The Second Attempt was the Herd's closed effort to wake The Calf with a small circle of adepts, each embodying one of The Eight Angels. Assembled by Duncan Horst and funded by Michael Enlightened, the circle attempted The Rite of Ascent together. The rite reached its final node and failed; in the course of it, one participant died (see The Death at the Second Attempt).
The failure precipitated The Third Transmission, in which Horst learned that the rite had never lacked a technique but a constituency: a circle of adepts, however skilled, could not stand in for humanity. This lesson is the direct origin of the expanded congregation.