I arrived at Earl's Court in London for the first of five weekly sessions that would comprise a course in Toltec Sorcery. I was surrounded by the buzz of London on a busy Saturday, and I was there to meet a modern day sorcerer, who would teach us what he knows.

In the 1960's, an anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda, began an apprenticeship with Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan Matus. Eleven books tell his story. Damian has applied the skills of NLP modelling to these, and two other texts, written by female apprentices Florinda Donner Grau and Taisha Abelar. From that, this unique was produced, sorcery approached from an NLP perspective, and particularly a New Code perspective.

After an introduction and overview, the first session covered, amongst other things, the area of Not Doing. Not Doing in sorcery refers to 'not doing' habitual actions and patterns of behaviour, doing something else instead, in order to expand possibilities and flexibility. As part of Not Doing, each participant was invited to attend the course
as someone else, the Not Doing of who you believe you are. This related to occupation, name, style of dress, behaviour, and anything else the person wanted to explore. It produced some very interesting results among the participants, particularly in terms of behaviour and items of clothing worn. Going around the room, each person introduced the character they had come as. Finally, Damian, with absolute congruence, introduced who he was going to be for the day - a Grigori Angel. The introduction was so congruent that the moment, for me, was less jaw dropping than it otherwise might have been.

A woman asked him "Can I see your wings then?"
Damian's face betrayed nothing, as he slowly turned to her. "Of course you can see my wings" he told her (gesturing to include the whole group) "We'll do that today."

Later, the whole group left the venue to do exercises outside, the Walk of Power and Grace, Stopping the World and Active Dreaming. This lead some people to regret their clothing choices. During Stopping the World, the foundation state for all sorcery practices, Damian, who was walking at the front of the group, offered to show us the wings, and described in detail his unfurling of them. I was expecting nothing to happen, I still had some internal dialogue, and was suppressing a smile. However, the events that followed came as a suprise to the whole group. A privacy agreement amongst the group prevents me describing exactly what happened, but I can say that it is one thing to accept intellectually the possibility of visual hallucination in trance, yet quite another to actually experience such an event. The whole thing raised questions over what constitutes proof, and the nature of reality, questions very relevant to sorcery. What proof would determine a 'genuine' Grigori angel, when compared to someone who makes this claim falsely?

Not Doing homework was set at the end. This involved doing five things you regularly do, differently, and doing five things you would not normally do.

Before the second session, I wasn't sure whether Damian could still take things to another level. I was wrong. Each session took things to a new level.

This session covered the principles and precepts of sorcery, Stalking, and the way in which we percieve and then construct our own reality. Much was covered in metaphor; Damian is great at hypnotic metaphor, and hypnotic conversations. It can be difficult to sit opposite him, and look at him as he talks, without noticing changes in your own state.

There are two predilections of sorcerers, Stalking and Dreaming. One of the Stalking exercises involved participants stalking a part of themselves, or another person with whom they had an issue. Another was an exercise on Petty Tyrants, and how they can best be utilised. A lot of New Code material was involved, with Damian's developments to the New Code also being used.

Much of this session addressed the mystery of the Assemblage point, the model of the world we uphold and experience, and how even small shifts in this can massively change our personal reality. There was an exercise, Three points of Attention, which produced dramatic results for a lot of people, certainly for me, with hallucinations in every modality occuring around the group. Even in normal states of conciousness, it was hard not to be overly imaginative about what was seen, and what actually occurred in that room.

Over the sessions that followed, the limitations imposed by the social contract and personal history were discussed and explored, as well as the idea of Death as an Advisor. All of the capabilities of sorcerers are derived from the unconscious, and unconscious abilities are developed in sorcery, far beyond what occurs in NLP.

The third session dealt with the Toltec process known as the Recapitulation, a process involving reviewing life events in a detatched way, and reclaiming the energy and emotion still trapped in those contexts. In many cases it can be understood how multiple life incidents over many years are really just repititions of the same story or life event.

Dreaming was the main focus of the fourth session, with its processes, methodology and practical applications being explored, as well as a whole variety of teachings for the unconscious hidden in metaphor.

The final session was aimed at integrating all material learned, forming it into a matrix of intellectual and practical understanding. So much happened, and is still happening, and there is far more to this course and to Toltec Sorcery than the limited comments I can make here.

Upon completion of the workshop, the oppurtunity is presented to commence a nine month practice period, with structured daily activities and written work to cover the practical and conceptual aspects of Toltec Sorcery. If established criteria are met, an invitation to participate in the Dreaming Cell, a group who meet to explore and develop sorcery, is issued.

At the beginning, I wasn't sure how Damian could make this work. Modelling thirteen books into a five session, or three day course, isn't a straightforward task, but Damian did a brilliant job, and the whole course worked really well.

Great material, great people, and great results.

email - damiansinclair@opensentience.com

An interesting post

I've learned from Castenada's books, especially when I applied NLP filters to them. And I've continued to learn about Castaneda himself, who in the tradition of many tricksters, was not always known for telling the truth. In particular, the question of whether Don Juan existed or not. http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2.../12/castaneda/ is a fascinating article about Castenada and his legacy. Please note I don't include this link to debunk the notion of Toltec sorcery out of hand, since I do believe there is material of value in the Castenada canon: the article makes many interesting things clear that are worth knowing if this is something you want to investigate further.

Very interesting Sam, and yet my bullshitometer is tingling!

I'm intrigued with TS to; am unclear what 'real' benefits it offers

Can you tell us more about the privacy stuff - where Damien whipped out is wings?
Tat sounds very cool - and of course veru weird!
It sounds like is was a kool time - and thanks for the review.

What is shamansm/sorcery like compared with the mainstream religions?

From a new code perspective, I find this stuff very interesting indeed.

I've previously read a bunch of Damian's posts on the NLP Academy forums. At first I had my own bullshit filters up, but then I began to appreciate the way Damian was artfully weaving quite a lot of new code into a TS framework.

Sounds like this could be a very neat three day experience, if facilitated well - even if the woo-woo mystification stuff doesn't really gel well with me.

Cheers,

James

Hi everyone,

First I'd like to say thanks for all your comments.

Adrian, thanks for suggesting the article, good to look at various perspectives on something. Get back to you.

James, It was a great experience for me personally, and I feel I learned a lot from it, new perspectives and all that.

Al, Two people mention bullshit here, ok, the meaning of your communication is the response you get. Perhaps it comes over enthusiastic, I write about the experiences of the course, and probably write from that state. It was a kool time.:cool:

That said, you raise some important questions, made me think about it. One benefit for me was developing and exploring unconscious abilities, some great ones I didn't know I had.

All the best for now,
Sam

james_t wrote:

At first I had my own bullshit filters up, but then I began to appreciate the way Damian was artfully weaving quite a lot of new code into a TS framework.

In your perception, does the TS approach add anything to New Code, or is it essentially a framework through which to experience it? If you were able to set aside your understanding of New Code/NLP generally, do you believe the TS approach would add to your capabilities, or present problems...and if so, what might they be?

adrian r wrote:

In your perception, does the TS approach add anything to New Code, or is it essentially a framework through which to experience it?

To appreciate new code, I believe you really need to experience it - and I suspect the same is likely to be the case with TS. So ... without having experienced TS first hand, I'm not willing to comment.

adrian r wrote:

If you were able to set aside your understanding of New Code/NLP generally, do you believe the TS approach would add to your capabilities, or present problems...and if so, what might they be?

Dunno - although it seems inherently to involve experiencing yourself and the world in new ways, and I tend to consider that to be very useful in most cases. My guess would be that a lot of people would find it to be very valuable.

Cheers,

James

Adrian, Haven't managed to view the article you suggest yet. The link takes me to Salon login, where it appears I have to pay to become a member. Is there any way of reading the article without doing this?

Guys, for my sake, and the sake of any other neanderthals reading, can we ensure that the verbage used is easily understandable?

And yup, I am simple ;-)

JimmyT - don't bullshit me dude - you be lovin' some woowoo!!!

See the kid's reflection in the screen. woowoo fo yo ass!

silverback wrote:

Guys, for my sake, and the sake of any other neanderthals reading, can we ensure that the verbage used is easily understandable?

And yup, I am simple ;-)

JimmyT - don't bullshit me dude - you be lovin' some woowoo!!!

See the kid's reflection in the screen. woowoo fo yo ass!

Oh and Sam, I REALLY hope I haven't said anythign to shaken your belief systems over T.S. - I just want to know a no nonsense list of stuff it would enable me to do.

Like Hermetics - Franz Bardon or whatever - I think my personal golden fleece is to be able to do fireballs.

OK - I'm seriously shutting up now...

*Pace on earth*

Hobgoblin wrote:

Adrian, Haven't managed to view the article you suggest yet. The link takes me to Salon login, where it appears I have to pay to become a member. Is there any way of reading the article without doing this?

Hmm, I've never paid to be a Salon member, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Try doing something different, and if you still don't anywhere PM me and I'll see if I can copy and send you the text.

I'd like to respond to some comments, and answer questions.

Al, Real benefits offered, I can only answer this from my own experience. Real benefits I found - Freedom from perceptual bias, exploration, curiosity, freedom from the social contract and a lot of fun observing truth seekers to mention a few. (In sorcery, nothing is true, neither is anything untrue, there is only perception. This causes problems for people who want a definite answer, at times myself included).

Toltec sorcery compared to mainstream religion, I can't find any comparison and I've tried, but then I am also simple neanderthal (username-hobgoblin).

As to privacy, I'm afraid it has to be that, it is what I agreed to with others. I feel the important aspect of this, my reason for including it, is perceptual shifts through Intent, which happened in a Stopping the World state. Yes, I'm talking visual hallucination in trance and a big deal for the people it happened to. After everything had calmed down, it raised questions over the nature of reality and perception, I mind read this to have been Damian's intention.

Not sure I have a belief system over TS, just write what I experienced, and what I've learned.

By the way, I like your last post. I agree this stuff also needs a sense of humour.

Adrian, Your question on TS and the New Code. Went back through notes for this one, you got me to do reading - LOL. I find it difficult to separate the original New Code as presented in Turtles All The Way Down from Toltec Sorcery. I imagine most people interested have been exposed to the current description of New Code, and as a result, I think, draw a distinction between TS and New Code. There are also other descriptions of New Code, as I understand it, Judith Delozier has her own description, and Damian has his own, different from the current John Grinder / NLP Academy description. Damian presented some of his New Code / TS ideas on the NLP Academy forum, where I first read about this stuff. Judith teaches hers on her courses.

I understand a lot of NLP to be a first Attention technology, and much of sorcery to be a second Attention technology. I understand how New Code could potentially span the two, acting as an acceptable compromise even ?

The last part of your question, I feel study and application of the Toltec model alone would answer that one, otherwise it is rumour.

I do value all the comments made here, more response than I had expected, its been helpful for me.

Sam

You're a bloody nice bloke.