Nagual (Castaneda)

Nagual (pronounced nah-wa'hl) as a term used in the books of Carlos Castaneda refers to a fundamental yet inconceivable dimension of reality that May Be harnessed by a man of knowledge or 'sorcerer' (Spanish: Brujo). According to Castaneda's Native American teachers some individual's are naturally endowed with an inborn facility to make use of this power. Such a person (who is referred to as a Nagual - cf. nagual) is able to lead apprentices of the spiritual arts and other receptive persons to dimensions of higher consciousness. In the tradition of sorcery which Castaneda is inducted into, those recognised as Nagual's become leader's of groups of sorcerer's apprentices. Thus Carlos Castaneda's guide, Don Juan Matus, often referred to himself as the Nagual for his "party of warriors" - warrior here referring to one who walks the path of a 'man of knowledge'. To understand the nagual one is instructed to: "... Turn everything into what it really is: the abstract, the spirit, the nagual."

In the worldview of Castaneda's teachers, reality is seen as multi-dimensional or multi-faceted and ordinary humans only perceive a small portion of it. The known part of reality with which humans are familiar is called the tonal. The Nagual on the other hand is that dimension of reality of which we are not conscious ordinarily but which in fact constitutes the greater part of reality where the true power and meaning lies. Here the Nagual bears some resemblance to the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious. It has also been said that the Nagual is all that is, and that it condenses to form 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 and the conscious mind.

A Nagual (as a person) is the "benefactor" (of the spiritual knowledge of nagual as unnameable Spirit) of an apprentice in Castaneda's system. The "benefactor" is born to be a direct link or intermediary to the great unnameable spirit and guide an apprentice to obtain what has been called Total Freedom analogous to religious concepts of salvation and liberation. 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.

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 achieved through meditation. The meditation used does not matter so long as it induces a state where thoughts are stilled. 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

• Parallel Perception The Nagual Lujan Matus
• El nahual de cinco puntas Editorial Percéptica, Domingo Delgado Solórzano
• Nagualism Collection of information, interviews and forum discussion on Nagualism, Carlos Castaneda, and Shamanism
• 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
• Introduction to Nagualism The Manifesto of the Hierophant
• Nagualism A Study in Native-American Folklore and History, by Daniel G Brinton
• The Toltec Nagual The Toltec Nagual site run by author Kristopher Raphael
• Tonal and Nagual from Encyclopedia of Spiritual Knowledge
• DonJuanMat.us Turkish Don Juan Matus group.

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