Carlos Castaneda Lecture in 1995 - The inorganic beings

Los Angeles Intensive Tensegrity Workshop, August 13, 1995

Author unknown

Castaneda came out a few minutes after 4 PM, dressed impeccably, wearing a brown suit, brown shoes and a yellow and brown tie. [The chairs were closer to the platform this time, as promised. The members of his party again sat in the first two rows, although the young girl who had been introduced the week before (along with the presumed Blue Scout), as a "cyclic being," was noticeably absent. At the north end of the first row was the presumed Blue Scout, seated next to a young woman with very red hair, then Carol Tiggs, then Florinda, and then Taisha. Amalia was next to Taisha, and the Chacmools were next to her.] Castaneda said he had planned to talk about the inorganic beings tonight, and that that subject seemed to have frightened some people.

Don Juan told him that, "Everything is the product of the interplay of twin forces." Situations always dichotomize -- for example, opposing cliques at work or other institutions -- and the system of sorcerers is to guide that dichotomization.

Once he was in Tula with Don Juan's party. Tula and its Valley were where all the old sorcerers of Don Juan's lineage came from, and where Don Juan had his home. Castaneda was enjoying being with the splendid warriors of Don Juan's group. They were visited at the time by the Nagual Mathias, a new nagual of German heritage, who had been hit on the head when he was 14 and never recovered. He spoke strange Spanish, which he claimed was from the time of the Conquest. (And who was Castaneda to say it wasn't?) He wanted to go to with Don Juan's group to Tula. Castaneda was glad that the situation "dichotomized" and they didn't take Mathias with them. It seemed to be that they coalesced into "the good sorcerers and the bad sorcerers."

Sorcerers like to direct this division to get to "what is permissible." The same kind of dichotomy is true of our world. On one side is the organics' world -- including us and other organisms with awareness. On the other side is the inorganics' realm -- entities with awareness but without organic beings. "The structure of their world is different but complimentary to ours." The sorcerers found that the inorganic beings came to them in dreams. Dreams, at least certain kinds of special dreams, are "trap doors" that open for passage into the inorganic beings' side of the universe, and that allow them passage into our world. Only in dreams can we balance our energy sufficiently to perceive this other realm. Our velocity is otherwise too fast to perceive them at all.

The old sorcerers found that dreams gave access to the inorganic and other realms. They named the beings there "the allies." This term is not accurate, of course, since these beings were not able to act as allies in this realm, and they failed the sorcerers in their time of crisis. Since then, the sorcerers have stayed away from them. Don Juan felt that the only thing to do was to stay away from inorganic beings. The moment you use the trap door, "you enter into a well organized veritable world, whether you like it or not." Sorcerers train their dreaming attention -- developing it at the beginning by remembering to focus their eyes on any object and to focus for longer than a glance, and then to move on to another object, and then another.

They found that for each individual there is a threshold number of objects that we can focus on until the dream becomes something else. In non-ordinary dreams, once you reach this threshold point, you're off to something else. Such special dreams are heralded by something quite unusual -- for example, an image like flying fish. Once you learn to trap your attention, you can arrive at the threshold whenever "you hit a dream that is not a dream."

Don Juan gave Castaneda the task of looking at his hands in his dreams, and Castaneda turned it into an obsession. He found that he couldn't do it [and mimics himself saying to Don Juan that he can't find his hands. Don Juan said he could look for something else: "Look for your penis." Castaneda mimics himself saying, in a whiny voice, "Make up your mind, once and for all. I don't like your jokes."] Don Juan told him initially to look for his hands "or something else," and he simply ignored the "something else" part. [This reminded him of a woman who kept a list of all the reasons she was special. He'll bring the list for us before the end of the workshop. On the list, for example, was the fact that a professor once told her, "You are way too mature." When Castaneda questioned whether there was something missing in that statement, she talked to the professor and found out to her chagrin that he had been trying to say, "You are way too mature to act like an asshole."] Castaneda saw everything else but not his hands. In fact, he only found his hands once in his dreams -- and then they weren't really his but some big hairy hands. [They found some plastic ape hands recently, and felt that the way they look, in cupped position, are depictive of how we as humans are -- with little grasping gorilla hands. He'll bring them in to show us.] But Castaneda had actually succeeded with Don Juan's assignment without knowing it by focusing on all the other things in his dreams. [He is sure that his mentioning this command of Don Juan's had the same effect on those reading his books as it did on him -- making us obsessive about finding our hands.]

Dreaming attention is another source of discipline that renders us inedible to the Flyers. Once you cross the trap door, something comes to take you either to another layer of the onion, or to the dual universe of the inorganic beings. You control which direction you go by voicing your intent -- essentially giving an order, such as "Take me to your world." The only thing they listen to is a direct order, it does no good at all to plead, whine or act placatingly. You "don't order them in an arrogant way," but in a strong, forceful, convincing manner. ("If you are well brought up, you can say 'please' or 'thank you' too," he joked, "but it's optional.")

Once you voice your desire to go, these balls of energy take you. Don Juan told him to go elsewhere, and to not voice his intent to go to the IB's world. But Castaneda has always had this strange proclivity to get himself into dangerous things.

As a kid, Castaneda played trumpet, to get out of having to go to class. He'd tell the teacher that he had band practice, and then he'd tell the band leader that he had to go to class. So he ended up not doing either. Then he transferred to a new school, and the guy in charge of the band there told him they didn't need him. [He mimics himself in shock over the idea of having to go to class.] So he decided to render a trumpet unusable. At night, at his boarding school, he crept up to the band room and set a little fire, using a cord, to create enough heat in a trumpet's bell to turn the tone bad. But he "should have used a wire instead of a cord." The cord fell on a drum. So he then tried to put it out with water, instead of going back to bed where he wouldn't be discovered. But he wasn't strong enough to heave the bucket of water where it needed to go [he mimicked himself sloshing it part way], so he had to fill it up three times. As a result he soaked his feet. Then he returned to bed and, naturally, was found because the trail of wet feet led right to him. He'd ended up burning a whole wing of the school. His family had to pay for the reconstruction of the wing and for the instruments. He told his grandfather, his only ally about it. His grandfather only said, "How stupid! You should have used wire." His grandfather, a bit of a crook himself, was horrified at the boy's stupidity but not the nihilistic act of burning the school.

So Castaneda is a "reckless idiot" by nature, someone who takes chances. Don Juan told him he would start hearing a voice, the Dreaming Emissary, but told him not to listen to it. One day he heard a voice, but told himself it was some kind of post-hallucinogenic effect. The voice, however, is from another world, and adapts itself for you. For him it started out as a man's voice, speaking Argentine Spanish, or English from the West Coast of the United States. It used endearing Argentinean terms -- like "flaco," "hijito," and "boludo." And the voice said that it would reveal to him anything he wanted to know. But its results "were always asynchronous." It would tell him something about someone two months after he had asked, or even 5 years later, by which time he didn't care anymore.

This dreaming emissary voice attaches itself to us physically. To him it felt physically like it was coming from the area near his liver.

The IB world is basically feminine, and by the end it was a woman's voice he heard -- "quite exquisite." Males are coveted in this world because they are a "little twist" on a female base. [He mimicked being "macho," and then really just a "little twist." Then he described how he once blew his nose so hard when he was at Don Juan's that he blew his adenoid out. His immediate reaction was to "go and show it to mommy." That then reminded him of working in a mental hospital, where a guy who had no feeling in his body wedged out one of his eyeballs and then brought it to the doctor saying, "Look what happened." Being only a psychiatrist and not a surgeon, the doctor fainted. The same patient later was found in the process of sawing off his arm, singing "Old MacDonald had a farm."]

Don Juan didn't count on Castaneda's "imbecility." The dreaming emissary is a very appealing salesman. It says, "All you have to do is give me a word." The word is "forever." "If you give me your word, we could elongate your awareness to five billion years. You could see inconceivable things, like the heart of a star, and it won't burn you. You won't have to breathe. But, we can't force you, it's your choice." Don Juan told him not to fall for it.

The IB's are likewise consumed by flyers, and they want to join their slow speed to our fast one. The voice took Castaneda one time to the IB's world and told him it was "populated by three types" -- those that look like undulating candles, round ones and others shaped like a bell. The voice also told him that there were other entities there that they couldn't show him unless he gave his word that he would stay. "All male dreamers [including Don Juan] report the same experience." Psychiatrists and other experts couldn't explain this experience to him, except as a product of Castaneda's mind. Castaneda eventually made endless trips there, and on one saw some energy that looked to him like girl he knew. The "girl" asked for his help. Castaneda's one virtue, according to Don Juan, is that he would "jump in fearlessly to cut someone else's chains." He gave his word, his intent, which exhausted all his energy, and he was held there, although he succeeded in freeing the "girl." Don Juan and some of his associates had to come in to get him out. They did not enter through dreaming, but through masterful sorcery. As a result, Castaneda knows this is a real world, a twin universe.

Don Juan planned to somersault to avoid the IB's world. But Castaneda knows that we can't make the definitive journey without going through the "cousins' home." Even though that world "is heavily mixed with ours," Don Juan insisted on staying away from it. Don Juan was "into heavy denial." Castaneda believes it is better to deal with that world now; to learn how to manage it before making the ultimate journey.

IB's can lower our speed and increase theirs, giving us either fleeting glimpses or sustained interaction. Women can do this fairly easily. Men must fight a lot more, just like men have to read a lot. "Women don't have to read so much. Well, there may be women philosophers who do." [Florinda looked uncomfortable at this point.] "And maybe German women, German philosopher women."

[Castaneda said he was always asking, like many of us do, when he would be able to see energy, and when the sorcery practices were having an impact on him. Since people said they hadn't heard the "disgusting story" he told the previous Sunday, he repeated the story about Don Juan telling him the way to tell if he was making progress was to bend over and fart toward the east. If it was a big fart, he was making progress.]

The interaction of Castaneda's group with the IB's is much greater than in Don Juan's time. Don Juan's stories of the old sorcerers don't help Castaneda much in dealing with this world. All Castaneda has to go on are his own observations, and the fact that the IB's "cannot lie." But they can only answer non-speculative questions -- i.e., is there a man on the other side of that wall? But not, why is a man there? or How did a man get there? This trains one to be very direct and "non-labyrinthical." Dealing with the IB's "forces you to become crystal clear, or the emissary of dreaming cannot answer you." Castaneda has asked questions about the interaction between IB's and us, and they say it can happen, with tremendous sobriety.

The Flyers, or Jumpers, are also inorganics, that feed on all organic beings. Although the sorcerers have been unable to distinguish the details of the luminous eggs of non-human organics to discern this, the dreaming emissary has said "yes" to questions about whether the flyers feed on animals and other organics in our world.

Castaneda doesn't hear the Dreaming Emissary's voice anymore. "They tricked me into a world long sought by Don Juan where human cognition doesn't work." Something pulled him through a "tube of longitudinal awareness," and Castaneda ended up "on the left side of myself." Beings in that world see in 360 degrees, which causes them to take actions which are inconceivable to us. To get out of this world, Castaneda was told he would have to be "twirled, causing damage to his retina." But the voice offered to bring him back without harm, "if he gave his word [i.e., to stay with the IB's]." Castaneda decided that the only way out would be to adopt the attitude that he didn't care whether he came back or not, that this might somehow allow him to return on his own. Now he doesn't hear the voice anymore, and he misses it. He missed saying "thank you" to it, since it told him amazing, inconceivable things.

One of the tenets of the sorcerer's path is that you have to pay for things, or if you can't pay, you must at least give something of equal value.

The 10-year-old girl that he'd mentioned the night before [the Orange Scout, as best we can surmise], had to make a choice -- whether to say with them or to go back to her grandparents [presumably Florinda's parents]. "Decision is another tenet. Sorcerers see a horizon of buff-colored amber all the time." At some point, there is a "twirl" or swirling motion somewhere -- to our left, right or center -- that swirls clockwise from the observer's perspective. Then a door opens, and you see infinity through it, and a decision opens. This happened in connection with the 10-year-old girl. She decided to go with the grandparents, although she said she would like to stay with them for awhile. "We put her on a plane today." Her decision is final for them. The deciding factor for her was that she wanted tamales. Her grandparents gave her anything she wanted. Castaneda's group gave her everything too, but wouldn't give her tamales or sugar.

Don Juan didn't care about choices, all he cared about was continuing his lineage. But choice is the only thing Castaneda has, so how can he not respect it? So the little girl chooses to die.

Castaneda went to see a famous producer once, about the possibility of making a film out of "The Teachings of Don Juan." The guy had a huge impressive office in Century City, and gigantic desk, and Castaneda was seated way below him. The man had rings all over his fingers and was chewing on a cigar. He mumbled some question to Castaneda, which Castaneda couldn't understand. He mumbled again, and Castaneda still couldn't understand and started getting very anxious. Then the producer took the cigar out of his mouth and asked, "Did the tribe mind?" Yipes, now Castaneda could hear him but had no idea what he was asking, and didn't think he'd heard right. He asked him to repeat himself once again. Finally the man explained he was asking, "Did Don Juan's group mind that he gave you peyote?" Castaneda was greatly relieved that at last this was a question he could answer, and he responded, "Yes." The man told him, "Now, there's a dramatic episode. This part about pissing on dogs leaves me cold." But he thought the scene with the other Indians being upset about his receiving peyote had dramatic tension. [Castaneda mimics Hollywood Indians saying, "Let's burn him."] The producer also wanted Mia Farrow to play the love interest. She would stay behind and play "a woman who says, 'Don't take the drug!' And you do it anyway. That's confrontation."

Castaneda's talked to lots of Hollywood people over the years. He can't bear them anymore. They all think the books are his fictional creations. Castaneda explains that the books are just a phenomenological explanation of something everyone can do. "But no one told us before." He describes a well-known woman guru he had dinner with here in L.A. who kept handling the testicles of a big young masseur as she talked to him. Castaneda finally asked the guy how he could stand it, and the man told him, "The answer is never be alone." Castaneda asks us, "Is that the answer really, never to be alone?"

Castaneda once had surgery for a bad hernia. It needed a mylar screen to hold it. On one of his Second Attention explorations he'd done something to damage the walls. He could have healed himself, but didn't have the time or energy. He described the doctor telling him all the risks of the anesthesia -- complete explanations from "a great man to another great man," all with Castaneda naked. Then this gay Mexican comes in [the anesthesiologist's assistant?], and Castaneda mimics the guy's rolling eyes and stereotypical mannerisms. The guy tells Castaneda to "get in the fetal position." He then tells him that he's going to hold him, and that "it's not going to hurt you at all." Castaneda found it absurd that this scene was possibly his "last scene" on earth. After he awakened, a nurse told him, "You want to watch TV, don't you?" And without looking at him or awaiting his reply, she turns on the TV and leaves. What he sees is Guru Rajneesh explaining about the woman taking $52 million from his little box, and that he believes the woman wants to control the world. Another absurd scene, that left Castaneda laughing uncontrollably. Castaneda wondered what this portended to have these two ridiculous images bracketing this potentially life-threatening experience.

"You are impeccable, and you state your intent. The rest happens." The old sorcerers never allowed their awareness to keep growing above the mid-range of their chests. By maintaining their awareness there, they made or were guided to make assumptions about the IB's and their ability to aid them on this plane that weren't true. If they had let their awareness continue to rise, above their heads, to cover their eggs, they wouldn't have made this mistake.

Don Juan said, "Let the result be outside your domain. Launch your intention, your effort, and then forget about it." Don't try to then control the results. Castaneda advises us to try this on something not very important first. [He joked that we shouldn't let a multimillion dollar deal close itself, and, when it fails, say that Castaneda told us to do it that way.]

At 6 PM, Castaneda began taking questions. The first, from Louis, was "How does one handle Inorganic Beings?" Castaneda said, "You insist. But you have to give them time, because they move slowly." He made fun of someone waiting one or two hours and then giving up on them. He also said that he used to shout, "Intent!" and that one of their group, presumably Florinda, used to scream it at the top of her lungs [which he mimicked] causing her neighbors regularly to call the police. He also advised us not to be sheepish or have doubts about what we're saying to the IB's. "What you have for them is your discipline, the discipline of Tensegrity."

A man asked a question about the Blue and Orange Scouts, but Castaneda declined to answer, saying it wasn't relevant to the IB's.

A woman asked how he escaped from the IB's a second time [i.e., when they took him to the 360 degree world]? Castaneda joked [?] "I'm still there." He explained that that is why he squints. He told about going to two different eye doctors. The second diagnosed his condition as the result of Castaneda having intense sex with "violent orgasms." He has learned to just take doctors' advice or conjectures, without trying to tell them how his conditions really came about. This doctor also "calculated my age" as 75, and was impressed that Castaneda was having the violent orgasms leading to this condition at that age.

Castaneda once had a bladder infection after one of his experiences. He went to a doctor under the name "Ramon Garcia." The doctor told him, "Ramon Garcia, what else could it be? Gonorrhea." Castaneda made the mistake back then of trying to explain that, no, it was the result of a bout with a large energy configuration. The doctor then naturally diagnoses him as insane, with gonorrhea.

The famous psychiatrist Castaneda once worked for asked him, since Castaneda was so interested in ethnomethodology, whether he'd like him to put Castaneda in the third floor with the mental patients, so that he could study them as a member of their group. Castaneda asked "What if something happens to you [so no one would know that Castaneda was not really a patient]?" The psychiatrist was sure Castaneda could talk his way out of it somehow.

Thomas Gaul asked whether one can practice the dreaming attention and recapitulation at the same time. Castaneda said, "Yes, you can call the dreaming attention at the same time." It takes very little time to do this, compared to the time we waste in front of the television.

A man asked a question about the Flyers, which didn't elicit much new information. Castaneda said the Flyers are "all over us."

A man asked whether celibacy was important. Castaneda said that, "If you're a bored fuck, yes." He told the story again about his cousin "Rigoti," and how his grandfather told him that Castaneda -- "Arana" -- would have to talk his way in and "go through the window," whereas the handsome Rigoti would be let in through the door. His grandfather's motto, which Castaneda had adopted, was, "You can't make love to all the women in the world. But you can try!" Castaneda was born out of a quick fuck -- "behind the door" -- so he was always nervous. If you are born out of passion, it's no problem. You can have all the sex you want.

A man asked whether the size of the assemblage point had an outside limit. Castaneda said it is usually the size of a tennis ball. He said that the only immense AP he had seen was that of the woman guru who was grasping the testicles of the kid. But her AP was very fixed in place, whereas it should be fluid. If someone's AP is fixed, they are the people who "know everything"; who know what's right and what's wrong. They are "foremost authorities" and are very stuck. Castaneda explained that the only way to make the AP fluid is recapitulation. He mentioned that we, the audience, had been getting stronger as a result of being there ["some of you every day"]. It is great to intend the AP to be fluid.

A man asked about the Death Defier. Castaneda said that would be the subject of his last speech.

A man asked whether the IB's were having seminars as well? Castaneda laughed and said, "maybe." The man also asked whether the IB's are interested in a symbiotic relationship with us as well. Castaneda said, "Yes. They are much wiser and older than us, and would love to merge with our speed. We are barred" from doing this, unless we dedicate ourselves to Don Juan's revolution.

A man asked about intent. Castaneda said we'd get to it, along with stalking.

A woman asked if you can intend whether the energy ball you meet in dreaming takes you to the IB world or other places. Castaneda responded, "Yes," but Don Juan had never told him that.

A man asked whether Castaneda got Don Juan's allies, and whether he uses them? Castaneda said, "No." He explained that they were entities of Don Juan's lineage that were very primitive. Castaneda has "better things," so these entities "petered out." Castaneda's interest is "elucidation," he wants the sorcerers' world "to be understandable in our terms."

A woman asked about ways to stop the internal dialogue. [Castaneda made the pecking motion, and suggested that was an example, since you have to be very attentive to what you are doing.] The Chacmools drive with him and often don't say a word. They have shut off the internal dialogue so much they aren't even saying anything among themselves. "They've done Tensegrity so long, they don't talk anymore." Until you call them to speak, and then they won't shut up.

Castaneda also told us not be ruled by statistics that say that we only absorb about 3.5% of what we hear in a lecture. Castaneda used to rely on that statement as grounds for him to go to sleep in lectures, since he was only going to get 3.5% anyway (or 5.25% when the material is repeated).

A man asked about the AP of plants. Castaneda said that trees look like an enormous blob of luminosity, and their AP is way down by their roots. So trees do assemble perception, they do perceive. The entire vegetable world has AP's in "the bottom of their curve." They are usually flat, although some are geometric shapes -- diamonds, for example. The eucalyptus has a really contorted AP, that looks like it has teeth. (And Castaneda was wondering if we knew why people say they are bad for the environment. Two people volunteered that eucalyptus poisons the ground around it; that it is "aleopathic.") Figs have an "exquisite" looking AP. Castaneda told a story about being "nearly killed," by a fig tree. He was picking the fruit for Florinda, and one big one dangled in front of him saying, "Eat me!" Castaneda has a hereditary fructose intolerance. But he proceeded to eat the whole tree. They found him unconscious. "I woke up two years later," he joked.

A woman asked about dichotomy, and how it related to Tensegrity. Castaneda said that Tensegrity consists of tension and relaxation. We don't have to seek dichotomy, because the world dichotomizes regardless of what we do. Don Juan attempted to unify Castaneda from the beginning.

A woman asked about the fact that people can't volunteer to be a part of the sorcerers' world. Castaneda said, "No, your intent has made you bid for it." He said they are waiting for some action to reveal the next step [or words to that effect, I think]. "Our last palisade is the ego, and when that is unmasked," where can we go?

He told us to attempt the recapitulation and to exercise dreaming attention. He said some would take this seriously and then, "we'll see." If we do this, our lives in our daily world will become stronger, tighter. We won't be at the mercy of others, like we are when we are born into this world as "bored fucks."

A man asked about the connection between the Eagle and the Flyers. Castaneda said Don Juan didn't know. He couldn't answer when Castaneda asked the same question.

A man asked about the suggestion made a previous night about redirecting our attention, even at the toe-level of awareness, from the me-me-me position. Castaneda said if he gave us instructions about this, it would be like Don Juan telling him to look for his hands.

A woman asked about the IB's and Don Juan's attempt to avoid them in making his definitive journey. Castaneda said that Don Juan was the perfect example of an abstract warrior with the desire for abstract freedom, but speculated that his jump was minimized by the concreteness of the practitioner members of his party. One needs a very sober relationship with the IB's to navigate their world.

Tony, the Tibetan Buddhist follower who took the pictures of the Flyer at the pyramids, will be with us next Sunday. He's a "darling guy. He has these big eyes that circle around. He is an instant translator too." [The woman who was translating that day for the Spanish speakers told him she's so good she makes the same guttural noises he does.] Someone asked how Tony took the picture. There were "90,000 Mexican Catholic Buddhists there, and the Dalai Lama." Tony is "holy too." They call him "Tony Lama." He organized the event, and then took lots of pictures, rapid fire. One had this speck that he blew up. He took it to Carol Tiggs. When she showed it to Castaneda, they took it as an omen that it was time to talk about the Flyers. Don Juan had told him never to talk about them, or "they'll burn you for sure."

A man asked about how sorcerers use names. What is their function? Castaneda said that names aren't permanent. They depend on the stage of the road you're on. He is not "Carlos Castaneda" anymore. His whole body has changed, and he needs a new name. He "has another name, but it's not quite coagulated yet." To have one name only, forever, is "too weird, too monogamous."

A man asked about the universe having affection. Castaneda said it is not that the universe is affectionate, but that we can make this link [of affection] with our impeccability. The force of intent or spirit is out there, but we must only face it with tremendous energy. If we face it in weakness, it "will destroy you." It's a tremendously enhancing force if you are strong.

[Castaneda asked how much time was left, and Florinda told him "three minutes." Castaneda said, "Give me a girl" with a question.]

A woman asked about how you come back from dreaming. Castaneda explained that it's "like a rubber band -- you stretch as far as energy permits, and then something brings you back. And you don't even sweat." [He joked about wearing "this suit," his favorite, and it coming back with him in perfect condition, "ironed."]

He again mentioned the little girl and said that she was extremely intelligent and knew what she was doing. She had asked them to "please apologize to everybody for the silly girl who didn't know how to choose." Castaneda seemed very affected by this statement. [He mentioned how we run from the wolves to get inside the door, that turns out to be only a door frame. There is no place to run in this world.] Someone asked if the girl would get another chance. Castaneda said, "No. That twirling spot opens just once." He said he "had no regrets about that little girl." They acted impeccably with her. She made her decision, and now "she doesn't exist for him anymore. It's just a story, a poignant story he's telling us." That's all sorcerers do [i.e., they don't take on these relationships or events as part of themselves, but only see them as stories to instruct with].

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