Topic: Interview With Florinda

[nichi]

FLORINDA DONNER
in conversation with
ALEXANDER BLAIR- EWART

Florinda Donner is a longtime colleague and fellow dream traveler of Carlos Castaneda. She is the acclaimed author of Shabono (1982), The Witch’s Dream (1985), and Being-in-Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerer’s World (1991). Anthropologist and sorceress, Florinda Donner lives in Los Angeles, Cal and Sonora, Mexico.

A L E X A N D E R B LA I R - E WART: Can you talk about this living myth of the sorcerer’s world that you were drawn into?

FLORINDA DONNER: The myth of the Nagual is a myth, but a myth that is being relived over and over again. You see, the myth that exists is the myth that there is the Nagual and that he has his troop of apprentices and sorcerers. I was an apprentice of Castaneda who was an apprentice of don Juan. I am one of the “sisters” who were actually of the women of Florinda, and she gave me her name. So, in that sense,’ it is a living myth.

A B E: The myth of the Nagual is that there is an unbroken lineage from the ancient Toltec’s right down to modern times. Can I get you to talk about what the pattern of the myth actually is?

Florinda. D: Well, there is no pattern to the myth. That’s why the whole thing is so baffling and so difficult. When I first got involved with these people my main quest, my main aberration, which I came to call it later, was that I wanted to have some rules and regulations about what the hell it is I had to do. There were none. There is no blueprint, because each new group has to find their own way to deal with this idea of trying to break the barriers of perception. The only way we can break the barriers of perception, according to don Juan, is to cultivate energy. Our energy is already deployed in the world to present the idea of self—what we are and who we want to be perceived as. Don Juan says 90% of our energy is deployed in doing that and therefore nothing new can come to us. There’s nothing open to us, because no matter how “egoless” we are, or we pretend to be, or we want to believe we are, we are not. Even with, let’s say, “Enlightened” people, or gurus that I have met—at one time Carlos Castaneda was- going around trying to meet gurus—the ego of those people was gigantic in terms of how they wanted to be perceived in the world. And that’s, according to don Juan, exactly what kills us. Nothing is open to us anymore.

A B E: A real Nagual, a real seer, wouldn’t care how the world perceives them, particularly, would they?

Florinda. D: No, they don’t. But they still have to fight it. Castaneda has been at this for thirty years. I’ve been at this for over twenty years, and it’s ongoing; it doesn’t stop.

A B E: You use the language of the warrior. What’s the nature of the battle? Who are you fighting?

Florinda. D: The self. It’s not even the self; it’s an idea of the self, because if we really get below the surface, we don’t know what it is. But it is possible to curtail this idea, this bombastic idea we have of the self. Because whether it’s a negative idea or a positive idea doesn’t really matter. The energy employed to see that idea is the same.

A B E: There’s tremendous emphasis in this tradition on overcoming what is called self-importance. -

Florinda. D: That’s the main battle, to shut off our internal dialogue. Because even if we are alone, we are still constantly talking to ourselves. That internal dialogue never stops. And what does the internal dialogue do? It always justifies itself, no matter what. We replay things, events, what we could have said or could have done what we feel or don’t feel. The emphasis is always on “me.” We’re constantly spouting this mantra—”me... me .me”—silently or verbally.

A B E: So, an opening emerges when.

Florinda. D: When that dialogue shuts off. Automatically. We don’t have to do anything. And the reason people reject Castaneda as not true is because it’s too simple. But its sheer simplicity makes it the hardest thing there is to do. There are about six people in our world engaged in the same / pursuit. And the difficulty we all have is in totally shutting off that internal dialogue. It’s fine if we’re not threatened. But when certain buttons are pushed, our reactions are so ingrained in its that it’s so easy to fall back on automatic pilot. You see, there’s one great exercise that don Juan prescribes—the idea of recapitulation. The idea is that you recapitulate your life, basically. But it’s not a psychological recapitulation. You want to bring back to yourself the energy you left in all the interactions you’ve had with people throughout your life. You start from the present moment and you go backwards in time. But if you really do a good recapitulation, you discover, by the time you are three or four years old, that you have learned all your reactions already. Then we become more sophisticated, we can hide them better. But basically the pattern has already been established of how we’re going to interact with the world and with our fellow human beings.

A B E: So the human being travels the path of the “Tonal,” or the world of the social person. But this other world, this other opening, is something that has apparently always been there.

Florinda. D: Yes, it’s always there. Nobody really wants to tap into it, or people think they want to tap into it, but as don Juan pointed out, the seeker is usually involved in something false, because a person who seeks already knows what he’s seeking. The disappointment that so many people who are “seekers” have with Castaneda is they have already made up their mind how things should be. So they’re not open.

A B E: My version of that is that I’m interested in self-realization, not self improvement. I’m not concerned with whether or not what I turn out to be in the process of realization is something nice and spiritual and acceptable, because it’s going to contain elements of madness as well as everything else.

Florinda. D: Exactly. -

A B E: But this is a very deeply disturbing idea for most people.

Florinda. D: It is, definitely. You see, we believe in this idea that we are basically energetic beings. Don Juan said everything hinges on how much energy we have. Even to fight the idea f the self requires an enormous amount of energy. And we move always to the easiest path. We go back to what we know, even we who have been involved in this for so long. It would be a lot easier just to say, “Oh, to hell with it, I’m just going to indulge a little bit.” But the thing is, that little bit of indulging would plunge you right back to point zero again.

A B E: Except for one thing that we both know, Florinda, which is this: that once you pass a certain point within yourself, if you have reached that silence, I believe, even for one moment, if it’s real...

Florinda. D: . . . you can’t stop it. Exactly. But to reach this moment of silence you need the energy. You can reach what don Juan calls this momentary pause, this cubic centimeter of chance, and you can “stop the world” immediately. If a critical mass of people could arrive at that feeling or at that knowledge, we could really change things in the world. The reason nothing can change is because we’re not willing to change ourselves, whether because of our attachment to political dogma, economic or social issues, whatever. What the hell is the whole thing with the rain forest and the environment at the moment? flow can we expect someone to change if we’re not willing to change ourselves? The change is phony; it is a restructuring or replaying of the pieces. Basically we are predatory beings, you see. That hasn’t changed in us. We could use that predatory energy to alter our course, but we’re not willing to change ourselves.

A B E: Now, in the myth, the individual seer and/or Nagual is selected by providence, the unknown, the ineffable.

Florinda. D : Yes. Carlos has been “tapped” energetically. In terms of energetic configuration some people are energetically different. They call Carlos a three-pronged Nagual; don Juan was a four-pronged Nagual. So what does that really entail? Basically, they have more energy than the rest of the group, and that’s something very curious. Why the hell him, or why, for instance, are always the men Naguals? We have women Naguals in the lineage, but the men have more energy, the ones that have been selected so far at least. They’re not better. There were people in don Juan’s world who were infinitely more spiritual, better prepared, men of greater knowledge, it didn’t make any difference. It is not that Carlos is more or less than somebody else. It’s just that he has that energy to lead.

A B E: And he can give of that energy, too, give somebody a boost.

Florinda. D: We draw from that energy, yes. But it is more that he has the energy, if nothing else, not to become what the world presents. For instance,—the worldly goodies that have been presented to Castaneda are unbelievable. But he has never wavered from his path. If I had been put in that position for that many years, I could not honestly say that I would have been so impeccable. And you see, for that you need energy. That’s when you need whoever is then the leader of the group to point out that way. If somebody else who didn’t have the energy had been the Nagual, he would have succumbed.

A B E: Can a Nagual succumb and then recover?

Florinda. D: No. There is no chance.

ABE: Why is that?

Florinda. D: Go back to the myth. The Eagle flies in a straight line. It doesn’t turn around.

A B E: So, the Nagual works in different ways to fulfill the unfolding of the myth.

Florinda. D: Don Juan had more people behind him. Energetically he had a larger mass, so he could practically pluck you out and put you someplace. Carlos will not do that. For him, whoever he is working with— there are six of us—it’s a matter of decision. That’s all. Our decision is all that counts, nothing else; He will not cajole us; he will not beg; he will not tell us what to do. We have to know. Having been exposed to this for so long, having been with don Juan, any way that we can try to walk on this path has to be enough for him.

A B E: Different Naguals work in different ways. I’ve heard Castaneda described as the Nagual of stalkers.

Florinda. D: Yes, but I would say... I don’t know.., he’s a dreamer.

A B E: Yes, that emerges, too. Could you talk about dreaming?

Florinda. D: What is this idea of dreaming, dreaming and being awake? It’s a different state. It’s not that you’re zonked out. No, you are totally normal and coherent, but something in you plays energetically on a different level.

A B E: There is something in your eyes, too, something in your eyes that is able to learn to look at two worlds simultaneously.

Florinda. D: Exactly. And again the idea is that you have collapsed the barrier of perception. Whatever we perceive has been defined for us by the social order. Intellectually we are willing to accept that perception is culturally defined, but we will not accept it on any other level. But it’s absurd, because it exists on another level. And I can only say, because I’ve been involved with these people—and certainly I’m also in the world—that it is possible to see on those two levels, and to be totally coherent and impeccable in

A B E: In the book Being-in-Dreaming you talk about how women are actually enslaved by their attachment to the sexuality of men.

Florinda. D: Definitely. First of all, to me, one of the most shocking things which I denied and refused to believe for quite some time was this idea of the fog created by sexual intercourse. They went even further to explain that basically what goes on is that when we have sexual intercourse, when the male ejaculates, not only do we get the semen, but in that moment of energetic outburst, what really happens is that what don Juan calls ‘ worms” or filaments are passed into the woman. And those filaments stay in the body for a long time. From a biological point of view, those filaments ensure that the male returns to the same female and takes care of the offspring. The male will, at a totally energetic level, recognize that it is his offspring by their filaments.

A B E: What is the exchange of energy in sexual intercourse?

Florinda. D: She feeds the man energetically. Don Juan believes that women are the cornerstone for perpetuating the human species. The bulk of that energy comes from the woman, not only to gestate, to give birth, and nourish her offspring, but also to ensure the male’s place in the whole process.

A B E: So, the woman is enslaved, then, by this fog. How does she release herself?

Florinda. D: If we talk about it from a biological point of view, is she enslaved? The sorcerers say yes, in the sense that she always views herself through the male. She has no option. I used to be excruciatingly mad about this whole discussion. I used to go over and over it with them, especially because this was in the early seventies when the women’s movement was at its peak. And I said, “No, women have come a long way. Look at what they have accomplished,” and they said, “No, they haven’t accomplished anything.” They said that for women to be liberated sexually, in a way, enslaved them even more, because suddenly they were feeding energetically not just one male, but many males They were not prudes, and they were not interested in morality. They were only interested in energy.

A B E : That’s interesting..

Florinda. D: So, for them, it was absurd, and don Juan foresaw in the seventies what is happening now. He said that women were going to dive down on their noses, were going to be weakened. And they are. The few women I’ve talked to at my lectures and during the writing of my books agree. I thought I would have a great deal of difficulty with this subject, but especially women who have gone through the process of having multiple lovers said they were exhausted arid they didn’t know why.

A B E: So we are talking about something beyond the sexual.

Florinda. D: Beyond the sexual aspect, the female womb ensures that the woman is the one who is closest to the spirit in this process of approaching knowledge “being-in-dreaming.” The man cones upward, and by the sheer definition of the cone, it comes to a finite end. He strives because he is not close to the spirit, or whatever we want to call that great energetic force out there. According to the sorcerers, the woman is exactly the opposite. The cone is upside down. They have a direct link with it because the womb for the sorcerer is not just an organ of reproduction; it is an organ for dreams, a second brain.

ABE: Or heart.

Florinda. D: Or heart. And it does apprehend knowledge directly. Yet We have never been allowed to define what knowledge is in our society or in any society. And when women do create or help to formulate a body of knowledge, it has to be done in male terms. Let’s say a woman does research. If she does not abide by the rules already established by the male consensus, she won’t be published. She can deviate slightly, but always within that same matrix. It is not allowed for women to do anything else.

A B E: So the sorceress is removed from the hypnotism of all of that.

Florinda. D: On the social level, yes. It’s very interesting that you mention the idea of hypnotism, because don Juan always said that when psychology produced Mesmer and Freud we were too passive. We are mesmeric beings. We never really developed that other path.

A B E: Yes. The path of energy.

Florinda. D: And this would never have happened to us if Freud hadn’t attained the upper hand.

A B E: Well, he’s lost it now.

Florinda. D: No, not really, because who knows how many generations it takes to change something so deeply ingrained? He may be discredited intellectually, but people who don’t even know who Freud is still talk in those terms. It’s part of our language, our culture.

A B E: Yes, I know. It’s very frustrating dealing with people who approach the whole of reality from this hackneyed psychological viewpoint.

Florinda. D: Yes. And they don’t even know where it comes from. It’s part of our cultural baggage.

A B E: So the sorceress is freed from this condition.

Florinda. D: Well, free in the sense that once you see that the social order really is an agreement, then at least you are more cautious in accepting it. People say, “Oh, but look how different life is from your grandmother’s or mother’s time.” I say that it’s not. It’s only different in degree. But nothing is fundamentally different. If I would have lived my life the way it had been established for me—yes, I was more educated, I had a better chance—I still would have ended up the same way many do: married, frustrated, with children that by now I would probably hate, or who would hate me.

A B E: What occurs now that you’ve realized that there is that thralldom and you begin to free yourself from it? What is it that opens up to perception?

Florinda. D: Everything. First of all, in your dreams you can “see.” For instance, my work is done in dreaming.

A B E : Now you’re using the word dreaming in a very specific sense as understood in this tradition. Can you talk about what dreaming actually is?

Florinda. D: In the traditional sense, when we fall asleep, as soon as we start entering a dream, in that moment when we’re half awake and half asleep, we know from Castaneda’s work that the assemblage point flutters, it starts shifting, and what the sorcerer wants to do is that he wants to use that natural shift to move into other realms. And for that we need an exquisite energy. We need an extraordinary amount of energy because we want to be conscious of that moment and use it without waking up.

A B E: Yes, a very high accomplishment.

Florinda. D: For me, it’s very easy to enter, to use it. The thing is, I had no control at that time—although I have now—over when it was going to happen. But I could enter into this state of what they would call the “second attention” or “dreaming awake.” And you can reach different levels. What happens is that in that dreaming state eventually you have the same control you have in your daily life. And that’s exactly what the sorcerers do.

A B E: So you are now able to exist in another reality?

Florinda. D: Well, I don’t really know. You see, we don’t have the language to talk about it, except in known terms. So in a weird way, when I ask myself, Do I exist in another reality? I have to say yes and no, because it is all one reality, there is no difference. Let’s say there are different layers, like an onion. But it’s all the same. So how am I going to talk about it? In metaphors? Our metaphors are already so defined by what we already know.

A B E: Yes, the problem of language.

Florinda. D: But it is as real as any other reality. What is reality? It is, again, a consensus, and it all hinges on energy.

A B E: That’s right. But it also hinges on something called “Intent.”

Florinda. D: Exactly. “Intent” is out there, it’s this force. Don Juan was not interested in religion, but in a weird way maybe “Intent” is exactly what we call God, the supreme being, the one force, the Spirit. You see, each culture knows what it is. Don Juan said you don’t beg for it, you ask. And in order to ask for it, you need energy. Not only do you need energy to hook yourself onto it, but you want to stay hooked.

A B E: This idea of “Intent” is easy to talk about, but it’s actually quite a complex operation, isn’t it?

Florinda. D: Yes, exactly, very complex. For don Juan and his people, sorcery is an abstraction, and it is based on this idea of expanding the limits of perception. For them, our choices in life are limited by the social order. We have boundless options, but by accepting these choices, of course, we set
a limit to our limitless possibilities.

A B E : And yet the human being seems...

Florinda. D: * . . . constantly to be searching for that which has been lost or caged in by the social order. They put blinds on us the’ moment we are born. Look at the way we coerce the child to perceive the way we perceive.

A B E: Yes, the transmission of culture.

Florinda. D: It’s the most perfect example. Children truly perceive more, obviously, a great deal more. But they have to make some order out of that chaos, and we, of course, are the perennial teachers of what is proper to perceive within our group. And if they don’t abide by that, my god, we shoot them with drugs, or lock them up in therapy with psychiatrists.

A B E: There have been these traditions, which have existed for a long, long time, and now in the last twenty or thirty years in particular we start to hear about them. Why did Castaneda write his books?

Florinda. D: Writing those books was a sorceric task that don Juan impressed upon him. For our mentality as the Western ape, as don Juan always called us, we have to be hooked first intellectually, because that’s how our whole being works.

A B E: So, the knowledge is made available to millions of people, and people become hooked by it. And does that mean that the tradition has now begun to proliferate itself in that way, also?

Florinda. D: I don’t know. If I go by Castaneda’s mail, which he doesn’t read, I would say yes. But I open letters from time to time, and they’re mad, they’re crackpots most of them. Some of them are very, very serious inquiries,, but most of them are just truly cracked people. [ Like, “I am the new Nagual,” or “I have been visited by you in dreams.”

A B E: Well, there are many levels to that, as you know. But I think that the whole Castaneda reality has actually affected the mass collective consciousness of, particularly, North America.

Florinda. D: It is as you say. The work is out there. There’s a great many people reading it. And some people are truly very serious about it.

A B E: Some of them are people who are non-Natives who have become involved in Native spirituality. And in a way, the work that has come from your group has had a tremendous quickening effect on Native spiritualities all over this continent, who have found a track back into their traditions.

Florinda. D: You see, the whole point of don Juan was that you don’t go back, because we get caught again in the myth and the rituals. Don Juan said that originally a ritual is only to hook your attention. Once your attention is hooked, you drop it. As the apes that we are, we of course are very comforted by the ritual. People that truly transcend a certain knowledge do it by exactly getting out of it. Yet the rest of the mass is mesmerized by the ritual.

A B E: Castaneda describes you as the new seers. What does this mean for you?

Florinda. D: The new seers? For the women, it is very important, this idea that the womb is not just an organ of reproduction. In order to activate this, our intent has to be different. In order to change our intent, we go back again to energy. You see, we don’t really know what it means to use the womb as an organ for being, an organ -of light, of intuition. For us, intuition really is something that has already been defined. There is no real intuition anymore because we intuit with our brains. Don Juan was interested in
- women, and people always ask, “How come there’s always so many women? Do you have orgies?” He said, “No, it’s because the male doesn’t have the womb.
He needs that magical “womb power” [ It’s very important, you see.

A B E: Let me ask some technical questions there, if I may, on behalf of our female readers. Does the womb have to be fully functioning? I mean, if a woman had her tubes tied, would her womb still work?

Florinda. D: Yes, as long as she doesn’t have a hysterectomy.

A B E: So long as the womb isn’t removed.

Florinda. D: Yes. The only thing is you need to summon that intent. I was talking to some women a month ago, and they were all in goddess groups. Every month they go into the forest; they go up to Sequoia or someplace and they groove in the forest, among the trees, and oh, they have a great time hanging out, debating making rituals in the river. And I said to them, “But what the flower are you doing? You go back home, and then you are the same assholes you were before. You open your legs whenever the master says, ‘I need you.’” And they were shocked. I mean, they quite disliked me because they don’t like to hear that. They said, “But we felt so good for three days.” And I said, “What’s the point of feeling good for three days if your life
continues the same way?” What are we resting from? Why don’t we change? The idea of these rituals and even going back to the Native beliefs—well, it didn’t even work back then, on one level. We were conquered.

A B E: So it’s something that has to live now in a completely authentic way.

Florinda. D: It has to be fluid, and the practitioner has to be fluid to accept these changes. Even within us, things are changing constantly, and we’re so comfortable in a certain groove until something blasts us out of it. And we resent it. But we have to be fluid, and only energy will give us that fluidity.

A B E: How do you accumulate energy?

Florinda. D: To start off with, at least at the beginning, it was don Juan’s idea that the best energy that we have is our sexual energy. It’s the only energy that we really have, and most of our sexual energy is squandered.

A B E: Is it the same for men and women both?

Florinda. D: Of course it’s the same for men and women. The only difference is that with women you see that energetically the woman takes on the burden of feeding the man through her energetic filaments. So, in that sense, it’s worse for women, and for the man, too, because the man is hooked. Energetically he is hooked, no matter what. And we have all kinds of psychological explanations for this to do with the people we’ve had affairs with, or our obsession with certain relationships, or whatever. You see, we have this gray barrage of psychological description, but what really is going on is on a totally different level, a level that we don’t want to talk about because it’s not part of our cultural kit.

A B E: So the primary way of accumulating energy is to be celibate?

Florinda. D: Well, it’s very difficult, but it would be a good start.

A B E: If a person was called to this path, that is if they got “hooked,” how would they know that they had been hooked by a tradition and not just by some damn obsession?

Florinda. D: You will know that something has changed because you will feel it energetically. And you know that you are not part of the social agreement. You see, if you let something go, something in you will know.

A B E: These books that you and others have written are affecting a change in the way people perceive themselves.

Florinda. D: Yes. Basically the goal is realizing how we perceive the world and ourselves, and breaking those parameters of perception. But we don’t want to focus on the “I.” We want to be a witness. Because everything in our society is filtered through the “I,” through the ‘me,” we are incapable ( of telling a story or recounting an event without making ourselves the main protagonist. You see, don Juan was interested in letting the event unfold itself, and then it becomes infinitely richer, because then it opens up. And I even in the world, as an exercise, just become a witness. Stop being the protagonist and it’s amazing what opens up.

A B E: Now, on this long path, one of the things that’s described in the Castaneda literature is that the person, the seer and the Nagual, everybody, will reach a period of despondency, where they’re sure it’s going to fail. And the reason I raise this is because I have a sense that this feeling is actually being shared
by many people now.

Florinda. D: I’m going to add to your depression. [laughter]  It is true. Something in us knows, and that’s why there’s the urgency with don Juan. The imperative from the point of view of Nature, is the perpetuation of the species, and we are no longer interested. We are interested in evolution, because evolution is an equal, if not a greater, imperative than procreation. If we don’t evolve, if we don’t mutate into something different, we are truly going to blast ourselves out of this planet, I think irredeemably. We have destroyed our resources. Whether we have fifty or a hundred more years in a terms of time, as a planet, is immaterial. It doesn’t really matter. We as a species are doomed. And in that sense, evolution is our only way out. And as
don Juan stresses, evolution is in the hands of women, not of men.

A B E: So, as a male, what do I do? I just sit here and wait for women to save the world?

Florinda. D: Yes and no. You see, the man has to relinquish his power, and he’s not going to do it, not peacefully. I not saying that, you know, you’re beating your chest, saying, “I will not relinquish my power!” No, it’s much more insidious than that. For instance, here are these sensitive men who have been in men’s groups, trying to come to terms with their spirituality, and who have moved into a place of total agreement with their wives, or the female they are with... but not quite. There are certain things they will not relinquish because it’s too threatening. This whole idea of the men’s movement originally started out as a truly spiritual movement. But something in the male is threatened. There is this fear of relinquishing something that will have to be relinquished for us as a species to go on. We certainly know that the female has to be given time for something to evolve. For instance, for us to become erect, when the vagina had to change position, well, who had to adapt? The males. The penis had to grow larger. Well, the female again needs time. And the male has to give her that time. From one point of view the male has to give the female time for the womb to try to switch into its secondary function. There have to be enough females who have that time so that something will change in the womb. They have to dream a new possibility. Don Juan said our evolution is Intent. You see, that leap from the large crawling reptiles to flying creatures, this idea of wings, was intended. It was an act of Intent.

A B E: That’s very interesting. So you feel that women all over the world currently, sisterhoods of different kinds, are intending a new human future?

Florinda. D: They’re not aware of it although some women, I think, are.

A B E: And the man is now going to take a backseat in the evolution of the
species?

Florinda. D: Not a backseat, really. Again, those are words that suggest a positive/negative kind of connotation. No. It’s more that you have to provide the time.

A B E: How can the man do that? Talk about that functionally.

Florinda. D: You see, we women are relegated to the status of second class citizens. No matter what power we attain, we still don’t have any real power. We don’t decide anything. And even for us to talk in little groups is almost like banging against a huge iron door, because whoever decides, whoever’s in power, is not going to relinquish this for the hell of it. Do you think for a moment those men in Washington or Ottawa are going to even listen to what we’re saying? Not in the least. But some kinds of pockets have to be found for something new to develop. Otherwise we’re doomed. And in terms of this idea of saving the planet, the environment, well, all we are really thinking is that we as a species will not survive. The Earth will certainly survive; it might go into some kind of horrendous winter, but eventually it will come out of it. But we as a species will not survive.
 

Copyright © A. Blair-Ewart 1995-2003.

http://www.spiritualrealist.com/MINDFIRE/CASTANEDA%20FLORINDA%20INT%201.asp

~Posted because I still find this interesting, especially her thesis that women are still enslaved by men.

[erismoksha]

The only thing is you need to summon that intent. I was talking to some women a month ago, and they were all in goddess groups. Every month they go into the forest; they go up to Sequoia or someplace and they groove in the forest, among the trees, and oh, they have a great time hanging out, debating making rituals in the river. And I said to them, “But what the flower are you doing? You go back home, and then you are the same assholes you were before. You open your legs whenever the master says, ‘I need you.’” And they were shocked. I mean, they quite disliked me because they don’t like to hear that. They said, “But we felt so good for three days.” And I said, “What’s the point of feeling good for three days if your life

continues the same way?” What are we resting from? Why don’t we change? The idea of these rituals and even going back to the Native beliefs—well, it didn’t even work back then, on one level. We were conquered.

The sad truth is that Flo Do, attacked those women with such hostility, because in truth, she was doing the same thing. She would return to the master "Carlos" and flower him whenever he wanted. She was one of the 'witches,' and sadly, conformed.

Carol Tiggs, inhereted Carlos's vanity, Flo Do, inherited his brutality, and meanness, such as when he would verbally and emotionally abuse folks, mainly women, but call it all a 'technique' of 'losing self importance.'

Just as he gave the women 'names' part of 'losing the human form,'

In reality tho, allowed themselves to be given names, by a master.

Like a master names a dog.

Taisha, out of those three, was probably the only one who hadn't diseased herself, at least as badly. Known for being a tad nicer, but sadly, she still got more sucked in toward the end.

However, still Taisha was an excellent stalker and there is value in her work on recapitulation.

[nichi]

when he would verbally and emotionally abuse folks, mainly women, but call it all a 'technique' of 'losing self importance.'

That's a keen observation, Eris.. One sees that ploy a lot in the Internet Toltec culture. Abuse, pure and simple.

[nichi]

There's an interview with Taisha on that site too... it's interesting, maybe I'll put it up.

I've always been more attracted to Florinda, though ... can't say why exactly. It's an intuitive thing.

The details which came about upon the release of Amy Wallace's book and the apparent suicide of the Blue Scout were disappointing to me. I'm the first to be jaded and cynical about "men" per se, per my own re'ship travels, but still,  have to admit surprise at the whole sordid business of CC's "compound", etc. 'Disappointed' I was because it was all so predictable.

Those dynamics aside, I have always been skeptical of the truth in the story about Carol Tiggs. Her disappearance, her return as the one whom the Tenant was inhabiting --- all of that I just couldn't believe, and it seemed a convenient rewrite for the sake of his Cleargreen/tensegrity enterprise.  In that respect, it always struck me that the witches' and CC's connection to each other was also a kind of complicity.

Anyway, one of the things I do like about Florinda is that she has a body of work independent of her connection to CC.

The rumor is that the 3 of them went into the desert and committed suicide. That would certainly be the ultimate self-denial. But I'm hoping that 10 years from now, one of them will emerge, revealing herself as alive and well, singing the praises of LaGorda!  ~My own ending to the story.

[Zamurito]

Interesting,

CC just visited me via gnostic meditation and said they are all 'A-Ok!'

What was funny though is that they were all smoking on a hookah pipe.

Wait, wait......

Oops, sorry.........

It was Jim Morrison of The Doors...........

z

[nichi]

 

[nichi]

In reality tho, allowed themselves to be given names, by a master.

Like a master names a dog.

I don't why but I find myself chuckling about this. It reminds me of a saying from the "bondage and domination" culture, which I found to be true: "The master becomes slave to the slave."

So I'm picturing the "mighty" CC, naming all these women and requiring of them to get their hair cut off in a short, blonde bob -- sounds bad, but the comic reality of that really had to be that he had no peace at all. None of these women were the quiet types. I suspect ... they ruled, in the end. Nay, they probably drove him mad. There is justice, after all.

But maybe I'm doing my own rewrite again.

[Quantum Shaman]

Hi, Vicki.

I see the copyright notation, but do you happen to know in what year the interview was actually conducted?

Much as it might surprise some folks, I'm not really up on my Toltec who's who.  *LOL*  Does anyone know if Florida is still on this Earth, or did she actually disappear shortly after Carlos allegedly died?

[nichi]

Hi, Vicki.

I see the copyright notation, but do you happen to know in what year the interview was actually conducted?

Much as it might surprise some folks, I'm not really up on my Toltec who's who.  *LOL*  Does anyone know if Florida is still on this Earth, or did she actually disappear shortly after Carlos allegedly died?

Interestingly, Alexander does not have a date posted on this interview. The copyright states: 1995-2003.

CC died in '98, I believe ... that would seem to put this interview somewhere between 95-98?

"The three" witches allegedly left the compound after CC's death and before the Blue Scout's departure, which, as the story goes, was a day or 2 after.  Supposedly .. Blue Scout was looking for them in the desert before she herself laid down and eventually perished.

But it's all conjecture, really. To my knowledge, none of them have been sighted or have made public statements since CC's death.

[nichi]

I take that back. .. I read rumors a while back that they were sighted in Cuba.

[nichi]

Which reminds me .. I'm cleaning out my graphic files on my old computer, in anticipation of getting a new one online.
Here's a picture of the Blue Scout I snagged somewhere along the line...
She looks very "Heaven's Gate"-ish to me.

[Quantum Shaman]

Thanks for the updates, Vicki.  That' pretty much coincides with what I had heard as well. 

[Angela]

There is no blueprint, because each new group has to find their own way to deal with this idea of trying to break the barriers of perception.

This jumped right off the page at me...instead of hanging on to our "blueprints" of what we think is "IT", maybe try evolving a little "outside the box"...welcome others ideas, instead of condemning due to our "blueprint thinking".  We each have a path that we totally create.  If we are not creating and evolving, we are stagnant.  This is true in All worlds, spiritual and non-spiritual.  Barriers will never be broken by regurgitating "the blueprint"...it belonged to someone else...create your own and change will naturally occur.

[Michael]

Yes Ang, you are absolutely correct. Although it also wise to keep an eye on previous solutions.

I have only got through half of that interview, but it looks good to me. Ellen had been reading that book by Ami whoever, and I have also skimmed some of it - not a pleasant read really, but there you go. Generally I felt Florinda had a better vibe than some of the others, and I like what she is saying so far as I read this interview.

[daphne]

Florinda. D: I’m going to add to your depression. [laughter]  It is true. Something in us knows, and that’s why there’s the urgency with don Juan. The imperative from the point of view of Nature, is the perpetuation of the species, and we are no longer interested. We are interested in evolution, because evolution is an equal, if not a greater, imperative than procreation. If we don’t evolve, if we don’t mutate into something different, we are truly going to blast ourselves out of this planet, I think irredeemably. We have destroyed our resources. Whether we have fifty or a hundred more years in a terms of time, as a planet, is immaterial. It doesn’t really matter. We as a species are doomed. And in that sense, evolution is our only way out. And as
don Juan stresses, evolution is in the hands of women, not of men.

I found this part interesting..  the "evolution" part..  don't know that I agree with her conclusions re the male/female roles,  but I do feel a sense of almost urgency of evolution (though even that doesn't really describe it) I find it also interesting that using other words, it could very well be the same as that inherent in many of the "mystery" paths; from the getting out of the cycle of birth death and rebirth to the abstract of worlds and realms beyond. I have this multidimensional 'image' to 'evolution'; a pattern unfolding.