Customer Reviews

The Second Ring of Power

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3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

i have read all of Mr. Castaneda's books, and have recently re-read a good portion of selected books from this whole group of books, including the second ring of power....

Mr. Castaneda's rendering of his experiences with his cohorts, and teachers has to be taken in the full context of all of his books. The ideas that he speaks about obviously are not his, he was an uptight, overachieving academic type. he would not have the full imagination to think up all of this "stuff".

but the whole group of books where he explains in detail the specific way to become a "warrior" is not for the massess. The massess have no thought over and above their everyday life, much less such an esoteric explaination of a unique way of life. And very few would take this walk of life.

I know alot of people obviously think that the things described are from his imagination or maybe from his drug induced thoughts, but as one reads each and every book it is obvious that there is something more that is going on. each of his books builds upon the last and tries to explain the full impact of what he was told and what he saw and experienced.

life is full of mysteries that we have not delved into...other dimensions that we have not explored this does not mean that they are not available.

it just means that most people cannot make that leap into another reality.

that of course is their loss.

This is when the fun Begins, Carlos Comes Back From the Abyss, And begins to ponder whether he really jumped off a mountain so he goes back to mexico to see if he can find answers, and boy did he, In order to completely understand this book its a must to read the last previous books Or else you will be Lost ! It gets pretty Complicated but if you've read the previous books you can comprehend it pretty well, this book also deserves at least 2 reads you'll find different answers all the time, Once you begin comprehending you will finally be addicted to the writings of Carlos, his descriptions are so thorough It paints a most vivid picture of his details. The Beginning of Carlos's First Battle with Sorcery and he finds in-depth powers he never thought he can achieve, and this also introduces the art of dreaming and the second attention,
Carlos Replaces his beloved Teacher Don Juan as the New Nagual for Don Juan's Mysterious Apprentices.
I read this book within a week cause i couldn't put it down.
Surreal and amazing
a must have for Castaneda Followers!
Let your Path to a Toltec Warrior Begin...

My dad recommended this to me; he told me he read them as a young adult when Carlos' books were just being published. My library only had this one, so I had to begin on a seemingly already well-traveled joruney. All I can say is this is one book I'll never forget. It was amazing, and yet indeed troubling for me because I've never heard anyone talk about life quite the way he explains it in a Sorcerer's eyes. I love, as a woman myself, that there are females Sorcerers that helped him, because indeed wherever men have been, women have as well. But other than that, I found them to be weird characters, people that don't sound like they live in our world whatsoever. The men, Nestor, Beningo, and Pablito and the women Gorda, Lidia, Rosa, and Josefina are just souls that could confuse any of us average kind, and I truly felt like Carlos- confused and severely curious throughout the entire novel. That's why I don't appreciate them all calling him stupid constantly, I mean, cut him slack. He's learning as they learned. And what things he learned, as well as myself.
Dad asked me if I believe it, or cast it aside as a really well- written story. I say...maybe. Look at it in my perspective. I'm young, confused, and just starting to get my own 'form'. I believe there is much more out there than can be proven under a microscope, but I need to be level- headed and realistic and understand how pessimistic viewers see it as well. There's no proof what this man wrote is true, but there's absolutely no proof he's lying either. It is eerie how good he is at writing such a story, making it sound so true, but there have been stories that have fooled us before. So I'm not sure. This man has really put me in a bind, and I don't regret it. The more you think, the more broader your mind and soul get. (That's my philosophy at least.)
I'll tell you this much, this is truly an author I would love to meet, but since that's probably never going to happen, I'm going to read more of him when I have time. I have still many questions, and regardless of if this is a story or not, I want them answered.
Just a note, try to get his very first book if can, and if you want a book on enjoyment instead of study, don't even pick this up. It's no fantasy novel. It's a whole other world of study that derives basically on shamanism in the vast and mysterious lands of Mexico.

This is the 5th book in the Carlos Castaneda series. One could read this book without having read the other books, but this would not be advisable. Here, Carlos returns to the deserts of Mexico in Search of Don Juan and meaning as to the events of the last book `Tales of Power'. The Nagual's, Don Juan and Don Genaro are not to be found. As is stated from the `editor's review', the first few chapters of this book deal with Carlos interacting with the sorceress Dona Soledad. Carlos's teachings continue not under the direction of these Nagual's, but with instruction left to the other disciples for Carlos Castaneda to work through. The interaction with these other disciples gives us a clearer understanding in the workings of Carlos Castaneda and Don Genaro.

This book presents us with `The art of dreaming' and `second attention'. Attention of Tonal "The capacity of average people to perceive and place their awareness on the ordinary world of everyday life. The first ring of power is our "awesome, but take-for-granted ability to impact order to our perception of our daily world." "The second domain (2nd ring of Power) was the attention of the Nagual; that is to say, the capacity of the sorcerer to place their awareness on the non-ordinary world". "Don Juan had said that our "first ring of power" is engaged very early in our lives and that we live under the impression that that is all there is to us. Our "Second ring of Power," the "attention of the Nagual," remains hidden for the immense majority of us, and only at the moment of our death is it revealed to us. There is a pathway to reach it, however, which is available to every one of us, but which only sorcerers take, and that pathway is through dreaming." "Dreaming" was in essence the transformation of ordinary dreams into affairs involving volition. Dreamers, by engaging their "attention of the Nagual" and focusing it on the items and events of their ordinary dreams, change those dreams into dreaming". Pg 278.

"First Attention, where we experience the Tonal, or the Second Attention where we experience the Nagual. To Castaneda the Tonal is often associated with the masculine aspect of the universe and the Nagual to the feminine. The Tonal can roughly be linked to the concept of Ego and the conscious mind." Wikipedia (Nagual Castaneda).

Carlos gives us the example of a table in the desert. The realm of the tonal deals with the objects placed upon the table. The 2nd ring of power of the Nagual, deals with standing back and becoming aware of all that goes beyond the table that is situated in a vast desert.

"The Nagual told me that human beings are frail creatures composed of many layers of luminosity. When you see them, they seem to have fibres, but those fibres are really layers, like an onion. Jolts of any kind separate those layers and can cause human beings to die" pg 290

"Sorcerers have to do their best to keep their own layers closed. That's why the Nagual taught us dreaming. Dreaming tightens the layers. When sorceress learn dreaming they tie together their tow attentions and there is no more need for that centre to push out". Do you mean that sorcerers do not die?" "That's right. Sorcerers do not die." Pg 291.

Carlos teaches us to access the second intention we should learn the art of gazing. For Carlos, Don Juan had taught to look into the distance without focusing onto specifics. In this book however we find that Don Juan has taught his other disciples the opposite depending upon the individual in question. Interesting to note here, for those that think that they can do the esoteric work themselves; having a master to guide us can pinpoint and expedite our progress depending upon our makeup, our personality etc. To one was given the task of gazing at a leaf (pg 294), a plant, a tree or rock; to another a fog or the rain (pg 297). "One could also gaze at water (still or running), smoke, fire or even a hung piece of cloth (pg 303).

"The difficulty in gazing is to learn to quiet down the thoughts. The Nagual said that he preferred to teach us how to do that with a pile of leaves because we could get all the leaves we needed any time we wanted to gaze. But anything else would do the same job. Once you stop the world you are a gazer. And since the only way of stopping the world was by trying, the Nagual made all of us gaze at leaves for years and years. I think it's the best way to reach our second attention. He combined gazing at dry leaves and looking for our hands in dreaming...The Nagual said that once you have trapped your second attention with dry leaves, you do gazing and dreaming to enlarge it. And that's all there is to gazing...The Nagual said that all we needed to do in order to trap our second attention was to try and try. All of us stopped the world by gazing at dry leaves." pg 295.

"The mad reign of King Monkey Mind can be overthrown by shifting the focus towards the second attention. The second attention can be cultivated by relaxing the search for meaning. This can be experienced by relaxing the tendency to project and/or assume meaning onto whatever is perceived, in lieu of direct perception of the phenomena. This can also occur by dropping labels through an agreement to experience the world without naming what you are experiencing. Infants and very young children see this way most of the time. This begins a process of flexing a perceptual muscle that was at one time active and vital before it weakened and/or atrophied." (Paratheatrical dot com)

"How do you learn?" "In my dreaming. Dreamers must gaze in order to do dreaming and then they must look for their dreams in their gazing. For example, the Nagual made me gaze at the shadows of rocks, and then in my dreaming I found out that those shadows had light, so I looked for the light in the shadows form then on until I found it. Gazing and dreaming go together". Pg 308. Selah.

Having read this book one is still left wondering what has happened to these two Nagual's that gone to another dimension. Guess I'll have to read the 6th book in the Carlos Castaneda series - `The eagle's gift'.

For those who are yet to read this book - im not going to tell you what is it about. Im just gonna say that this book is very different from prequel (i believe that was Tales of Power) In fact, here we are revealed something about Carlos' overall mission as a new nagual - something mind boggling.
It is interesting to see though, how he must react to ceratain things as a nagual, while at the same time realizing to himself that he is not. That is a one of many conundrums that this book offers a reader. I recommend it especially to those who find that little (or big) something in Carlos Castaneda writings and way.

This used to be my least favorite of Castaneda's books. Now I'm re-reading it, and can honestly say that it's far more complex than it seems at first.

In all of his earlier books, Castaneda focused on Don Juan. Now his teacher is gone, and Carlos has to live life, and write bestselling books, without him.

Long ago, I stopped pondering whether or not the books were made up, and started thinking of them as wonderful stories with allegorical meaning. And this is the point: The Second Ring of Power is all about what happens when Mommy and Daddy are gone. Or maybe it's about Carlos opportunizing on his fame to justify the creation of a harem for himself (the Nagual's women). Or maybe it's even more subtle, and about what we all have to face: the fear of not being able to blame anyone else for your lot in life.

Castaneda ends his previous novel, Tales of Power, with these words: "And then I was alone." Now, he has to deal with the second generation of Sorcerers after Don Juan and Genaro, the Second Ring of Power. In effect he is rounding up his new cast of characters.

Does he get away with it? Does it come off as being convincing? I don't know, because I'm not finished with the re-read. I do know that the rest of the books' some with and without Don Juan and Genaro, are very well done.

There is a final allegory in Castaneda that came home to me in dealing with several individuals in my own life. And that is that some of the craziest people we know, personally, have a power about them. Are we all, in a way, sorcerers, and don't know it?

This is not my favorite of Castaneda's books, but it is the only one that presents some of the unique teachings for women offered in this tradition. In this book, Castaneda returns to Mexico after Don Juan and Don Genaro, his teachers, have 'left the world'. Prior to this visit, Castaneda didn't know that Don Juan also had female apprentices, and this book is his introduction, and at times battle, with them. It's the battles that get a little tiresome and dark (as also happens in several other Castaneda books), and without Don Juan and Don Genaro's levity and heart, this book gets quite heavy in parts.

On the other hand, the women in this circle share aspects of the teachings that they received from Don Juan and Don Genaro, and these are unique. The womb is considered the center of a woman's power, and give her a unique energetic fluidity and doorway to the sorcerer's world when she is able to fully own and access it. Some aspects of these teachings are quite disturbing - parents and children are pretty much presented as at war for each other's personal power - but they are never dull. Because Castaneda spends much of this book in conversation with these sorcerers of his circle, other teachings from Don Juan and Don Genaro are presented in a new light, which is also helpful.

Overall, I would only recommend this book to hardcore Castaneda fans and/or individuals specifically interested in women's spirituality or energy body teachings. If you're interested in the latter, another book to look at is The Sorcerer's Crossing: A Woman's Journey (Compass), written by a woman who studied with others in Don Juan's circle. If you're new to Castaneda, I would start with Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan and then Tales of Power.

As for all the controversies surrounding Castaneda, I recommend simply reading a book or two, and seeing if they resonate. Their source is irrelevant really, and we may never know the full truth (if there is such a thing.)

In this book, Carlos makes it clear that warrior means WARRIOR. Awareness only grows through life-or-death struggles, and this is not a bit of poetry. He makes clear how disastrous it is to confront Infinity with even a tiny amount of pity. Ironically, our only hope for freedom and beauty is to remember that nobody owes us anything. The Second Ring of Power is the sharpest, most energetic of the Castaneda books.

It is a pity that there are many people that don't have a clue to find the 'beef' of their readings. I mean, what would you think of a guy that blames Cervantes for telling us 'lies' from Don Quixote stories ?? Or Shakespare's masterpieces ?? People should focus on the content not the form !!This attitude only proves the poor education of some people. Pls take my suggestion, don't get frustrated with Castaneda's books,,,,go ahead and pick up some western old cowboy story and drink some beer,,,obviously this stuff is too much for you.

This book builds on to Carlos's previous experiences. It goes into the further exploration of consciousness. There are many excellent descriptions and insights in this read.