The Recapitulation according to Carlos Castaneda

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Carlos Castaneda was a writer and anthropologist of whom we have mysterious and contradictory biographical data; He published 12 books in which he recounts his encounters, experiences and learnings with the shaman Don Juan Matus in the Sonoran Desert, between Mexico and the United States.

However, Castaneda did not limit himself to studying the culture of the Yaquis, to which the shaman do Juan belonged, but in his own teachings he combined techniques inspired by other cultures. Recapitulation, for example, is a method used primarily by the Toltec people, the first civilization of Mesoamerica.

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Although the Toltec civilization has become extinct, the truth is that small groups of inhabitants of the central area of ​​Mexico, in the state of Hidalgo, continue to give life to some of the practices of their ancestors today. Apparently this method of recapitulation comes from this Toltec culture, let’s see what it consists of:

We can say that recapitulation is a method of self-healing that consists of reliving the events of our past in such a way that we can repair the damage it has caused us or release the energy that continues to accumulate in us because of “what we experienced.”

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The damage we accumulate generally manifests itself in the form of recurring emotional conflicts. Furthermore, this energetic damage produces a persistence of the routines of our personality that ends up affecting our vital energy, weakening it.

The objective of recapitulation is to recover the state of integrity that we had at birth. Practically, this implies the freedom to choose how we want to be and how we want to live, leaving behind the repetition of a routine of internal reactions imposed by our past through the unconscious.

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The objective of recapitulation is to recover the state of integrity that we had at birth. Practically, this implies the freedom to choose how we want to be and how we want to live, leaving behind the repetition of a routine of internal reactions imposed by our past through the unconscious.

Castaneda takes this technique of Toltec origin into his worldview of the new warrior, it is the beginning of self-knowledge and therefore self-improvement. In order to acquire the powers that every warrior needs, the first thing we need is to be able to count on our capabilities one hundred percent. Our past takes up too much space, time and energy, so it needs to be reviewed and healed, that is what recapitulation consists of, and it has a very specific technique. This is how Pamela Field, Carlos Castaneda’s partner, explains it to us:

“The person undergoing the recapitulation must make a list of all the people he has known throughout his life, starting with the most recent and ending with his parents. This list is then broken down into categories that describe all interactions established with each individual. Another way to recap is to start with a list of all your sexual encounters, since these involve a significant amount of energetic exchange.”

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It is essential to go into details, make an effort to remember as many details as possible about each situation that you want to recapitulate, concentrate on what happened without giving rise to the imagination, try to return to that past moment and visualize as much as possible, not go on to recapitulate. another situation while images and memories of the previous one continue to appear. It is important to remember the mood, the smells, the environment, the colors, the music, the conversations, the exact words, the silence… This is when the “sweep breathing” technique begins: With your eyes closed, remembering the moment that we want to recapitulate, we breathe in, moving our head from right to left, recapitulating, remembering, reliving the past moment that we want to release. Then we exhale, moving our head from left to right again, returning our energy that was stagnant at that point in the past.

In an interview by Graciela Corvalán with the author himself, Castaneda tells us about recapitulation: “The recapitulation has to be total,” he continued, “it goes from Z to A, backwards. It begins in the present moment and moves towards the early childhood, up to two or three years old and even earlier if possible.” And later: “The images are carefully brought in and fixed in front of you; blows each of the images as if we were sweeping them from our vision… The breath is magical”

And finally he warns us of the importance of being light during this entire process, the benefits of humor compared to staying licking one’s own wounds, “The characteristic of don Juan and his” cronies “is that they are light. Don Juan cured me of being annoying. He is not solemn, nothing ceremonious. “Within the seriousness of the task that they all carry out, there is always room for humor.”

In the words of Taisha Abelar, Castaneda’s partner, recapitulation is the art of reliving what has been experienced and its practice allows wounds to be healed by recovering one’s energy. In her book Where Witches Cross, we read:

“-It’s witchcraft! You can perceive it now, because you have released enough energy to expand your perception. Anyone can perceive it, as long as they have saved enough energy. The tragedy is that most of our energy is trapped in foolish worries. Recapitulation is the key. Release that trapped energy and voila! “One sees infinity before one’s own eyes.”

«The only advantage that witches may have over normal men is that the former have saved their energy»

Carlos Castaneda, “The power of silence”

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