Recapitulation (Castaneda)

Recapitulation is a term first used by Carlos Castaneda in his book, The Eagle’s Gift, published in 1982. In The Eagle's Gift, Florinda, one of don Juan's party of warriors, teaches Castaneda about the process and purpose of recapitulation. She explained that recapitulation consisted of "recollecting one's life down to the most insignificant detail" and that when a woman's recapitulation was complete she "no longer abided by the limitations of her person." She further explained that in the process of recapitulation one recounts all the feelings they invested in whatever memory they were reviewing.

Florinda told Castaneda that recapitulation often began with a list of items to be recalled. One then proceeded to work through the list one item at a time staying with the item until all of the emotions around the event had been felt. The recapitulation was done with the breath. While recalling the event, one inhaled slowly, moved their head from the right shoulder to the left. The next breath moved from left to right and was an exhalation. The purpose of the breath was to restore energy. When breathing from right to left one would "pick up the filaments they left behind" and when breathing from left to right they would "eject filaments left in them by other luminous bodies involved in the event being recollected."

Following Castaneda's introduction of the term recapitulation, Víctor Sánchez, author of The Toltec Path of Recapitulation: Healing Your Past to Free Your Soul, published in 2001, also wrote about a technique by the same name. For Sanchez, recapitulation is a procedure of self-healing. It is done by reliving the events of one’s past. The damage is caused by repetitive emotional conflicts. When these conflicts persist they drain one’s vital energy. Sanchez says he developed and adapted techniques of recapitulation described in his book from procedures he learned from his time with the Wirrarika people, whom he calls the surviving Toltecs. This is distinct from Castaneda's use of the term Toltec referring to modern magic practitioners based on older Toltec beliefs.

Lujan Matus, author of The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception, regards the traditional method of recapitulation as being too rigid whereby it can actually hinder the practitioners' ability to establish a direct connection with spirit. He takes an alternative approach to the recapitulation technique which is less structured and more spontaneous in its application. In his most recent work, Whisperings of the Dragon, he outlines the Taoist perspective and offers recapitulation techniques that are similar to those that were originally revealed in the Tao Te Ching.

According to Kristopher Raphael, author of The Mastery of Awareness, Seeing Through the Eyes of a Jaguar, published in 2003, emotional charges blind one from perceiving reality as it truly is. Recapitulation is used to discharge one’s emotions so that they do not react and one can perceive clearly.

See also

• Bibliography of Carlos Castaneda