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