Part of the Casswiki article series Shamanism and archaic esotericism
In Castaneda, tonal is the term designating any entity or object or division of creation. If it can be named, it is tonal. The universe belongs to tonal, spirits belong to it, God, whatever this be, is also tonal. Only the absolutely unnameable, unbounded, unconditioned substrate of all which is is nagual, the opposite of tonal. This is reminiscent of the Taoist dictum: “If you can name it, it is not Tao.”