The Second Ring of Power BY CARLOS CASTANEDA
Carlos Castaneda’s extraordinary journey into
the world of sorcery has captivated millions of
Americans. In his eagerly awaited new book, he
takes the reader into a sorceric experience so
intense, so terrifying, and so profoundly disturb-
ing that it can only be described as a brilliant
assault on the reason, the dramatic and frighten-
ing attack on every preconceived notion of life
that is don Juan’s remarkable legacy to his ap-
prentice.
At the center of the book is a new and formi-
dable figure, dona Soledad, a woman whose
powers are turned against Castaneda in a strug-
gle that almost consumes him. Dona Soledad has
been taught by don Juan, transformed by his
teachings from a bent and gray-haired old
woman into a sensual, lithe, deeply sexual figure
of awesome and mysterious power, a sorceress
whose mission is to test Castaneda by a series of
terrifying tricks. In dona Soledad, Carlos Cas-
taneda has recorded for the reader a personality
as instantly recognizable as don Juan himself and
has illuminated the strengths and the feelings of a
remarkable woman who, despite her sorceric
gifts, expresses some of the deepest and most
basic feminine concerns and ambitions. For dona
Soledad, drawn out of the shadows of a de-
feated and meaningless life by don Juan, has
herself become a warrior, a hunter and a stalker
of power. Castaneda’s combat with her, his
gradual realization that she not only derives her
power from don Juan but is fulfilling his plans, is
all a prelude to an astonishing discovery. For
Castaneda unfolds for the reader a sorcerer’s
family, in which dona Soledad, her girls,
Lidia, Elena ( la Gorda ), Josefina and Rosa,
themselves changed and transformed by don
Juan, are part of a small closed society in which
the teachings of don Juan have become a way of
life, touching and explaining every aspect of the
world, altering the relationships between them so
that they are no longer mother and children, man
and wife, sisters and brothers, friends and
enemies, but disciples, witnesses, accomplices in
don Juan’s grand design.
Extraordinary as all Castaneda’s books have
been. The Second Ring of Power goes far beyond
anything he has written before: it is a vision of a
more somber, frightening and compelling world
than that of Castaneda’s years of apprentice-
ship-the world of a full-fledged sorcerer, in
which dangers lie in wait on the journey to impec-
cability and freedom, and in which the message
of don Juan must be transformed into real life.
Contents:
PREFACE
1
The Transformation of Dona Soledad
2
The Little Sisters
3
La Gorda
4
The Genaros
5
The Art of Dreaming
6
The Second Attention
Preface
A flat, barren mountaintop on the western slopes of the Sierra
Madre in central Mexico was the setting for my final meeting
with don Juan and don Genaro and their other two appren-
tices, Pablito and Nestor. The solemnity and the scope of
what took place there left no doubt in my mind that our ap-
prenticeships had come to their concluding moment, and that
I was indeed seeing don Juan and don Genaro for the last time.
Toward the end we all said good-bye to one another, and then
Pablito and I jumped together from the top of the mountain
into an abyss.
Prior to that jump don Juan had presented a fundamental
principle for all that was going to happen to me. According
to him, upon jumping into the abyss I was going to become
pure perception and move back and forth between the two
inherent realms of all creation, the tonal and the nagual.
In my jump my perception went through seventeen elastic
bounces between the tonal and the nagual. In my moves into
the nagual I perceived my body disintegrating. I could not
think or feel in the coherent, unifying sense that I ordi-
narily do, but I somehow thought and felt. In my moves
into the tonal I burst into unity. I was whole. My perception
had coherence. I had visions of order. Their compelling
force was so intense, their vividness so real and their complex-
ity so vast that I have not been capable of explaining them to
my satisfaction. To say that they were visions, vivid dreams
or even hallucinations does not say anything to clarify their
nature.
After having examined and analyzed in a most thorough and
careful manner my feelings, perceptions and interpretations
of that jump into the abyss, I had come to the point where I
could not rationally believe that it had actually happened. And
yet another part of me held on steadfast to the feeling that it
did happen, that I did jump.
Don Juan and don Genaro are no longer available and their
absence has created in me a most pressing need, the need to
make headway in the midst of apparently insoluble contra-
dictions.
I went back to Mexico to see Pablito and Nestor to seek
their help in resolving my conflicts. But what I encountered
on my trip cannot be described in any other way except as a
final assault on my reason, a concentrated attack designed by
don Juan himself. His apprentices, under his absentee direc-
tion, in a most methodical and precise fashion demolished in
a few days the last bastion of my reason. In those few days
they revealed to me one of the two practical aspects of their
sorcery, the art of dreaming, which is the core of the present
work.
The art of stalking, the other practical aspect of their sor-
cery and also the crowning stone of don Juan’s and don Ge-
naro’s teachings, was presented to me during subsequent visits
and was by far the most complex facet of their being in the
world as sorcerers.
1
The Transformation
of Dona Soledad
I had a sudden premonition that Pablito and Nestor were not
home. My certainty was so profound that I stopped my car.
I was at the place where the asphalt came to an abrupt end,
and I wanted to reconsider whether or not to continue that
day the long and difficult drive on the steep, coarse gravel
road to their hometown in the mountains of central Mexico.
I rolled down the window of my car. It was rather windy
and cold. I got out to stretch my legs. The tension of driving
for hours had stiffened my back and neck. I walked to the
edge of the paved road. The ground was wet from an early
shower. Rain was still falling heavily on the slopes of the
mountains to the south, a short distance from where I was.
But right in front of me, toward the east and also toward the
north, the sky was clear. At certain points on the winding road
I had been able to see the bluish peaks of the sierras shining in
the sunlight a great distance away.
After a moment’s deliberation I decided to turn back and go
to the city because I had had a most peculiar feeling that I was
going to find don Juan in the market. After all, I had always
done just that, found him in the marketplace, since the begin-
ning of my association with him. As a rule, if I did not find
him in Sonora I would drive to central Mexico and go to the
market of that particular city, and sooner or later don Juan
would show up. The longest I had ever waited for him was
two days. I was so habituated to meeting him in that manner
that I had the most absolute certainty that I would find him
again, as always.
I waited in the market all afternoon. I walked up and down
the aisles pretending to be looking for something to buy. Then
I waited around the park. At dusk I knew that he was not
coming. I had then the clear sensation that he had been there
but had left. I sat down on a park bench where I used to sit
with him and tried to analyze my feelings. Upon arriving in
the city I was elated with the sure knowledge that don Juan
was there in the streets. What I felt was more than the mem-
ory of having found him there countless times before; my
body knew that he was looking for me. But then, as I sat on
the bench I had another kind of strange certainty. I knew that
he was not there anymore. He had left and I had missed him.
After a while I discarded my speculations. I thought that I
was beginning to be affected by the place. I was starting to
get irrational; that had always happened to me in the past after
a few days in that area.
I went to my hotel room to rest for a few hours and then I
went out again to roam the streets. I did not have the same