

Without this connection, which results from the understanding that we are on the same plane as all that exists, there cannot be even this harmony, and it is certainly not possible to adhere to the lines, directions and directions that have been developed over generations, over thousands of years of work, including mistakes and corrections, by the Toltecs. 

Because, as nagualism is something very practical and based on direct experience and doing things, experiencing them in order to acquire them, it is clear that there are no permanent dogmas, truths revealed forever. 

Nagualism is with the world, flowing, changing as the world changes. It continuously changes and adapts. And in this adapting, renewing, changing, there are of course directions that are tried, but not all of them go well. There was a lot of trial and error, mistakes, corrections. 

However, after about 12,000 years now there are a whole series of fundamental issues that have become very clear. We know how to do certain things. So if a current practitioner approaches it with this level of humility that makes one equal to the world, first of all he or she is able to recognize the proper directions that Toltec shamanism has developed over time. 

This means that first of all, to honor this legacy, this heritage, you have to know it. And to really know this system of knowledge takes years of dedication, I would say a lifetime of dedication. In fact, perhaps one can never say that one has reached the point of fully understanding it. Also because if we are really part of nagualism, then it flows from the lines, the directions, the indications of intent, of the active side of infinity. So I would say that the question of the warrior’s humility also lies in the fact that he knows very well that he is not the one who is doing things this way, alone, but that the whole of his strategic actions. within the flow of the world arise from the connection with the intent. Without this connection we become very crude, clumsy, conceited. 

Here, perhaps this is the point. To pursue, to honor, to respect this legacy, the best thing one can do is to carry as far as possible the struggle against focusing on oneself, against the sense of self-importance. 

This solves all the other issues. It solves the question of energy, of lucid strategic vision, of connection with intent. And it also clarifies for us when we can intervene, bring new things to the knowledge system and whether these new things, these new insights, are actually effective and efficient within the whole structure and when it’s just our way of saying, “I’m there too, I’m important.” 

The sense of personal importance certainly completely disrupts any possibility of approaching, I would say, any knowledge system properly.

Further Information

See all Posts from Marco Baston

See Marcos Website

See Marcos Books

See Marcos YouTube Channel

See Marcos Facebook Page

See Marcos Online Course

Introduction

This is post number four of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

To start from the beginning of this series please see post one here.

PAA: How did you first encounter the works of Carlos Castaneda and what impact did they have on your spiritual path?

Castaneda’s books were introduced to me by a friend when I was very young, perhaps not yet 18 years old, and they immediately grabbed me. For me it was an encounter that changed my existence, and I believe this has happened to many other people. I believe that many others in the world share this same experience with me. 

Consider that in those days not all of Castaneda’s books had come out yet. We are talking about quite a few years ago and so every time they were about to come out there was a very interesting anticipation; a beautiful tension, also because the developments were always totally unpredictable. However, from the very beginning, as soon as I started reading them I never had the slightest doubt, the idea that what was in those books was not true did not even occur to me. They responded exactly to what I had been feeling probably all my existence, or they responded to what I was looking for. 

I actually wasn’t exactly on a spiritual or knowledge path. Back then then, everything was very different. Now there is a proliferation of possibilities in that sense, maybe even too many from a certain point of view, but still I was not exactly on a definite path of knowledge. I was instinctively looking for a passage, an undefined direction, though. 

It was clear to me that there is something that has been taken away from us or that we are missing, and that we absolutely must recover. This I could say was the initial impulse. It was also clear to me that it was not only that something fundamental to our wholeness was missing, but that this lack did not even allow us to experience existence In a fulfilled way; not only in terms of ourselves, but also and perhaps especially in terms of the relationship between us and what is around us. In short, it was clear to me that we human beings, in our normal, ordinary condition, are as if cut off from something that is just outside of us, that is almost within reach but that we never reach. 

When I encountered Castaneda’s books I also encountered this access, this possibility, the opening to what was just a little bit beyond me. In fact, I couldn’t even define what it was exactly. I didn’t have a description or a moment where I could say, “This is exactly what Castaneda is talking about in this passage of the book. Here is what I’m looking for, what I need, what brings me in short to fully experience existence.” It was not so defined, it was something else. 

A basic feeling or perception, something that permeates Castaneda’s entire oeuvre; that lies beneath, beyond the words and reaches us despite the meaning of the words themselves. It is not the syntax, it is not what is described, told, but it is something that oozes from the very pages of the books, an essence with which they are imbued. 

Years later I would then understand what it is all about, what is really inside these books, when I was then able to get the right state of attention to read them, indeed to reread them fully, with the necessary tools to understand them in the totality of myself, so not to understand them, but to let what those books contain could come to integrate with my substance and thus make itself real. 

This of course then was one of the results of my whole journey that also led me to the possibility of seeing beyond the syntax in Castaneda’s books, however, the presence of this substance, this intensity behind the words was already evident from the beginning. 

PAA: Can you discuss the similarities and differences between Castaneda’s teachings and your interpretation of Nagualism?

First of all, I would like to make it clear that what I practice is not my own interpretation of Nagualism, but what I learned from my teachers. Clearly each warrior, when he reaches a certain point of autonomy, capacity and real, pragmatic understanding of the knowledge system, makes contributions of his own. However, this does not mean interpreting the knowledge system, but rather inserting refinements within the whole set of what is already working. 

It works because it has been fine-tuned, as we have already said, over thousands of years of experience. So you make improvements, you go and smooth out the existing, or you also add something more substantial, but it has to work together with the rest. If it comes into conflict in any way it means that we are just trying to impose ourselves, our beliefs. 

For example, I included in the sequence for the predominance of the energy body aspects of the “Right Way to Move,” which is a practice, a set of activities that I discovered, I would say I put together during my explorations in the second attention. 

I tell this whole story in one of my books, which at this time is not yet translated into English, but we plan to translate in the near future. Even in that case, however, I actually basically gathered together a range of information and possibilities that had already been activated and opened up by ancient seers, by groups of Toltecs, groups of warriors who came before us. Certainly I put together and related these information and possibilities to each other in a way, in a modern, new vision, not conceived before, adapting them to our times. However, not because I wanted to do it from the beginning, I didn’t start out by saying “now I’ll find something and then I’ll adapt it to my world”; this adaptation came about by following the spirit of the times. 

It becomes inevitable that we adapt some aspects of the practice, some aspects of nagualism to what is happening now, to the present time of the world. So we don’t decide to do some things differently, with certain modifications because we decide to do it; we simply are men of our time and so we use these possibilities in the mode of the time that is proper to us. 

Having said that, I can say that the differences between my lineage and Castaneda’s are not profound. In the sense that the basic connotations, what constitutes the corpus of Nagualism as it is known in the lineages that have gone through the ages before and after the conquest, up to modern times, well, this basic information, this basic knowledge is the same. 

However, there are certainly differences in the methodologies that are applied to achieve mastery of this fundamental knowledge. Particularly in my lineage a great deal of “parallel movement” of the assemblage point is used, something that I have not encountered in Castaneda’s lineage, of Don Juan, at least as far as what Castaneda reports in the books. Or rather, there are episodes that he relates in which obviously parallel movement is inevitably used, however, it is not an explicit mode, nor used, we might say, on a large scale, or as one of the main systems of teaching. 

In my lineage also, practices that use elements external to us, powers, external forces, to achieve the movement of the assemblage point have been absolutely and definitely abandoned. Using external elements is a very old and traditional teaching method, which, for example, is made explicit in the use of power plants, in that of allies rather than in the famous Nagual blow, which Castaneda talks about extensively in his books. 

In all these cases, as well as in others, basically a type of energy is used that comes from outside the apprentice. The external element may be an external force, such as precisely the power contained in a power plant, rather than an ally or the teacher himself, who provides an energetic push that, as it were, forces the apprentice’s assembly point to move and reach another position. 

These methods have been abandoned almost entirely within my lineage, and there is a preference to obtain the movement of the assembly point from within, learning how to change one’s attitude and thus the position of the assembly point by an operation that we perform ourselves. 

Different ways are used to do this. Clearly forms of help for the apprentice exist in my lineage as well, forms of help that use something that is external to the apprentice, however, they are never methods that force the assembly point to move by forcing it. We prefer to bring the apprentice to an understanding of how convenient it is for him to move the assembly point of his own volition. 

This is also because over time it became very clear that even using methods that force the assemblage point to move, work still had to be done afterwards to bring the learner to the understanding that it is necessary to learn how to voluntarily move the assemblage point. It is inevitable to come to the understanding of how convenient this ability, this skill, is, of how vital, how fundamental to our existence as beings made of attention, it is to learn the maneuverability of the assemblage point. This learning is eventually either done of the learner’s own volition, as a conscious choice, or it does not work. 

We can use all possible methods to force the apprentice’s position, but in the end he must still be the one to choose, to decide to enact this ability, to claim the maneuverability of the assembly point. This claim must be made of his own free will otherwise it is worthless. If it remains a forced choice, if it is not conscious, if it is not free, it does not lead in the direction of freedom. 

In fact, coercive ones were practices much used by ancient seers, who were very dedicated to power, even over other people. That of forcing movement is a method much used by men of power, but much less used by men of knowledge. Because a man of knowledge knows very well that, in the end, only the person can make the choice, himself, no one else. 

So in our lineage we start from the beginning, first of all, the work of bringing the apprentice to understanding. The movement from within is very much based on understanding what is convenient, what is necessary to the living being, to the conscious being. It is true that we also use elements of the world, which are external to the practitioner, but the movement of the assemblage point is never forced. 

Parallel movement, for example, consists of the apprentice following the teacher who makes a certain movement of the assembly point, moving in a certain direction, reaching a certain position. The apprentice, however, follows the teacher by yielding, using surrender, stopping resisting and thus deciding himself to follow the teacher. 

Similarly, we use coincidence places (places of power) as another system for movement In parallel. Instead of the teacher in that case there is a certain place that has certain characteristics. And these characteristics could lead the assemblage point to move in a certain direction, to reach that certain position, if the person, if the learner is willing to let himself move, to follow the direction induced by the place. 

In any case as long as you resist there is no way. One may force, but then one always comes back. Most of the time we also forget the experience we had when we are forced, or what we bring back is a big mess that doesn’t do much good. 

If, on the other hand, we get there by our own choice and with whole awareness, then the whole experience we have in the new position remains intact. We bring it back in its entirety to our world, which will not be the same as before at that point. 

Recapitulation works on this a lot. It does a great deal of assembly point maneuverability training in a soft, gentle way, using kindness, cunning, patience and timing. 

So I could say that this is the main, substantial difference between my lineage and the one that Castaneda met. Then there are others, but this one is very important because it involves a whole series of changes, different ways of approaching knowledge. Initially it may seem like a longer process, you don’t get those results as immediately as when you are forced into another position. However, what we achieve is immediately in our hands. We become the ones who lead the game.

PAA: What aspects of Castaneda’s work do you think are most relevant to your teachings today and from which do you differ?

In the meantime, I want to indicate which is for me the book of Castaneda that I find most powerful, most cohesive with nagualism. Clearly this is a completely personal consideration of mine, however I like to point it out, also because, in this case, it is closely related to the sense of the question that was asked. 

I believe that such a book is The Power of Silence. It is the book that most of all touches on the question of intent. The most abstract, the one that tried to bring people as close as possible to the abstract. At the very least it gives pointers, suggestions, useful in grasping what warriors mean when they talk about abstract and intent. This is why I consider it the fullest, most complete and most powerful book. Everything in Nagualism revolves around the abstract. If there is no connection to the abstract everything else also falls apart. 

But now I come to the core of the question, although already from this you can perhaps see what the most relevant cores are from my point of view in Castaneda’s teaching. Obviously there is a lot in his work, there is a tremendous amount of information brought by Castaneda that is indispensable for those who approach nagualism. So to make some kind of list would be very cumbersome and also useless in the end. 

However, if I had to indicate, based on my experience, which aspects are the most relevant, I would say that it is all those parts of his teaching that deal with the way of the warrior. That is, the moments when he emphasizes the need to reconcile our human condition, even ordinary human condition, with the abstract. As Don Juan would say the ability to balance the wonder of being human with the terror of being human. 

Based on this premise, one could make a long list of practices, starting with the recapitulation, but I would say that the most significant parts from my point of view and also based on what has then been my personal experience through my teachers, certainly are all the parts that deal with achieving sobriety. 

Sobriety as understood by the Toltecs of course. Which, to be very succinct, consists of the ability to remain serene in the face of circumstances beyond our control. Such a condition presupposes the development of an internal discipline and order that are of a different nature than what we normally mean by discipline and order. The discipline of which the Toltecs speak is something elastic, capable of adapting to the moving world. It is not at all something rigid. 

The internal order that warriors develop is of the same nature. It is orderly because it balances the extended emanations, because it reflects the order of the world, the natural harmony of the world. 

Central here again is the question of the sense of personal importance, of concentration on oneself and how this distances us precisely from the ability to be together with the world, thus to achieve discipline, sobriety, inner strength (which then also coincides with the humility of the warrior and thus the fact of being on the same level as anything else that exists). 

I would say then that I also consider relevant all the teachings, all the narratives of happenings in Castaneda’s books, in which he addresses the question of the sense of personal importance. This still has to do with the way of the warrior and achieving the state of sobriety. Sobriety is not a state of mind or an attitude; for the Toltecs, sobriety is a mode of time, an assemblage point position, a very special state of awareness in which we have heightened awareness without losing coherence. 

Sobriety is therefore also coincidence, correspondence with the world around us, where we are at that moment, whether it is the world we know or other worlds we visit. Without this sobriety, without this flawlessness, it is just not possible to survive on the path of knowledge. Saying that it is not possible to survive means so many things, you can succumb in so many ways. Not simply losing one’s life. 

You can lose your freedom, you can lose your consciousness, you can succumb in many different ways to the forces around you. The way of the warrior is the only way to move with the world in an appropriate way. 

In addition to this I consider absolutely relevant all the parts of Castaneda’s teaching that deal with the art of ambush. I will not go into the art of ambush here because the subject matter is so great that it is just not possible to go into the art of ambush now, we certainly do not have the space available to do so. 

Instead I diverge from some of the things that are contained in the early books, actually especially the power plants, which for modern seers are basically useless, when not misleading (but on the other hand Castaneda himself had then also diverged sharply from them). I am not saying that they are to be ruled out absolutely. Certainly, however, they cannot be used lightly as is too often done. 

In general, we have no idea what power plants really do to our energy set-up. If we did know, we would be much more cautious in our use. We would do it only under special conditions, with due caution and having the experience that allows us to relate to the power to which we are led by these by these plants. 

After the use of power plants, our arrangement is greatly compromised (this becomes clear to the energetic vision) and it takes a long time to regain a state of energetic integrity that will rightly no longer be the original state. 

The change in the resulting arrangement can also result in an advantage, however, only if we know how to lead it, how to manage the relationship with the power to which we are led by power plants. 

If one really decides to use them, I would advise using them toward the end of our apprenticeship journey, so when we already have the knowledge available to make use of every last bit of the energy we are given. If we do it without this knowledge, not only can it prove harmful, but we really waste a chance. We throw away the energy that is provided to us by the power plant. 

We really waste it, mainly in matters that relate, again, to our focus on ourselves, which can present itself with a disruptive effect while under the influence of these plants. 

There are so many other reasons why the use of plants has been abandoned, the main one perhaps being that, throughout all this time, the Toltecs have developed so many other systems to achieve, not just the same things, but so much more. Practices like contemplation or reiteration are capable of taking us much, much further than power plants, not only taking us much further, but taking us to places that we can choose, to places that are appropriate for us, that are harmonious with our deepest predilections because they are our choice. Whereas, on the other hand, when we take power plants like this, without experience, we are basically dragged and then yanked to one side and then to the other, to places that don’t really have all that much value for us from the point of view of intensity of awareness. We are taken to where the interests of other forces are towards us. 

This is another aspect that plays a key role as to why my lineage has abandoned power plants. These plants have agreements with the worlds of inorganic beings. And this therefore already must put us very much on the fence as to how to use them. When we step out of our ordinary enclosure we do not go for a walk in a garden or a public park, we end up in a wild place where forces totally unknown to us are there waiting for us. 

The same applies to dreaming. In fact, another difference between my lineage and Castaneda’s, another point perhaps that I can highlight, is the way one approaches dreaming. In my lineage one approaches the art of dreaming having already obtained the basic tools that one obtains through the art of ambush and recapitulation. Then dreaming becomes a safe place, much easier to handle, much broader, even where we can reach much greater distances. 

Again, we are much more capable of choosing ourselves in what direction to go, what places to reach. Because even dreaming, which is the domain of the second attention, has to be approached with all caution. That, too, is a place where we are out of our enclosure, in wild and unexplored territory. If we have the proper equipment and perhaps some maps to guide us, we will deal with it much better.

It is necessary to always keep in mind that what we read in books is Castaneda’s case, his own personal. We certainly get information from it that is valid for any human being, but that was his experience. Any other person who had been in his place would have had a very different experience. Of that I am sure. 

Marco Baston

PAA: How should we interpret Castaneda’s relationship with his mentor Don Juan and its implications for modern practitioners?

We have to consider that we do not know what Castaneda’s relationship with Don Juan really was. What he reported in his books is only a part, a fragment of this relationship, and in my opinion, the salient elements to really understand exactly what kind of relationship they had, what the social implications were for Castaneda and how this relationship really evolved are not even reported there. 

There are hints here and there, for example, of a considerable amount of information that Don Juan gave Castaneda about how to conduct his existence, his personal life. This information, however, is not then fully reported within his books, in a form that would make clear what that relationship really entailed. Based on my experience with my teachers and through the application of intensified attention on reading Castaneda’s books I can reach certain insights regarding what Castaneda’s real relationship with Don Juan was, I can get a broader picture of it. 

As I said before, to us their personal relationship appears only in the way Castaneda himself wanted to present it. That is, basically, I think Castaneda chose to highlight certain aspects not only of his own path, but also of his relationship with Don Juan. This also affects all the other people who were part of Don Juan’s group. We have to consider, as it then turns out from the books following the first ones published, that there was quite a large group that supported Don Juan in his task of preparing new apprentices. And so we cannot speak only of the relationship between Castaneda and Don Juan, but of a more complex set of relationships as a result of the intertwining of interactions between the group of teachers and the group of apprentices, which was also the large group. 

So I think in the meantime, if you want to have a complete picture, you cannot isolate or reduce the relationship of Castaneda and Don Juan to just the two of them, but it has to be considered within this more articulated network of relationships. 

Reading the whole of Castaneda’s work, it becomes clear that the overall result of Castaneda’s experience does not simply flow from his relationship with Don Juan, but is the product of this whole more complex network of relationships that affected the whole group, not only the teachers but also the apprentices. Those, too, played a role in the whole and so, as always, things are more articulated, deeper than what appears at first glance. 

I can speculate some things by perhaps drawing parallels between what happened to Castaneda and what was my experience with my teachers. But even that would ultimately be a rather clumsy and misplaced attempt, because in any case the conditions were not the same, the experience was different, and the cultural substratum from which Castaneda came and from which I came differed. There are definitely a lot of differences also regarding procedures and the personal relationship between teachers and trainees. 

So really, for current practitioners, it follows that the implications of this relationship, I would say at this point between Castaneda and Don Juan’s group of seers, are simply those that can be extrapolated from the books, but they remain something that obviously, under current conditions is not repeatable. Not exactly, at least. 

It is necessary to always keep in mind that what we read in books is Castaneda’s case, his own personal. We certainly get information from it that is valid for any human being, but that was his experience. Any other person who had been in his place would have had a very different experience. Of that I am sure. 

The operation one should do as a reader of Castaneda should be to be able to extract the information that is useful for everyone, all the universal information that is valid for every human being. If you get stuck on Castaneda’s case, you end up trying to repeat or imitate something that has nothing to do with us. 

Each of us is completely different. Everyone has a different history and path, and so it can be just misleading and futile to somehow try to reproduce the same experiences or conditions. Such an operation ends up taking time and energy unnecessarily. In short, trying to somehow repeat the same experience as Castaneda, although obviously a very appealing thing to do, cannot be done. 

Moreover, it is not certain that the spirit of man does not have in store for us perhaps a life, a path, even more interesting than his. Certainly more suitable for us. 

From his work one can derive all the information and knowledge that is useful for us personally and then for all mankind. But his personal experience was his own. 

He was very good because of the way he presented his experiences, because he did exactly that: he simply presented his experiences by refining them to make them as accessible as possible. 

This already should put us on notice that this is precisely about the way he was initiated and embarked on and walked this path, and that therefore, as much as there may be a lot of things that we can repeat as experiences, then these must necessarily be adapted to our personal conditions.

In our ordinary state of attention we have a very limited and superficial perception of what is around us, of what we call “world.” The world for the Toltecs is what we perceive around us. And what we perceive depends on how deep, trained, sharpened, our perception and attention are. 

Mardo Baston

PAA: In what ways do you think Castaneda’s teachings have been misunderstood or misrepresented in popular culture?

The blunders in how what Castaneda has made available is perceived depend substantially on the tightness of our personal beliefs and our shallowness in looking at the world, in perceiving the world. 

In our ordinary state of attention we have a very limited and superficial perception of what is around us, of what we call “world.” The world for the Toltecs is what we perceive around us. And what we perceive depends on how deep, trained, sharpened, our perception and attention are. 

In general, they are very crude, primitive, partial, they are like mutilated. As a result we are able to look at the surface; everything that goes deep in the world around us escapes us. This also relates to reading Castaneda’s books. So rather than misunderstandings I would really talk about the impossibility of accessing the depth, what lies behind what is apparently written. 

Added to this is the fact that because we are unable to get rid of our personal history and personal beliefs, everything we come into contact with we pass under the deforming lens of ourselves. This deforming lens, consisting precisely of a mixture of our focus on ourselves, our set of beliefs, personal history and other forces at play, leads us to emphasize only some aspects and miss a huge amount of others. 

We then come to have a picture that is somehow a reflection of ourselves, of what we already know or think we already know. It is as if we look at ourselves in a mirror and there we see again what we think we already have available to us. In short, we see the whole of ourselves again. Clearly, it is not all like that. Castaneda’s reading, in fact, is enlightening for millions of people. I am not saying that absolutely nothing passes, or that his works do not lead to profound changes. 

It comes a lot anyway, however, if we consider the massification of culture, let’s call it “alternative,” trend lines are formed, like some kind of commands or shared structures that lead to recognizing only certain aspects while leaving out substantial elements. 

Much more emphasis is placed on certain all-too-superficial, highly visible aspects, thus missing indications that would lead us to make radical changes in our existence. In fact, I believe that the catalyzing of attention on the more “folkloric” aspects or in line with the alternative mainstrem depends precisely on our resistance to change. The tendency to try to recapture what we already know is an almost irresistible impulse and often we do not even recognize it.

It’s normal for this to happen. Initially actually, if you read Castaneda and then you read it again, then you read it again, this phenomenon happens to everybody whereby it feels like you are reading another book. Or rather, we read things that we felt like we hadn’t read at all, that weren’t present in the first reading. Yet it is still the same book. 

It is a signal that we change something. So individually, we were saying, you can also get to a greater level of depth, but in what we might call popular culture there are really guidelines, let’s call it that way, that give definite directions, boundaries and definitions within which to put the content of Castaneda’s books.

Certainly one of the biggest misconceptions is that power plants represent something central to Toltec teaching. This is not the case at all; in fact they are extremely marginal to everything else. 

But then not only that. There’s a lot of focus generally on the more striking or more magical aspects, the special effects, let’s call them that, but there’s more behind that, and in the books it’s very clear what’s really behind it, the kind of careful, precise work that warriors do to get certain results. 

By focusing on the more visible, more striking aspects, we end up losing sight of where the real work lies, and this prevents us from even getting those special effects that are so popular in general, or those phenomenal experiences that are present in Castaneda’s books, but which are not accessible if we remain nailed down to only this superficial aspect. 

So I would say that certainly one reading of Castaneda meanwhile is not enough. Or a partial reading. Worse still. Because Castaneda’s work makes sense only taken in its entirety and complexity and above all by experiencing it, if not they remain only words that end up only, precisely, reflecting the set of our beliefs, already ingrained and stable, while instead Castaneda’s work should, first of all, eradicate those beliefs so as to make room for new worlds.

Further Information

See all Posts from Marco Baston

See Marcos Website

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See Marcos Online Course

Introduction

This is post number three of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

To start from the beginning of this series please see post one here.

PAA: How do you define energy in the context of Nagualism and what role does it play in your teachings?

We have already talked in the introductory part about how energy is viewed within Nagualism however I will put a few more pieces in place to further clarify. 

To summarize a lot I can say that for the Toltecs, energy is time being actualized, it is time that is working. Or, put another way, these energy fibers, these energy fields, these emanations, are basically made of time, and energy is released and then unfolds in its many aspects at the moment when time is functioning, is enacting. This mode, indeed, this mode of time (this is the term used by the Toltecs), which is the “form” in which time is enacting itself, can express itself in countless different ways. And this determines the world we are dealing with, or, more accurately, instead of world, the alignment we are dealing with, in Toltec jargon. Basically, when the mode of time changes, the world (the alignment) in which we find ourselves also changes, and consequently so do we ourselves, who must adapt to the rules of the new alignment. 

That time functions in different ways in relation to our state of awareness we experience very clearly when we dream. Time is not the same as the world we live in while awake. Let us then remember that awareness has the ability to intervene in the functioning of time. It does so by adjusting the relation of internal emanations, and this adjustment, this change in the relation of internal emanations, shifts us, shifts our awareness (or the assemblage point more exactly) into different modes of time. I could say into different worlds. 

There are countless worlds, universes, on each other. These universes are separated from one another by the mode of time, which creates absolute separation. Here, in this very place where we are, there are worlds upon worlds. We cannot access or perceive the other worlds until we adjust our relationship of internal emanations in the mode of time relative to that other world. At that point we may even come to move from the world in which we are with the totality of ourselves. 

The way time-energy works also determines what we are; it determines it exactly down to the smallest details. 

Then there is a matter of a strictly perceptual nature concerning seeing in the Toltec sense of the term, energetic seeing. These energetic fibers, these emanations, actually appear as fibers or lines or bundles of fibers, and the perception or the sensation that the seer has, because seeing is first of all a sensation that then unfolds in the form of perception, well, the sensation is that these energetic fibers emanate an internal light. A kind of internal light. And it is clear at that moment, when you perceive it, that this luminosity is awareness. 

That is, every single emanation contains this spark of awareness. In living beings, awareness is implemented in the relationship between emanations. When you realize the whole, the conglomerate of energy fibers, that is the living being, you also release the ability to intervene in the way time is working, thus determining exactly what the living being is and what world it is dealing with.

PAA: Then elaborate on the concept of energy lines, how do they affect our physical and emotional states? How can understanding energy dynamics lead to greater personal empowerment and better decision-making? How do you think energy manipulation relates to human experience and consciousness more broadly?

So, I give a single, overall answer on these three questions because they are so related, intertwined with each other that separating the answers becomes quite difficult. Already in other questions I actually started to give answers to the points raised by these questions. Moreover, these questions go right to all the most central issues concerning nagualism, but not only that, they actually concern the human being and every being endowed with consciousness. 

Granted, I repeat, that we are a whole, a conglomerate of energy fibers, emanations, energy fields; let’s use the term we prefer, let’s call them energy fibers then, our overall condition depends solely and exclusively on how our components, these energy fibers, relate to each other. 

By how they relate or how they do not relate. 

Not only does our emotional condition, or physical condition, or mental condition, or health condition depend on it, this is the most superficial layer. Going deeper with the mastery of awareness, which then is the mastery of the assemblage point, of the energetic arrangement, so it is the mastery of the relationship between these energetic fibers that make up us, well, going deeper and with experience, we realize that potentially we could change our arrangement to such a level that we could also become something else than what we are now. Respect, that is, being human beings. The stories of sorcerers turning into animals or other elements of the world, trees, water, fog, are not just stories, they are the result of this mastery of the energy arrangement. 

There is one area of man within our light cocoon, within our conglomerate of energy fibers, and that is the one we usually use. Usually indeed we only turn on that one partially as well, we turn on a small band of these energy fibers of man. There would be much more even as human beings, and that is what the warriors are trying to achieve. 

But then there are vast areas, much larger areas, that it would be possible to access with our awareness, then with the assemblage point, where we become something else than what we are at this moment. We are human beings only incidentally. I would say therefore it is not the case that we should feel so important. 

For modern seers these kinds of operations are not of much value, that is, they can be of value only at the level of experience in the movement of the assemblage point. For ancient seers, on the other hand, they were fundamental operations of great importance. There are accounts of the first conquistadors who arrived in Mexico who saw these people transform into something else. And, go figure, of course The terror of the devil immediately set in. The extermination of the natives by the Europeans was inevitable, too great a gap separated them. 

However, given this background, it is therefore obvious that understanding how the relationship between internal emanations, between our energy fibers, works is crucial for any conscious being. Understanding the energetic dynamic can certainly lead to greater personal empowerment, better decision-making ability, but it can lead to much more than that. Improving our decision-making ability is only a small fragment, almost a side effect of the mastery of awareness. 

Toltecs are concerned with increasing one’s inflexible intent, which is much more than decision-making ability. Inflexible intent is the ability to maintain the direction, or the position of the assembly point as one chooses. So moving it or stabilizing it to change its position and then being able to maintain that new position. Everything we do depends on whether or not we understand the relational dynamics of our energy arrangement and that with that of the world we are in at that moment. 

If we do not have this understanding or, as in most cases, do not even have the idea that such a thing exists, we are totally in the hands of forces beyond our control, forces at play around us that we completely ignore, forces that pull us to one side and the other like puppets. 

I am talking about cosmic forces, earth-bound forces or consciousnesses that have their own intentionality, their own intent, and they apply it on us. Because these entities are aware of the existence and dynamics of the energy set-up unlike us, so they are in a tremendous position of advantage over us. The world is neither inert nor harmless. I must say that, once again, on our condition of total lack of awareness, concentration on ourselves, our sense of personal importance, plays a key role. We feel so important that we consider ourselves on the top of the biological structure, on top of the world, above all other beings. I would say it is the exact opposite. We are totally in disarray and at the mercy of whatever force, whatever wind, whatever current passes around us. This is also seen, however, in how we are conducting our existence collectively, as a species in the world. 

It is therefore obvious that the conscious manipulation first of all of the relationship of the internal emanations, of the energy fibers that make up us to each other, and then the conscious manipulation of the relationship between our energy fibers and those that make up the world around us, is of vital importance to the human experience, to our consciousness, to our awareness, to develop and evolve. 

First of all we have to become aware of what we really are. There are techniques, practices that are also very accessible, that allow us to become aware, all in all quite quickly and easily, of the fact that we are a colony of energy fields, that is, of the fact that we are not a solid body, but something much more liquid, vaporous almost, that can be moved, changed by active awareness. 

Of course, I talk about all these techniques extensively in the books, in the online course, even in many videos I put on the YouTube channel. To delve pragmatically in the right way, you certainly have to put all the necessary pieces together. But the realization of our nature as beings made of energy fibers, it’s not that difficult to achieve, it’s quite within everyone’s reach. From there everything else follows. First we get this awareness, and through this awareness, the possibility and ability to manipulate the relationship of inner emanations and inner emanations to extended emanations also awakens in us over time.

PAA: What techniques do you recommend for people to increase their awareness of energy in their environments?

So, let me premise that it is impossible to give an exhaustive answer to this question, in the sense that Nagualism is really about the basics, first of all getting the energy needed to do what the Toltecs then do. That is the essential premise. So you can imagine that, over thousands of years, Nagualists have developed a tremendous amount of techniques. 

No one knows them all, because each warrior learns and develops that part of the practices that is most akin to him. There are a number of techniques that we might call starter techniques, which then give access to the much larger set of more refined practices. These are used as they are for more or less everyone, with minor adjustments. 

Once you access the intent that underpins the set of practices you potentially have access to everything, but in reality then our personal predilections steer us in well-defined directions, if we have the necessary lucidity. 

The point, however, is that in practice we ultimately do not need to learn who knows what miraculous techniques, who knows what magic. We just need to increase our energy availability. 

In short, to put it simply, if we have sufficient energy, then it is possible to access all our potential possibilities even with very simple expedients. 

Certainly learning the techniques and practices to walk this path in the right way is essential, but the point is that without the energy, if we don’t have the energy available, we can get busy as much as we want, learn the most incredible techniques, practice 25 hours a day but, basically, we achieve very little. We just lead a life of hell trying to do something that we will never be able to do because we lack the energy to do it. 

In fact, there is a whole part in nagualism called the “art of ambush,” and that deals precisely with making our potential energy available. The art of ambush does not resort to actual techniques (except for recapitulation, which is an integral part of it); rather, it is a set of attitudes, of assemblage point positions, particular behaviors that become integrated over time into our existence and that lead to profound changes in the relationship between attention and energy. 

I also clarify that it is not that we do not have energy. Clearly individual energy levels are personal, not all of us are born with the same potential energy, however, we all still have enough to do everything that a human being can do in his or her more extended, broader potentials. 

The real problem is that most of our energy is engaged in other things, is mostly engaged in useless things. I’ll make it very short. Ninety-five percent of our available energy is engaged in supporting our image. 

It is engaged in maintaining focus on ourselves and in the continuous repetition and confirmation of our image, our personal history, our habits, our beliefs, our habitual and comforting cycles of thought, feeling, action. All of this requires the engagement of almost all of our available energy, very little of which remains free. 

The little that remains free is certainly not enough to accomplish the “magical feats,” let’s call them that. Much more would be needed but we are not willing to surrender and disengage the energy we are committing in supporting the set of our habits, the set of our personal beliefs and everything that forms our description and idea of the world and ourselves. 

So, if I really have to give advice, which is not my advice after all, but is the advice of the Toltecs, the first thing we should do to regain, regain and make our energy available again, is to lose our sense of self-importance, to free ourselves from ourselves, to stop continuing to be completely focused on us, on what we are, what we do, what we don’t do, what we think, what we believe, how much we have to support our ideas, how much better or worse we are than others, how successful we are at this or that. 

Lo and behold, all continuous consumption, this continuous trickle of energy engaged in supporting the repetition of our image, ends up reverberating, finding itself identically the same even when we begin to deal with nagualism; but this applies to any other path of knowledge. 

It is a mechanism that is projected into whatever we set out to do. We always carry this mode of attention with us. Because concentration on oneself is a mode of attention. 

Our attention, unlike that of all other species, basically all other living things, instead of being extended over the world and thus making us travel into infinity, making us live together with the world, is turned back on itself. We look at ourselves in a mirror, we look at our image in a mirror for our whole existence and we have no idea what is around us. This is due to a whole series of factors that now it would really be too long and complex to go into point by point, however, the situation is this. 

Another issue, if I have to point out some points now that can help you regain your energy, another important point is that of harmony between actions and decisions. Let’s go back to the discussion of harmony, what is it according to the Toltecs, what are the elements that make up harmony. Harmony between actions and decisions means that we are able to be in accordance with our action, which should develop along with the flow of the world, of the alignment we are in at that moment. 

I don’t randomly say, first actions and then decisions, because the action is already there. We just have to decide to do the action, the correct one, the one that would be, for us, personally right. And we know it, we know it every time. We know which direction we should go. We have in the body this feeling that would guide us. 

For example, when we have to make a choice, there is a choice that is correct, which is the one that makes us feel good physically; we feel the will area, which is the one around the navel, but then the whole body, which relaxes if we follow that direction. It’s a direction, it’s a choice that arises from our inner silence, which is already present in the whole of our energy fibers. 

That is the first feeling we get and that would be the right one. But usually then the internal dialogue intervenes that starts to make us deviate from our natural direction; that says, “no, but if you do this way you might maybe lose that, or you would be better off maybe doing it this other way because there might be this risk rather than that other.” And then we start thinking, we start retaliating against ourselves again and we end up making a choice that is not the one that would be inherent in us. We all have this experience all the time. I don’t think I’m talking about something unknown, and yet we fail to be consistent with our action that is already there to make it a decision. 

We fail to be coherent because we do not listen to our inner seer, rather we annihilate him bit by bit in the course of existence. We do not listen to the intelligence of the totality of ourselves, of our body, understood in the broadest sense of the term. So the totality of the energetic fibers that make up us that is a set of intelligent awareness, intelligent in the sense of coherent relationship with the world. So this is the other thing I recommend: listening to the inner seer, the dreamer, our true nature. 

Then I will talk a little bit about dreaming in another follow-up question to this one and clarify more about the concept of dreamer and dreamed. But let’s say that what we know as ourselves actually is the dreamer, the dreamer is something else. The dreamer is the energy body. That impulse, that immediate and silent knowledge that comes immediately when we have to choose, comes directly from the dreamer, who has a very lucid strategic vision. 

Obviously, since the basis of nagualism is first to obtain the energy and sobriety necessary to then take the path of the warrior, it is clear that there are a tremendous amount of practices that help to improve our energy level, starting with contemplation for example, which, by nurturing internal silence and the right dynamics of internal emanations, leads us to have a significant improvement on the level of energy availability. 

Then recapitulation of course. We have already talked about it, and it is clear that recapitulation leads to a significant improvement in our energy availability, but not only in availability, also in the way we are able to then use this energy availability, because that is another important issue. It is not enough to have energy, we then have to use it properly. 

The proper use of energy is the very central issue in the art of ambush, and so really, if I have to point to something that deals with improving our overall energy condition within nagualism this is definitely the art of ambush.

Further Information

See all Posts from Marco Baston

See Marcos Website

See Marcos Books

See Marcos YouTube Channel

See Marcos Facebook Page

See Marcos Online Course

Introduction

This is post number two of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

To start from the beginning of this series please see post one here.

PAA: Can you explain the process of recapitulation and its importance in your teaching system?

Recapitulation is the pivot, the core around which everything else in nagualism revolves. If we do not proceed by executing recapitulation correctly all other practices and techniques become rather haphazard, uncertain, unclear, they maintain limits that we cannot even discern. There is no clarity of intent, no strategic vision, no lucidity. One is groping through the fog. 

Instead, recapitulation clarifies everything. It clears the spaces needed to continue, to evolve, throwing light where there was darkness before. 

To explain in detail, in depth, what recapitulation is would take a long time. I therefore try here to be as clear and concise as possible, attempting to give an overview of what recapitulation is, while also hoping not to trivialize its actual contents. Basically, from a practical point of view, it is to go over one’s existence, especially and mainly the interactions with our fellow human beings that we have had throughout our existence, all the interactions. 

This path of revisiting is to be done in a special state of attention and using what the Toltecs call sweeping breath, which is a breathing technique inherent in recapitulation and which makes the recapitulation really take effect. 

Recapitulation is done in this way There are no shortcuts, no other ways of doing it. Because recapitulation is not an invention of the Toltecs, it is an option found in the possibilities of infinity. It is a kind of gift, a gift that is given from the dark sea of consciousness, from the force that the Toltecs call Aquila, to all living beings. We can undoubtedly say that recapitulation is precisely part of the Gift of the Eagle. In fact, recapitulation has a few main purposes. One main purpose is that, over time, we are able to produce a copy of ourselves, or rather of our life experiences; a copy to be offered to infinity. This copy of our life experience constitutes, at the time of death, a substitute with respect to our continuity. 

We die the way we ordinarily die for a specific reason. Actually, there would be many ways to die, to make that transition, but we all die by permanently losing our awareness, and this happens for one main reason: because of our attachment to ourselves, to what we are, because of our concentration on ourselves and our life experiences. We remain nailed, connected, glued to what our existence has been, and this also drags our awareness into the furnace of Infinity, where emanations are, we might say, recycled. 

Recapitulation is an option, made available to every living being, by infinity itself as a possibility for perpetuation of awareness. I make a note. I am not talking about eternal life or anything like that. For the Toltecs, eternal life does not exist for anything in the universe, not even for the universe itself. It is something else that they refer to. 

However, I will not go into that detail here because it would take a lot more background and more information to get to an understanding of what this perpetuation of consciousness is. I can say that, very succinctly, by that concept the Toltecs mean the fulfillment of freedom. However recapitulation is the key to get to that option. But recapitulation is not only that. Meanwhile, recapitulation is a way of dreaming, or an application of the art of dreaming. Or better yet, it is an interweaving, a perfect mix of the art of dreaming and the art of ambush. It is what connects them. When we actually recapitulate we are dreaming. I clarify the term dreaming in a question later on, when I talk a little bit about dreaming, because it is a very important chapter within nagualism. 

But keep in mind already that, by this term, the Toltecs do not mean dreaming as we normally know it or even lucid dreaming. Or rather, it starts as lucid dreaming, but then it becomes something else that goes much further. 

However, recapitulation is a way of dreaming. We basically, during a recapitulation session, we dream, We go into this attention state of the second kind and we start dreaming about the event in our life that we decided to recapitulate; all the interactions, the people and so on. So it’s as if we are in that experience again, but at the same time we are also looking at it from the outside. There is this state of dual perception that, together with the sweeping breath, allows us to bring about the substantial effect of the recapitulation, which is to regain the original energetic integrity that was altered in the specific event. 

It allows us to disengage that event, that experience, from ourselves and offer it to the dark sea of awareness, to infinity. So it is basically eaten up, devoured by the infinite and we could say that it uncouples from us permanently. This causes our internal arrangement to change profoundly because we no longer experience the energetic consequences of that event. I am saying on the energetic plane. 

And here I come to a very important detail. There is nothing psychological about the recapitulation. It has nothing to do with psychology or psychoanalysis of any kind. Recapitulation is an act that is purely about energy and awareness. All the other outcomes, all the other consequences, which then actually lead to improvements in our existence, which lead to profound changes in our existence, are just the effect of this ultimate change in the energy arrangement that is produced by recapitulation. 

But recapitulation is not done to resolve trauma or anything like that. That would be a totally wrong approach that would end up diverting recapitulation from its line of intent and make it ineffective energetically. That if anything is a result that comes as a side effect, but for the Toltecs it is not the important thing. Also because Toltecs are supposed to leave personal history behind instead of focusing on it. So the recapitulation is done to regain one’s energetic integrity, the original one. 

Then recapitulation has other purposes. One is to approach dreaming in the right way, since recapitulation is a way of dreaming and a safe way of dreaming, which trains us in the art of dreaming and to move through the forest of second attention in the right way. 

It then serves to give us the kind of discipline that warriors absolutely need. The recapitulation develops the right kind of discipline, the kind that a warrior then needs not only in normal existence, but also in his explorations of the unknown. 

And then recapitulation trains, coaches, to the movement of the assemblage point. When we recapitulate we have to bring the assemblage point, and therefore our energetic configuration, back to the position, to the moment when the event happened. That is, we are not reliving it by thinking about it. We are there again, we are in that position, in that place, in that time. 

The movement of the assemblage point cancels the barriers of time and space, and so we are actually there, but we are essentially unhooking all the hooks that bind us with that experience. 

In addition to what I said before, that recapitulation is not meant to go into psychoanalysis or trauma healing or anything like that, I point out that the whole of our existence should be recapitulated. Not just the traumatic events, but all the interactions and, above all, everything that has intensity, that has had intensity in our existence. 

This intensity that accompanied the experience may have been bad, but it may also have been good. That is not the point. In fact, many of the experiences that have been very good for us have hooked us in an irreversible way and continue to hold us steady. They have become a habit in the way we use energy, precisely because we enjoyed that experience so much. Precisely because it engaged us so much. 

But this, from the Toltec perspective, is not a useful thing at all. It is nothing but an additional constraint that keeps us nailed to ourselves, to our description, to our focus on ourselves, to our image of ourselves and the world and our existence.

PAA: What are some of the challenges people face when practicing recapitulation and how can they overcome them?

As I said before, recapitulation is the central practice in nagualism, what connects everything else. Not only does it connect everything else, but it provides the proper tools and the right condition to deal with all the other challenges that nagualism poses. This is all because recapitulation leads to change, which may happen more or less quickly, but it still happens by practicing recapitulation. 

Without change there is no possibility of evolution and no possibility of facing the challenges that nagualism poses to the being who takes this path. Basically, recapitulation provides the weapons, the tools and the spaces of freedom, above all, to be able to see and then implement that lucid strategy necessary for one’s existence and the way one’s existence relates to the rest of what exists, of what is around us. 

The real problem, the real difficulty, the real challenge facing warriors when they undertake recapitulation is our incredible resistance to change. We truly resist change in every way possible, even pretending to change. 

In short, maybe we acquire forms, ways of doing things that seem new to us or ideas that seem new to us but, if we then go and see well, well deep down, if we are ruthlessly honest with ourselves, we find that our basic structure, what we have always been, has remained there. Our form, our human form, what confines us within the framework of what we already know still lingers. 

Without change everything else does not really come, cannot become real. New space is needed to accommodate new worldviews, but if our space is all full and if we keep bringing everything back to what we already know, then we will never again know anything truly new and free from our personal constraints. 

Nagualism tends more to take away rather than add, and recapitulation really does tabula rasa. Otherwise we just pretend, we tell ourselves that we are taking the path of the warrior or knowledge, but we are not. 

That’s why recapitulation is so important and why recapitulation poses such hard challenges, so difficult to overcome. Although, actually, it’s not that they are difficult per se. It’s just us being difficult, resisting, stomping our feet and throwing tantrums when the time comes to leave our comfortable habitual position. 

The point is that recapitulation ends up taking away all those supports, those habits, those customs in which we recognize ourselves. So we end up floating in unknown territory. And that then is freedom in fact, if we don’t reach new, unknown spaces, there is no freedom. But freedom at the same time terrifies us, disconcerts us, if we are not available to freedom itself. 

In my experience there are many natural dreamers, quite a few, and also quite a few people who have a natural predilection for ambush. But people who are naturally or let’s say immediately available and inclined for recapitulation, these are very rare. 

Precisely because of this resistance of ours, because of this attachment to our self-image, our habits, customs and beliefs. All these things are taken away from us by the recapitulation bit by bit. As soon as we have an inkling that the recapitulation will end up taking away our comfortable remaining self, then something comes into alarm and makes us abandon the recapitulation. 

Moreover, recapitulation develops a kind of discipline that requires us to take charge of our own existence instead of relying on other than ourselves. All this opposition to actually practicing recapitulation is not just up to us actually. There are forces that oppose us undertaking recapitulation, and these are exactly the forces that keep us in check. That keep us crushed, that keep us from raising our heads and walking on our own two feet. 

So the challenges we face when practicing recapitulation are partly about ourselves, about our settling into our habits, and partly about something that is external to us but at the same time inherent in us, now inherent in us. 

I am not going to go into the details of what this is about, because we would go very long, this topic would require a separate interview actually. For those who know what I’m talking about, obviously I’m talking about those who fly, voladores, mainly. But, as I said, the topic is quite complex and controversial, and so I’m only mentioning it. 

However, the way to overcome this impasse that forms, which becomes a kind of laziness, of indolence that prevents us from performing the recapitulation is, first of all, to try, in spite of everything, to keep trying, as must be done in all things that you really want to do in reality, if we really want to carry them out. 

Then it is necessary to approach recapitulation very calmly, because recapitulation teaches that as well. Of course there are the right ways to approach recapitulation, and I explain them in detail in meetings, books, and online courses. But, in summary, recapitulation should be approached really lightly, with a form of sobriety, a form of serenity that we develop a little bit at a time and that allows us to put it together very calmly. A way that allows us to fine-tune the whole technique and practice of recapitulation with a proper process, starting from very easy things. 

There is a principle that warriors put in place, which is to make things as easy for themselves as possible. So you never start with what is too difficult, which would pose challenges that would block us. This is really unnecessary because it immediately cuts us off and takes away our ability to progress. Rather, we start with challenges that are simpler, but that allow us to fine-tune those skills that then give us access to challenges that are gradually more complex, more advanced, and that offer the possibility of going further and further. 

However, for example, in recapitulation, if you start from events in your life that are very intense or very heavy, this does not help. To fine-tune recapitulation, for example, a very good thing to do is to practice daily recapitulation, that is, to recapitulate daily the interactions of the day. Either daily or every few days, in short, in any case with a regularity that develops just the discipline and technique necessary to then move on to recapitulation, the more challenging, the actual recapitulation, the recapitulation of our lives.

PAA: How does recapitulation help in personal healing and release of past trauma?

I take advantage of this question to elaborate on the concept I have already expressed in previous questions about recapitulation, namely that recapitulation does not have a psychological approach, nor a psychoanalytic approach, nor does it relate to healing practices or resolution of issues, traumas, disease conditions. It does not have an orientation set on the personal level in summary. It is true that, as a consequence of the changes that recapitulation brings about on our energetic set-up, the solution or disappearance of problems and issues that we had been dragging on for a lifetime becomes evident. But that is not what we seek with recapitulation. The resolving of issues of various kinds happens on its own, as if by magic, almost as a secondary and incidental effect to what recapitulation operates on the energetic plane. 

However, if we approach recapitulation as something we do to resolve personal issues, we enter into territory that is not recapitulation territory, and recapitulation does not work as it should. Quite simply, the intent of the recapitulation is not engaged. 

So here it is necessary for me to make a brief note on the question of the intent of recapitulation. As I have already said recapitulation is an option made available to every conscious being, every living being, and this option, this possibility of freedom is sustained by an intent that comes directly from the infinite. 

The intent is abstract, impersonal, it is spread over the whole range of the variety of awareness that exists in the universes. So to perform the recapitulation, we have to engage this intent. Then then everything starts to work and it really becomes a very powerful magical act, in which we shift our awareness, our state of attention, into a state of heightened attention that is already second attention, that is already dreaming. And the recapitulation acts on our energetic arrangement, on the whole of our emanations, but not only that, also on the relationship with the extended emanations, in short on the relationship we have with the world or worlds I should say. 

If we instead take the practice of recapitulation to the personal level or focus on very private matters, our own, this connection with the fundamental intent of recapitulation that descends from infinity, is not there, it doesn’t work there is no connection at all. Then we can stand there and recapitulate endlessly, but it doesn’t work. 

Or rather, recapitulation still works, but in this way, with a mental and personal approach, because that’s what it is, it becomes very tiring and we end up abandoning it. It certainly becomes ineffective. 

What we might achieve, I don’t know, in a half-hour recapitulation session will take us days, if not months for. I mean, when the intent of the recapitulation is hooked in and goes with us and sustains us, it practically works the intent of the recapitulation for us. We simply flow together, and in this flow we perform all the internal and external energetic maneuvers that are necessary to reconstitute our energetic wholeness in the exact way, quickly, precisely, without scattering ourselves into a thousand unnecessary details. 

Recapitulation in this way becomes very direct and effective. In contrast, with the approach, such as, “I do recapitulation to solve some personal problems of my own,” this connection is skipped, and for us recapitulation becomes a nightmare, something so tiring, so slow, so difficult to activate, that we will definitely abandon it in the end. 

What we need instead is an approach that is much lighter and abstract at the same time. And coincident with the world. The approach of “I’m doing this to solve my problems, my personal traumas,” ends up closing us in even more on ourselves, that is, it still increases the focus on ourselves. Instead of taking us out of that hole we normally find ourselves in, out of that bottomless pit that is concentration on self, out of the sense of personal importance, we end up sinking more.

PAA: In your experience, what are the most profound insights that can emerge from a dedicated recapitulation practice?

Certainly the change that takes place in our energy arrangement, in the relationship of internal emanations It is a change that completely alters who we are every time we finish a recapitulation session. When we finish a recapitulation practice we have become a different person, we have moved from where we were, just as an effect of recapitulation; we have moved and we are in a new position and the really interesting thing is that there is no possibility of returning to the previous position. This change is permanent. 

Which is a great benefit because the new position brings with it an improvement in energy efficiency, in the way our internal relationships use available energy, hence attention, awareness. In short, we say that our whole set-up becomes more orderly, in the sense of more effective and efficient. This is clearly perceived as a feeling of greater vigor, of greater serenity, of internal and external order, even in relationship with the world. This is very clear the moment we finish the recapitulation practice We enjoy a condition of greater internal strength, in that sense of harmony that we were talking about earlier. 

The effect of energy increase, improvement in the way we use available energy and intensity of one’s awareness can be greater or lesser, it is never the same, it is different every time but it is always there. Sometimes it is so clear that we are undeniably a different person. It is just so clear. We get up from where we were sitting to recapitulate and it is as if we leave sitting there the old copy of ourselves, the one now worn out by habit. 

This change in energy efficiency then also brings with it changes, modifications in the way we act in our lives, both in the aspects of ordinary daily life and in all aspects that relate to the possibility of progressing on the path of knowledge we have taken. There are of course a whole other series of positive and interesting effects, but they all descend from this improvement in the way we use attention and energy.

Further Information

See all Posts from Marco Baston

See Marcos Website

See Marcos Books

See Marcos YouTube Channel

See Marcos Facebook Page

See Marcos Online Course

Introduction

Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His website is a treasure of information as are his published works. His work focuses on Nagualism – Toltec Shamanism following the lineage of Felipe Amezcua in Mexico. When I contacted Marco he was open to sharing his work and did so extremely generously, he delivered a document in excess of 30,000 words going into detailed responses to the many questions I had asked. I was very curious about this tradition so asked a lot of intricate questions as I wanted to really understand. He answered in such an informative way, so well explained that I think many will find these posts to be an entrance way to his teachings and this wonderful tradition.

This is the first of what will be many posts as I have broken the 30,000-word document into its individual sections with each post focusing on a particular topic. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and please do share if you think others would enjoy this topic.

Section 1 – The Nagual and its principles. 

PAA: Can you give an overview of the basic principles of Nagualism and how they shape its teachings?

Before responding, I want to make it clear that the topics we will cover are complex and their deep understanding requires dedication and constant practice, so in this interview I will necessarily have to simplify and synthesize that complexity, but at the same time try to be sufficiently clear. I make this premise to invite those who will read the interview to make the effort to go beyond the narrowest meaning of the words I use and try to see what lies behind them.

I must then make an important distinction between understanding and comprehending. Understanding is an intellectual process that has nothing to do with experiencing, with experiencing the thing, the thing itself. And so understanding is not knowing, it is not knowing in the totality of oneself. 

To understand, on the other hand, means to include in the totality of oneself the experience of what one is knowing. So, in this case I am asking you to understand. I make this premise because it took me a long time to understand that with nagualism you enter unknown territory, totally unknown to the West and mostly unknown to the East as well. 

Thousands of years, tens of thousands of years of isolation, special conditions and experiences detached from the rest of humanity’s progress in Eurasia, have produced something going in different directions. 

Mind you, I am not saying that what the Toltecs did is better than anything else. It works very well for me and I consider it a direct way, extremely effective, but this is my personal consideration. Everyone will then make their own evaluations. Certainly, however, it is something completely different from what is known both in the East and in the West. It is an alien world to us. 

There are elements and units of knowledge, not intellectual concepts, but just experiences and conditions that are not matched in other traditions, just because of the kind of basic approach. So for better understanding, I recommend avoiding looking for parallels between Nagualism and other systems. 

It is something we do instinctively, this of looking for convergences where there are none, because we need to rediscover known territories. Maybe something may seem similar to us, but only to a superficial view. The “this is the same as that,” forcibly creating parallels that do not exist between different systems of knowledge and that express their beauty and effectiveness precisely in their difference. 

There are certainly points of contact between traditional knowledge systems, but then each has its own history, its own conditions of development, its own ways of achieving certain results. It is not by mixing everything that we improve; on the contrary, we get worse. 

So to seek parallels with something that is completely alien to us is really misplaced, because we go and twist the nature, in this case of nagualism, and we completely lose the possibility of understanding this nature of nagualism. What happens is that we bring it back to something we already know. 

And what we already know, the interpretation we already know, the description we already know, covers the profound nature of this a new experience. So in the end we do not experience nagualism, but only a readjustment of what we already know, into which we insert elements of nagualism by distorting them, adapting them to the known. Here we are instead entering into unknown territory, so I ask that we make this effort, to approach the contents of nagualism empty without having to necessarily call back to what we already know, because otherwise it doesn’t work.

And now we begin. 

Perhaps rather than fundamental principles, we could speak of observations on the state of reality.

The Toltecs are extremely pragmatic beings, and this pragmatism of theirs comes precisely from observing the state of reality. For they realized, by observing the state of reality, that only that which has correspondence with the real or, we might say, that which works in the reality of the world, has actual value. 

It is necessary to make a premise now, however, with respect to this. The observations of the ancients and the new seers, of the Toltecs in general, about the nature of the universe in which we live, or we might say, the portion of the universe in which we live, are the result of thousands of years of experience, of countless generations of warriors and seers who have succeeded one another over time

Based on this experience, on this direct confrontation with the reality of the world, (indeed of worlds) the Toltecs gradually, over time, fine-tuned their methods, their strategies, corrected mistakes that were made. 

Nagualism is not a stationary system. It is constantly evolving because it follows the flow of the world, it adapts to the flow of the world, and the world is constantly changing. Therefore, if a system is alive, if it is real, it can only continue to change over time. 

Static systems have no relation to reality, to things that actually work.

On the basis of all this experience, certain observations about the nature and state of reality took shape that are foundational precisely for conducting the warriors’, the Toltecs’, lines of action and strategies. A fundamental observation about the state of reality tells us, for example, that the Universe is composed of an infinite, endless set of energy fields. These energy fields are called “emanations” in Toltec parlance. 

They were given this name for specific reasons. It is a very exact term that has been fine-tuned over time by “seeing” the source of these energy units and the behavior of emanations. 

Everything that exists and the very structure of the universe is composed of these emanations. We ourselves as conscious beings, (as human beings in our case), are a colony of emanations held together by an aspect of energy that is the true life force, is what holds us together, literally, as long as we are alive. 

This aspect of energy, this agglutinating force that is typical of beings endowed with consciousness, of living beings in short, plays a fundamental role in the whole practice of the Toltec system. 

To try to be very brief and as concise and clear as possible, I can say that nagualism is based on relationship and understanding. 

The seers have thoroughly observed the interaction, the way these emanations or energy fields are organized in the universal structure and within each individual living being, in living beings among themselves and between them and the world. 

What they observed is that everything depends on how each individual emanation that makes up the universe and all its elements, relates to others, interacts with others. 

For example, we human beings, who are precisely this colony of emanations, of energy fields, (each by the way then separated from the others by an empty space to which we will return later), this colony of emanations therefore takes on the human structure. 

It could take the form of something else, a plant or an animal or whatever, depending on how the internal relationship between emanations is structured.

As we will see later, this structure, this internal relationship is mediated by something very particular which is the assemblage point, but we will get to that later. 

What is important, however, is that the nature of the world we perceive depends on the relationship of internal emanations to each other and of internal emanations to those outside, to those that are outside us and make up the world we are dealing with. 

These external emanations are called “extended” emanations to distinguish them from internal emanations and also because they extend in every direction to infinity. 

So basically nagualism, summarizing a lot, is concerned with relationship: with the relationship between energy and attention. Because in beings endowed with awareness it is attention that channels the energy involved in the action of the moment, action also understood in terms of perception. 

We could say that awareness, by means of attention, shapes the relationships between these energy fields. 

Indeed, this is precisely a fundamental characteristic of living beings, that of shaping the relationship between emanations, between energy fields. That’s their power. 

And now let’s go a little deeper into this question of energy. It is very clear to the Toltecs that we as a conscious being, as perceivers, cannot get all the way to the ultimate state of reality. 

There will always be some degree, some even minimal level, of interpretation of what we are perceiving directly. 

This ultimate degree, that is, the furthest point where we can go, or at least what the Toltecs have come to in these thousands of years of practice and experience, is the moment when we realize that these emanations, these energy fields, are actually made of time. 

We could say that energy is actually time becoming active. Or that there is nothing but time; time that becomes energy as it manifests itself as action, as aspects of energy itself. Clearly we are not talking about time as we know it. Time is something else and is something indescribable, for which there are no words. One can only experience it directly. 

We realize very clearly, however, that time is something else than how we commonly know it and that it can change its mode. When we dream, for example, if you notice, time works in other ways. 

This is because we are in another condition, in another position of the assemblage point or, more precisely, in another mode of time. 

It is a fundamental characteristic of living beings to be able to shape time. In fact, it is what makes us conscious. What makes living beings conscious is precisely the fact that they directly intervene in time, that is, they interact, they relate to time. Awareness is released only when the manipulation of time takes place.

And here again comes the question of the relationship between attention and energy, also expressed in terms of time. We might say that this constitutes the fundamental basis of Nagualism: understanding how this ability of living beings to intervene in the most intimate details works on the nature of time and consequently on the nature of the world, indeed of worlds, in which we find ourselves and on our own nature. 

What could we be, what could we transform into, or what could our evolution be once we change the relationship between attention and energy? 

What I try to do is to use what I have learned to bring understanding, first of all pragmatic understanding and not intellectual understanding. This is a very fundamental, very important point. We Toltecs are very relatively interested in intellectual understanding, which is a fragment of our total capacity and often becomes a hindrance instead of a support. From our point of view intellectual understanding has value only if it is in function of a practical result in conducting the relationship with the universe, if it is in function of the possibility of actually implementing things. Generally, however, “understanding” works only in a very, very narrow world. Which is the one constructed by human lucubrations, 

Outside of there, in the real world, all our lucubrations are worth very little. Nagualism relies heavily on this total, unified understanding. 

This means that before the intellectual understanding that includes the totality of ourselves. 

Our true mind is the body. 

This needs to be understood very well. The body of which the Toltecs speak is not the body understood only as the physical body, but is something much more extensive. 

It is the colony of emanations held together by an aspect of energy that is called the “vibratory aspect” and which can intervene in the nature of itself and the nature of the world or worlds, I should say more accurately, because once we have this total understanding of how the relationship between attention and energy works, we can open up avenues, pathways to other worlds.

Now we come to the question of the assemblage point. In the course of their observations of the behavior, of the flow of energy in the Universe, the seers noticed that all beings endowed with consciousness, all living beings, have an area, a point, a very narrow zone, which appears to energy perception as highly luminous. In this area there is an extreme concentration of emanations, of energy fields, of energy fibers, which converge at that one point. 

They flow from within the living being but also from outside, from the world to which the living being belongs at that moment. 

To make a long story short, the conclusion they came to, what they realized by observing the behavior of this assemblage point, is that when the assemblage point shifts for some reason, such as while we are dreaming, the nature of the world the living being is dealing with, interacting with, changes, even to the point of changing the world (or “alignment” more precisely according to Toltec terminology, but let’s call it world or worlds now). 

So the seers realized that the position of the assemblage point determines which emanations, which energy fibers are ignited, are related both internally to the living being and between inside and outside, and that what we are and the world we are dealing with depends on this. 

When the assemblage point is located, a certain portion of the energy fibers, of the emanations that make up the living being, is turned on, activated. This portion of the inner emanations is in relation, corresponds, is unified, outwardly, with an equivalent portion of the extended emanations, those that are outside, those that make up the worlds outside of us. It is this correspondence that generates awareness. 

Seers perceive this very well. As long as the assemblage point is not correctly positioned, does not have stability and this correspondence between inner and outer, this unification, this alignment, this exact relationship between and among the inner emanations and of the inner emanations with those extended outside, the being has no awareness, its awareness does not come into operation. 

The more stable, precise this inner-outer correspondence is, the more intense the level of awareness of the living being. 

So learning to voluntarily maneuver the assemblage point means being able to access heightened states of awareness or even other worlds. 

The seers realized that the positioning of the assemblage point determines, for example, what species the living being belongs to, in short, what its nature is and what world it perceives. 

For example, we human beings all share the same position. In this way we share a common world, a common physical and perceptual condition. We can thus relate to each other and to the world in which we live. 

If the assembly point moves, everything changes. We experience this well as we dream. The rules change, the world we are dealing with changes, the way we perceive the world changes, even our nature can change. 

The ancient sorcerers of Mexico transformed themselves into animals, plants, other things, other entities, just by maneuvering the assemblage point to. remarkable depths. 

And there is another very important aspect. The assemblage point is stabilized by the outside, by the extended emanations, by the world outside of us exerting pressure. We could say that the world gathers a certain bundle of extended emanations, exerts pressure on us from the outside, on our shell, and the assemblage point is forced to position itself in that way, gathering and igniting the corresponding internal emanations. 

This is a phenomenon related to awareness and perception in general, it is related to the intelligence of awareness, which is spread all around us. 

This is a detail not at all made secondary from a practical point of view, because in fact, in the way it works, awareness comes from outside. It is the result of the world’s pressure on us. If there were no such pressure, we could not muster our awareness, attention and perception. We would not even be aware that we exist. 

Based on this, warriors have understood very well that it is necessary to get help from the world, that alone we cannot do it, and so they seek in every way the connection and help of that which lies outside of us, which is infinitely greater, powerful and capable of guiding us in our explorations into infinity.

The last point I want to address in this first question is the issue of the space separating emanations. Again, I try to be clear and concise. 

So these emanations that make up us are separated by space. Each individual emanation or energy fiber is separated from the others by space. This space that separates the emanations is most important from the nagualistic point of view and actually that is what nagualism is all about. 

I try to explain in what sense. Nagualism comes from the word nagual. Let me preface this by saying that nagual is indescribable; it is only experiential. So I try to go around it now, to try thus to point out the point. 

This space that separates the emanations is the Nagual within us, that is, our nagual part. We can also say that we are composed of solids and voids, and that if we want to be able to maneuver the solids, that is, the elements that compose us, these energy fibers, we cannot do it directly from the solids, from the emanations themselves, we have to find a way to do it from the voids. 

The force for that is needed to deliberately maneuver the emanations and thus change the attitude, energetic configuration and also change the position of the assembly point accordingly, is released in the empty spaces, applying the capacity, the faculty of “intending.” 

So already we also begin to introduce the concept of “intent,” but we will come to that later in some of the subsequent questions to go into more detail. For now let’s leave it for a moment. 

There is an agglutinating force that holds us together, an aspect of energy that holds together the emanations that make up us. It is peculiar exclusively to living beings. 

The Toltecs call it the “vibratory aspect of energy.” Such force performs its function in these empty spaces. That is, the life force that keeps us together as a conglomerate of energy fields lies in these empty spaces. 

Every single emanation that makes up us is in itself eternal and unchanging. But not us, because we are the temporary combination of a set of these energy fibers. We are not the energy fibers; we have those on loan from infinity and will have to return them. 

We are actually the whole, the temporary relationship of these energy fibers, and this relationship, this being together and relating is guaranteed precisely by the vibratory aspect of energy, by this mysterious force acting in the empty spaces. 

The void separating the emanations also represents, as I said before, our nagual part. What the nagual is, it is practically impossible to say. However, to try to give some sort of definition, we could say that we find ourselves floating on some sort of islands floating in the nagual, in this boundless ocean that has no definition, no description. 

In this boundless ocean that the Toltecs call nagual, there move and float these islands that are us and that are also the worlds to which we belong. 

Our nagual part would potentially allow us to relate by surviving to the Nagual that lies outside of us, the infinite, boundless one. 

Warriors learn to immerse themselves in the nagual while maintaining their integrity. That is where they find the abstract, the knowledge. We have a spark, a crumb of this immensity, and therefore we can also succeed in witnessing this same immensity. 

We can witness it but it is impossible to describe the nagual because it is outside the realm of description. Even talking about it as I am doing now only ends up perhaps creating more confusion than clarity. Clarity only comes when we confront and witness the nagual. 

And to do this we resort to the forces that are inherent in these empty spaces that separate emanations.

PAA: How does the concept of teotl (divine energy) fit into your understanding of nagualism?

I make a premise about the original meaning of this Nahuatl term. The conquistadors, when they arrived on the new continent, interpreted the meaning of the local languages in their own way, mispronouncing words and names and also pouring their own way of seeing the world over the original meanings. 

This also happened in the case of the word “teotl.” Seeing that it was associated with mythological practices or buildings or entities or some of the forces, more exactly, aspects of the natural world, that could remind the Spaniards of religious or spiritual practices, well, they put two and two together and said to themselves: surely teotl means God; God of this aspect of the world, God of that other. 

Translating it as “divine energies” comes a little closer, but it is still our transposition mediated by our culture. Because in reality literally teotl means energy; energy and that’s it. 

It is also necessary to consider that Nahuatl is an agglutinative language, that is, in which meanings can be created by putting together different terms or pieces of words. One can also create concepts that did not exist before by building them with the various pieces of the language. 

Then this term energy in Nahuatl indicated, better still indicates, if we go to see its original meaning, certain aspects or ways in which energy manifests itself in our world. Even its material aspects. 

Having said that, however, I want to mention that my lineage, like most lineages of modern seers, has completely abandoned practices traditionally related to the ritualistic-magical aspects of nagualism in order to care for more abstract aspects in a more direct way. 

By this I do not mean that in the forms of traditional ritual practices there is no content of a magical nature. They are also very effective practices within their context. Clearly, for them to be truly effective, you have to know what you are really doing and therefore be able to go beyond the outward aspect of the sacred practice, the ritual.

Knowledge of what is really behind the ritual has mostly been lost in popular culture.

However, precisely in my lineage, as well as in the lineage that Castaneda had met, as in so many other lineages of modern seers, this whole part was abandoned because it was deemed no longer necessary, no longer in keeping with the times. 

Modern seers have shifted to much more direct and immediate systems, no longer mediated by an outward form, which in those days was used to approach people, or to carry out a whole series of actions of a magical nature, sometimes not very sympathetic, with implications that also involved energy predation, especially in earlier times. 

However, since modern visionaries aim directly at the abstract, it does them no good to set up a structure that then has to be disassembled anyway to get to the foundation, to the thing in itself. And so they start, they try to start, directly from the thing itself, and this whole traditional part has been gradually abandoned over time.

PAA: In your opinion, what role does maintaining harmony play in nagualistic practices?

Harmony plays a major role, but I think first we need to understand the meaning of the term harmony, that is, to understand the way the Toltecs understand harmony. 

This in fact is already one of those cases where the cultural difference, of viewpoint on the world, between the Toltecs and us is highlighted. 

For warriors there are certain lines of practical behavior that we could certainly relate to the sense of harmony, the sense of the word harmony. 

One of these is impeccability. Flawlessness is, to put it succinctly, the correct use of the energy we have at our disposal. This is a key point in the nagualistic system. At any moment we can decide whether to perform an ‘action, the same action, by dissipating, wasting, misusing our energy or by safeguarding it. 

This is a question that warriors always have in mind. Every choice they make, every action they take is guided by a fundamental question. And the question is, “How am I using the energy engaged in the action of the moment? In this action.” whether it’s just moving a chair or walking. 

There are only two ways to act. One is to use use the energy engaged in that action in the correct way, safeguarding the energy itself. The other is by dispersing the energy. 

We usually opt for the second option, which is to disrupt our energetic integrity. We do this by misusing our attention. Instead of using it to channel energy properly into the action of the moment, we scatter attention and thus, by scattering attention, we also scatter energy. 

This is already very closely related to the issue of harmony. Also because it is related to another aspect of the nagualistic system, which is that of balancing with extended emanations. 

We are usually so focused on ourselves, only, exclusively and always focused on ourselves, that we cut off the rest of the world. 

Our energy fibers, energy fields, emanations that make up us are as if turned in on themselves, twisted, turned inward. It is as if we were looking in a mirror at our reflected image for our entire existence. 

This is not a natural condition. In all other living beings, almost all of them at least, their inner emanations are stretched out toward the extended ones, toward the rest of the world; they balance with the extended emanations, the ones outside, the ones in the world, the ones that connect us to infinity. 

Concentration on ourselves prevents this connection. It cuts us off from the world, literally. It locks us into a square meter in which only we and our human condition exist. 

Warning. It is energetic, not mental or physical or anything else. It depends on the arrangement of internal emanations.

Warriors take care to deploy their internal emanations in such a way that they balance with their extended emanations and coincide, and this is closely related to flawlessness, the correct use of energy. 

Warriors achieve this change through practices that engage attention and perception in ways that are not ordinary, that are outside the ordinary human context. And this is also something that has to do with, or that we can relate back to, the idea of harmony.

Then there is a final point, which is the question of discipline. As the Toltecs understand it, it is nothing ironclad or militaristic. Exercising discipline for the Toltecs means remaining serene in circumstances totally beyond our control. 

This also has a lot to do with harmony. To exercise this kind of discipline requires a great deal of internal harmony, I mean among the emanations that make up us, they too must be balanced with each other. 

Balancing internal emanations develops true inner strength.

PAA: Can you discuss the significance of shamanic journeying and altered states of consciousness in your teachings?

It is necessary to make a premise. The question is interesting because it gives me a chance to clarify some fundamental differences between what is considered classical shamanism and instead nagualism, Toltec shamanism. 

The premise I want to make is that Toltec shamanism, has no real affinity with shamanism as it is commonly known, which then. basically is Siberian shamanism as a structure or, in some respects that of North American peoples. 

One of the differences is that in Nagualism the concept of shamanic journeying does not exist. Nor is there any mention of altered states of consciousness. 

The latter term by the way comes much more from a Western culture of the second half of the 20th century. It also has little to do with shamanism, classical shamanism, in short, precisely Siberian shamanism, or the peoples of North America. It is related to modern, Western culture as terminology. 

However, here we first need to understand what an altered state of consciousness means, because the term is very vague, in fact it can be anything and therefore also nothing. In the sense that any condition in which I am not what I commonly am can become an altered state of consciousness. 

We often associate it with taking drugs, especially psychedelic-type drugs, even the so-called power plants. In reality, of course, there are plenty of other ways to induce “altered states of consciousness,” and certainly we can also equate what is called shamanic journeying with an altered state of consciousness. 

In this case, however, it is a very precise altered state, with a domain of the state of consciousness that is very well defined thanks precisely to the practices of shamanic traditions. 

The shamanic journey leads exactly to certain places, let’s call them that, it goes in precise directions and arrives at certain precise places in the state of awareness. 

Altered states of consciousness in modern conception, are something so vague that you don’t even know what you are really talking about. 

In Nagualism, there is no such term, and there is no concept of an altered state of consciousness. First of all, because what warriors seek is something very precise and highly conscious, while instead we often associate the condition of altered state of consciousness, even with a condition of total loss of control, actually loss of discipline, of sobriety, of ability to guide this altered state of consciousness. 

Such a condition is totally opposite to what the Toltecs seek. We try to be very clear about what direction we are moving in and where we want to go, whatever practices we put in place, starting from contemplation, to dreaming, to recapitulation, to practices related to the art of ambush, in short, everything that is done within Nagualism is very precise and, in most cases, has definite purposes. 

There are reasons why warriors move from the ordinary state of consciousness. They certainly do not do it to achieve an altered state of consciousness. That from our point of view makes no sense. Also because, what does “altered” mean? 

When we move to another time mode, to another assemblage point location, we are in a different state of awareness than the ordinary one, but what we want is for this new state of awareness to function well, not to be “altered.”

There is no reason to randomly go anywhere. This for warriors is indeed something to be avoided completely, because the universe, or rather the universes in which we find ourselves are neither inert nor harmless. And so to go so randomly is not at all something recommendable. It is potentially deadly. All the more so if you go very far, which is what warriors try to do, developing all their skills and abilities, over time. 

These skills and abilities are attained through the application of discipline and deep dedication to work on attention and awareness that is not done haphazardly, but is carried out within a system of knowledge that has very deep roots, that has developed over at least 12,000 years, and that has therefore produced very exact ways of obtaining these skills, these abilities. 

Then if we really want to make an equation, we could say that, in nagualism, what is called the altered state of consciousness is actually the movement of the assemblage point beyond the limit defined by the ordinary condition. That is, this non-ordinary condition is the whole area that the assemblage point can reach when it leaves the area in which it moves normally. 

I clarify, however, that the area in which the assemblage point moves, or potentially can move in ordinariness, is broader than what we think is ordinariness. That is, this area that we call ordinariness, which in nagualism is called first attention, is all the area that can reach the assemblage point while still remaining in an area where we are still able to perceive the world as we know it and to act and interact in the ordinary world. This also includes areas that are not ordinarily attended by our assemblage point, by our awareness. 

However, warriors also frequent these areas, which are very valuable because they enable them to deal with ordinary existence under conditions of heightened attention and to see possibilities and spaces for action that escape the normal condition. 

Then there is everything outside of there as well. An immense area, almost infinite practically, and that is called second attention. This second attention corresponds to all the positions, the areas that the assemblage point can reach, as well as those that we can reach while maintaining correspondence with the world in which we ordinarily live. 

They are innumerable. Over thousands of years the Toltecs explored an incredible amount of them, but it is always a tiny fraction. Maps for reaching these locations in the second attention span are also described, for example, in many pre-Columbian constructions that still exist today, even though they have been profoundly altered by time and human intervention. 

However, in nagualism it is casually referred to as second attention, not altered state of consciousness. 

There are also areas of intersection between first and second attention, which are those that correspond, for example, to the hunter’s dream, which is an intermediate condition that weaves together, in an orderly form, characteristics of first and second attention and allows one to act in a state of heightened awareness (here, perhaps “heightened attention” may be a better term to describe what warriors seek) while still maintaining the coherence of the world in which we live. 

This is a position that is used a lot in the art of ambush. We could also say that for warriors there is the state of heightened awareness that makes one reach limiting positions, positions that are close to the ordinary one and that allow one to use one’s awareness and attention with enormously greater effectiveness and efficiency than the ordinary one. 

But such a condition is diametrically opposed to what is commonly understood as an altered state of consciousness, in which one usually has the idea instead of losing cognitive capacity or even the ability to interact with the world. You are jolted into a realm where perhaps you have very profound insights, but we are then unable to derive pragmatic consequences with respect to our existence. I mean consequences that can intertwine with our even everyday, everyday existence. If there is not this pragmatic aspect, it means that that is not an interesting, useful position.

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