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 it 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 be
a 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 inure 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 of 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 grasses, 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 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 he 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 be enough to provide a beneficial jolt without
any profound or deleterious effects.
Don Juan explained that the sorcerers of his lineage, at a given moment,
allowed males to practice these magical passes because of the possibility
that the energy engendered by them would awaken the secondary function
of the male sexual organs. He said that those sorcerers considered that
the secondary function of the male sexual organs is not at all similar
to that of the womb; no interpretation of sensory data can take place because
the male sexual organs hang outside of the cavity of the body. Because
of these particular circumstances, their conclusion was that the secondary
function of the male organs is something which they termed evolutionary
support: a sort of springboard that catapults men to perform extraordinary
feats of what sorcerers of ancient Mexico called unbending intent,
or clearheaded purpose and concentration.
The Series for the Womb is divided into four sections which correspond
to the three female disciples of don Juan Matus: Taisha Abelar, Florinda
Donner-Grau, and Carol Tiggs; and to the Blue Scout, who was born into
don Juan's world. The first is composed of three magical passes belonging
to Taisha Abelar; the second is composed of one magical pass directly related
to Florinda Donner-Grau; the third, of three magical passes that have to
do exclusively with Carol Tiggs; and the fourth, of five magical passes
that belong to the Blue Scout. The magical passes of each section are pertinent
to a specific type of individual. Tensegrity has rendered them capable
of being utilized by anybody, although they are still slanted in the direction
of the type of person that each of those four women is.
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