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Chuck’s Place: Life Is Our Appointment With Knowledge

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Persist beyond the barriers…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Thoughts of Carlos Castaneda recently came into my mind. Back in 1998, Deepak Chopra wrote of Carlos, on the jacket of his new book, The Active Side of Infinity: “Carlos Castaneda was one of the most profound and influential thinkers of this century. His insights paved the way for the future evolution of human consciousness. We are all deeply indebted to him.”

But with the publishing, in 2003, of Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda, which revealed her experiences within his inner circle, the final nail was put into the coffin of Carlos ever again being considered a true man of knowledge, or worthy of any legitimate consideration. Instead he became categorized as a typical New Age guru who abused his disciples. I suspect that Carlos made sure that Amy Wallace wrote that book, which ensured he’d be all but forgotten. It shocked not only his followers but the world at large.

Comparable to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Naropa University, who also fell from grace, Carlos has been, at best, deemed a teacher who employed the cognitive dissonance of crazy wisdom. At worst, he’s been categorized as the greatest fictional trickster of the century, whose shenanigans  fooled an entire generation of spiritual seekers. Once branded the Godfather of the New Age, today Carlos Castaneda is essentially a forgotten, discredited man.

Having spent a significant part of my life immersed in his world, I view his current status and exit from this world as a masterful shamanic move, a stroke of genius. I say that because shaman’s recognize self-importance as the number one scourge of humankind, the most negative human characteristic that significantly waylays our ability to spiritually advance. Could the self-importance of world leadership, and the pursuit of likes on social media, which dominate the world at present, not be more validating of this truth?

Carlos wrote 12 books, leaving behind the fullness of his shamanic knowledge, should one be called to it. Yet, should anyone be so called, it would be for the knowledge alone, with no attachment to Castaneda himself. That was his great shamanic maneuver, to ensure that the knowledge be separated from him personally. His reputation aside, he succeeded in delivering his messages, and with no self-importance following him, he sealed the door behind him as he exited human form. How many of us can do our good deeds in the dark, never sharing the knowledge of them with anyone?

When we shed self-importance from our identity, we disconnect from needing to be fortified by the attention of outside energy. Untethered, at death, from the thoughts and feelings of those left behind in human form, our Spirit is completely freed to move deeper into the exploration of infinity. Becoming untethered to the need for outside validation, while still in this world, frees us to follow, impeccably, the intent of our own Spirit, NOW!

Such was the lesson I was taught when my first wife, Jeanne, left this world and I sought our reconnection between worlds, as per our pre-agreement. Ultimately, she informed me to take my attention off her so that she could fully focus her attention upon learning the parameters of her new body and her new world.

Of course, the ultimate irony is that she has talked to my wife, Jan, every day for well over 20 years, in her soul sister messages. Her channelings, however, are not burdened with personal attachment to me. What is delivered is what she deems relevant now, for everyone, from her perspective in infinity. The opportunity for me has been to step up to the refinement of impersonal love.

Both Carlos and Jeanne teach the value of completely losing self-importance through non-attachment; no need for the validation of likes and attention from others. Freed of this imprisonment, we can focus all our energy on the greater good of self, and all others as well, uncompromised by the need for personal recognition. Validation of facts by others is a helpful and a necessary compass as we navigate our spiritual journey, but validation for the sake of self-recognition alone is a path of ego, not a path of heart.

When infinity recently sent me the suggestion to write about Castaneda’s teachings, I pondered which of his books to choose. Ten minutes later someone told me they found a giveaway copy of Carlos’s 1974 book, Tales of Power. Following this synchronistic prompting, I reread the first chapter to see what spoke to me now.

When still in this world, Carlos cautioned us to not attach to the shamanic practices employed upon him during his apprenticeship, which he documented in his three earliest books. Yours is a different time and your journeys are colored by the circumstances of your new age, he said. His suggestion was for us to be guided by the intent of ancient knowledge but to assume full responsibility for formatting its essence into addressing the needs of our time.

The essence of the first chapter of Tales of Power is that we are all double beings, both rational beings, with a solid physical body, as well as lighter energetic beings, with a soul body. Life presents us daily with appointments to obtain knowledge of this true wholeness so that we might more fully realize our fullest potential, while still in human form.

Carlos quotes the Nagual, don Juan Matus: “The only thing we all have in common is that we play tricks in order to force ourselves to abandon the quest. The countermeasure is to persist in spite of all the barriers and disappointments.” (Tales of Power, p. 20.)

Those tricks issue from the rational ego mind, terrified of ego death as it encounters the immensity of, and the powers of, its greater Soul. How quickly ego judges and dismisses its encounters with its soul in the mysterious and often puzzling synchronicities and triggers of daily life.

Synchronicities are creations of the soul of the subconscious mind, offering the ego encounters with the greater knowledge of infinity. In such encounters the subconscious mind is truly manifesting the ego’s intent to evolve, yet the ego often misses its appointments with such knowledge by its counter-intent, which is to survive unscathed the sometimes ruinous demands of greater truth.

The challenge for the ego is to suspend its judgments and refine its reason, to include the parameters of the greater truths of the soul. Reason is essential to navigating infinity, but it must get beyond the stumbling blocks of a solid world that clings tightly to its materialist prejudice.

Triggers are guides from infinity that summon the ego to retrieve its soul through honest recapitulation of its personal history. Typically, the ego gets drawn into self-pity, as it wallows in the offenses committed upon it by others. It holds tightly to the entitlement of retribution before it can forgive. This is a fixation of energy on self-importance, a sidetracking of attention from true knowledge.

Alternatively, the ego can accept all its experiences in life as reflections of all that is. The task is not about forgiveness; there is nothing to forgive. There is only the full retrieval of all of one’s energy, in the full acceptance of one’s life. With this equanimous acceptance of all the acts of one’s life, one is elevated to the highest level of love for all that is.

The barriers that don Juan references, in the above quote, are largely the habitual patterns we live by, as housed in our subconscious mind. Whether they issue from personal history, genetic history, the soul’s intent for this life, or from our ego’s defenses, new habits can manifest, through the persistence of intent and the positive suggestions we consciously and persistently impress upon the subconscious mind.

Persist, persist, persist in lightness and utter calm, and keep those daily appointments with knowledge.

With calm persistence,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: The Truth About Error

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You ARE all that is…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

As I have many times referenced, the Nagual, don Juan Matus, explained to his apprentice, Carlos Castaneda, that indeed, the world of solid objects that we live in, is real. However, he pointed out that a greater world of infinite, undifferentiated energy underlies this solid world, the world of all that is. Though challenging to reach, we all have access to the energy of the oneness of all that is, always.

Don Juan explained that our everyday world is but one potential interpretation of the energy of that infinitely vaster underlying world of energy. Our interpretation is our mental blueprint, formed by our belief, desire and demand, as envisioned in our imagination, and then assembled, by this intent, into solid physical reality.

We intend both the creation of our lives and the world we live in.  What we believe, we are. However, what we are, is relative. Changing a belief can completely change who we are, though it does not ultimately free us from the karma of the experiences and actions of the characters we have been.

Nonetheless, even with scores to settle with the personality we have been, we can be freed to fully stalk a new life and come back later, with an enriched perspective, to complete that which must be completed from a former belief state.

Our beliefs fixate our energy into a solid world that is definitely real. However, it would be an error to say that it is the only reality. For instance, life in the finite world of the Earth suggests a world of definite limits. The notion of scant resource and how it should be distributed is a driving concern upon the Earth plane at present.

The rightness of prosperity in the midst of limited resource and overwhelming need is a legitimate concern. There is no error in this truth. However, if one opens to accessing the ocean of infinite energy that exists beyond one’s interpretation of everyday life, through the intent of autosuggestion, one can tap that infinite resource of all that is and receive a prosperous life, without depleting any resource upon the finite plane of Earth.

Thus, though scarcity is a truth, it is also an error from the point of view of infinite possibility, latently accessible through conscious intent presented to the subconscious mind. What we place our intent upon can generate a separate reality, such as a physical healing, actualized by a healing affirmation.

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, the healer who healed Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, discovered that fixated beliefs can actually generate disease. When he worked with patients, he educated them as to how their thinking, though true from the premises issued from their interpretation of physical reality, also limited their access to a greater Truth; that at an energetic level anything is possible.

The error, or limitation in their thinking, generated the real outcome of disease but veiled their access to an alternative healing belief. If his patient was able to see the error, or limitation in their thinking, and open to the power of energetic Truth, they healed. Such is the potential power of suggestion to the subconscious mind.

Carl Jung grappled with the dilemma of error and truth by designating two centers in the personality, the ego and the Self. The ego is the center of the conscious personality that is informed largely by the five physical senses and the rational mind. The Self includes the ego but opens, through the subconscious portal, to the vastness of the collective unconscious and all that is. The Self also brings intuition and psychic powers to the personality, though the ego’s fixation on rationality can often dismiss its access to them.

Thus, the ego is real and part of the Self,  but due to its limited skills and purview it is frequently in error in its assessments, which blocks its access to deeper Truth. Fortunately, as ego matures and becomes humbled by the greater knowledge and capacity of its Self, it raises its vibration and can develop a working relationship with the Self.

The Self operates at a finer energetic vibration than dense matter, and so the ego must learn to reach alpha and theta brainwave states to open the portal of direct communication with the Self.

Robert Monroe created the storage box metaphor, where one could deposit into the storage box one’s denser, thinking, beta brainwave mind, and thus be freed, with the assistance of higher brainwave entrainment, to explore deeper Truths and possibilities in infinity. Regardless of knowledge and fluidity gained in these journeys, one must ultimately re-associate with the contents of one’s storage box. In so doing, karma is neutralized and no longer a hindrance to radical change.

The point of the time we all spend in Earth School is for the ego to mature and gain support from the Self as it navigates the journey of resolving karma and the challenges it chose, at the level of Self, to fully explore in this lifetime.

The ego can begin a more definite relationship with the Self through its suggestions to the subconscious mind. One begins by shifting the energy state of the physical body through statements of relaxation, starting with the feet and progressing to the head, as the whole body is progressively relaxed, saying, for instance:

“My feet are relaxed, my calf muscles are relaxed, my thighs are relaxed, etc.”

Next, an autosuggestion is repeated several times to the subconscious mind. Here is an example of such an autosuggestion, but you can make up your own:

“I express deep gratitude to my subconscious mind for its unflinching support for the intentions I present to it. My subconscious mind is linked to Infinite Intelligence and Divine Love and has access to my High Self. I ask that my High Self guide me in ways I will recognize, with the ultimate goal being to achieve fulfillment and enlightenment in the lifetime I am in. I trust my subconscious mind to bring forth this connection.”

Relaxing one’s body to reach a higher vibration, then stating this affirmation several times a day, will reach the Truth of the Self. Breathe deeply as you relax and say your affirmation, releasing all fears and doubts. Be patient and know that your request will be answered. Instruct the ego to suspend the judgments that keep it locked exclusively in error.

The truth about error is that errors are truths, but lower case truths. Capitalized Truths are far more comprehensive and magical because they issue from the more expansive Truth of the Self.

To life ever increasingly beyond error,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: How To Be Empowered Now

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Begin the empowerment process within…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

The ancient Hermetic principle, as within, so without, is the formula to access the power of the subconscious mind. The thoughts, feelings, beliefs and psychological complexes we house and incubate, through our mental preoccupation, become our as within. The subconscious mind is the creative matrix that then molds and materializes this inner state into the so without of our physical lives.

Could it be that simple? Yes! The utter simplicity of this powerful ancient formula is largely responsible for its underutilization, at least with conscious awareness and intent.  The subconscious mind has actually been running the show for all of life on earth, since its inception, under the direction of the instincts and archetypes of the collective unconscious.

It took the evolutionary advance of the birth of ego consciousness for humanity to become willfully capable of overriding instinct, thereby becoming empowered to take charge of its own destiny. With this advance, humans accessed their potential to direct the subconscious mind. The old powerhouses of instinct and archetype still exert a mighty influence upon the subconscious mind, but the ego can intentionally override these laws, even if it’s not in its best interest.

The subconscious mind engages that which most impresses it. To impress the subconscious mind, the conscious mind must truly believe in the power of the subconscious mind to manifest its suggestions. Thus, the subconscious must be approached with firm confidence.

Without this level of conviction, the ego’s desires are too watered down, mixed with too many thoughts and feelings that weaken its attractive power. When this happens, the subconscious becomes far more attracted to select the established, habitual patterns it keeps in storage, as opposed to going with a novel new suggestion that may, as of yet, lack the potency of the old.

For centuries, this latent ability to direct the subconscious mind through conscious intent has remained largely hidden from the masses of humanity. Arguably, the power of the subconscious mind in the hands of an immature or unscrupulous person could spell catastrophe for that individual, as well as the world at large.

Religious institutions have barred their flock from owning this divine power by socializing their congregants to live and judge themselves by strict moral dogma, with a stern warning to remain obedient to divine law rather than thinking independently for themselves.

All religious traditions place a premium on modesty, with folk traditions instructing one to knock on wood to placate the evil eye, or ken ayn hora, the wrath of an Almighty toward one who assumes Its power.  But what if we are actually the arm of that power, living and expanding the full experience of all that is?

Economic and political powers scooped up the discoveries of modern psychological science and autosuggestion to control people’s beliefs and behaviors through the advertising industry. This major outer influencer has largely taken over the direction of modern life, as its suggestions are internalized as one’s own, becoming the stuff of one’s incessant internal dialogue, or default autosuggestions.

The current state of the human mind has also been dominated by rational thinking, which actually parted ways with spiritual traditions a long time ago and installed reason as its sole godhead, casting a huge shadow of doubt over supposed mystical powers.

Even the thought of truly being able to manifest one’s life through suggestion to the subconscious mind is largely doubted and dismissed by the vast majority of humanity. Such has been the hegemony of pure reason.

State of the art modern neuroscience informed treatment of mental illness, for all its contributions, has anchored the mind in the materialism of the brain and the central nervous system. Science dismisses the energetic world of the soul,  and with it the power of the subconscious mind to manifest dramatic change. “Just a placebo effect” is its assessment of that which it can’t materially pin down.

The current state of the world is the true backdrop for the coming of age of one’s latent power to intentionally and mindfully create both one’s inner and outer world. The mind’s domineering fixation upon rationality is rapidly devolving into a chaos of near collective madness, bringing sanity itself to the brink of dissolution.

Frightful as this existential reality is, it’s the price for the pushing upward of new life. The pushing up of new life from beneath the earth is driven by its yearning for the sun, but does require a powerful effort of the will to prevail. The sun is the light of consciousness.  If we employ our energy in the direction of higher consciousness, we can discover our power to create our personal and collective worlds. Create within, create without.

First, we must make the monumental effort to discover and befriend our psychological complexes. Carl Jung coined this term to represent clusters of emotionally charged ideas, feelings, and memories that can operate outside of conscious awareness and significantly impact a person’s behavior. When unresolved, these hidden complexes keep us stuck in the automatic repetition of our habitual thoughts, behaviors and beliefs.

To begin the process of resolution of these hidden complexes, ask, with passion, that your subconscious mind connect you to the guidance of your High Self. Ask it to lead you through a journey of self-discovery that uncovers fully the complexes you harbor.

Such a recapitulation journey reveals these hidden parts of the self and asks you to bring them into unity with the personality, through the total knowing and accepting of their existence and experiences. This inner discovery process follows its own unique yellow brick road, as every day a magical dream or synchronicity of some kind reaches out to your conscious awareness and asks for exploration.

We must trust the way of the subconscious mind as we are led through this journey. This unification, or individuation, of personality results ultimately in the conscious mind being able to make a decisive suggestion to the subconscious mind, freed of the sabotaging effect of old, hidden parts.

With this new unification of personality and conscious intent, the ego is freed to fully and passionately imagine its wildest fantasies fulfilled, often in movies it generates in the mind. The subconscious then utilizes the substance of the energetic, subtle dimension of life to create the prototype that will gather in energy and density as it moves the dream forward to full physical realization.

Thus, at the subtle dimension is a new substantial reality that invites us to be patient as the next stage is realized, and as we express gratitude to the infinite intelligence of the subconscious mind for the realization of our dream. Once we have envisioned it, that dream is already a reality at the subtle level. For this reason we may state its completion as fact, even before its full physical manifestation.

As often as is right, dream your dream. Feel the joy and gratitude of its completion. State, clearly, your intention, with unbending intent. Relax. It is done. This is how to be empowered now.

Go discover the magical gift waiting for you today!
Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Caldron Of The New

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Please Note: My next weekly blog will be published on July 8th, as I am taking time off from my writing schedule. Jan’s Soulbytes, however, will continue to be posted daily.

Do the good work of the caldron…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Recently, I consulted the I Ching to provide clarity and guidance for my readers as they navigate the next couple of weeks of these uncertain times. I was presented with hexagram #50, The Caldron, with a moving line in the second place. The future of this configuration is hexagram #56, The Wanderer, or the state of being in transition.

A caldron is a cooking vessel used to prepare food over an open fire. In ancient China, huge metal or ceramic caldrons were used in temples to prepare food offerings to honor the ancestors, as well as heads of state and those of wisdom, who contributed their guidance on such an important occasion as the birth of a new dynasty. This huge cooking vessel served the spiritual transformation of a nation, a metaphor quite apropos for our time.

The Caldron is also an alchemical vessel that contains and transforms a volatile mix of opposing energies into a delicate balance. The elements that build the pictogram of The Caldron are fire beneath water. Fire is the active, heated masculine energy that is absorbed and tempered by the calm, receptive feminine energy of water. This artful womblike handling of polarity gives birth to new life in the form of steam.

Steam is the resultant transformation of water into a new state of energy that can  power an engine or provide cleansing in purification practices. Psychologically and spiritually, the water of the subconscious mind, heated by the fire of suggestion—coming from the masculine ego of the conscious mind—provides the energy and construction materials for new life.

The Caldron is an apt symbol for the subconscious mind. All knowledge and wisdom is contained in the subconscious with its additional ability to divinely manifest into the flesh any suggestion it absorbs. The collective caldron of now is manifesting extreme volatility, at the behest of the dominating masculine ego, whose powerful suggestions it absorbs and dutifully produces.

But these manifestations cannot cancel the karma they generate. Regardless of how things play out on the surface, the karma of now is irrevocably to become the greater good for all, the absolute consequence of the unbounded narcissism and one-sidedness of now.

The existence of this karmic shift is fully formed at the subtle, purely energetic dimension of reality. Physical reality is always preceded by mental activity that, when fully complete, delivers its dictum to the subconscious mind for physical manifestation. The transient revolutions and chaos of now are simply the later stages fueling the coming karmic shift.

The moving line that presents in the second place of The Caldron, as well as its resultant hexagram of The Wanderer, contains powerful guidance for now: While we are in a fine position for good and necessary change, we must exercise caution and avoid arrogance. Humility and proper conduct cannot be overstressed.

The Wanderer depicts the state of a journeyer who arrives as a stranger in a strange land. Firstly, the journeyer should maintain integrity and clarity in interactions with others. Humility and modesty dissuade distrust and aggression. The journeyer does well to suggest to the subconscious mind that it be provided signs to direct right action, which enables the journeyer to be adaptive and go with the flow.

The journeyer has clear thoughts and the resilience to patiently wait for the world to transform for the greater good. The journeyer is nourished by the wisdom provided by The Caldron, and submits willingly to the containment and refinement of heated transformational processes that must be endured for transformation to complete. The Wanderer maintains loving compassion for all as the world is born anew.

In summary, take solace in knowing that the stupendous change toward the greater good is but a step away. Of course, cosmic time is a bit more relative than our earthly clocks! Be patient, humble and full of gratitude. Believe, believe, believe! Throw your intent daily behind the absolutely inevitable karmic shift to the greater good destined to befall us all.

Let go and know,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Karma Is The Active Side Of Infinity

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Shift the wheel of Karma toward the greater good….
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

“Only on the wheel of karma is there inequality; within eternity we are all the same, all One.”*

Karma is a term that depicts the universal law of cause and effect. All actions cause definite effects. The underlying principle that governs all consequences for actions taken, is balance. That imperative of balance is expressed through Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

When we enter the active side of infinity we take a ride on the wheel of karma. When a soul separates itself from the inert state of oneness with everything, in infinity, it loads itself upon the wheel of karma and is delivered to a specific identity, which will unfold in a specific way, as contrasted with its former state of identity with the utter wholeness and oneness of everything.

When we are born we go from a state of oneness with mother into the powerful perinatal stages of birth trauma. This violent disruption of total care and containment eventuates in a state of total dependence and relative powerlessness, as a small separate being in a huge, unfathomable world.

This action of separation alone defines the primary karma for all life: to find its way back to its original wholeness. The wheel of karma is that journey homeward. The wheel depicts the cycles of actions and reactions we live through as we accrue the knowledge to ultimately find our way home.

Karma forces us to attach to a specific identity, which influences our actions and their consequences. For instance, if I am born with dyslexia, I may learn to compensate for my difficulty with writing, spelling and reading with enhanced intuition and explanations of written works provided by ChatGPT. I might learn to hide my spelling challenges with an eccentric handwriting that no one can read.

If I am dealt the hand of poverty, I might compensate with envy, a life of crime, or a powerful intent for an abundant life. Each of these options are equal energetic options to bring balance to the action of poverty. The wheel of karma might have me explore countless compensations in my journey with poverty before I find my way back to wholeness.

The key to my ultimate release from my impoverished karma is detachment, detachment from my identity as an impoverished being who must take action to feel better about his lowly self. Total acceptance of the experience of an impoverished state, without identifying as a poor being, restores my wholeness. I am now a being with intimate knowledge of a facet of all of wholeness, that of poverty.

Detachment does not deny the full experience of an impoverished life. To the contrary, the suffering attendant to a life of poverty is fully explored with all its karmic consequences. Detachment does, however, allow one to lift the veil to one’s greater wholeness, of which poverty was the chosen facet to be explored in the taking on of a human life.

Thus, the reality of inequality, injustice and victimhood are valid descriptions of the experience we enter when we enter the active side of infinity, in physical form, to explore a facet of the jewel of all that is and all that we are. To fully know the self we must fully explore and know our shadow. To know our infinite self fully there are infinite adventures to be taken, many of which include journeys into the karmic dark side of infinity.

Growth is the imperative of the active side of infinity. To grow we must fully know every facet of all that we are. Ultimately we must experience everything. That’s our infinite destiny.

Fear not and judge not the fullness or unfairness of the life you are in. All lives are equal and valid facets of all that is. Our differences are merely the current seat we occupy on the karmic wheel of existence. It’s a relative, not a permanent, seat.

No matter what life circumstance you are currently in, free yourself from total identification with it. See it as a necessary stop in your infinite journey of exploration of all that is. Furthermore, wakeup to the power  of suggestion in your subconscious mind. You can direct the energy of karma into materializing consequences for your greater good.

The thoughts you most often entertain will be compulsively manifested by the power of your subconscious mind. Take control of your thoughts and enjoy their resulting karma. The equal and opposite reaction of a thought is its manifestation in physical form. From the spirit of thought comes its opposite, its physical birth in matter. Spend your karmic thought wisely, for the greater good of self and other.

Beneath it all, we are all one,
Chuck

* Sam Reifler, I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times, p. 238.