Magical Passes (9 page)

The Fourth Group: Breathing In the Energy of Intent

The three magical passes of this group are for stirring, gathering, and transporting energy for intent from three centers - around the feet, on the ankles, and right below the kneecaps - and placing it on the centers of vitality around the kidneys, the liver, the pancreas, the womb, and the genitals. The recommendation to practitioners on the execution of these magical passes is that since they are accompanied by breaths, the inhalations and exhalations should be slow and profound; and that there should be a crystal clear intent on the part of the practitioners that the adrenals receive an instantaneous boost while the deep breaths are taken.

35. Dragging Energy from the Kneecaps Along the Front of the Thighs

A deep inhalation is taken as the arms hang by the sides and the hands waver in a continuous tremor, as if stirring a gaseous matter. An exhalation begins as the hands are lifted to the waist, and the palms of the hands strike down in unison, on each side of the body, with great force (fig. 84). The arms are only slightly bent, so that the palms of the hands are a few inches below the stomach. The hands are three or four inches apart, held at ninety-degree angles with the forearms, the fingers pointing forward. Slowly and without touching, the hands make one circle inward toward the front of the body; the muscles of the arms, stomach, and legs are fully contracted (fig. 85). A second circle is drawn in the same fashion as the air is totally expelled through clenched teeth.

Another deep inhalation is taken, and the air is slowly exhaled as three more inward circles are drawn in front of the body. The hands are then retrieved to the front of the hips, and they slide down the front of die thighs with the heels of the palms, fingers slightly turned up, all the way to the kneecaps. The air is fully

exhaled then. A third deep inhalation is taken while the tips of the fingers press the bottom of the kneecaps. The head is held facing downward, in line with the spine (fig. 86). Then, as the bent knees are straightened, the hands, with the fingers clawed, are dragged up the thighs to the hips, as the air is slowly exhaled. With the last portion of the exhalation, the hands are then brushed on the respective centers of vitality around the pancreas and the liver.

36. Dragging Energy from the Sides of the Legs

A deep inhalation is taken as the hands, held by the sides of the body, shake with a continuous tremor. The hands strike down exactly as in the previous magical pass. An exhalation begins there, while the hands draw, in a similar fashion, two small outward circles by the sides of the body. The muscles of the arms, stomach, and legs are tensed to the maximum. The elbows are held fight but slightly bent (fig. 87).

After the two circles have been drawn, all the air is expelled, and a deep inhalation is taken. Three more outward circles are drawn as the air is slowly exhaled. The hands are then brought to the sides of the hips. The fingers are slightly raised as the heels of the hands rub all the way down the sides of the legs until the fingers reach the outside knobs of the ankles. The head is facing downward, in line with the body (fig. 88). The exhalation ends there, and a deep inhalation is taken with the index and

middle fingers pressing the bottom of the knobs (fig. 89). A slow exhalation begins as the hands, with the fingers clawed, are dragged up the sides of the legs to the hips. The exhalation is completed while the palms are brushed on the two respective centers of vitality.

37. Dragging Energy from the Front of the Legs

Again, a deep inhalation is taken as the hands, held by the sides of the body, are shaken. Both arms make a circle by the sides of the body, beginning toward the back, and going over the head (fig. 90) to strike forcefully in front of the body with the palms down and the fingers pointing forward. A slow exhalation begins there, while the hands, starting with the left, move forward and backward three times in alternating succession, as if sliding over a smooth surface. The exhalation ends when the heels of both hands are touching the rib cage (fig. 91). A deep inhalation is taken then. The left hand moves in a sliding motion to the left followed by the right hand sliding to the right; this sequence is executed a total of three times in alternating succession. They end with the heels of the palms against the rib cage, the thumbs

nearly touching each other (fig. 92). Next, both hands are made to slide down the front of the legs until they reach the tendons on the front of the ankles (fig. 93). The exhalation ends there. A deep inhalation is taken as the tendon is tensed by lifting the big toe until the tendon seems to pop/up; the index and middle fingers of each hand vibrate the tendons by pressing on them (fig. 94). With the fingers clawed, the hands are dragged up the front of the legs to the hips as a slow exhalation begins. The palms are gently rubbed on the centers of vitality as the exhalation ends.

THE    SECOND    SERIES

The Series for the Womb

According to don Juan Matus, one of the most specific interests of the shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times was what they called the liberation of the womb. He explained that the liberation of the womb entailed the awakening of its secondary functions, and that since the primary function of the womb, under normal circumstances, was reproduction, those sorcerers were solely concerned with what they considered to be its secondary function: evolution. Evolution, in the case of the womb, was, for them, the awakening and full exploitation of the womb's capacity to process direct knowledge - that is to say, the possibility of apprehending sensory data and interpreting it directly, without the aid of the processes of interpretation with which we are familiar.

For shamans, the moment in which practitioners are transformed from beings that are socialized to reproduce into beings capable of evolving is the moment when they become conscious of seeing energy as n flows in the universe. In the opinion of shamans, females can see energy directly more readily than males because of the effect of their wombs. It is also their opinion that under normal conditions, regardless of the facility that women have, it is nearly impossible for women or for men to become deliberately conscious that they can see energy directly. The reason for this incapacity is something which shamans consider to travesty: the fact that there is no one to point out to human beings that it is natural for them to see energy directly.

Shamans maintain that women, because they have a womb, are so versatile, so individualistic in their ability to see energy directly that this accomplishment, which should be a triumph of the human spirit, is taken for granted. Women are never conscious of their ability. In this respect, males are more proficient. Since it is more difficult for them to see energy directly, when they do accomplish this feat, they don't take it for granted. Therefore male sorcerers were the ones who set up the parameters of perceiving energy directly and the ones who tried to describe the phenomenon.

"The basic premise of sorcery," don Juan said to me one day, "discovered by the shamans of my lineage who lived in Mexico in ancient times is that we are perceivers. The totality of the human body is an instrument of perception. However, the predominance of the visual in us gives to perception the overall mood of the eyes. This mood, according to the old sorcerers, is merely the heritage of a purely predatorial state.

"The effort of the old sorcerers, which has lasted to our days," don Juan continued, "was geared toward placing themselves beyond the realm of the predator's eye. They conceived the predator's eye to be visual par excellence, and that the realm beyond the predator's eye is the realm of pure perception, which is not visually oriented."

On another occasion, he said that it was a bone of contention for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico that women, who have the organic frame, the womb, that could facilitate their entrance into the realm of pure perception, have no interest in using it. Those shamans viewed it as a woman's paradox to have endless power at her disposal and no interest whatsoever in gaining access to it. However, don Juan had no doubt that this lack of desire to do anything wasn't natural; it was learned.

The aim of the magical passes for the womb is to give the female practitioners of Tensegrity an inkling, which has to be more than an intellectual titillation, of the possibility of canceling out the effect of this noxious socialization that renders women indifferent. Nevertheless, a warning is in order; don Juan Matus advised his female disciples to proceed with great caution when practicing these magical passes. The magical passes for the womb are passes that foster the awakening of the secondary functions of the uterus and ovaries, and those secondary functions are the apprehension of sensory data and the interpretation of them.

Don Juan called the womb the perceiving box.. He was as convinced as the other sorcerers of his lineage that the uterus and ovaries, if they are pulled out of the reproductive cycle, can become tools of perception, and become indeed the epicenter of evolution. He considered that the first step of evolution is the acceptance of the premise that human beings are perceivers. It was not redundancy on his part to insist ceaselessly that this has to be done before anything else.

"We already know that we are perceivers. What else can we be?" I would say in protest every time he insisted.

"Think about it!" he would reply every time I protested. "Perception plays only a minute role in our lives, and yet, the only thing we are for a fact is perceivers. Human beings apprehend energy at large and turn it into sensory data. Then they interpret these sensory data into the world of everyday life. This interpretation is what we call perception.

"The shamans of ancient Mexico, as you already know," don Juan went on, "were convinced that interpretation took place on a point of intense brilliance, the assemblage point, which they found when they saw the human body as a conglomerate of energy fields that resembled a sphere of luminosity. The advantage of women is their capacity to transfer the interpretation function of the assemblage point to the womb. The result of this transfer function is something that cannot be talked about, not because it is something forbidden, but because it is something indescribable.

"The womb," don Juan continued, "is veritably in a chaotic state of turmoil, because of this veiled capacity that exists in remission from the moment of birth until death but which is never utilized. This function "I interpretation never ceases to act and yet it has never been raised to the level of full consciousness."

Don Juan's assurance was that the shamans of ancient Mexico, by means of their magical passes, had raised among their female practitioners the interpretive capacity of the womb to the level of consciousness, and by doing this, they had instituted an evolutionary change among them; that is to say, they had turned the womb from an organ of reproduction into the tool of evolution.

Evolution is defined in the world of modern man as the capacity of different species to modify themselves through the processes of natural selection or the transmission of traits, until they can successfully reproduce in their offspring the changes brought about in themselves.

The evolutionary theory that has lasted to our day, from the time it was formulated over a hundred years ago, says that the origin and the perpetuation of a new species of animal or plant is brought about by the process of natural selection, which favors the survival of individuals whose characteristics render them best adapted to their environment, and that the evolution is brought about by the interplay of three principles: first, heredity, the conservative force that transmits similar organic forms from one generation to another; second, variation, the differences present in all forms of life; and third, the struggle for existence, which determines which variations confer advantages in a given environment. This last principle gave rise to the phrase still in current use: "the survival of the fittest."

Evolution, as a theory, has enormous loopholes; it leaves tremendous room for doubt. It is at best an open-ended process for which scientists have created classificatory schemes; they have created taxonomies to their hearts' content. But the fact remains that it is a theory full of holes. What we know about evolution doesn't tell us what evolution is. Don Juan Matus believed that evolution was the product of intending at a very profound level. In the case of sorcerers, that profound level was marked by what he had called inner silence.

"For instance," he said, when he was explaining this phenomenon, "sorcerers are sure that dinosaurs flew because they intended flying. But what is very difficult to understand, much less accept, is that wings are only one solution to flying, in this case, the dinosaurs' solution. Nevertheless, this solution is not the only one that is possible. It's the only one available to us by imitation. Our airplanes are flying with wings imitating the dinosaurs, perhaps because flying has never been intended again since the dinosaurs' time. Perhaps wings were adopted because they were the easiest solution."

Don Juan was of the opinion that if we were to intend it now, there is no way of knowing what other options for flying would be available besides wings. He insisted that because intent is infinite, there was no logical way in which the mind, following processes of deduction or induction, could calculate or determine what these options for flying might be. The magical passes of the Series for the Womb are extremely potent, and should be practiced sparingly. In ancient times, men were barred from executing them. In more recent times, there has been a tendency among sorcerers to render these magical passes more generic, and thus the possibility arose that they could also be of service to men. This possibility, however, is very delicate and requires careful handling, great concentration, and determination.

The male practitioners of Tensegrity who teach the magical passes have opted, because of their potent effect, to practice them by brushing the energy that they generate only lightly on the area of the genitals themselves. This measure has proven to he enough to provide a beneficial jolt without any profound or deleterious effects.