[Note: I will interchangeably use the words shamanism and wizardry, as the author himself does. Forget the value that these terms have for you, for their meaning is built upon the fossilized ideas of ordinary perception; try to understand the meaning that these words gain in the presentation. Anytime I speak of shamanism or wizardry, I speak of the same kind of mexican (toltec) practices.]

The core of the toltec shamanism is that every man is an "energy perceptor". Its main goal is to break the parameters of daily perception, the prejudices which imprison us into our daily routine, and to perceive the infinite, which lies beyond the limits of ordinary perception. That’s why the shamans are defined as "sailors of the infinite".

Wizardry, as the toltecs intend it, has nothing to do with superhuman powers, the evocation of spirits, or the creation of supernatural effects. Magic is a state of consciousness, the ability to use field of energy normally left unused, to perceive worlds that defy ordinary perception. Magic is overcoming those social limits which confine our perception of the world - of the worlds, actually. Every single one of the shaman’s ability is already contained in the human body. Being a shaman is reaching a state of consciousness which lets you do things normally inconceivable. As Castaneda himself puts it, being a shaman is "being able to see energy as it flows through the universe."

Toltec magic is not learned: it is already contained in everyone. There is nothing to learn but to tap into this endless power we have inside of us. The role of the master is to slowly unlock this power and to convince the adept of the greatness of his/her own potential. So the toltec wizards teach their disciples how the ordinary perception functions, and they teach them how to see energy.

According to the toltec conception of the world, the world itself does not have a transcendental existence. It seems to be made up of objects, but it is made up of thousands and thousands of energetic fields which represent the unique reality (these fields are called emanations of the Eagle). We, as humans, can perceive only a small fraction of these emanations; and this already small band is further narrowed by the "socially accepted" way of perceiving. We are taught to perceive in the way we do because of social needs, so we deliberately choose to ignore some sensorial inputs. With time this becomes a habit, until we forget that we can perceive something other than our "usual" world. This neglected emanations are the unknown. Those emanations which are outside of the human sphere of perception are the unknowable.

To the sight (the ability to see directly energy as it flows through the universe) the human being appears as a kind of "bright egg", built up by the emanations of the Eagle wrapped around a single luminous spot. This spot is called the union spot, and it is the centre of perception.

The Union Spot

The union spot is the size of a tennis ball, very bright and located at arm-length behind the shoulder blades. This little shining ball is the processing centre of perception, where the emanations of the Eagle (which appear to the sight as many bright-yellowish threads) are aligned and filtered to make up sensorial data. These data build up our perceived world.

The ancient shamans discovered that the union spot is not fixed: it can move inside the "egg" which constitutes the energetic counterpart of the human being. They observed that children’s union spots were constantly moving around like butterflies, and that this movement slowed and gradually ceased as the socially accepted perception of the world froze them in a fixed and universally identical position (and this happened very early during childhood). Every adult human had this spot frozen in the same position.

They observed that the union spot is free to move only under one condition: if the person is asleep, and when he/she is dreaming. During dreams, the union spot moves inside the egg and perceives different kinds of emanations. So, for the toltec shamans, dreams weren’t mere illusions: they were actual perceptions of other worlds.

They tried to control this moving of the union spot through the use of hallucinogens and psychotrope plants, but they discovered that in this way the union spot moves uncontrollably. You make it move, but you can’t control the direction. So they thought: "If it moves during dreams, why then not to learn to control dreams?". This is the basis of all modern toltec shamanism: the Art of Dreaming (this is also the title of a book by Castaneda, the first I have read).