Part 1 of 2
Below are excerpts of all of the Sorcery Passes detailed in The Sorcerer’s Crossing by Taisha Abelar (hardcover edition). Page number references are from the original 1995 BBS message, some (ex. p.4(?)) were presumably inaccurate):
To: The Ixtlan Mailing List ;
From: anon@nagual.com ;
Date: 12 Mar 1995 19:45:39 -300
p. 39 - Flowing Water (similar to “running man” series):
She ordered me to place my feet into the stream and feel the smooth rocks along the bottom. The water was ice cold and made me shiver involuntarily. “Move your feet at the ankles in a clockwise circle,” she suggested. “Let the running water draw away your fatigue.”
After a few minutes of circling my ankles, I felt refreshed but my feet were nearly frozen.
“Now try to feel all your tension flow down to your feet, then throw it out with a sideward snap of your ankles.” Clara said. “This way you’ll also get rid of the coldness.”
I continued flicking the water with my feet until they were numb. “I don’t think this is working, Clara.” I said, pulling my feet out.
“That’s because you’re not directing the tension away from you,” she said. “Flowing water takes away tiredness, coldness, illness and every other unwanted thing, but in order for this to happen, you must intend it. Otherwise, you can flick your feet until the stream runs dry with no results.”
She added that if one did the exercise in bed, one would have to use the imagination to visualize a running stream.
p. 43 - The Balancing Breath:
Clara said that every procedure she was going to teach me, or every task she might ask me to perform, no matter how ordinary it might seem to me, was a step toward fulfilling the ultimate goal of the art of freedom: the abstract flight.
“What I’m going to show you first are simple movements that you must do daily,” she continued. "Regard them always as an indispensable part of your life. “First, I’ll show you a breath that has been a secret for generations. This breath mirrors the dual forces of creation and destruction, of light and darkness, of being and not-being.”
She told me to move outside of the cave, then directed me, by gentle manipulation, to sit with my spine curved forward and to bring my knees to my chest as high as I could. While keeping my feet on the ground, I was to wrap my arms around my calves and firmly clasp my hands in front of my knees or, if I wished, I could clasp each elbow. She gently eased by head down until my chin touched my chest. I had to strain the muscles of my arms to keep my knees from pushing out sideways. My chest was constricted and so was my abdomen. My neck made a cracking sound as I tucked my chin in.
“This is a powerful breath,” she said. “It may knock you out or put you to sleep. If it does, return to the house when you wake up. By the way, this cave is just behind the house. Follow the path and you’ll be there in two minutes.”
Clara instructed me to take short, shallow breaths. I told her that her request was redundant since that was the only way I could breathe in that position. She said that even if I only partially released the arm pressure I was creating with my hands, my breath would return to normal. But this wasn’t what she was after. She wanted me to continue the shallow breaths for at least ten minutes. I stayed in that position for perhaps half an hour, all the while taking shallow breaths as she had instructed. After the initial cramping in my stomach and legs subsided, the breaths seemed to soften my insides and dissolve them.
Then after an excruciatingly long time, Clara gave me a push that made me roll backward so I was lying on the ground, but she didn’t permit me to release the pressure of my arms. I felt a moment of relief when my back touched the ground, but it was only when she instructed me to unclasp my hands and stretch out my legs that I felt complete release in my abdomen and chest. The only way of describing what I felt is to say that something inside me had been unlocked by that breath and had been dissolved or released…
…Clara said that if this breath is performed regularly, with calmness and deliberation, it gradually balances our internal energy.
p. 4(?) - The Shield Breath:
Before I could tell her how invigorated I felt, she asked me to sit down because she wanted to show me one other body maneuver crucial for erasing our false dualism. She asked me to sit with my back straight and my eyes slightly lowered, so that I would be gazing at the tip of my nose.
“This breath should be done without the constraints of clothing.” she began. “But rather than having you strip naked in the patio in broad daylight, we’ll make an exception. First, you inhale deeply, bringing in air as if you were breathing through your vagina. Pull in your stomach and draw the air up along your spine, past the kidneys, to a point between the shoulder blades. Hold the air there for a moment, then raise it even further up to the back of the head, then over the top of your head to the point between your eyebrows.”
She said that after holding it there for a moment, I was to exhale through the nose, as I mentally guided the air down the front of my body, first to the point just below the navel, and then to my vagina where the cycle had begun. I began to practice the breathing exercise. Clara brought her hand to the base of my spine, then traced a line up my back, over my head, and gently pressed the spot between my eyebrows.
“Try to bring the breath here,” she said. “The reason you keep your eyes halfway open is so that you can concentrate on the bridge of your nose as you circulate the air up your back and over your head to this point; and also so you can use your gaze to guide the air down the front of your body, returning it to your sexual organs.”
Clara said that circulating the breath in such a fashion creates an impenetrable shield that prevents outside disruptive influences from piercing the body’s field of energy; it also keeps vital inner energy from dispersing outwardly. She stressed that the inhalation and exhalation should be inaudible, and that the breathing exercise could be done while one is standing, sitting or lying down, although in the beginning it is easier to do it while sitting on a cushion or on a chair.
p. 63 - Finger Antenna:
Clara put down her chopsticks and began curling her fingers as if she were making shadow pictures on the tablecloth. At any moment I expected her to do a rabbit or a turtle.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“This is a form of communication,” she explained, “not with people though, but with that force we call intent.” She extended her little and index fingers, then made a circle by touching her thumb to the tips of the two remaining fingers. She told me that this was a signal to trap the attention of that force and to allow it to enter the body through the energy lines that end or originate in the fingertips.
“Energy comes through the index and little finger if they are extended like antennae,” she explained, showing me the gesture again. “Then the energy is trapped and held in the circle made by the other three fingers.” She said that with this specific hand position, we can draw sufficient energy into the body to heal or strengthen it, or to change our moods and habits.
p. 69 - Natal Breathing (Reddit post with commentary and the full passage):
“The mind is like these shadows,” Clara said softly. “When our breathing is even, our minds are still. If it is erratic, the mind quivers like stirred leaves.” I tried to notice if my breathing was even or disturbed but I honestly couldn’t tell. “If your breath is agitated, your mind becomes restless,” Clara continued. “To quiet the mind, it’s best to begin by quieting your breathing.”
She told me to keep my back erect and to concentrate on my breathing until it was soft and rhythmic, like that of an infant. I pointed out that if a person is physically active as we had just been, hiking over hills, one’s breathing couldn’t possibly be as soft as an infant’s, who just lies around and does nothing.
"Besides, "I said, “I don’t know how infants breathe. I haven’t been around many of them, and when I was, I didn’t pay attention to their breathing.”
Clara moved closer and put one hand on my back and the other on my chest. To my dismay, she pressed until I was so constricted that I felt I was going to suffocate. I tried to move away but she held me down with an iron grip. To compensate, my stomach began moving in and out rhythmically as air again entered my body.
“This is how infants breathe,” she said. “Remember the sensation of your stomach popping out, so you can reproduce it regardless of whether you are walking, exercising or lying around doing nothing. You probably won’t believe this, but we are so civilized that we have to relearn how to breathe properly.” She removed her hands from my chest and back. “Now let the breath rise to fill your chest cavity,” she instructed. “But don’t let it flood your head.” “There is no way for the air to get into my head.”
I laughed. “Don’t take me so literally,” she scolded. “When I say air, I’m really talking about energy derived from the breath, which enters the abdomen, the chest and then the head.”…
…Upon seeing my attentiveness, she became serious again and continued to explain that our emotional well-being is directly linked to the rhythmic flow of our breathing.
“The breathing of a person who is upset,” she said, leaning closer, “is rapid and shallow and is localized in the chest or head. The breathing of a relaxed person sinks to the abdomen.”…
…It’s harder for big people to breath from the abdomen because their center of gravity is just a bit higher. It’s therefore even more important that we remain calm and unperturbed…
…Clara took a deep breath before continuing. “Since emotions are directly linked to the breath,” she said, "a good way to calm ourselves is by regulating our breathing. “For example, we can train ourselves to absorb more energy by deliberately elongating each breath we take.”
p. 71 - One-Legged Balance:
She told me to stand on my left leg with my right leg raised and bent at the knee. I wobbled as I tried to keep my balance. I marveled that she stood on one leg as easily as she had stood on two, and her shadow was absolutely motionless.
“You seem to have a hard time keeping your balance,” Clara noted, setting down her leg and raising the other one. “That means that your thoughts and feelings are not at ease, and neither is your breathing.”
I raised my other leg to try the exercise again. This time my balance was better, but when I saw how still Clara’s shadow was, I experienced a sudden pang of envy and I had to lower my leg to keep from falling.
“Whenever we have a thought,” Clara explained, setting down her leg again, "our energy moves in the direction of that thought. Thoughts are like scouts; they cause the body to move along a certain path.
p. 74 - A Sparkle of Energy:
Clara held her left hand in front of her body with the wrist resting just above the navel; her palm faced sideways, the fingers pressed together, pointed downward to the ground. She told me to adopt this hand position and gaze at the tip of my middle finger. I looked over the bridge of my nose, which forced me to look downward while slightly crossing my eyes.
She explained that the gaze fixedly in that manner places our awareness outside of use onto the ground, thus diminishing our inner agitation.
Then she said I was to inhale deeply, pointing at the ground, intending to get from it a sparkle of energy, like a drop of glue, on my middle finger for a count of seven and then shift my awareness immediately to my forehead, to a spot in between the eyes and just above the bridge of the nose. This shift, she said, must be accompanied by the intent of transferring the sparkle of energy from the middle finger to that spot between the eyes. If the transfer is accomplished, a light appears on the dark screen behind the closed eyes. She said that we can send this luminous spot of energy to any part of our body to counteract pain, disease, apprehension or fear.
p. 75 - The Power Breath:
She then moved her hand and gently pressed my solar plexus. “If you need a quick surge of energy, as you do now, do the power breath I am about to show you and I guarantee that you will feel recharged.”
I watched Clara do a series of short inhalations and exhalations through her nose in rapid succession, vibrating her diaphragm. I imitated her after twenty or so breaths, contracting and relaxing my diaphragm, I felt warmth spreading throughout my midsection.
“We’re going to sit here doing the power breath and gazing at the light behind the eyes,” she said, “until you’re no longer frightened.”
p. 83 - The Inner Ear:
She told me to relax and to take deep breaths because she was going to show me how to exercise my inner hearing.
“For it is with the inner ear,” she said, " that one is able to discern the spirit’s biddings. “When you breathe, allow the energy to flow out of your ears,” she continued.
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“When you exhale, fix you attention on the openings of your ears and use your intent and your concentration to direct the flow.” She monitored my attempts for a while, correcting me as I went along. “Exhale through your nose with your mouth closed and the up of your tongue touching your palate.” she said. “Exhale noiselessly.”
After a few attempts, I could feel my ears pop and my sinuses clear. Then she instructed me to rub the palms of my hands together until they were hot and to place them over my ears with my fingertips almost touching, at the back of my head. I did as she instructed. Clara suggested I massage my ears using a gentle circular pressure; then, with my ears still covered and my index fingers crossed over the middle fingers, I was to repeatedly tap behind each ear by snapping my index fingers in unison.
As I flicked my fingers, I heard a sound like a muffled bell reverberating inside my head. I repeated the tapping eighteen times as she had instructed. When I removed my hands I noticed I could distinctly hear the faintest sounds in the surrounding vegetation, while before, everything had been undifferentiated and muffled.
“Now, with your ears clear, perhaps you’ll be able to hear the voice of the spirit.” Clara said. “But don’t expect a shout from the treetops. What we call the voice of the spirit is more of a feeling. Or it can be an idea that suddenly pops into your head. Sometimes it can be like a longing to go somewhere vaguely familiar, or a longing to do something also vaguely familiar.”
p. 86 - The Horizontal Line:
As I tried to find flaws with her reasoning, Clara jolted me out of my mental speculations with a tap on my ribs. She said that she was going to show me another exercise for stopping thoughts and for feeling my energy lines. Otherwise I would be doing what I had always done: be enthralled with the idea of myself.
Clara told me to sit in a cross-legged position and lean sideways as I inhaled, first to the right, then to the left, and to feel how I was being pulled by a horizontal line extending out of the opening of my ears. She said that, surprisingly, the line didn’t sway with the motion of one’s body but remained perfectly horizontal, and that this was one of the mysteries she and her cohorts had uncovered.
“Leaning in this manner,” she explained, “moves our awareness - which normally is always directed to the front - to the side.”
p. 86 - Swallowing Cranial Energy:
She ordered me to loosen my jaw muscles by chewing and swallowing saliva three times.
“What does this do?” I asked, swallowing with a gulp.
“The chewing and swallowing brings some of the energy lodged in the head down to the stomach, lessening the load on the brain,” she said with a chuckle. “In your case, you should do this maneuver often.”
p. 93 - Fight the Cold:
The time you saw him, he just showed you how to fight the cold with a specific posture: squatting with the arms wrapped around the chest."
p. 94 - Defusing Energy:
Driven by a strange urge, I slid the crystals between my index and middle fingers. The crystals fit comfortably, as if they were attached to my hands.
“I see you already know how to hold them” she remarked. “The master sorcerer instructed me that if I saw that you could hold them correctly by yourself, I was to show you one indispensable movement that you can do with these crystals.”
“What kind of movement, Clara?”
“A movement of power,” she said. “I’ll explain more about its origin and purpose later. For now, let me just show you how it’s done.”
She told me to firmly press the crystals between my index and middle fingers. Helping me from behind, she gently made me extend my arms to front of me at the height of my shoulders, and rotated them in a counterclockwise direction. She had me begin making large circles that became increasingly smaller until the movement stopped and the crystals became two dots pointed into the distance; their extended imaginary lines converged at a spot on the horizon.
“When you make the circles, be sure to keep your palms facing each other,” she corrected me. "And always begin by making large smooth circles. This way you gather energy that you can then focus onto whatever you want to affect, regardless of whether it is an object, a thought or a feeling.
“How will pointing the crystals affect them?” I asked.
“To move the crystals and point them the way I showed you takes the energy out of things,” she explained. "The effect is like defusing a bomb. This is exactly what you want to do at this stage of your training. So never under any circumstance rotate your arms in a clockwise direction while holding the crystals.
“What would happen if I rotated them in that direction?”
“You would not only make a bomb, but you would light the fuse and cause a gigantic explosion. A clockwise movement is for charging things, for gathering energy for any enterprise. We’ll save that movement for a later occasion, when you are stronger.”
"But isn’t that what I need now, Clara? To gather energy? I feel so depleted.
“Of course you need to gather energy,” she agreed, "but right now you must do it by demolishing your indulgence in absurdities. There is plenty of energy you can harness simply by not doing the things you are accustomed to, like complaining, or feeling sorry for yourself or worrying about the things that can’t be changed. Defusing these concerns will give you a positive, nurturing energy that will help to balance and heal you.
“On the other hand, the energy you would gather by moving the crystals in a clockwise direction is a virulent kind of energy, a devastating blast that you won’t be able to withstand at the moment. So promise me that you will not under any circumstances attempt to do it.”
“I promise, Clara. But it sounds rather tempting.”
“The master sorcerer that gave you these crystals is watching your progress.” she warned. “So you must not misuse them.”
p. 105 - Passes for The Face & Head: (illustrated in this Post)
Clara sat on the rattan armchair at the edge of the patio, brushing her shiny black hair. Then she arranged it with her fingers until everything was in place. When she had finished grooming herself she brought her left palm to her forehead and stroked it in a circular fashion. Then she moved her hand over the top of her head and down the back of her neck, after which she flicked her wrists and fingers in the air. She repeated this stroking and flicking sequence several more times. I was fascinated watching her movements. There was nothing careless or haphazard about them. She performed them with intense concentration, as if she were engaged in a most important task.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breaking the silence. “Are you giving yourself some sort of a facial massage?”
Clara glanced over at me, sitting on the matching armchair, imitating her movements. “This circular stroking prevents wrinkles from forming on the forehead,” she said. “It may appear like a facial massage to you, but it isn’t. These are sorcery passes, movements of the hand that are designed to gather energy for a specific purpose.”
“What specific purpose is that?” I asked, flicking my wrists the way she had done.
“The purpose of these sorcery passes to keep one looking youthful by preventing wrinkles from forming,” she said. “The purpose has been decided beforehand, not by me or by you, but by power itself.”
I had to admit that whatever Clara was doing certainly worked. She had lovely skin that set off her green eyes and dark hair. I had always believed that her youthful appearance was the consequence of her Indian genes. I never suspected that she deliberately cultivated it by means of specific movements.
“Whenever energy gathers, as in the case of these sorcery passes, we call it power,” Clara continued. "Remember this. Taisha, power is when energy gathers, either by itself or under someone’s command…
“I’m going to show you some sorcery passes that you must perform every day of your life from now on,” she announced.
I let out a sigh of complaint. There were so many things that she told me to do every day of my life; the breathing, the recapitulation, the kung fu exercises, the long walks. If I lined up back to back everything she told me to do, there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day for even half of them.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t take me so literally,” Clara said, seeing my pained expression. “I’m cramming all I can into your peewee brain because I want you to know about all these things. Knowledge gathers energy, therefore knowledge is power. To make sorcery work, we must know what we’re doing when we intend the result - not the purpose, mind you, but the result of the sorcery act. If we intended the purpose of our sorcery actions, we would be creating sorcery, and you and I don’t have that much power.”
“I don’t think I’m following you, Clara,” I said, moving my chair closer. “For what don’t we have enough power?”
“I mean that even between the two of us, we can’t gather the overwhelming energy it would take to create a new purpose. But individually, we can certainly gather enough energy to intend the result of these sorcery passes; no wrinkles for us. This is all we can do, since their purpose - to keep us young and youthful looking - is already set.”
“Is it like the recapitulation whose end result had been intended beforehand by the ancient sorcerers?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Clara said. “The intent of all sorcery acts has already been set. All we have to do is hook our awareness to it.”
She moved her chair across from me so that our knees were barely touching. Then she vigorously rubbed each thumb on the palm of the opposite hand and placed them on the bridge of her nose. She moved them outward with light; even strokes over her eyebrows to the temples.
“This pass will keep furrows from developing between your eyebrows.” she explained. After quickly rubbing together her index fingers, like two sticks starting a fire, she brought them vertically to each side of her nose and gently moved them sideways over her cheeks several times. “That’s to clear the sinus cavities,” she said, deliberately constricting her nasal passages…
“The next one is to keep the cheeks from sagging,” she said. She briskly rubbed her palms together, and with long, firm strokes, she slid them up each cheek to her temples. She repeated this movement six or seven times, always using slow, even, upward strokes. I noticed her face was flushed, but she didn’t stop yet. She placed the inner edge of her hand, with her thumb folded over her palm, above her upper lip and rubbed back and forth with a vigorous saw-like motion.
She explained that this spot where the nose and upper lip join, when briskly rubbed, stimulates energy to flow in mild, even bursts. But if greater bursts of energy were needed, they could be obtained by pricking the point at the center of the upper gum, underneath the upper lip and below the nose septum. “If you get drowsy in the cave while recapitulating, rub this point briskly and it will temporarily revive you,” she said.
I rubbed my upper lip and felt my nose and ears clear. I also experienced a slight numbing sensation on the roof of my palate. It lasted for a few seconds but took my breath away. It left me with the sensation that I was just about to uncover something that was veiled.
Next, Clara moved her index fingers sideways, under her chin, again using a quick back-and-forth saw-like motion. She explained that stimulating the point under the chin produces a calm alertness. She added that we can also activate this point by resting the chin on a low table while sitting on the floor.
Following her suggestion, I moved my cushion to the floor and sat on it, and rested my chin on a wooden crate that was just level with my face. By leaning forward, I put a slight pressure on that chin point Clara had indicated. After a few moments, I felt my body settle down; a pricking sensation rose up my back, entered my head and my breathing became deeper and more rhythmic.
“Another way to awake the center under the chin,” Clara continued, “is by lying on the stomach with the hands in fists, one on top of the other, under the chin.” She recommended that when doing the exercise with the fists, we should tense them to create pressure under the chin and then relax them to release the pressure. Tensing and relaxing the fists, she said, produces a pulsating movement that sends small bursts of energy to a vital center directly connected with the base of the tongue. She stressed that this exercise should be done cautiously, otherwise one might develop a sore throat.
“This group of sorcery passes I’ve shown you,” Clara continued, “must be practiced daily until they cease to be massage-like movements and become what they really are: sorcery passes. Watch me!” she ordered. I saw her repeat the movements she had shown me, except that this time she was making her fingers and hands dance. Her hands seemed to penetrate deeply into the skin of her face; at other times, they passed over it lightly as if gliding on the skin’s surface, moving so rapidly that they seemed to disappear. Watching her exquisite movements kept me mesmerized.
“This way of stroking was never in your inventory,” she laughed when she had finished. “This is sorcery. It requires an intent different from the intent of the daily world. With all the tension that rises to the face, we certainly need a different intent if we are going to relax the muscles and tone the centers located there.”
Clara said that all our emotions leave traces on our face, more than on any other part of our body. Therefore we have to release accumulated stress using the sorcery passes and their accompanying intent.
p. 112 - Solar Breathing:
Clara told me to wash my hands in a bucket of water and to sit on a log by a clearing outside the fenced garden, for she was going to show me how to begin to direct my attention to the sun. She said that I should always wear a wide-rimmed hat in order to shield my head and face. She also warned me never to do any of the breathing passes she was about to show me for more than a few minutes at a time.
“Why are they called breathing passes?” I asked.
“Because the preset intent of these passes is to pass energy from the breath to the area where we place our attention. It could be an organ in our body or an energy channel or even a thought or a memory, as in the case of the recapitulation. What is important is memory, as in the case of the recapitulation. What is important is that energy is transmitted, thus fulfilling the intent established beforehand; the result is sheer magic, because it appears as if it had spring out of nowhere. That’s why we call these movements and breaths sorcery passes.”
Clara instructed me to face the sun with my eyes closed, then take a deep breath through my mouth and pull the sun’s warmth and light into my stomach. I had to hold it there for as long as I could, then swallow and, finally, exhale any air that was left.
“Pretend you’re a sunflower,” she teased. “Always keep your face toward the sun when you breathe. The light of the sun charges the breath with power. So be sure to takes big gulps of air and completely fill your lungs. Do this three times.”
She explained that in this exercise, the energy of the sun automatically spreads throughout the entire body. But we could deliberately send the sun’s healing rays to any area by touching the spot where we want the energy to go, or simply by using the mind to direct energy to it.
“Actually, when you have practiced this breath long enough, you don’t need to use your hands anymore,” she went on. “You can just visualize the sun’s rays oozing directly into a specific part of your body.”
She suggested that I do the same three breaths, but this time breathing through my nose and visualizing the light flowing down into my back, thus energizing the channels along my spine. That way, the sun’s rays would flood my entire body.
“If you want to bypass breathing through the nose or mouth altogether,” Clara said, “you can breathe directly with your stomach or your chest or your back. You can even bring the energy up the body through the soles of your feet.”
She told me to concentrate on my lower abdomen, on the spot just below my navel, and breathe in a relaxed fashion until I could feel a bond forming between my body and the sun. As I inhaled under her guidance, I could feel the inside of my stomach becoming warmer and filled with light.
After a while, Clara told me to practice breathing with other areas. She touched the spot on my forehead between my eyes. When I concentrated my attention there, my head became flushed with yellow glow. Clara recommended that I absorb as much of the sun’s vitality as I could by holding my breath, then rolling my eyes in a clockwise direction before exhaling. I did as she instructed and the yellow glow intensified.
“Now stand up and try breathing with your back,” she said, and helped me to take off my jacket. I turned my back to the sun and tried to place my attention on the various centers she pointed out with a touch. One was between my shoulder blades, another was at the nape of my neck. As I breathed, visualizing the sun on my back, I felt a warmth move up and down my spine, then rush to my head. I became so dizzy that I nearly lost my balance…
“The light of the sun is pure power,” Clara said. “After all, it’s the most intensely gathered energy there is.” She said that an invisible line of energy flows out directly from the top of the head, upward to the realm of not-being. Or it can flow from the realm of not-being down into us via an opening at the very center of the top of the head.
“If you like, you can call it the life line that links us to a greater awareness,” she said. “The sun, if used properly, charges this line and causes it to spring into action. That’s why the crown of the head must always be protected.” Clara said that before we returned to the house, she was going to show me another powerful sorcery pass, one involving a series of body movements. She said that it had to be executed in one single motion, with strength, precision and grace, but without straining.
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