In order to succeed upon the Path of Knowledge an all-encompassing change is required. You must transform the island of the tonal.

Man is essentially pure spirit, termed the nagal, but at birth he takes to himself a physical vehicle termed the tonal.

The tonal is the personality of man. It is like a physical island existing within the boundless ocean of pure being, the nagal. On this island is everything the incarnated individual needs for life upon the physical plane.

The island of the tonal encompasses every single thing which we regard as being part of ourselves, directly and indirectly. The tonal is the physical body, the emotional structure and the mind. Our thoughts, our feelings, our actions upon the physical plane all are part of the tonal. If I am poor, then it is my tonal which is poor, because the nagal, the spirit, cannot possibly be poor. Likewise if I am ill, then it is my tonal which is ill. If I am angry, then again it is my tonal which is angry. If I lack personal power, it is my tonal that is lacking. In short, the tonal is the luminous cocoon and all the energy fields contained within it.

Generally speaking, if we have a name for something, or are able to describe it in any way, then it is a feature of the island of the tonal. This is true of man as well as the universe, for the tonal is the state of manifestation in all of its countless differentiations, physical, emotional, mental and even that which we define as being spiritual. The nagal, on the other hand, is pure spirit or pure being, meaning thereby the spirit unmanifest. The tonal is Some-Thing, whereas the nagal is No-Thing.

Everything in our lives is a feature of our own particular island of the tonal. These features are quite literally the landscape of the island, and therefore constitute what we call our view of the world. If aggression is a feature of our island, then aggression will form part of our view of the world. Likewise, if the state of poverty is a feature of our island, then we automatically view ourselves as being poor, and whilst we maintain this view we will always lack the necessary means to make money.

Neither the island, nor the features of that island are a problem in themselves. It is not that the island is bad, or that its features are bad. It is rather the way in which the various features of the island have been landscaped that tends to create the problems in our lives and which makes the island either a paradise or a hell-hole. It is important to remember that every single thing on the island is necessary for our life upon the physical plane, and therefore not even one feature of that island can be lost or destroyed. In fact, whenever we do try to get rid of any feature we very quickly discover how impossible this is.

Therefore the task of the apprentice is to transform completely the island of the tonal. He must reconstruct the landscaping. By this it is meant that the apprentice must not only reconstruct the features, but he must also rearrange them so that everything is located in its correct spot on his island. By doing this the features will then co-exist in harmony with each other and with the man himself, and the apprentice will turn his island not only into a place of practical use and hospitality, but also, depending on his ability and temperament, a place of great beauty.

The transformation of the island of the tonal by the restructuring of its features is the total change which is called for if one is to succeed in one's pursuit of power. It is not as difficult as it appears to be, for the only thing that is necessary is for us to take stock of our lives so that we may know what our assets are. For a hunter there are no bad aspects of himself, there are only potentials which have not been fully developed. A potential which has not yet been developed is of course a shortcoming on his island, but the hunter knows that in time it will no longer be a shortcoming. The undeveloped potential of swordsmanship is indeed a shortcoming, but this potential, when developed, is a most valuable skill.

Everything upon the island of the tonal is there for the simple reason that we need it in order to gain the necessary experience to become warriors. Not a single thing upon that island can or may be lost, and this includes our different levels or qualities of awareness.

Toltecs define the human being as the social person upon the physical plane, that is, the tonal. The prefix 'hu' has its original etymology in the Egyptian language, in which it means 'tiger'. Therefore the term human means literally 'tiger man', or quite simply, 'animal man'. It should be understood though, that it is not the human being who incarnates, but rather the awareness of the nagal. This awareness, which in the majority of esoteric schools has been termed the re-incarnating ego, is termed the dreamer in the Toltec teachings. The term man, therefore, is defined as being the totality of nagal, dreamer and tonal.

The tonal is often called the dreamed.

During physical incarnation, the dreamer dreams, not only the tonal, but also the destiny of that tonal.

It is important to remember that in the final analysis there is nothing except intent - the will of the Eagle - and that this intent manifests within man, firstly, as the colour of his dreamer, and secondly, as the emotion of his tonal.

Toltecs view the entire universe as being a manifestation of electrical phenomena which is essentially triple in nature. This triplicity is tabulated as follows:

The Warrior's Path is not an exercise in spiritual development. The Warrior's Path is a way of life necessary to the daily survival of the warrior. To a warrior the terms tonal and nagal are merely figures of speech necessary for clarity; in an act of survival these terms blend softly one into the other.

Egotism is an inherent quality of the island of the tonal and therefore cannot be eradicated - it can only be transmuted into its proper purpose, and placed in its correct spot upon the island.

Having achieved this much in his training and development, the apprentice has in effect restructured the island of his tonal fully, and in the process has also adjusted his relationship to the world around him significantly. This restructuring and adjustment means that the apprentice has now acquired what can be rightfully termed a proper tonal. Having everything on his island of the tonal in its correct spot, and having adjusted his relationship to the world so as to meet his fellow men in the midst of their folly, the apprentice has not only acquired the humility of the warrior, but has also learned the Way of the Hunter, thereby earning for himself the title of a Warrior of the First Attention.

This is Life Manifest, Every-Thing, which floats like an island within the void, and is termed the tonal. Here then, we have the primary differentiation between Life Unmanifest and Life Manifest or, in other words, the differentiation between nagal and tonal. Since the nagal is No-Thing, we refer to it as spirit, and because the tonal is Every-Thing, we acknowledge it as matter.

We can see the primaeval duality of spirit-matter, nagal-tonal; or, in other words, undifferentiated consciousness (nagal) as opposed to differentiated consciousness (tonal). Now since the nagal gives rise to the tonal, it is only reasonable to refer to the nagal as being the cause of that effect we term the tonal. For the sake of clarity, we therefore refer to the nagal as being positive, and to the tonal as being negative. These terms, though, are purely arbitrary, and as such have absolutely nothing to do with any of the moral values that have become attached to them.

Continuing still with terminology, and in the same sense as before, we also call the tonal the female, since all of life manifests through the medium of matter, and matter is associated with the mother aspect of life. In fact, the word 'mother' originates from this very association, as the Latin words for mother and matter, 'mater' and 'materia' respectively, originate from the same root. By contrast, the nagal is termed the male.

Realise, however, that differentiated consciousness in itself, or the tonal, has two poles; namely, the unknown and the known. We already know that the purpose of manifestation is that life may uncover that which it does not yet know about itself, and to this effect separates what it does know from that which is unknown. From this it can be seen that the known is positive in relation to the unknown or, relatively speaking, the known is masculine, and the unknown is feminine. That which exists between the two poles of the nagal and the tonal is what we call manifestation or, more correctly speaking, the manifestation of potential intelligence. On the other hand, that which exists between the poles of the tonal is of course differentiated consciousness brought about by the act of intelligence.

This distinction within the realm of the tonal is of crucial importance, because it is these two polarities of the tonal that give rise to the law of polarity, and not, as is commonly believed, the two poles of nagal-tonal. As has already been pointed out, although the primaeval duality of nagal-tonal does exist, this differentiation is the result of manifestation, and is therefore not a true separation as such. The example of a bar magnet might help to make this abstruse point somewhat clearer. Just as the magnet is one substance, that has a north pole and a south pole, so too is the tonal that Every-Thing (matter) which likewise has a positive and a negative pole. It is simply not possible for a bar magnet to consist of matter at the one end, and No-Thing at the other end.

Exactly the same principle applies when we come to speak about the so-called father and mother aspects of life. Although the nagal is masculine in relation to the tonal, it would be total nonsense to regard the father aspect of manifested life as being outside of manifestation. Therefore, we need to look at the tonal as a whole, and remember that what brought about the secondary differentiation between the two poles of the tonal is the act of intelligence, but what brought about the primary differentiation between the nagal and the tonal is the manifestation of potential intelligence.

Since the cause of the secondary differentiation is the primary differentiation, and using the same tenet as before, we can see that the act of intelligence is negative in relation to the manifestation of intelligence. From this, it is not so difficult to grasp that if we view the two poles of the tonal as being a whole, then we must also view the primary differentiation between nagal and tonal as being a whole. In other words, if the tonal; that is, differentiated consciousness, represents the mother aspect of life, then it is the manifestation of potential intelligence which represents the father aspect.

As has already been pointed out, the being who incarnates is the dreamer, which is essentially hermaphroditic. Consequently, every man and every women has a counterpart which is of the opposite sex. Throughout destiny our incarnations alternate continuously between male and female, so that we may get to know both sides of our nature. This is hardly surprising considering the fact that the tonal has two polarities, male and female, and that the reason for this separation is so that the nagal can get to know its own potential.

As we already know, the male is inherently the known, where as the female is the unknown. At this point it is important to remember that both male and female are but the opposite polarities of the tonal and, as such, although different, they are nevertheless equal.

Such elimination is a radical change, and so much so that the old tonal must figuratively die. It is utterly impossible to keep the old tonal alive when one gets rid of all the stuff that does not really belong to the island. The old tonal can only exist when it has everything which constituted it in the first place, in much the same way that a log of wood is only a log of wood whilst we leave it undisturbed. The moment we transform that log of wood into a chair, it is no longer a log of wood, but a chair. In the process of transforming the log into a chair we also eliminate all those bits and pieces of the log which do not form part of the chair. This, however, implies that the fate of that log of wood is to be a chair - a concept which is of vital significance in the technique of transformation, or erasing personal history.

All of us have exactly the right tonal we need in any one particular lifetime, and upon this island of the tonal is everything we need in order to meet our challenges, and fulfil our fate. The problem arises in the fact that, because of people's social conditioning, they have added so much unnecessary junk to the island, that they never know what their real tonals should be. However, not knowing who or what we really are is never an insurmountable obstacle, provided that one is convinced of the fact that one wants to change, and accepts the fact that such a change must be a total transformation.

In living the teachings one invariably gets caught up in them, and consequently one thing will lead to another, until finally the teachings and the techniques are no longer something which we are trying to apply, but have become instead a new way of life. This is all that is required. The processes of transmutation and of transformation will then take place seemingly of their own accord, and bit by bit one's true tonal begins to emerge.

This then brings us to that age-old question which every apprentice asks at this point: 'How do I go about eliminating that which does not belong to me; and how do I restructure my island of the tonal?' Although this question is inevitable, it is nevertheless an invalid one, for by the time the apprentice has reached this point in his training, he has already been given all the information he will ever need in order to effect transformation. The only thing the apprentice still needs to do is to apply everything he has been taught up until now. Elimination of all that is undesirable, and the restructuring of the island of the tonal is simply a natural result of the struggle it takes to live like a warrior.

It is therefore not so difficult to see that when the warrior embraces life and death equally, he is in effect extending his awareness along the horizontal axis. In other words, the warrior is embracing the two polarities of his tonal, male (sobriety) and female (feeling). At the end of the day, the only thing which really matters is that we achieve total awareness, but in order to do this, we must have a fluid assemblage point, so that we can move and shift it to bring about any alignment of energy fields that may be necessary.

This shows the essential nature of manifestation; that is, the nagal becoming manifest as the tonal. Therefore what is shown in this model as the Act of Intelligence is in fact the cosmic tonal. We speak of the cosmic tonal simply as being Active Intelligence.

The term 'manifestation' refers to that essential duality of nagal-tonal.

Understand that in order to unite the known and the unknown, the nagal must obviously first separate the known from the unknown, and since it is the nature of mind to separate, it is not difficult to grasp the fact that mind is the cause of that multiplicity we term the tonal. We can therefore say that mind equates with the tonal.

All the qualities of your tonal, including academic ability and talent, are a matter of focus and intensity. The moment that focus is shifted, or the intensity is altered, your tonal changes.

To have the honour of the warrior requires a proper tonal.

To become a warrior requires a total transformation of the island of the tonal, and so it stands to reason that we can equally well say that every challenge in our lives is an opportunity to gradually transform the island of the tonal.

To manipulate intensity is quite naturally the first step in transforming the tonal into a proper tonal, but this is not all, for it also happens to be the first step in learning to master Dragon Lore - the ultimate magic.

It must be remembered that the totality of the self implies that state of awareness at which the nagal, the dreamer and the tonal are experienced as one whole, or in other words, that level of awareness which can best be described as at-one-ment.

Toltecs look upon the throat centre as being the principal centre through which the dreamed, or the unperfected tonal, perceives life and the world around it and, because of its separative nature, it is termed the centre of fission.

True mind, which is the one polarity of the dreamer's awareness, is expressed through the second head centre, of which the physical manifestation is the pituitary gland. Because this gland is situated roughly opposite the centre of the forehead, esotericists refer to it as the third eye, and it is this centre which is the true expression of the real, or the proper, tonal of man. Thus it is also this centre which is the source of discrimination which, of course, has its reflection in the separativeness of the rational mind. This centre, however, can only be brought into activity through the instrumentation of the heart centre, and hence the necessity for the warrior to open his heart.

There is No-Thing other than the one void containing Every-Thing, and as The World of Sorcerers is the potential of Every-Thing, it stands to reason that it is the potential of the manifested universe, the potential of the cosmic tonal.

Remember, though, the vast implications inherent within the nature of The World of Sorcerers. Being the potential of the cosmic tonal, The World of Sorcerers is quite literally that portion of the potential of the Unspeakable which is currently in manifestation as the manifested universe. In other words, The World of Sorcerers is that which the Unspeakable wishes to unfold within its present incarnation, and therefore reflected within The World of Sorcerers is the fourfold purpose of the Unspeakable, and thus also the true purpose and meaning of man, the microcosm of the macrocosm.