---
title: "Toltec Shamanism – Historical influences and lineage with Marco Baston"
url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/toltec-shamanism-historical-influences-and-lineage-with-marco-baston/
date: 2024-12-31
modified: 2026-07-03
lang: en
author: "Perseus Arcane Academy"
description: "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..."
categories:
  - "Interviews"
  - "Shamanism"
tags:
  - "Energy"
  - "Marco Baston"
  - "Meditation"
image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/perception4-1-1024x586.jpg
word_count: 4454
---

# Toltec Shamanism – Historical influences and lineage with Marco Baston

## Introduction

This is post number five of this series. Several months ago I discovered the work of Marco Baston. His [website](https://www.nagualism.org/) 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.](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/the-nagual-and-its-principles-with-marco-baston/)

---

## 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.

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## 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

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