Cleargreen’s statement ‘responding’ to questions regarding Carol Tiggs & Reactions thereto
Late on October 21, 1999, one day before the Mexico City Workshop was to begin on October 23, Cleargreen issued the following statement regarding the Carol Tiggs Issues–the first official “response” of any kind to the material made available on this website–through the two private e-mail mailing lists they control: Tango and Tigre.
As of today, October 31, 1999, they have yet to post this statement to their official website. Nonetheless, over 700 subscribers to the two mailing lists have already received this supposed “explanation” of how Carol could supposedly be “gone for 10 years into the Second Attention,” while at the same time attending acupuncture school in Los Angeles, getting her degree and license here, marrying a fellow student after graduation in 1980, and only getting divorced in 1985, the same year that she “returned” to Castaneda and Company.Since non-Tango or Tigre members may never have a chance to read this on Cleargreen’s website, Sustained Action presents it here as a public service.
22 Oct 1999 03:20:54 -0000 From: tmoderator@yahoo.com Subject: Segment #1 of Tango Interview
Dear Tango Readers:
We would like to open our responses to your many good questions with the following, which most clearly expressed a group of questions that were posed for this interview:
Please, we feel that you have to make a stand about the rumors on the internet. We have evaluated the content of the “information” presented and we think that it falls into three categories: One, those that are simply subjective value judgements. Two, conclusions that seem inaccurate, based on statements taken out of context, and Three, those that rely on objective personal data. Could you please help us deal with those personal data questions, such as the implication, for example that Carol Tiggs was “gone” for ten years, when the personal history data shows that she was actually “gone” for a different number of years.
“Over the years, don Juan and other members of his party had tried to make me aware that we can be in two places at once, that we can experience a sort of perceptual dualism.
“As don Juan spoke, I began to remember something so deeply forgotten that at first it was as if I had only heard about it. Then, step by step, I realized that I had lived that experience myself.
“I had been two places at once . . .”
The Fire from Within—”The Journey of the Dreaming Body”
“Don Juan said that the nagual Elias was an Indian from the state of Oaxaca, . . . a very conservative man who cherished his privacy. And yet he was a famous healer and sorcerer, not only in Oaxaca, but in all of southern Mexico. Nonetheless, in spite of his occupation and notoriety, he lived in complete isolation at the opposite end of the country, in northern Mexico.
” . . . He (Elias) was able to create and project what sorcerers know as the dreaming body, or the Other, and to be in two distant places at the same time. With his dreaming body, he could carry on his business as a sorcerer, and with his natural self be a recluse.”
The Power of Silence—”The Knock of the Spirit”
Carol Tiggs left, and was gone for ten years, anchored somewhere else in infinity. During those ten years, a projection of Carol Tiggs would sometimes return here to live in the world we know. It took Carol Tiggs—the being who was gone—ten years to return here, to reintegrate her energy body (dreaming body) and her physical body into one being.
Carol Tiggs described some of her journeys in the sea of awareness in the lectures at the workshops on Tensegrity. Carlos Castaneda told us that it takes a ton of energy to live such experiences, still more to become aware of them, and more yet to describe them in a coherent manner. And it goes without saying that it takes enormous energy and awareness to hear them. Needless to say, the tales of Carol Tiggs were relatively few in the workshops on magical passes.
When confronted by an angry workshop participant who said that the stories he told couldn’t possibly be true, that he was exaggerating, Carlos Castaneda told him, and the participants of the workshop, that if anything, he had watered his stories down. If he told the raw truth, he said, “it would fry your mind.”
The nagual used to tell us: We find whatever we are looking for. If we are looking for trash, we find trash. He said that the daily world had a feature he called the river of gargoyles, and that many of us, in our daily awareness, spend most of our time there, delighting in running someone else down. Sometimes, we’ve had enough, and we get out of the river, somehow, for a moment. The only problem is that it’s cold outside of the river, and we begin to long for that warm, familiar ooze. Hence the popularity of tabloids.
Warriors aren’t looking for trash, and they don’t long for the comforts of that warm river. They are looking for freedom of perception. The quest for freedom is a solitary journey, one that cannot be stopped, if one has unbending intent. If not, the slightest insinuation that perhaps you are a fool for trying to be free is enough to set you off the quest. We are trained to despise looking stupid, to always appear in a good light. In order to follow this path, there is no way to avoid looking stupid. We will never outsmart infinity, no matter how much data we have.
The nagual and his female colleagues used to tell us that he was already gone before when met him. “I’m not here!” he would say. This would baffle us endlessly. “But he is here,” we would think. “There he is, eating a steak.” Some of us didn’t really want to hear it, since it gave us a vague feeling of unease, first, because we couldn’t understand it, and we didn’t like hearing things we didn’t understand; and second, his statement seemed to imply that whatever part of his awareness that was here wouldn’t be here for very long.
A simple lunch appointment was for him an appointment with infinity. He had to travel across inconceivable worlds to appear at the fish restaurant. It was and is the same for his colleagues. For them, and the seers of don Juan’s lineage, and for anyone who wants to dream the way seers dream, there couldn’t possibly be time to run anyone down, or to indulge in the labyrinthical workings of our daily minds. If the nagual saw that his presence was not helping whoever was in front of him to be free from those workings, he retreated. “I’m removing my presence,” he would say, “but my affection is forever.” That affection could create an abstract link for whoever wishes to follow it—an opening to infinity.
That seers can be in two places at once does seem preposterous to our linear minds. If this is unbelievable for some, that is not surprising. That it stops them cold from their journey of awareness is a travesty. This is why the nagual said the warriors’ path is not for everyone. There are other paths; it takes guts to choose your own.
Thank you all for asking, and if we were given to wishing, we could wish that we had answered this sooner. But wishing is not our predilection, and it has taken us until now to have enough energy to describe all this coherently. You have helped us to do it, and so we can truly say that we are navigating together.
The instructors of the magical passes
Reactions to Cleargreen Statement Regarding Carol Tiggs
1. From Castaneda and Kylie Lundahl
“Carol Tiggs went away. She was not living in the mountains of New Mexico, I assure you.” (Carlos Castaneda, on Carol’s ten-year departure, in March 1994 Details Magazine)
“Our endless categorizing and taxonomizing closes us into itself and renders us incapable of considering the possibility that someone like Carol Tiggs could go somewhere else for ten years and then return. Carol really was physically gone and she was not in this world for those years.” (Statement by Kylie Lundahl at July 19, 1997, Seattle Tensegrity workshop)
2. From David Worrell (Quotes from Cleargreen’s original text appear below in italics.)
First, one must note that their message was addressed only to Tango, and not to SA, the actual originators of all the “controversial” material. Thus, they are still more or less taking the “stand” of only catering to their loyal TB’s, while pretending that all the “fallen” practitioners no longer exist, also continuing the practice of implying that all those with questions or problems with what they have been doing should “get lost.”Cleargreen: “Please, we feel that you have to make a stand about the rumors on the internet.”
Their opening tactic is to encourage practitioners to “make a stand.” They next attempt a blanket characterization of some non-specified information “on the internet,” dismissively referring to it as “rumors.” Right away, this smells of spin control, and implies we’re still talking big time denial here. Legal documents and dates and facts and cogent logical arguments are not “rumors.” But perhaps this shallow attempt at dismissal does indicate the sort of “stand” they are about to encourage the TB’s to make, no? Yes, they obviously want the TB’s to treat all this as being equivalent to “rumors.” Nope, not gonna fly.
“We have evaluated the content of the “information” presented and we think that it falls into three categories: One, those that are simply subjective value judgements.”
Of course, their attempt at such “categorization,” and their rewriting the questions to suit themselves, is itself “subjective value judgment,” as no doubt will be most of the remainder of their response. The generic pre-labeling of material as “subjective value judgments” is mere avoidance of the massive amount of factual and philosophical argumentation on the SA web site. They are pretending to have addressed major issues merely by pigeon-holing them. But … let’s go ahead and hear the rest…
“Two, conclusions that seem inaccurate, based on statements taken out of context,”
Will any accurate “context” really be given? Or will this “category” be mostly ignored too? Let’s find out…
“and Three, those that rely on objective personal data.“
This appears to be an acknowledgement that there is objective personal data involved here. Perhaps this is also “progress.” We’ll see..
.Cleargreen’s imaginary questioner: Could you please help us deal with those personal data questions, such as the implication, for example that Carol Tiggs was “gone” for ten years, when the personal history data shows that she was actually “gone” for a different number of years.”
Clever phrasing there. First of all, the actual implication of the data is that Tiggs was not “gone” during the time she was said to be. Second, the data does not show that she was gone at all. Just because we have yet to account for every second of her time does not mean she was ever really “gone” for any period of time. The most important thing our data does show is that during the five years or more just prior to her alleged “amazing” reappearance to CC, a good deal of that time she was actually living in LA. This data definitely makes a lie of the whole story, as it was told to us previously. So let’s get on with it . . .Uh oh. Right after the “imaginary question” they immediately launch into a quote from the books, and not only that, but a CC book written prior to The Art of Dreaming, which is … gasp … not even part of “the new map.” Yep, it looks like they had to dig deep into the lore of the TB for this one. The quote:
“Over the years, don Juan and other members of his party had tried to make me aware that we can be in two places at once, that we can experience a sort of perceptual dualism.”As don Juan spoke, I began to remember something so deeply forgotten that at first it was as if I had only heard about it. Then, step by step, I realized that I had lived that experience myself.”I had been two places at once . . .”The Fire from Within—”The Journey of the Dreaming Body”
The gist of this is that a being can be in two places at once (albeit only for a few brief moments in the story quoted above). But hey, I LOVE this already. Tiggs is telling her TB followers now that she was in two places at once for MANY years. That is priceless! It is cult BS at its finest!
Let’s continue…“Don Juan said that”
Don Juan said, don Juan said.
“the nagual Elias was an Indian from the state of Oaxaca,”
No way I can buy this man. Elvis was not a nagual! Nor was he an Indian from Oaxaca! Oh wait. Never mind…[…snip , that’s enough quote, we get the friggin’ point…]
Cleargreen speaks:“Carol Tiggs left, and was gone for ten years, anchored somewhere else in infinity.”
Okay, that’s the same old assertion. We’ve heard it.“During those ten years, a projection of Carol Tiggs would sometimes return here to live in the world we know.”
Oh, now look here — a brand new story. Tiggs (as a “projection”) would”sometimes” return here to live in the world we know. HA HA HA! Tuesdays and Thursdays? Commuting on weekends? Can’t you just see it …
“Dang, Tiggs was here again for a while the other day. She had her teeth cleaned, went to acupuncture class, and was in the middle of cooking her new husband some dinner when … whoosh … dang, there she goes again!”
Obviously, this “little change” to the story contradicts the stories Castaneda and the others told about her alleged disappearance. First of all, if Tiggs had been coming back to live in the world we know periodically, had been attending courses, had been married, etc. then NO WAY would Carlos Castaneda have found it in any way “shocking” to find her “suddenly back in the world” in some bookstore, as his famous story indicated.
Second, if Tiggs was back in the world long enough to attend and pass classes at Acupuncture school, get married, etc. while popping in and out of the world (LOL), then the whole sequence of her alleged returning to “discover” that 10 years had past, digging up buried money, then spending years trying to find the others is also … rubbish.
Third, if she had been popping in and out of the world on and off for 10 years, then WHAT would make them believe she HAD “returned to stay” AT ALL? Wouldn’t they have just tended to believe … “oh, she’s back again for a bit, but liable to go whoosh again at any moment”?
Fourth, this story is nothing like the Tiggs herself told of her own memories of her experience (back in Culver City 1995).
Finally, this version also makes it baloney that they decided to teach Tensegrity because Tiggs returned miraculously after being gone for 10 years, for if we accept this story, then she had been back already on and off for many years: “sometimes returning to live in the world we know.” She was obviously married and taking classes for years, and not just any years–in the years JUST PRIOR to her supposedly showing up in that bookstore. So the explanation for starting to teach Tensegrity because of that occurrence still doesn’t fly at all. It was all a bunch of crap.
And you know, we have to ask: if all your earlier stories were crap, WHY in the world should anyone just BELIEVE you are telling the truth now?In fact, it is practically certain that you are NOT telling the truth now.
(Would somebody please just run their goddamned SS numbers and nail this thing down? It’s ridiculous to debate this. Did she or her husband file taxes from 1970-1985? Did she have other jobs?)
I’m snipping most of the remainder of the remarks–they are irrelevant.
Rhetorical exhortations for the TB’s. The usual.
An exception or two:“For them, and the seers of don Juan’s lineage, and for anyone who wants to dream the way seers dream, there couldn’t possibly be time to run anyone down…”
This is too good. Castaneda spent sooo much of his “speech time” running down average people, other gurus, other beliefs, society, lovers, parents, you name it. Geez, Castaneda spent about half of his eternal monologues running down others in one way or another. But now you just want all these meanies to go away and leave you alone. Not gonna happen. Guess it just pisses me off that there were people like you waiting there to prey upon the immature dreams of my younger mind, and I’m not leaving until I get some “satisfaction.” 🙂
At the moment I no longer give a tiny shit whether or not I dream like “sorcerers” dream. That endeavor has been truly spoiled, and that’s probably okay, seeing as how it was mainly a narcissistic ego trip anyway. At the moment, I’d rather dream like a human being dreams.
“If the nagual saw that his presence was not helping whoever was in front of him to be free from those workings, he retreated. “I’m removing my presence,” he would say, “but my affection is forever.”
In other words, he ran out whenever the going got tough, most likely because he was incapable of actual intimacy, and did not have the guts to live real love. Naturally, he also created a life philosophy virtually based on using people and avoiding intimacy. Real love includes being there for another–living together, growing together. It’s a real challenge, as opposed to taking the easy out by running away whenever it’s hard. Love is not just some idealistic sentiment which does nothing for anyone, it is about doing things with and for another, i.e. it must be lived more than merely “felt.” And if, overall, your “presence is not helping,” then rest assured you probably are not really loving that other person at all. In fact, such an avowal of “undying affection” (from a person who is “not helping” in any real sense) is just another attempt to elevate the “great one’s” ego. In other words, CC’s “affection,” apparently, was largely composed of empty ideality and egotistical self-glorification. That is, it was a narcissist’s fantasy of love.
“That seers can be in two places at once does seem preposterous to our linear minds. If this is unbelievable for some, that is not surprising.”Well, we’ve been told that the nagual Elvis healed people at one end of the country while living in solitude at the other end. And Tiggs now claims she did something like this on and off for 10 years already–and gee, she was supposed to be ready to burn from within a few years back–so… it should be NO trouble whatsoever for Tiggs to demonstrate this technique!! Right? We’ll get Greg and Gabi to setup video cameras on two “power spots” of Tiggs’ choice, and we’ll synchronize the clocks and roll tape. We’ll have observers with cell phones at both ends. We’ll invite LaBerge’s people, and some people from the Mind Institute in San Antonio, a few other choice psi and paranormal researchers. It’ll be the event of the century. If she does this, I’ll EAT every word I ever wrote to SA, and before I die I’ll personally see to it that Cleargreen has MILLIONS of followers all over this world.
But guess what … it WON’T HAPPEN.It won’t happen, because Tiggs is a con artist, just like Castaneda was. And Tiggs will eventually die an ordinary human death, just like Castaneda did. As will all of Tiggs’ followers…
“That it stops them cold from their journey of awareness is a travesty.”
Look, we had not heard until NOW that supposedly she was in two places at once, so before the present moment HOW could “failure to believe” this cockeyed explanation have been the cause of “stopping” anyone? You people are the “travesty.” You people have, in a way, stopped the “journey of awareness” of many–but it was not due to your latest little spin doctor explanation–more like with nineteen metric tons of BS piled up over decades. But don’t worry, it is only a momentary delay. We ARE going to get to the bottom of the steaming pile. Count on it.
“This is why the nagual said the warriors’ path is not for everyone. There are other paths; it takes guts to choose your own.”
No path is for “everyone.” And that should be terribly obvious to just about anyone. Mouth all the platitudes you wish–it isn’t going to stop the relentless unmasking of the game of deception you’ve been playing.
“..if we were given to wishing, we could wish that we had answered this sooner. But wishing is not our predilection, and it has taken us until now to have enough energy to describe all this coherently.”
You believe you have described “all this” … “coherently”!? 🙂
Nope, it doesn’t even get a “nice try no cigar.” You gave virtually no specifics at all. “All this?” You didn’t even touch most of the issues. And in the process, you also painted yourself into a corner. Be in two places at once for us. Go on. Make my day.
While you’re figuring out how to weasel out of that one, please come up with some equally creative answers on the other significant issues raised on the SA site. There is a veritable smorgasbord of issues there, other than the Tiggs stories being shown up as lies. For example, tell us why you said Castaneda left like don Juan? So far you’ve just sorta put your tippy toes into the icy water, and brrrrrr … it’s gonna be pretty hard to get all the way in and swim isn’t it?Well, we’re still out here waiting…(and we know what we’re waiting for… hehe)
3. From Ewald Berkers
Through the Sustained Action material doubt has been cast on several of the things that have been said by Castaneda and his female colleagues. The problem is that there is a kind of domino effect, if one important issue is not true than all kinds of other issues become doubtful. If they had a need to lie about Carol Tiggs being away in the Second Attention for ten years, then one wonders if Carol was a student of Don Juan at all. If Carol wasn’t a student of Don Juan, then one wonders if she actually has special powers like using the dreaming body. If Carol is not able to project the dreaming body, then one wonders if it is actually possible to learn to project the dreaming body at all by following her path. And if it is not possible to learn to project the dreaming body then there may not have been a Don Juan. And if there hasn’t been a Don Juan then…
Summarizing the problematic details about Carol found on Sustained Action: – from probably fall 1977 (unverified) to 1980 she was at acupuncture school, – October 1980 she married to someone who was also at acupuncture school, – April 1981 she was issued her acupuncture license, same date as her husband, – July 1985 she divorces. Fall 1985 she was reunited with Carlos, Taisha and Florinda.
I’m wondering if this is really ten years we’re talking about and not twelve. She supposedly left in 1973, but she reunited with the others in 1985. In an old workshop description by Rich Jennings (Omega, May 26-29, 1995) I found the following text: “Carol Tiggs disappeared for 10 years, reappearing at the Phoenix Bookstore after trying to find the clan for months.” It does make more sense to me that it took her a few months instead of two years to find the others.
In the first section of their interview the instructors of the magical passes claim that sometimes a projection of Carol Tiggs returned to the everyday world. This is supposed to account for her obviously being in our world. They do not explicitly disagree with any of above mentioned facts.
I think their explanation is not sufficient.
The projection of Carol is of course her dreaming body. But as we know, the dreaming body is supposed to have only minimal rationality –see footnote below). So how can she study acupuncture for several years and graduate? The theory and knowledge about the meridians, points, organs etc. is very rational.
The study of acupuncture requires lots of time and energy. To get married, being married and divorcing takes lots of time and energy as well. Being “sometimes” in the world we know in the dreaming body would not be enough to supply the time nor the energy.Something doubtful (Carol being away in the Second Attention) is explained by referring to something else that has become doubtful (Carol being able to project the dreaming body to such an extent that it is able to function adequately in the daily world). This is not very convincing. The explanation of the instructors contradicts knowledge from the books, does not convincingly fit with the facts and lacks objectively verifiable truths.
Footnote:The Eagle’s Gift chapter “The Intricacies of Dreaming” (page 233 of 281):
“Once I had understood that principle, Zuleica made me practice every conceivable aspect of volitional movement. The more I practiced, the clearer it became for me that dreaming was in fact a rational state.
Zuleica explained it. She said that in dreaming, the right side, the rational awareness, is wrapped up inside the left side awareness in order to give the dreamer a sense of sobriety and rationality; but that the influence of rationality has to be minimal and used only as an inhibiting mechanism to protect the dreamer from excesses and bizarre undertakings.”
4. From Linda Zoontjens
>>From: tmoderator@yahoo.com>>
Which Cleargreener is tmoderator? Reni, Nyei, Gavin, or possibly La Reina De La Macarena Herself–Ms. Carol Tiggs?
Carol Tiggs left, and was gone for ten years, anchored somewhere else in infinity. During those ten years, a projection of Carol Tiggs would sometimes return here to live in the world we know. It took Carol Tiggs—the being who was gone—ten years to return here, to reintegrate her energy body (dreaming body) and her physical body into one being.
Dang, Carol Tiggs has been in the public for how many years? And this is the first time we have heard this version of Carol’s goings and comings? Hmmmmmmm.
>>Carlos Castaneda told us that it takes a ton of energy to live such experiences, still more to become aware of them, and more yet to describe them in a coherent manner.>>
Let’s see, since she has been burning from within since 1996 how coherent is she likely to be? How did they manage to sidestep the issue of the Blue Scout? Or of CC’s apparent illness?
>>And it goes without saying that it takes enormous energy and awareness to hear them. Needless to say, the tales of Carol Tiggs were relatively few in the workshops on magical passes.>>
But if you continue to go to workshops, you will gather enough energy to hear these stories. Scout’s honor.
>>When confronted by an angry workshop participant who said that the stories he told couldn’t possibly be true, that he was exaggerating, Carlos Castaneda told him, and the participants of the workshop, that if anything, he had watered his stories down. If he told the raw truth, he said, “it would fry your mind.”>>
This is your brain on lies. (Picture of eggs cracked into bowl.) This is your brain on bigger lies. (Picture of eggs in frying pan.)
>>The nagual used to tell us: We find whatever we are looking for. If we are looking for trash, we find trash.>>
Sometimes it comes on two legs with male genitalia, sometimes on two legs with female genitalia.
>>The only problem is that it’s cold outside of the river, and we begin to long for that warm, familiar ooze. Hence the popularity of tabloids.>>
How many times did Carlos Castaneda say that he only read the National Enquirer?
>>In order to follow this path, there is no way to avoid looking stupid.>>
Now this is something I can wholeheartedly agree with.
>>The nagual and his female colleagues used to tell us that he was already gone before when met him.>>
Well, I guess they were warned.
>>”I’m not here!” he would say. This would baffle us endlessly. “But he is here,” we would think. “There he is, eating a steak.” Some of us didn’t really want to hear it, since it gave us a vague feeling of unease…>>
“There he is, fixing my energy bar.” I’d be uneasy too.
>>A simple lunch appointment was for him an appointment with infinity. He had to travel across inconceivable worlds to appear at the fish restaurant. It was and is the same for his colleagues.>>
This is where they learned the adage, “Meet me at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk”.
>>Thank you all for asking, and if we were given to wishing, we could wish that we had answered this sooner. But wishing is not our predilection, and it has taken us until now to have enough energy to describe all this coherently. You have helped us to do it, and so we can truly say that we are navigating together.>>
Yep, I’d say that answering this sooner would have been a smarter move, but why bother since the general public was not onto the big fat lies? That predilection business also seems to be a bit overworked. I heard it was last used at the Buenos Aires workshop where Gavin said that “dreaming” was not his predilection. One of these days, when they get enough energy to be coherent, they can let us all in on what exactly their “predilection” is.
