Tag Archives: assemblage point

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Establish A New Major Premise Of Being

Leave a comment
Any day is a good day to start anew…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The subconscious totally accepts and manifests the beliefs of the conscious mind. If we believe we are a good person, the subconscious manifests that belief in the positive emotions we feel toward ourselves and the kinds of people and positive opportunities that are drawn to us in daily life.

Carlos Castaneda lamented the impact of negative conditioning upon the vulnerable psyche of the child, who absorbs, without any available means to fend off, the words and beliefs of its caretakers. According to the shamans of ancient Mexico, these internalized elemental beliefs are assembled and fixated at a point of consciousness, aptly called the assemblage point, that orients our perception and interpretation of ourselves in both inner and outer reality.

Internalizing the theme of being bad in childhood can pervasively fixate our assemblage point upon this belief, such that it serves as our basic premise of self throughout all of life.

The fixation of the assemblage point is so rigid that shamans have for centuries used psychedelics to allow their habitual fixation of the assemblage point to be temporarily suspended, freeing up their ability to journey deeper into their human potential.

This form of soul exploration, or retrieval, is not without its risks, as the shattering of ego consciousness by a psychedelic can lead to difficulty in fully returning to the consciousness of everyday life, or hamper the integration of  knowledge gained in heightened awareness with ordinary reality.

Carlos Castaneda recommended alternative methods of exploration that allow the grounding and reasoning abilities of the ego to support deeper exploration and positive integration, enabling one to establish a new, positive position of the assemblage point.

Intentional autosuggestion provides a powerful interaction with the creative powers of the subconscious mind that can greatly enhance the realization of our innate potential. By consciously establishing a new basic premise as a suggestion to the subconscious mind, we can fundamentally shift our experience of self and world.

Though the subconscious does not engage in rational thinking, it powerfully accepts a basic premise presented to it by the conscious reasoning mind as fact, and rationally goes about demonstrating the truth of that premise in its manifestations based upon it. The premise is the seed planted in the fertile soil of the subconscious.

The action, or law of attraction, exercised by the subconscious, is to draw to it from the soil the vital nutrients needed for it to grow into physical beingness, as solid proof of the validity of the major premise planted in its soil. This fertile soil is the divine energy and infinite intelligence the subconscious attracts as it fashions, in physical form, the intent of consciousness.

Thus, if your new major premise states that “by day and by night the infinite intelligence of my subconscious mind guides, directs and prospers me spiritually, mentally, physically and materially,” abundant change, in accordance with this suggestion, will begin to materialize in your life.

Notice that this intention does not try to engage, overturn, or argue with a negative habitual premise, such as, “I am bad and unworthy.” Any such thought activity places attention upon the older habitual position of the assemblage point, which draws the subconscious back to that fixation, and, hence, to that old state of being.

To the contrary, recitation of this new basic premise causes the soul, through the attractive power of the subconscious, to pave new neuropathways in the brain, releasing hormones and neurotransmitters that generate the emotions and sense of self intended by the autosuggestion.

This divine intelligence also draws people, circumstances and opportunities into our life that further its manifestation in the material reality of life. We begin to notice these changes in mood and energy level, as well as in events that occur in the physical self, in career and social life. As we take notice of these changes, our faith in the power of the subconscious deepens, which in turn intensifies the realization of the autosuggestion on all levels of being.

Though we may occasionally (or often!) find ourselves suddenly shifting to an older habitual position of the assemblage point, the trick is to not engage it but to quickly state our new basic premise. The word truly does become the flesh.

Remember, we arrived at our early basic premise of self through the constant repetition of words spoken to us. To shift to a new basic premise of self, we must constantly saturate ourselves with the words of our new basic premise.

As always, no attachment to the outcome. Only the subconscious mind knows how to truly attract what is needed. Just keep reminding it of your new basic premise. State it, let go, and let the magic materialize.

By day and by night, prosperity,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: A Shift of the World’s Assemblage Point

Leave a comment
Being Intent, no matter what…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Carlos Castaneda faced the most ego-crushing fact. His role, as dictated by Spirit itself, was to end rather than continue his shamanic lineage, a lineage that had spanned twenty-seven generations.

Carlos’ dilemma mirrors the energetic configuration of our time, a time of endings.

Earth herself is in a time of major reshaping as she violently shakes free of the shackles of inertia that have bound her in place. Shamans would call the place of her frozen fixation, the world’s assemblage point, the place where the Earth’s energy is assembled into a consensus reality, the everyday world as we have known it.

The Earth abounds now with dismantling events, be they earthquakes, Senate trials, or viruses. Reality, as we have known it, is being rocked at its core. Institutions are falling like dominoes. Many dreams are vying to become the new consensus reality, the world’s new position of the assemblage point.

As I see it, the destructive phase of now will not be of short duration. The dream currently dominating is the ultimate completion of a one-sided American dream. That dream demands full expression. Perhaps that is the true contribution of our time, to not suppress and pass along that unfulfilled dream for future generations to have to complete. I believe this current dream has been long in the making. That dream spares not even a brush with apocalypse to fulfill its hunger for power and domination.

More comprehensively put, America is completing the ultimate ego over everything dream. This is actually a universal dream, not just America’s. The universality of that dream reflects a world developmental process that tests the viability of fixation at the level of total narcissism.

The current strain of the coronavirus has presented a most interesting challenge to the most populated country on Earth, China, the ancient home of the Book of Changes, the I Ching. Could an alternative dream be unfolding where China shakes off its materialistic dew and gets down to its Taoist roots, action in accordance with Inner Truth (hexagram #61)?

A totalitarian regime has chosen to lose face. No hiding its blemish; it is currently the home of a deadly virus. Superhuman efforts are being made to construct necessary hospitals, isolate large masses of people, and provide accurate safety precaution to all. Economic considerations pale next to the cooperative needs of survival.

Who knows what will happen, but at present this unfolding dream appears to attempt to stalk a position beyond the narcissism of damage control to face the actual danger, with rationality untempered by narcissism. Planet Earth is steadily insisting on a movement that assembles such a reality.

More dreams will  fill the world stage in the coming months; these are the trials of transformation. When Carlos Castaneda was confronted with deciding what to do with the hidden knowledge of his shamanic lineage, as he closed its door, he dreamed forward Tensegrity, offering anyone who wanted it the practical knowledge of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico.

Carlos, while still in this world, would marvel at Tensegrity workshops, that he was able to observe perhaps a thousand people practicing in unison the Magical Passes of his lineage. This was a sight no other Nagual—the shamanic leader of a group of no greater than 16 apprentices in each generation—had ever witnessed: the power of the mass impact of these Magical Passes performed in unison.

Carlos Castaneda believed that the time had arrived where a new power of the mass, spirit warriors from all nations and traditions, would energetically combine their forces of intent  to shift the world’s assemblage point to a new, more comprehensive position to ensure a solid foundation for survival.

The ending of Carlos’ line marked the end of the self-importance of any one tradition holding the exclusive keys to the kingdom. The mass movement of this growing collective intent is fueled by truth, love, and pragmatism. It includes movements such as minimalism, clean energy, small cooperative organic farming communities, respect for the Earth as a living planetary being, as well as the all-inclusive values and practices of all spiritual traditions, none excluded.

The traumas upon the face of the Earth now, though tragic, reflect a shaking loose of the current heavy inert fixation of the assemblage point that has long been preparing for a necessary move. Carlos demonstrated the necessity of letting go of old ways, particularly the dominance of the narcissism of self-importance, to make room for a new position grounded in the greater common good.

We are lured to give over our attention, our hopes and fears, to quick fixes or idealistic dreams that could stem the tide of this destruction. Best to do this with what shamans call controlled folly: detached passion; rather than deplete one’s energy through futility and defeat. Much more important is to place one’s intent upon joining with the Earth’s intent, as she aggressively shifts her own body to a new and necessary position of the assemblage point.

May all beings join in the intent of this new position of the assemblage point, where reason is stripped of its narcissistic veils and applies itself wholeheartedly to the pragmatism of world survival.

being INTENT,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Time of the Usher

Leave a comment

The usher at a concert escorts us to our preselected seats. In the shaman’s world, the usher is the spirit that selects what we will encounter next. Those who are deeply engaged in traumatic recapitulation are quite familiar with the autonomy of the usher. One never knows what memory is to be ushered in next. It appears, of its own accord in the body, psyche, and events of everyday life.

Our neighbors stirring up some energy…
-Photo by Chuck Ketchel

In tribal times it was the medicine man, or woman, who went into trance and was ushered into spiritual realms that determined the fate of the individual or the tribe. The medicine man had access to unseen spiritual forces, some benevolent, some destructive. The medicine man had no friends. He exerted such a powerful hypnotic effect on tribal members that people avoided contact with him for fear of losing their sanity or becoming possessed by spirits. Nonetheless, the medicine man had his role as mediator to forces that would fundamentally shape the future direction of the tribe, for better or for worse.

In our times, there can be no doubt that Donald Trump is a medicine man. His rise to power indeed defied all reason, his hypnotic tirades channeling a spiritual wave of energy that swept him into the presidency. His intent is that money solve everything. He is a change agent who has opened the tunnel to powerful forces determined to reshape our world. He was selected, he was ushered in, and he in turn ushers the world into where we know not.

In shamanic terms, the usher causes a shift in the assemblage point. The shamans describe the assemblage point as a perceptive center that assembles how we interpret the world. As they see it, our world is held together by a massive uniformity of interpretive agreement. This perceptual agreement is upheld by all members of the human race, generating the world we call reality.

A shift in the world assemblage point shakes the very cohesiveness of the world of everyday life. The reality we’ve come to depend upon crumbles as new building blocks factor into the mix. Like an earthquake, everyone feels the shift, as it shakes the very ground of our beings.

Forces are now rapidly vying to assemble a whole new world, a reality based on a whole new formula. How that will congeal and whether the uniformity necessary to uphold it will be agreed upon remains to be seen. In the meantime, we are all subject to veritable onslaughts of the unknown in the course of everyday life.

This collective instability impacts our personal reality as well. On an individual level, one’s personal usher may be forcing encounters with very deep issues that rattle the familiar security of everyday life. This can take the material form of relationship issues or family crises. Inwardly, this might be a time to face firmly engrained habits that no longer fit the changes the usher demands of us. Inwardly, as well, we may be forced to encounter deeply buried truths and experiences that completely reshape how we know ourselves and the world.

What is clear in this time of the usher is that the world as we have known it cannot be held onto. The consensus of our consensus reality is under too much bombardment to remain in its customary position. The danger of this destabilization should not be taken lightly, but the fact that this time also offers an opportunity for great change is equally significant.  As we grapple with our deep personal challenges we are led outside our familiar selves, into a deeper universe of possibilities that we may have never known about.

Frankly, though Donald Trump has been selected to usher in universal change, I rest assured that the female shamans are behind this maneuver. Radical changes are needed to save this world and he is being used by them to break down the familiar. What comes beyond that, however, goes way beyond him.

I suggest that we all do our part to meet squarely all that comes to meet us, and agree to create a new mass consensus reality based upon love, truth, equality, and sustainability. Let that be the intent we ask of the usher, to land us on the world assemblage point of love!!

Let’s see what happens,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Shifts of the Assemblage Point

Leave a comment
Intending a shift to a new reality

For the first time in ten years I decided to truly stalk the role of student. I’d selected an advanced seminar in Stamford, CT. My intent for the weekend was to clear the way for learning, to remove all the filters of identity and judgment that don’t allow for something new, that keep us frozen in the familiar.

I was driving a rental car with Rhode Island plates, our own car still in the body shop since a recent fender bender. I had a new trac phone with an unmemorized number. I arrived at my destination with the hope that I would know no one and that I would share nothing unnecessary about myself that might freeze me in an old identity or tug at my self-importance. “I’m simply a therapist here to learn.”

After parking my car a woman approached me on the walk to the college, obviously headed to the same seminar. After some smalltalk about the weather she asked me where I was from. I went to tell her, but drew a complete blank. I stumbled, slightly embarrassed, but actually quite fascinated. No matter how hard I tried, I had no idea where I was from!

I knew my name was Chuck Ketchel, as I easily picked out my name tag at the registration desk, but for several minutes I couldn’t swim my way back to the surface of Red Hook, NY. The best I could laughingly say to her, finally, was that I was from the Hudson Valley. She smiled and disappeared. I didn’t see her again for the duration of the seminar. Or, if I did, I didn’t recognize her.

My experience in the training was magical: I learned, my intent fully realized. Don’t have concerns about early Alzheimer’s for Chuck! This was a shamanic move—what the shamans would call using INTENT to STALK a different position of the assemblage point.

For the shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage, the assemblage point refers to a point on our energetic body where the energy fields that impact us are assembled. This assemblage of energy becomes our description of reality, how we see and define the world we live in.

When the assemblage point moves to a different position on our energy body, new energy fields are assembled and with that we experience a new world. A new world can mean something as simple as achieving a new perspective on life or as drastic a perception as encountering strange entities in a never-before experienced world.

Where did I come from and who am I now?

Engaging intent, as I did when approaching this seminar, is one way to shift the assemblage point. My intent to leave my old world behind, suspend judgment, and simply learn something new, shifted me and I became a stalker. In shamanic terms, stalking is maintaining the ability to calm the self and hold together when confronted with an unfamiliar reality.

Every time we recapitulate, we shift the assemblage point to a world of prior experience. When we dream, the assemblage point moves freely, allowing for experiences in many worlds, particularly outside the body. Many jolts in ordinary life can move our assemblage point as well, including traumatic incidences and subsequent flashbacks.

The other night, my daughter startled me awake with a phone call and a frightened voice, which she has given me permission to describe.

“Dad, I’m so upset! I feel so homesick,” she said. “I just watched a movie with Joel—Faces in the Crowd—about a woman who suffers from face blindness. Suddenly I looked at Joel and I didn’t recognize him! I didn’t want him to touch me. It was really freaky. I knew who he was and yet I didn’t! I feel in my body like I have at other times. I might be at a supermarket on the deli line when suddenly the voices around me seem very loud and my body becomes very light, like I’m disappearing.”

I assured Erica that these are normal events and that at such times we are being challenged to experience different worlds. Her experience describes that of being at the gates between worlds when energetically vibratory experiences and unfamiliarity reign and we might experience faintness, nausea, buzzing, fear, and a longing for home.

One foot in this world

In these states, infinity is beckoning to us. As the shamans say, we are experiencing a shift in the assemblage point, asked to assemble and enter a new world with a consistency of awareness far more heightened than normal. At such times we are challenged to hold onto awareness in two worlds at once, to not forget who we are, but to take in the far vaster knowledge that we are presented with as reality shifts. We are challenged to remain present and aware while we allow ourselves to have the experience of being infinite beings and take in the truth who we really are, where we’ve been, and where we are going.

The other night, while Jan was in trance—a shift of the assemblage point—I asked her to go to the place she was in just before she was conceived in this life. Her awareness took her to a vast ocean, accompanied by the sound of deep breaths, long inhales and long exhales, in concert with the amplitude and rhythm of the gently rocking waves of this unending ocean. She sensed her awareness shifting to a dark, contained space as I asked her to move on to conception, where a more constricted breath ensued.

Jan’s experience—her shift in her assemblage point to the vast sea of awareness before the stalking of a new life, that is, an identity to be constructed by the circumstances she was born into—reveals the true holographic nature of reality. No matter how many pieces you cut a holographic image into, under the right lighting conditions the original whole is revealed. Everyone of us is part of the same hologram—we all belong to the same vast sea of awareness.

When we enter this world, our awareness shifts from sea to container. We become a definite thing, born out of an infinite sea of interconnected possibility. And when we become that definite being, we forget our vast roots, our previously infinite lives.

Infinity beckons and I'm going!

Our task in this life is to solve the riddle—the specific challenges of the life we are in—and then to go beyond and recover all our truths, all of ourselves, and truly find our way home, back to awareness of the vastness of it all. This is the true essence of homesickness of which my daughter spoke. But oh, how we want to cling to the comfort of unchanging familiarity and the security of home in this life!

Shifts of the assemblage point, promptings from infinity to awaken to our true fullness, are rampant in our time. The familiar world is rattling us daily, as new worlds are finally being allowed to become known. We live in an exceptional time for mass evolutionary advancement, as the world continually bombards the fixation of our assemblage points, prompting them to move, and jolting us to awaken to a new reality as well.

As much as it may assault our senses, our feelings, and our sense of safety, we can now hear the words: “anal intercourse in the showers of Penn State between a coach and a child.” This is a real world that exists, spanning way beyond the walls of Penn State. The truth of that hidden world, with all its discomforts, is now a world we can know exists. We can live with the truth of that world. We can stalk that position of the assemblage point. By allowing ourselves to know and validate the truth of that world we can change, and indeed change the world we live in.

However, the process of allowing the truths of other worlds to be let in—shifts of the assemblage point—is indeed unsettling. Reactions range from nausea, dizziness, sadness, fear, homesickness, vibratory energy states, to yes, actually forgetting where you come from!

These are all transitory states. The real challenge is to achieve cohesion when you find yourself in another world. That is: calm yourself, recognize and actually be in awe of the experience while maintaining a dual focus.

As I stood in the lobby of the University of Connecticut last weekend—a man with no home—I knew who I was. I knew I had a foot in this world. I knew I’d return to it when the seminar was over. But, I especially knew that I was on an adventure to learn something very important—and that I did! We always do if we allow ourselves, or intend ourselves, into new or old worlds of discovery, what the shamans call shifts in the position of the assemblage point.

Chuck, from ???

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Illusion or Not?

Leave a comment

I ponder the world as illusion. While channeling Jeanne’s message on Monday, I reached a personal moment of enlightenment when I grasped the idea that the inner world and the outer world are the same, that both are real and both are illusion. Carl Jung once noted that the inner world was as real or perhaps more real than the outer world. This has always been my experience, more of an inner world person than an outer world person. What I experienced in that moment of enlightenment on Monday was, from a shamanic point of view, a shift in the assemblage point, a shift in perception. This is when the world, as we know it, suddenly falls away and everything is seen and perceived differently. When this happens we are in another reality, “seeing” the world as it truly is, in shamanic terms, seeing the world as energy. So with that in mind, holding onto the idea that both worlds are real and illusory at the same time, I went into my week.

On Tuesday, I sat down to meditate in my favorite spot, looking out over the trees in the back yard. It was early morning; the sun was beginning to rise, battling the clouds for prominence. I wondered what the day would be like, rain or sun? I meditate with my eyes open. I softened my gaze as I did my breathing exercises, holding onto the out-breath ever so slightly in an attempt to linger a moment in emptiness and detach from thinking. Eventually, by focusing on slowly breathing in and out, I reached an in-between stage, where the outside world dissolved into a blurred picture and the inner world went quiet. This is a moment of shift in the assemblage point.

Sometimes I can stay suspended in this in-between space for a few seconds, sometimes longer. It’s as if my awareness is a thin sheet of glass, suspended between these two normal states of reality. I say thin, because invariably something will interfere to bring me back and then both the inner world of thought and the outer world of everyday reality come snapping back into sharp focus again. On Tuesday it was a flock of crows flying into the backyard that broke through the thin veneer of glass.

“Oh, here come the shamans, come to distract,” I thought. “Don’t attach.” And the glass immediately shattered as I watched the crows land in the trees right at eye level.

“Don’t attach,” I said again, softening my gaze. As I did so, I noticed that the crows literally dissolved as the glass pulled up between the two worlds again, which obviously was enough to pull me right back to thinking, to trying to grasp what I was experiencing. Of course, I wanted to check out if the crows were indeed still in the trees. So I looked directly at the treetops and yes, there were the crows sitting right where they had been.

“Okay,” I thought. “The crows are like these thoughts, flying into my mind and I must learn to let them go. I must learn to detach.” Again, I softened my gaze; focused on breathing, telling myself to let them fly past, just like the thoughts that were interfering.

“Even if those thoughts are attempting to grasp at this awakening experience I am having, it does not matter, let them go,” I said as I pushed everything away: thoughts, crows, trees, the inner and outer world.

“Just let it all go,” I whispered and, as the scenario played out, the thoughts flew away, the crows dissolved, and the thin sheet of shift, the glass, reappeared. I hung again in a moment of shift of the assemblage point, in inner silence, as the shamans call it, in nothingness, ever so briefly.

So, what did I learn during this experience? First of all, I experienced a volitional shift of the assemblage point, changing my perception of reality using a tried and true method: by meditation. Secondly, I saw the crows of thought and illusion dissolve into energy. If the crows are thoughts and thoughts belong to my inner world, I was able to underscore the moment of enlightenment I’d reached on Monday that the inner world and the outer world are both real and both illusion.

As I pondered this idea further, I thought about how thoughts are present only in the mind. In fact, they do not exist except in the mind, but they have the chance to become real when given form. In creative endeavors, as we paint, sculpt, dance, put them down in words and musical notes, as we write what we think, imagine, and discover, they manifest in this world of reality, no longer illusion but real. But until that manifestation they are illusion. These thoughts I now transcribe, though they existed in my mind, remained illusion until expressed in this form. They flew around in my head like those crows outside the window, seemingly real but not necessarily so, until this moment of landing, assembling into a long string of words that, hopefully, make sense.

I understand, in one sense, that my inner world, as real and important as it is to me, does not exist. And yet, I admit that it is extremely necessary, offering me the means to evolve, so I accept that my inner reality does exist. Even those very real crows existed one moment, but in the next dissolved, as I shifted my assemblage point so that the world of normal perception, reality, ceased to exist. At the same time, however, both the inner world and the outer world do exist; they are notches on the assemblage point. They are equally real, but equally illusion. But the thing to note is that our true awareness lies somewhere between or beyond those worlds, in the silence of that veneer of glass that is so hard to stay in. Does this make sense?

What I am getting at is that we all have these experiences. Our thoughts are simply thoughts, non-existent, present as energy inside us. If we can view them as such, we may be able to understand the idea of everything as illusion, but also as energy. When we hone that energy into something else, our thoughts become something different. They become tangible, expressed in forms that others can grasp, our personal experiences of illusion, of inner energy manifested.

Can we see the outside world in similar terms? The shamans say that our conjuring minds are responsible for the world of reality. We are taught from birth to see the world in a fixed position, and yet we all have had experiences of shifts in reality at some time or other in our lives, as Jeanne asked us to note in her message the other day. If thoughts are illusion, conjured by our mind, made manifest in the outer world, is not then the world of reality, conjured by this same universal mind, illusion as well? If everything we experience as reality at one time existed as thought, it stands that it can also dissolve back into its original energy form of thought, and thus, illusion.

As I sat and played with this idea the other day, dissolving the crows out of the trees one minute and placing them back in the trees the next I got it again, just how illusory the world is. My thoughts are nothing, the crows are nothing, I am nothing, but we are all energy. If we can hang just a little bit longer in that thin slip of world between the two illusions we may experience this sense of self as energy.

And why would we do this? As we shift our assemblage point, as we see differently, as our worlds dissolve, as we hold onto our awareness, we begin to train ourselves for the moment of death. This is what the Buddhists do, what the shamans do; they train their awareness for the moment of death. They learn how to hold onto awareness, how to stay connected to awareness of the self as energy so that, at the moment of death, they do not get caught in the illusions. They seek to hone the skills of awareness, so that they do not get caught in grasping, needing, desiring, in sadness or yearning for this world, which they have learned is but illusion.

According to these ancient disciplines, of Buddhism and shamanism, this is what we are here to learn. We are here to free ourselves from the endless cycles of being caught in the illusion that this is all there is. We are offered, with each new life, the opportunity to experience the moments of awakening to our true nature as energetic beings. This is what Jeanne was describing and asking us to note in her message.

Take note of the moments when the illusions of reality disappear, those aha moments when we experience life differently. These are the moments to keep striving for, to string together, until we fully grasp their significance and can volitionally return to them again and again. We must seek the space of thin veneer between worlds and thicken it so that we can stay in it longer. We must seek our true awareness and set it free in that in-between place; because that is what we will need to recall and hold onto at the moment of death.

The cool thing is that we are offered plenty of those moments of enlightenment now, in our present lives, in our present worlds. Try it. It’s fun!

Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes.

In awareness,
Jan

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post daily comments and quotes.