In the following excerpt, the tonal corresponds with the brain’s left hemisphere and mundane world, while the nagual corresponds with the right hemisphere and primal world.[don Juan Matus] “I’m afraid you do not understand. I have named the tonal and the nagual as a true pair. That is all I have done.”He reminded me [Carlos Castaneda] that once, while trying to explain to him my insistence on meaning, I had discussed the idea that children might not be capable of comprehending the difference between “father” and “mother” until they were quite developed in terms of handling meaning, and that they would perhaps believe that it might be that “father” wears pants and “mother” skirts, or other differences dealing with hairstyle, or size of body, or items of clothing.
“We certainly do the same thing with the two parts of us,” he said. “We sense that there is another side to us. But when we try to pin down that other side the tonal gets hold of the baton, and as a director it is quite petty and jealous. It dazzles us with its cunningness and forces us to obliterate the slightest inkling of the other part of the true pair, the nagual“.
Excerpted from The totality of oneself: the tonal and the nagual elsewhere on this website
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