It makes me think of Joseph Campbell’s point that people confuse story with reality. But then what is real? I’ve found Castaneda’s work beautifully poetic. Many people are happy to live in the fiction they’ve made up for themselves of their every day life, a life that doesn’t work and doesn’t get them what they want. They’re living a story that they are not conscious of choosing. By becoming aware of how you operate yourself, becoming aware of your reality you can then choose the story you want to be organising yourself to. The story of you getting what you want, living the life that you want and having the experience of your life.

The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda… is a post by Michael William Roach from: Hero-Myth.com

This presupposes you’re talking about a real shaman which is not what most people calling themselves shamans are.

The Shaman is a post by Michael William Roach from: Hero-Myth.com

And yet you could just ‘have the experience’… Without attaching words or labels to try to represent it in ways that it’s not or never can be.

By attaching words you either create value or remove value from the experience.

The experience is just what the experience is.

So you could sort by the description, and the value based judgement or sort by the experience ;-)

The Tracker goes into the woods without a map. He’s never lost as where he is, is where he is. He (or she) is not in a hurry to reach the destination as the journey is the important part. And the journey changes the destination. So you head out in one direction as that’s where the tracks lead you. But if you’re paying attention to where you are, rather than where you are going there maybe better routes, better tracks to follow which you wouldn’t have seen if your eyes were just focussed on the goal. As the result of making the journey, the journey changes the Tracker. So the Tracker knows the importance of choosing a worthwhile journey. The map is where other people have been and it shows what they have seen. The Tracker knows that most people don’t see anything as they don’t know how to see. They’re usually standing on top of something exquisite and beautiful and don’t notice both the magic and the mystery…

The Tracker is a post by Michael William Roach from: Hero-Myth.com

If you’re in the inhibitory the system is closed to possibility, or you’re thinking about how you do stuff based on existing information.
If you’re thinking about it, you’re in analysis and the system is not open to new information. So you may end up thinking about it for a while…

If you have 100% of your attentional units directed outwards, you’re in your experience, in synthesis based on the new information coming in.

Neurosis comes from people thinking, going ‘what does it mean, what does it mean?’ Or ending up in endless analysis, because the system is closed an not open to new information.

Psychosis is when you start to extrapolate from within a closed system, that you have new information…

But remember closing the system is necessary, so you can make sense of the existing information you have. What’s crucial is the reopening to possibility, then you can test the result of your analysis, against real data coming in.

I’d suggest ‘outwards’ is when you are in your experience, and that is all there is. Because there are no attentional units left to place on yourself. In that context you are not ‘thinking’, just being.

For example if you were going to do a martial art or something equally physical, you want to be attention outwards so you have the ‘capacity’ to react or act. If you have any attention on yourself, you don’t have the same ‘capacity’ to react or act. I notice when I do this there is no ‘duality’, it’s not me and my body. It’s just me.

I think I’ve heard Joseph express this more elegantly: “I don’t give a fuck if you understand!!”

4th Way is a post by Michael William Roach from: Hero-Myth.com

I used to see the people who were really into ritual when I worked in a mental hospital…

It was another Michael that said about being able to see the maiden and the mother in the crone. I think of my 95 year old grandmother, with my 5 year old nephew and see both the mother and the maiden. While it’s true you will resonate with a particular pattern, it’s also true at times you may resonate with another pattern. It’s like saying you are a particular astrological sign, yes you are, and you are so much more.

The more you slice time, the more you can accurately say you are a particular thing. The more you are in time, the less you are a particular thing and the more you are analog not digital. The more you choose to be becoming (analog) not digital (I’m this or that) the more you are becoming what you choose to be becoming.

‘REAL MAGICK’ is more ‘as below, so above’ is a post by Michael William Roach from: Hero-Myth.com