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View Full Version : Toltec Shamanism Parallels Ancient Gnosticism



lycaeus
03-25-2014, 05:22 AM
Just this one little thing has a lot of implications. I always thought Castaneda's idea of the 'assemblage point' was weird. It's a ball of energy that connects with certain emanations of light, essentially filtering your perception. Well I just found out that ancient Gnostics were talking about the same thing.


Among the many strange features in the teachings of don Juan, the matter of the assemblage point is certainly one of the most baffling. In several books we are told that the luminous egg surrounding a human being is attached to the physical body by an odd mechanism called the assemblage point. The location of the point is high behind the right shoulder. Apparently, at that point in the body, the luminous egg exerts a kind of pressure, forming a dimple or depression. As long as the force of the egg stays in the dimple, the assemblage point is stable and the human being perceives reality in a predetermined way. By shifting the assemblage point, sorcerers are able to change their perception of reality, or actually deconstruct and reconstruct reality at will.

Don Juan’s instructions regarding the assemblage point are as baffling as they are fascinating, and far from clear. The dynamics of sliding or shifting the mechanism are difficult to understand, and even harder to visualize. Moreover, it seems that the assemblage point is a weird item, not comparable to anything found in any other sources.

There is, however, a rare piece of testimony from the Mysteries that describes the assemblage point in exactly the manner found in Castaneda.

In The Subtle Body in Western Tradition, Gnostic scholar G. R. S. Mead cites the lost writings of Isadorus, the husband of Hypatia and one of the last Gnostics who taught at the Mystery School (the Museum) in Alexandria. Isadorus’ original work is lost, but it was paraphrased by another writer, Damascius, so a few faint indications of his teachings can be surmised. Isadorus is said to have described the augoeides, “golden aura,” comparable to the luminous egg of Castandea. The nature and operation of the augoiedes, also called the auric egg, was one of the deepest secrets of the Mysteries. Apparently, a lost treatise of Isadorus stated that the augoeides surrounds the human being like an oval membrane, in such a way that the physical body floats in the oval. This is precisely how Castaneda describes the luminous egg. The Gnostic teacher also said that the luminous oval is connected or locked into the physical body at a point in the back, high up on the right shoulder blade.

Thus, one of the weirdest details in Castaneda’s writings is confirmed by a teacher of the Mysteries who lived in Alexandria the 5th century CE.

http://www.metahistory.org/gnostique/gnosticastaneda/CCgnosis.php