Wisdom Strategy Research Institute

Carlos Castenada in Tales of Power described the differences between two categories of experience he calls the Tonal and the Nagual. In Castenada's system the Nagual is essentially "raw", unfiltered, direct, or primary experience. Whereas the Tonal is filtered, labelled, classified, measured, or compared experience.

The vast amount of our experience comes under the realm of the Tonal. Virtually all of our experience is comprised of things we have labels, descriptions, measurements, or classifications for.

To be more consistent with modern science, technology and philosophy I prefer to call the Tonal, digital experience. As you might guess then, I also prefer to call the Nagual, analog experience.

In order for something, some experience, any experience, to even be possible for us to be consciously aware there is some kind of digital processing that occurs. We can say that the experience becomes "digitized" in our brain and neurology.

So what?

The reason this is significant is that the more an experience is digitized, the more likely it is that it will be a factor we will organize ourself toward and around. That is to say that we will calibrate ourself consciously around those elements that we have digitized. That is to say that we have given it a label, thought about it (as opposed to just perceived it), measured it, or described it.

In general, the more digitized, the more we "self-organize" around the experience.