Nagual (Castaneda)

Nagual (pronounced nah-wa'hl) is a term used in the books by Carlos Castaneda to describe a person who is able to lead people to new areas of consciousness. Carlos Castaneda's guide, Don Juan Matus, often referred to himself as the Nagual for his "party of warriors". "Nagual" is considered by Castaneda's followers to be related to Eastern concepts of Tao, meditation, or infinity.Fact|date=March 2008 In Casteneda's books, one reference to the meaning of "nagual" is: "... Turn everything into what it really is: the abstract, the spirit, the nagual."

In the modern New Age beliefs based on the works of Carlos Castaneda reality is seen as multi-dimensional or multi-faceted. Usually it is said that a person is only able to see a certain limited aspect of the multi-faceted reality during any given experience. The Nagual is considered an alternate "unknown" side or dimension of reality, as opposed to the Tonal, which can be considered the everyday "known" dimension of reality. It has also been said that the Nagual is all that is, and that it condenses to form what is called the Tonal. The Nagual and the Tonal as dual aspects of reality and being are perceived either through the First Attention, where we experience the Tonal, or the Second Attention where we experience the Nagual. To Castaneda the Tonal is often associated with the masculine aspect of the universe and the Nagual to the feminine. The Tonal can roughly be linked to the concept of Ego, the conscious mind, and subconscious minds.

A Nagual is the "benefactor" of an apprentice in Castaneda's system and is also the great unnameable Spirit. The "benefactor" is born to be a direct link to the great unnameable spirit and guide an apprentice to obtain what has been called Total Freedom. The Second Attention or Nagual awareness is a goal that the warrior apprentice strives to attain. In some Mesoamerican traditions psychotropic plants, or as Castaneda called them "power plants", were utilized to experience the Nagual, as well as other states of awareness. When one is able to perceive the Second Attention they are considered a "seer". In addition to Castaneda's books the books of Victor Sanchez, Don Miguel Ruiz, Theun Mares, Merilyn Tunneshende and others have detailed techniques to use to experience the Second Attention.

Nagualism Techniques

Alternate Death

In the writings of Carlos Castaneda, don Juan Matus explained several energetic facts perceived by directly seeing energy in the universe. He explained that seers perceive a conglomerate of luminous fibers enclosed in a luminous egg, which in this reality would be a human being. They said these luminous fibers are conscious of themselves and never touch each other when they are not encased in luminous eggs. There are an incalculable number of fibers in the void. There is a spot in the luminous egg that in a human body is at arms length in the direction towards the back of the left shoulder blade. It is the assemblage point where reality is assembled. The conglomerate of luminous fibers match the fibers outside, whichever the assemblage point is at, it becomes real.

Don Juan said to Carlos that there are millions of realities around us all we needed to do was to move our assemblage point to perceive them. Children, for example, have the assemblage point very flexible and it moves around until an adult forces the assemblage point to stay in one place just by being in the same room with the child. It is through the manipulation of this assemblage point that it is said Naguals can go through walls, fly around, turn into animals, be in two places at the same time or visit other realities. Some seers of antiquity, for example, became trees, others made their assemblage point to stretch and illuminate almost all the fibers within their luminous egg and became luminous lines or inorganic beings. It is said that they walk among us and one can see them when they make their luminous line in to a circle. There is also an alternate way of dying. By illuminating the entire conglomerate of luminous fibers inside the luminous eggs, a seer would die instantly in a ball of fire, burning from within.

One way to become a Nagual is a process in which the seeker's everyday awareness dies, becomes formless, and is imprinted with a different awareness. This is just one of many different ways to describe a process, through which the Nagual obtains a means to produce the energy necessary to administer the "Nagual's Blow". Nagual's Blow refers to the shamanic act of blowing one's "Spirit" into somebody's body as clearly referenced by Carlos Castanedas - causing a state of Heightened Awareness.

Right Brain-Left Brain

Anyone who has experienced left-brain-dominance AND right-brain-dominance will have slight cognition of Don Juan's "left-side = Nagual" (left-side crossing-over neurologically to right-brain) and "right-side = Tonal" mind as simply different modes-of-knowing. Left-field-of-view is processed by right-brain, and that means a non-words, totality mode-of-knowing. Right-field-of-view is processed by left-brain, and that means words, and words-cognition, controlling what one can-know.

Recent testsFact|date=February 2007 of colour-identification in right-field-of-view vs left-field-of-view has proven that words control our perceptions at a low-level.

Working through "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", by Betty Edwards, ISBN 0-87477-424-1, one gets to experience basic difference between "Tonal-knowing" and "Nagual-knowing" directly. But for a most complete guide on the subject Carlos Castanedas works are unmatched.

Inner Silence

Inner silence is a key technique for Nagualism as noted in "The Active Side Of Infinity", by Carlos Castaneda:

"Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called stopping the world, the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's been.It is this moment when man the slave becomes man the free being, capable of feats of perception that defy our linear imagination."

And in: "The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda

Inner silence is often achieved in the New Age community through meditation. The meditation used does not matter so long as it induces a state where thoughts are temporarily still. As the above books describe Castaneda was taught various techniques to induce inner silence including walking while gazing at single point in the distance while at the same time using your peripheral vision to see as much of your surrounding as you can.

Energetically speaking: The goal is to dislodge one's assemblage point from where this reality is perceived. One's incessant internal dialogue is what keeps the assemblage point stuck there. Once Inner Silence is achieved and mastered, one can assemble different realities by moving one's assemblage point.

Dreaming

The Art of Dreaming is an area of great interest to the Nagualist community. Dreaming is believed to be the easiest gate into states like the Second Attention since in dreaming the Assemblage Point moves freely.

External links

* [http://www.perceptica.com.mx El nahual de cinco puntas: Editorial Percéptica, Domingo Delgado Solórzano, http://www.perception.com.mx]
* [http://www.nagualism.com Nagualism] (Collection of information, interviews and forum discussion on Nagualism, Carlos Castaneda, and Shamanism)
* [http://www.castaneda.com Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity] (site maintained by ClearGreen Inc., the direct apprentices of Carlos Castaneda, who also inherited his estate and currently conduct Tensegrity seminars and classes)
* [http://www.freewebs.com/ganjakhan/initiation.htm Introduction to Nagualism]
* [http://library.case.edu/ksl/ecoll/books/brinag00/brinag00.html Nagualism] (A Study in Native-American Folklore and History, by Daniel G Brinton)
* [http://www.toltecnagual.com/nagual.htm The Toltec Nagual] (The Toltec Nagual site run by author Kristopher Raphael)
* [http://encyclopedia-of-religion.org/tonal_nagual.html Tonal and Nagual] from Encyclopedia of Spiritual Knowledge.