The late anthropologist and cult writer Carlos Castaneda has substantially contributed to the emergence of a Western New Age shamanism. His books are, among other things, reports about various subjective visual phenomena, perceived during extraordinary states of consciousness. This article is an investigation of these significantly abstract and geometrical phenomena, resembling entoptic phenomena like eye floaters. It discusses the similarities of Castaneda’s bubbles, cocoons, lines and fibers, on the one hand, and floaters on the other, and asks about the possibility of Castaneda being inspired by eye floaters.
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The following feedback was sent by reader Eric.
Hi Eric, Your question gets to the core of the matter: ‘Eye floaters’ is a term referring to different kinds of vitreous opacities. Most of these kinds are caused by sickness or injuries, ophthalmologists may spot and treat them – they have nothing to with consciousness development. As far I can tell, your ‘fly’, caused by the altercation, is one of these real vitreous opacities – it may have been a little blood pouring from the retina into the vitreous.
For more pictures of normal and pathological entoptic phenomena, visit eye-floaters.info (pdf)
The vitreous opacities are rather rare. Most people perceiving floaters see the DNA-like highly mobile transparent colorless and scattered strands and dots. You see them best at daylight, in the bright sky. Ophthalmologists consider them harmless, they can't see and treat them. In the US, ophthalmologists sometimes separate them from other floaters by calling them 'muscae volitantes'; in Continental Europe there is no such distinction, the Latin term muscae volitantes (or the French term: mouches volantes, meaning ‘flying flies’) refers to all kinds of vitreous opacities. These floaters are, in my opinion, not a vitreous opacity. Due to the teachings of my spiritual teacher Nestor, and due to a series of visual experiences, I’m convinced that these ‘floaters’ are first appearances of a whole structure which is able to alter the amount of light and its size – according to our consciousness state. That’s why Nestor calls this structure a ‘shining structure of consciousness’. I’ve written about that in my book “Mouches Volantes”. I’m not certain, if your DNA-like strands really are the floaters I’m writing about since you write about looking into a bright light. If you do that, usually you will perceive so-called afterimages – colored spots of light representing the form of the light source you’ve focused on. The question is: Are your strands colored (like afterimages) or colorless (like floaters)? Anyway, you may use afterimages or eye floaters or both for concentration and meditation practices. Floco
Thank
You, Eric,
for your report! Dear readers,
do you have personal experiences with eye floaters or other entoptic
phenomena? Or any suggestions what they could be? Send your hints, experiences
and/or pictures to me, I am very interested.
Email: floco.tausin@eye-floaters.info
Eye floaters and their meaning were interpreted differently depending on the time, culture and personality of the observer. We learn a spiritually meaningful perspective about floaters from Nestor, the seer, with whom I have studied and whose teachings I recorded in the book „Mouches volantes – Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness“. In this category, a particular statement from the book on floaters shall be presented and explained.
From: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness, p. 178 et seq. (source)
What’s the reason for our ability to see eye floaters? Nestor answers this question by referring to the ideas of “energy” and “inner pressure”. Like other spiritual teachers, Nestor holds that life is created and maintained through the effect of a universal life force or energy. This energy has many names; we may know it as “breath” or “breath of life”, “prana”, “chi”, etc. This energy flows in and through us. If it flows freely in our body, we are healthy and vital. If, however, the flow of energy is blocked, illnesses may develop. Nestor connects the concept of the flow of energy with that of the “inner pressure”. An inner pressure arises if, through a corresponding way of life, more energy is accumulated in the body than may outflow. Physical and spiritual exercises transform the energetic potential of this pressure into spiritual energy. This energy can lead to extraordinary creative efforts in the domains of body movement, thinking or love. The ultimate art, according to the seers, is to selflessly give away this energy to everyone and everything in the “picture”, as it happens through ecstasy. This giving away generates and strengthens the perception of subjective visual phenomena which are partly unknown, partly familiar to us, like the so-called eye floaters. This is also how Nestor and the seers explain how it comes that someone is able to see dots and strings in his or her field of vision even without special exercises or intentions, and without being aware of their meaning. For, over the years, the flow of energy usually increases, first as a result of bodily growth, then through the impact of intense experiences and growing life experience in general. The added confidence and deliberateness in different circumstances that people develop over the years may be understood as an expression of this increased flow of energy. The flow intensifies our sensation, also the inner sense (analogous to the ‘third eye’), with which we can recognize subtle objects. As this energy transformation process happens in every single moment, the development of mild forms of subjective visual appearances is common and widespread. What the seers call “consciousness development” or “building up the inner pressure” is just a intensification and acceleration of that process. As a result, an advanced seeing of eye floaters will be possible; eye floaters are now recognized and experienced as a shining consciousness structure.
The
category "Quarterly Picture" introduces realistic, artistic,
and/or spiritual/religious representations from different cultures
and times which could show entoptic phenomena, or be inspired by it. This picture
is shown on a website operated by conspiracy theorist Brendan Michael
James. James is engaged in the investigation of allegedly secret experiments
in which unsuspecting persons are exposed to the effects of advanced
energy weapons (Directed-Energy Weapons, weapons based on sound, microwaves,
laser and plasma). Although he is not clear about it, eye floaters
are represented on the subsite ‘The eye floater dilemma’
to be a result of such effects of energy weapons. In the forum http://eyefloatersinfo.proboards.com,
he explains them as “gas plasma, gas plasma particle beams and
gas plasma orbs”. Contrary to the medical explanation, he denies
that floaters are inside the eye. Rather, they are supposed to be
an objective reality and thus can be photographed – he provides
some photographs of alleged floaters on his website. How it is possible
to take a photograph of eye floaters, he can’t (yet) say; his
diagram remains difficult to understand.
The drawing,
however, provided on the same subsite, is crystal-clear: James
has drawn dots and strings, known in ophthalmology as idiopathic (without
evident cause) eye floaters or ‘muscae volitantes’.
Some of the dots freely float in space, others are inside the strings.
Moreover, he distinguishes between different kinds of dots, darker
and brighter ones, those with thicker or thinner shells, respectively.
All of the cores seem to be white, there are no dark cores with bright
surroundings, indicating a concentrated state of observation. The
strings are partly interwoven, showing clearly the three-dimensional
character of that structure. Also, James has correctly observed that
single spheres in the strings work as a kind of axis, around which
individual sections of the strings swing, shift and rotate.
You will find this and other pictures in the gallery. Do you have drawings of eye floaters or other entoptic phenomena (flying corpuscles, afterimages etc.)? Do you know of realistic, artistic, and religious representations of such appearances? Then send me the picture or give me the tip; I would like to publish it in the newsletter and/or in the gallery.
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2) Publications by Floco Tausin Find a
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3) New version of the Eye-Floaters-Bibliography An updated English version of the bibliography on the topic of eye floaters is ready for download in the category ‚Links‘ on the website. The categories of the bibliography have been brought up to date and reorganized. The new bibliography provides literature or other media relevant to floaters from different fields like spirituality, arts, humanities and psychology, alternative and complementary medicine, ophthalmology and history of medicine. Link:
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