The Chacmool Center for Enhanced Perception presents in conjunction with Elemental Films and Laugan Productions A Toltec Artists Production of Carlos Castaneda's TENSEGRITY Twelve Basic Movements to Gather Energy and Promote Well-Being Volume 1 (Approx. 60 minutes) Men and women who lived in Mexico in ancient times, whose expertise was to deal with awareness, believed that human beings are the beholders of a most peculiar dualism. They were not referring to traditional dualisms such as body and mind or matter and spirit, but to the dualism between the self and something they called the energy body. They considered the self to be a holistic unit which includes both: body and mind, matter and spirit together; and they defined the energy body as a particular conglomerate of energy fields belonging to each of us individually, that has the capability of being transformed into a perfect replica of the self, and vice-versa: they believed that the self has the capability of being transformed into a perfect replica of the energy body, that is to say, a conglomerate of sheer energy fields. 

           Those men and women of ancient Mexico invented and developed a series of movements which helped them to store enough spare energy to accomplish this dual transformation. They handled and transmitted this knowledge from generation to generation, up to the present. The movements you are about to see were called "the twelve basic passes to gather energy." They are part of a vast series of movements which were taught to us, the last links of a long chain of such men and women. They were taught especially to Carlos Castaneda by his immediate teacher, don Juan Matus, and by another practitioner named Lujan. 
  
           Carlos Castaneda calls it "Tensegrity," a term he borrowed from architecture. Tensegrity is "the property of skeleton structures that employ continuous tension members and discontinuous compression members in such a way that each member operates with the maximum efficiency and economy." We consider this term most appropriate because this system of movements is the quintessence of tensing and relaxing the muscles and tendons of the body. 

            The persons who are going to execute the twelve basic passes to gather energy are Kylie Lundahl, Nyei Murez and Reni Murez. The three of them belong to a class of beings that those people of ancient Mexico called "Chacmools" or the fierce guardians of energy sites. It has been stated and proven to us that this set is the basis for acquiring enough energy to enter into a particular state of well-being that can give definition to the energy body. To give definition to the energy body is the first step towards enlarging the parameters of perception. For those men and women of ancient Mexico, experts in dealing with awareness, to enlarge the parameters of perception meant entering into bona-fide, all-inclusive new worlds; all-inclusive meant to them that those perceived new worlds were not mere concatenations of the mind, but worlds in which one can live and die. For them entering into new worlds was the core of their magical expertise. "Magic" is a most inadequate term in this case, for it is loaded with insurmountable negative connotations. Those practitioners bypassed this negative slant by maintaining that their magic was merely a maneuver of perception. We have found out from our own experience that it is indeed a maneuver of perception, but a maneuver of such a magnitude that only the most daring and level-headed men and women can accomplish it. 

              Carlos Castaneda's TENSEGRITY Volume 1 
            "My teacher, don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian sorcerer from Mexico, taught me and his other three disciples, Taisha Abelar, Florinda Donner-Grau and Carol Tiggs, a series of movements that promote health, vigor, youth, and general well-being. "He called these movements "magical passes" and explained to us that men and women sorcerers who lived in Mexico in ancient times had discovered them through their "dreaming" practices. Dreaming is a sorcerers' art that transforms ordinary dreams into bona fide means of enhancing perception and awareness. "We have worked for years trying to rescue the magical passes from the darkness of their origin and give them a more appealing mood, more congruous with the pursuits of modern Western man. "We have succeeded. We have organized the magical passes into a system that we call Tensegrity. "This videotape is the first step of Tensegrity." --Carlos Castaneda -

The Twelve Basic Movements: 

1. Helping the Flow of Immunity (Minor Movement) 2. Lobsters' Strike (Minor Movement) 3. The Ball of Energy (Major Movement) 4. Teasing the Web (Major Movement) Snapping the Web Dispersing Energy Getting Rid of the Excess 5. Rolling Energy (Minor Movement) 6. Massaging the Glands Around the Shoulder Blades (Minor Movement) 7. The Axis Breath (Major Movement) 8. Forging the Central Power of the Body (Minor Movement) 9. Two Prongs on the Face (Minor Movement) 10. Reaching the Energy Hole Above the Head (Major Movement) 11. Infinity Breath (Major Movement) 12. The Antenna (Major Movement)