The Ultimate heirlooms

The disciples of the nagual Juan Matus - Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs - are deeply interested in disseminating the concept and practice of some ancient movements discovered and developed by the shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times, movements which they themselves called magical passes for their staggering effect on the well-being, plenitude and physical and mental balance of human beings.

Such a group of movements were the ultimate heirlooms, so to speak, which don Juan Matus left to his disciples. The most staggering effect produced by such magical passes is the effect of the magical passes for not-doing. Not-doing has been defined by the old shamans of Mexico as: the condition in which an innate flow of energy, which is the force that holds us together as energy fields, is momentarily interrupted, giving in such a fashion a millisecond's time for the entire body to change directions in terms of behavior and deep-set ideas which human beings practice from the moment they are born.

Not-doing was a term used by don Juan Matus to designate a specific cognitive dissonance, that is to say, a cognitive process by means of which what seemed to be a natural flow of activity was deliberately interrupted to create a state of momentary cognitive chaos. For example, don Juan argued that although there is plenty of room in the right shoe to be worn by the left foot, we wouldn't dare to do that. We would do it as a joke, but not as something serious. The doing, for don Juan, was to wear shoes the way we do, in a 'normal' fashion. The not-doing was to deliberately reverse that order and wear the left shoe on the right foot and the right shoe on the left foot.

According to don Juan, shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times, who were the founders of lineage of sorcerers, used these states of momentary chaos created by the deliberate engagement in not-doings in order to establish a most necessary fluidity of thought and action. Don Juan, as well as all the sorcerers of his lineage, believed that the cognitive process of daily life are so taken for granted, that fully socialized human beings have no possibility whatsoever for genuine change and innovation.

Don Juan himself was convinced that modern man could not even rearrange established patterns, and that all he can do is to learn to accept them without fretting. He said that no new ideas could flow in, because the system of doings was so established that it admitted no competition, much less change. He firmly believed that this kind of stagnation was the mark of our lives; and that if we didn't use all our resources to oposite its force, it would run away with us, and drown us in repetition and boredom.

In order to offset the established patterns of cognition, the sorcerers of ancient Mexico invented not-doing. For them, not-doing was intimately related to their magical passes. The five not-doing series are Running Man, On the Run, Unbending Purpose, The Legs Rule Vitality, and The Wheel of Time. Don Juan Matus taught them to his four disciples in the classical fashion.

Don Juan himself in turn had been taught those magical passes in the same order and disposition. Anyway the four students of don Juan have presented a different view of the magical passes for not doing: a view derived from what the sorcerers of ancient Mexico did perhaps thousands of years ago.

Their reason for this new order was their belief that practicing the magical passes for not-doing in such a way ensured the best results: provided, of course, that the performers were in a state of profound acquiescence to each other and in harmony with the world around them, and their magical purpose in life.

It has never occurred to human beings that the direction of the flow of their inherent energy was not given as every one of us expects it to be, but a matter of habit and usage. To be able to change this seemingly natural flow with the aid of the magical passes is a shocking proposition to the mentality of man. The magical passes for not-doing do precisely this. They could detain the movement of our inherent flow of energy, or change its direction. In this fashion, the magical passes, in themselves and by themselves, create a new direction for that flow.

The Rift

The story says that there was a primeval time, when women shamans and men shamans were in a state of such harmony, in a very natural way. But then, the women shamans took the reins of power, and ruled the shamans' world for hundreds of years with such a heavy hand that in the end, they were ousted bodily, creating in this fashion the deepest rift imaginable between the males and the females; a rift which persists to this day.

On the Run

The second series of magical passes for not-doing, called On the Run, is the most mysterious for reasons that are impossible to explain, not only from our point of view, but also from within the framework of the world of the shamans of ancient Mexico. It has kept its original form for reasons that were a mystery to all the shamans of don Juan's lineage, because it has no logical, mystical, or mythical explanation. It appears to obey reasons beyond the scope of shamans' comprehension.

This series has remained untouched throughout the millennia. All the other series have changed. Change was the primary drive behind everything the shamans of old Mexico did. Among them, there was a continuous flux of ideas, conclusions and practices. This flux continues to this day, and can be best judged in Tensegrity: the magical passes which are taught and practiced nowadays.

The Code

Another strange feature of the second series of magical passes for not-doing is an unusual, and by all indications, accidental feature. The shamans' story is that prior to the rift between male and female practitioners, there existed a code for all the five series that comprise the total group of magical passes for not-doing.

This mysterious code is a sequential order in which the shamans of ancient Mexico rearranged the magical passes for not-doing. All the series are taught following what seems to be a traditional pattern. All the magical passes for not-doing, when they are taught, follow a natural order. For example, from 1 to 12, 1 to 26, and so forth and so on. This original order seemed to have been their ultimate secret.

They appended a new, rearranged sequence to the original one; they scrambled the numbers to fit another order, because this new order gave them instantaneous and staggering results in terms of enhancing their perception. When the tragic rift occurred between the male and female practitioners, the code apparently was purposefully destroyed. Don Juan believed that destroying the code was the equivalent of cutting off your arm to show your father-in-law that you were very displeased with him. However, the only fragment of the code that remains is the code of the second set.

Tensegrity, because of the mood in which it was created - a mood of freedom and inquiry - has been regarded as the most fertile ground for the practical application of everything the shamans of ancient Mexico did. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the newness of Tensegrity which lent itself to this quality of change, but that is not true.

Change was an inherent part of the world view of the shamans of antiquity. Everything was in constant flux for them, everything except the second set of magical passes for not-doing. Shamans have speculated, throughout the centuries, about what kept that second set unchanged. The nagual Juan Matus proposed that it was thoroughly accidental, that there was no premeditation behind all this on the shamans' part. He explained that a code existed, which was applied to all the magical passes of all the series for not-doing. This code was a new sequence appended to the natural sequence in which those magical passes were taught.

It altered the order in such a fashion that it produced a spectacular result, felt instantaneously by all the practitioners: an enhancement of perceptual possibilities. The effect was so remarkable that the code became a total secret, something dealt with only by the most advanced initiates.

A tremendous upheaval seemed to have rocked the foundations of the shamans' world at that time. The aftermath of such an upheaval was a disruption of the shamans' way of life. Before the upheaval, male and female shaman practitioners had worked together, in unison, for the total enhancement of perception. After the upheaval, motives of personal origin made their appearance and broke those shamans' order and purpose.

They reacted violently, burning the code. The nagual Juan Matus assured his disciples that the only piece left was the one that applied to the second set of magical passes for not-doing. The second possible cause that the nagual Juan Matus gave for the second series to remain unchanged was more speculative.

It had to do with a premeditated drive of those shamans to maintain an element of a certain order that used to be prevalent among them, but which was no longer in function. The nagual Juan Matus made it sound like an attempt to maintain a survivor unit that would attest to something that once was, but which was no longer.

Awareness Through Harmony

Be that as it may, the code was lost, and the only thing that remains is a fraction of it. The nagual added a warning that such a code could not be practiced. In order to put it in function, the practitioners needed to reach a level of profound amenity, affinity for each other.

The practitioners had to be a male and a female who had no desire whatsoever to set up standards or to establish any preconceived scenarios of priority or superiority. They had to be a pair of practitioners who were abandoned and free from the encumbering imposition of egomania or self-importance about their personal place in history and time.

The two practitioners who fit the bill are Zaia Alexander and Miles Reid. It has fallen upon them - thoroughly independent of their volition - to be the spokesmen of a new era. The best way of expressing this era of newness is through the execution of the magical passes of the second series for not-doing. It produces a moment of profound egolessness, even if it's only for a fraction of a second, that fraction is enough.

This team is a team of unique value. They, when they work together, are called Awareness Through Harmony, because they have succeeded in erasing the natural barriers and boundaries between the sexes. Their homogeneity is so extraordinary that none of don Juan's disciples has words to explain it or describe it.

To overcome such a barrier is a triumph of the discipline and imagination which is proper to the spirit of man. This team of practitioners has succeeded in doing this. In this fashion, together, they are capable of exploring, in terms of awareness and perception, areas thoroughly veiled to a normal practitioner. In order to enter into those areas, a normal practitioner would need a boost of energy that cannot be obtained under the shamans' normal conditions of life, which are, by an enormous measure, more exigent and harder than the conditions of life for an average person.

The Wheel of Time

The last series of magical passes for not-doing is called The Wheel of Time. It was the belief of the shamans of ancient Mexico that The Running Man introduces the practitioners to the realm of enhanced awareness. The three remaining series, On the Run, Unbending Purpose, and The Legs Rule Vitality, guide the practitioners across a state of enhanced awareness, but it is the fifth series, the most complex and sophisticated of them all, which will allow them to cement all their gains.

As its name indicates, The Wheel of Time has to do with what modern man calls, "the manipulation of time and space," and which the shamans of ancient Mexico called intending forward and intending backward. To do this with the properness it deserves, a practitioner must learn to handle the wheel of time, which is a small wheel in our case, made out of foam rubber.

The wheel of time was originally made of wood, with a smooth metal rim, but wood is too heavy to handle until a total expertise is gained. The idea of compressing time-in a psychological manner, so to speak-and render time into a unit adapted for maximum use by the practitioners.

More than ever in our history, we need a unifying factor, an idea that would infuse us with the desire to act. This action must be inspired by the impersonality of that idea, and by its undeniable pragmatic value. The shamans of ancient Mexico found that format in their practice of the magical passes. The practice of the magical passes is impersonal, and so is the effect that it produces. It has to do only with the individual practitioner.

Practicing the magical passes for not doing

The performance of the magical passes for not-doing will require the use of a mat. Mats are going to be used in two ways: to perform the movements while lying down on the back with the mat completely stretched out, or rolled to sit on; for this reason mats must be at least 1.25 cm (about 1/2") thick. A thin towel will not suffice. They should be no longer than 2 meters (72") and no wider than .6 meters (19").