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The Path is an entertaining guide to personal transformation offering fresh new insights into addiction, perception, and sorcery. Written with grace and punctuated with humor, Arana reveals fascinating parallels between Twelve-Step program philosophy, Gurdjieff's concept of man's hypnotic sleep, Robert Monroe's out-of-body experiences and the path of the Toltec warrior as described by New Age phenomenon Carlos Castaeda.

In a most unusual adaptation of A.A.'s fundamental concepts, Arana delineates how your modern-day person with a busy lifestyle can walk the Warrior's path and lead a life of balance and serenity. By giving an extensive account of her experiences with lucid dreaming, she also provides instruction on how to expand one's perceptual horizons and develop latent psychic abilities. Arana teaches us how to alter perception of the self in order to transform into a spiritually evolved person and overcome common problems such as addiction, depression and obesity. She also discusses an ancient secret about mankind known to Toltec sorcerers and its striking similarity to the concept of The Matrix. She shows us how, through understanding the nature of perception, we can all control and mold our personal realities and free the mind from negative influences. Arana emphasizes that diet and physical exercise are important and often neglected components of a solid spiritual foundation and urges the reader to explore activities such as yoga and the internal forms of the martial arts.

The first title from True Mind, a new imprint co-founded by Gary Baddeley (CEO/publisher of The Disinformation Company), The Path was a POD phenomenon when an earlier edition was self-published by Arana via iUniverse. This new edition will be promoted to retail and the media by New Age publicist Cate Cummings and will be heavily marketed by True Mind via Book Sense, Advance Access and White Box, Postcard campaigns and targeted online and email advertising and promotion.

Average Customer Rating:

Awesome	Customer Rating:
Once in a while a book will be a milestone in my life. I read this book about 3 or 4 years ago and it's still working it's magic in my life today. That should say it all.

Absolutely Stunning!

Customer Rating:

Arana offers the best distillation of Castaneda's ideas of all the books now circulating on Toltec philosophy. This book provides detailed practices of a Path with Heart. The author's definitions on energy from a sorcery perpective is stunning and without equal in my opinion. She delves deeply into the manner in which Warriors accumulate energy so as to move their "assemblage points" to break free of our collective conditioning. Change is engaged using specific methods like stalking our awareness, and noting where we hold our fear. Fear from this perspective needs to be faced every moment it arises. Arana also negatively critiques "self importance" as an inhibition to freedom. When we defend our various points of view, we contribute to our own energy expenditures, thus negating our own advancement from a spiritual perspective. Moreover, Arana provides clear insight on various psychological states offering insight on working with these destructive fields like holding on to resentment. The Chapter on Lucid Dreaming is brillant and forthright! In this Chapter she provides a clear picture of what Castaneda calls the "Double." Moreover, Arana provides many examples of her own "Double" and the uncertain landscape one enters once activated. From this perspective there is risks associated with entering into altered states of consciousness for self-knowledge and personal transformation. As the book proceeds to the more esoteric propositions of Becoming a Man or Women of Knowledge, we find the crux and focus of the book: treading where many may not find the Heart to enter. The author reminds us in her verse that walking this path can be dangerous and difficult. Here is where the faint of heart usually turn back. In other words, you have to be put together pretty well to follow this path. Overall the book provides a nice blend of the author's personal experience in walking this path and the difficulties she encounters on the way. But it is a journey that leads to some astonishing vistas of Spirit for those who keep focused on the prize. And the prize is a constellation of attributes to be brought back to the people and never for oneself. This is what many of the other New Age prophets simply don't get. They think it is all about themselves, prestige, power, and money. You won't find that kind of dishonesty in the work of this author. I think anyone interested in Spirit and the challenge of personal transformation will find this book a gem. If you decide to walk it, be prepared for monumental change in your life.

Finally someone brings these ideas together ...

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I was raised in Christian Science and thus taught from the beginning that "man is not material, he is spiritual". As a child I loved listening to the bible stories of healers and profits and discovered what "I wanted to be when I grew up". I left the church as a teen because I never saw any one doing real healing, and I found the main text book of the church useless. Near UC Berkeley there is a classic old used book store called Shakespeare & Company. One day after classes I was poking around and found a book called The Quimby Manuscripts. It was a pair of ancient beat up type-written manuscripts about the man who taught the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, how to heal people. I felt like Indiana Jones with a new secret map. Quimby had learned mesmerism in the mid 1800's and through his experimentation learned to heal people. He described his diagnosis method as his spiritual body interviewing the patient's spiritual body to find out what the physical problems were and how to fix them. I had recently read Life After Life by Raymond Moody about near-death experiences, which introduced me to the non-physical body. So when Quimby mentioned this sprit body I was excited and fascinated by the corroboration between the two books. I eventually read all of Robert Monroe's books about his experimentations in the non-physical body. And all of Castaneda's work with specific interest in the "double" and dreaming, and uncomfortably with the flyers or predators of man's energy. Esmeralda Arana's book is the best attempt I have found by anyone to bring all of these discussions together in one place. I love that she suggests to use these revolutionary concepts to make practical small changes in one's life. She is also the only person I have found who linked the Loosh harvesting preditor described in Robert Monroe's book Far Journeys p. 162, with the Flyers described in Castaneda's book The Active Side of Infinity p.215 The idea that man is the "top" of the food change never seemed logical to me. Why should the food chain stop with man. These descriptions of a human predator are either the most important knowledge we can be investigating, or they are fantastic science fiction. What happened to Esmeralda? my email ... rws70 AT yahoo dot com

The name says it all: A Practical Approach to Sorcery	Customer Rating:
It could also be called "Sorcery for dummies" or Castaneda essentials or New Millennium sorcery or ... Down-to-Earth grounded writing. Everything that left unclear after reading Carlos & Company. A truly sober and utilizable position of assemblage point. Must have for every Carlos fan. Thank you Esmeralda.

Wonderful journey of discovery

Customer Rating:

This book is an awesome account of the personal struggle of an everyday person who uses the power of sorcery to unlock her hidden potential. She shows us how to tap into our boundless potential, by shifting our perception of our visual reality. She helps to convey some of the more difficult teachings of Carlos Castaneda in a way that is easily digestible, especially to a novice to field of sorcery. I greatly appreciated her efforts. Kudos... This book is a wonderful little find..