The sorcerers of my line used to start by gazing at a simple object and memorizing every detail of it. They would then close their eyes and visualize the object and correct their visualization against the true object until they could see it, in its completeness, with their eyes shut.
The next thing in their developing scheme was to dream with the object and create in the dream, from the point of view of their own perception, a total materialization of the object. This act is called the first step to total perception.
From a simple object, those sorcerers went on to take more and more complex items. Their final aim was for all of them together to visualize a total world, then dream that world and thus re-create a totally veritable realm where they could exist.
When any of the sorcerers of my line were able to do that they could easily pull anyone into their intent , into their dream.
Whole populations disappeared dreaming like that. It’s possible because they visualized and then re-created in dreaming the same scenery.
To cross the fourth gate and travel to places that exist only in someone else’s intent is perilous, since every item in such a dream has to be an ultimately personal item.
The essence of my explanation is that if you were, for instance, dreaming of your hometown and your dream had started when you lay down on your right side, you could very easily stay in the town of your dream if you would lie on your right side, in the dream, and dream that you had fallen asleep. The second dream not only would necessarily be a dream of your hometown, but would be the most concrete dream one can imagine.
The only way to have absolute control of dreams is to use the technique of the twin positions. And don’t ask me why. It just happens. Like everything else.
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The thought of evil cannot withstand examination. In the universe only energy exists; evil is merely a concatenation of the human mind, overwhelmed by the fixation of the assemblage point on its habitual position. Logically, there is really nothing to be afraid of.
There is no past or future in the universe. There is only the moment. Think for a moment, in the universe there is only energy, and energy has only a here and now, an endless and ever-present here and now.
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The secret of the twin positions is that the second dream is intending in the second attention: the only way to cross the fourth gate of dreaming .
To make a dream an all-inclusive reality is the art of the old sorcerers. This is dreaming . You should know by now that its transactions are final.
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You have been given an abstract gift: the possibility of flying on the wings of intent.
The Active Side of Infinity
I suggest that you gather a collection of the memorable events of your life.
The shamans of ancient Mexico conceived of the collection of memorable events as a bona-fide device to stir caches of energy that exist within the self. They explained these caches as being composed of energy that originates in the body itself and becomes displaced, pushed out of reach by the circumstances of our daily lives. In this sense, the collection of memorable events is the means for redeploying our unused energy.
The prerequisite for this collection is the genuine and all-consuming act of putting together the sum total of one’s emotions and realizations, without sparing anything. The shamans of our lineage were convinced that the collection of memorable events was the vehicle for the emotional and energetic adjustment necessary for venturing, in terms of perception, into the unknown.
The total goal of the shamanistic knowledge that we are handling is the preparation for facing the definitive journey: the journey that every human being has to take at the end of his life. Through their discipline and resolve, shamans are capable of retaining their individual awareness and purpose after death. For them, the vague, idealistic state that modern man calls “life after death” is a concrete region filled to capacity with practical affairs of a different order than the practical affairs of daily life, yet bearing a similar functional practicality. To collect the memorable events in their lives is, for shamans, the preparation for their entrance into that concrete region which they call the active side of infinity.
***
Every warrior, as a matter of duty, collects an album that reveals the warrior’s personality, an album that attests to the circumstances of his life. Above all, it is like an album of pictures made out of memories, the recollection of memorable events&endash;memorable because they have a special significance in one’s life. Put in it the complete account of various events that have had profound significance for you.
Not every event has a profound significance for you. There are a few, however, that I would consider likely to have changed things for you, to have illuminated your path. Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet are extremely personal.
Don’t think about this album in terms of banalities, or in terms of a trivial rehashing of your life experiences.
***
Every one of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and it is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose, The other mind is a foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness: it’s ourselves as the me-me center of the world.
Let’s put the topic of our two minds aside and go back to the idea of preparing your album of memorable events. Such an album is an exercise in discipline and impartiality. Consider this album to be an act of war. As such, it has all the meaning in the world.
***
We are not naturally petty and contradictory. Our pettiness and contradictions are, rather, the result of a transcendental conflict that afflicts every one of us, but of which only sorcerers are painfully and hopelessly aware: the conflict of our two minds! One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation.
To resolve the conflict of the two minds is a matter of intending it. Sorcerers beckon intent by voicing the word intent loud and clear. Intent is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path for attainment, which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do.
Intent can be called, of course, for anything, but sorcerers have found out, the hard way, that intent comes to them only for something that is abstract. That’s the safety valve for sorcerers; otherwise they would be unbearable. Beckoning intent to resolve the conflict of your two minds, or to hear the voice of your true mind, is not a petty or arbitrary matter. Quite the contrary; it is ethereal and abstract, and yet as vital to you as anything can be.
Your album, being an act of war, demands a super-careful selection. It is a precise collection of the unforgettable moments of your life, and everything that led you to them. Concentrate in it what has been and will be meaningful to you. A warrior’s album is something most concrete, something so to the point that it is shattering.
Sit down, alone, and let your thoughts, memories, and ideas come to you freely. Make an effort to let the voice from the depths of you speak out and tell you what to select.
The selection is not an easy matter. This is the reason I say that making this album is an act of war. You have to remake yourself ten times over in order to know what to select.
Don’t include stories that relate exclusively to you as a person who thinks, feels, cries, or doesn’t feel anything at all. The memorable events of a shaman’s album are affairs that will stand the test of time because they have nothing to do with him, and yet he is in the thick of them. He’ll always be in the thick of them, for the duration of his life, and perhaps beyond, but not quite personally.
In my time, not only did I not know what to choose, I thought I had no experiences to choose from. It seemed that nothing had ever happened to me. Of course, everything had happened to me, but in my effort to defend the idea of myself, I had no time or inclination to notice anything.
The stories of a warrior’s album are not personal, not assertions about you as the center of everything. You feel, you don’t feel; you realize, you don’t realize. All of that type of story is just you.
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