Point of View

The Second Ring of Power drops the pretext of being a work of scholarly pretext of Carlos Castaneda's first work, The Teachings of Don Juan, in which he is indoctrinated into the drug culture of the Yaqui Indians through a shaman named Don Juan Matus. Carlos is still an academically trained anthropologist, but he is no longer recording verbatims or analyzing his experiences in scholarly terms. The expertise remains, but the continuing story—Carlos has clearly completed more training and "graduated" by leaping into the abyss—of coming to grips with what he has experienced.

Not recalling the leap, Carlos returns to hear his his colleagues' witness and explanation. Carlos still needs to understand things rationally. He questions minutely, takes notes, but it all makes him appears as an idiot to the others with whom he deals. The result is a much more accessible...