"Each individual sentient being, whether organic or not, has a cocoon made of energy. An individual human is a spherical cocoon the size of the human body with arms and legs extended.
Universal filaments of energy come from infinity to pass through the cocoon’s skin, through the inside of the cocoon and out the other side, and onward to the universe again to infinity. The cocoon defines and encloses filaments that pass through itself and then extend outward to infinity in countless directions.
The energy inside and outside of the cocoons is the same; they are the same strands. Humans are made by and directly connected to universal strands of energy that extend out to infinity in all directions.
Certain bundles of universal energy filaments pass through our cocoon. The same grouping of filaments passes through the cocoons of all humans. There is no way to understand how this grouping of incomprehensible strands of aware energy happens, but according to Castaneda the sorcerers and seers of don Juan’s ancient tradition can see it directly.
Our earth is also a living and sentient being with a cocoon that we live inside of. Our story is part of the earth’s story. The infinite universal filaments that pass through us comprise a small part of the earth’s collection of infinite filaments. The lives of our human cocoons take place inside the earth’s much larger cocoon, and our fates are linked and intertwined.
Every living being’s cocoon contains universal strands of awareness that it uses for perception. Each cocoon is filled with billions of universal strings of aware energy, which comprise only an infinitesimally small part of the total strings of the entire universe. A single cocoon, though small in comparison to the whole, still contains countless billions of strings of aware energy inside itself.
Only a small portion of those enclosed strings are used. Every living being has a feature in its cocoon which selects some emanations to use for perception while disregarding others. This feature is the point where every sentient being is connected to the universe, directly connected to the spirit and intention of the universe.
Humans have an orb of bright energy about the size of a tennis ball located on the surface of the cocoon, about an arm’s length behind the right shoulder. This ball of energy is the agent which selects emanations passing through our cocoons to use for perception. It’s called the assemblage point because it’s the point where perception is assembled. It can also be called the selection agent, as it selects certain emanations and ignores others.
Only a small portion of the total number of emanations inside the cocoon is selected, while the rest are ignored. If the assemblage point moves around on the surface or the inside of the cocoon it selects whatever encased universal emanations it falls on. Those internal strands of awareness are then connected to the same strands outside the cocoon stretching to infinity, and this is how perception occurs.
Perception is a magical process that happens when strands of universal energy passing through our human cocoons are selected and then lit up by our assemblage point. The assemblage point connects, aligns and lights up the internal and external parts of those selected strings of energy which extend out to infinity. The result is perception. We learn where to place our assemblage point and, therefore, what to perceive, from our parents and caretakers, starting from the moment of birth.
We can say a human being has an assemblage point. It may be more correct to say that the universe has untold trillions or zillions of assemblage points. We are what we are, and live in our world because of the position of our assemblage point in the universe of aware energy. The intention that makes the assemblage point assemble perception comes from the universe outside the cocoon.
According to Castaneda, the total energy inside our cocoons is divided into two parts. One part is the human band, which is the collection of energy accessible to human perception, made up of about one-third of the entire cocoon. The other two-thirds are non-human strands of energy inside our cocoons but outside the human range of perception.
The human band is organized in 48 bundles. To perceive our normal world, we use two of these bundles. There are 46 additional bundles of energy inside our cocoons which we can learn to use but don’t normally use. Of those 46 bundles, six belong to a twin realm of beings which also live with us on earth. They also have cocoons and assemblage points, but they don’t have physical organisms which breathe, eat and reproduce.
Many of these beings who exist with us are aware of us, but we are not normally aware of them. Don Juan Matus sometimes referred to them as our ‘twins’, sometimes as our ‘cousins’. They are aware of us, but cannot contact us. We are usually not aware of them, but if we do become aware of them we can take the initiative and contact them, which can then open the door to relationship.
The number and variety of these twin entities which share our daily world, but outside our normal awareness, are greater than the number and variety of entities we normally perceive throughout our lives. The variety of unseen and nonorganic entities in our world far exceeds the thousands of organic species we have counted so far.
The other 40 bundles of energy in the human band of our luminous spheres belong to other worlds. If we used all of them it would be possible to assemble at least 600 additional complete worlds. More than 600 worlds are available to us, using the energy that passes through the human band in our luminous spheres.
These worlds are as complete and engulfing as ours; beings live and die in them, and we can visit them and live and die in them, too. If one were to ask where in the universe these worlds exist, it’s impossible to say, other than to say that these worlds, and the beings that live or visit there, exist in their respective positions of assemblage.
They exist constantly and independently of our world, but are inaccessible to us. We’re protected from them because we’re conditioned to ignore them and to assume that our normal world of everyday life is the only possible reality. If our assemblage point stays rigid in one place, there is a wall of perception between us and the twin occupants of our world, and between our world and any other world.
There are untold trillions of positions in the universe where assemblage points can assemble worlds and beings. All living beings have cocoons and assemblage points in the flow of the universe’s string-like emanations of aware energy.
The cocoon is a temporary feature, starting at birth and ending at death. Castaneda doesn’t explain how the birth of a cocoon occurs in this universe of aware energy. He says that every sexual act causes feelings and other constituent parts which normally float undisturbed in the universe to try to combine and cause a new being to be conceived. Death happens when the cocoon weakens from usage and collapses, allowing the enclosed energy to escape back into the universe at large.
Cocoons exist in a constantly moving ocean of universal power. This power, which contains the universe’s awareness and its intent, rolls onto the cocoons constantly. This ‘rolling force’ has two aspects to it. The first is what gives us life, purpose and awareness; the second is the power that breaks open and destroys the cocoon at the moment of death. This dual force of life and death strikes us constantly throughout our lifespan, gradually wearing out the cocoon until it can no longer use the rolling power but instead is overcome by it.
The aware energy trapped inside the cocoon constantly moves and struggles to connect with the energy outside. The endless strands on the outside exert constant pressure on the cocoons. The outside pressure initiates consciousness by stopping the movement of the trapped energy, which is always fighting to get out – in effect, fighting to die. When the emanations inside connect with the emanations outside, awareness begins and death is forestalled. We must perceive or die.
Our perception always involves the totality of our energy. There is no extra energy inside our cocoons that is not involved in the act of perception, of being in our world.
We are perceivers. That is what we are born to do. In an infinite predatory universe that is far beyond our comprehension, we have a safe island of all we are given as known as our haven. Other unknown types of sentient life exist around us, and some of them are aware of us, but our wall of perception hides them from us during life. Managing our tiny island, keeping ourselves safe in this vast sea of awareness, takes all our energy, which is the same as saying all of our awareness."
~Peter Luce, Getting Castaneda: Understanding Carlos Castaneda
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