Book Reviews

by Daniel J. Benor, MD (unless otherwise noted)

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John L. Payne. The Healing of Individuals, Families & Nations: Transgenerational Healing & Family Constellations

John L. Payne. The Healing of Individuals, Families & Nations: Transgenerational Healing & Family Constellations, Forres, Scotland: Findhorn 2005. 170 pp.  $16.95     

Here is an outstanding book that introduces the concepts and methods of Family Constellation therapy. This work is done in workshop groups, where participants take turns in staging their family relationships with the help of the others in the workshop, under the guidance of the therapist.

The workshop participants, who are chosen by the person whose family relationships are being staged, have no direct knowledge of any sort about the family members they are representing. Amazingly, each participant intuitively knows what their emotional attachments and feelings are – as the family members they are representing. In most cases, the feelings they express are validated by the person whose family is being staged. In many cases, they reveal emotions and beliefs about the relationships between the family members that are surprising and instructive to the person whosfamily is being staged.

In essence, this is an exercise in exploring the family collective consciousness – through the broader collective consciousness that includes the workshop participants. This enables the unraveling of unhappy and dysfunctional patterns of relationships, and of chronic distress in the protagonists who stage their family constellations in the workshop.

What this work reveals quite simply is that our feelings may not be our own and that we can be entangled in the fate of others, living their lives, instead of being in contact with the essence of our own unique Soul. (p. ii)

What is revealed through this work is that the unresolved feelings in a person's life live on through the family collective consciousness. Often, a person in a later generation picks up these feelings as though they were his or her own feelings. Thus, an unresolved grief may in one generation may be expressed as a chronic depression in a child or grandchild of that person.

The unresolved experiences and feelings may also include relationships such as marriages or liasons that ended poorly, miscarriages, experiences of abuse or wartime trauma, and other unhappiness that was taken to the grave by a family ancestor.

The Soul is compelled to include that which has been excluded in order to bring the family back into balance. Once these imbalances have been healed through constellation work, individuals are free to live their own lives, instead of being led by subconscious impulses. (p. 102)

The person whose constellation is being staged has the opportunity to first witness the emotions of all family members, including those of the group member representing himself or herself; and then the opportunity to take her or his own place in the constellation and interact with the other family member representatives. The therapist guides this person to make deeply healing statements to other family representatives, such as:

Payne to James: Look at your brother and say, “The day you left us was terrible, it’s been difficult to let you go.” (p. 121)

Payne to Brother: Look at your brother and say, “You have a family, dear brother. This is my fate, and they need you.”

Payne to James: Now say to your brother, “I shall leave you with the dead and go to my wife and children.” (p. 122)

Wartime experiences may be particularly challenging, because there is not only the personal hurt of the individual ancestor, but the collective hurt and anger of the community or nation of that person.

Victims and perpetrators share a fate with one another and when the victim is denied or excluded in some way, the perpetrator is also excluded – given a status that is less than human – compelling future generations to take on as their own the fate of either the perpetrator of the victim. (p. 3)

Family Constellation work offers healings for societal angers and hatreds that perpetuate inter-group conflicts.

When major acts of terrorism occur, such as the events of September 11th 2001, the individual healing process is challenged and made more difficult by a nation’s response towards the perpetrators of such acts. When a national outpouring of emotions such as anger, hatred and revenge occurs, the individuals involved find it more difficult to bring about closure as a cultural imperative arises in which citizens are obligated by the national conscience to harbour specific feelings for the identified enemy. What has been learnt from Family Constellation process is that it is only when the identified perpetrators, or enemies, have been given their proper place, and the overall fate of the individuals involved are accepted and respected, that forgiveness can really take place. When a nation is captivated by media and political rhetoric concerning such events, the survivors who have lost loved ones often take on a sense of guilt when moving though their forgiveness process, for they are trying to move in the opposite direction to the dominant national conscience. This occurs because not only do we belong to our families, but we also belong to national and ethnic groups that from a group conscience. It is often very difficult for individuals to challenge their own national conscience when it is telling them to resist and hate an enemy, when the opposite – acceptance and forgiveness – is in their best interest. Therefore, the healing process in the aftermath of such prominent events can be protracted. At its core, the problem and the solution are identical to that of anyone dealing with the untimely death of an individual, in other words, acceptance of a given fate. (p. 113)

A part of the constellation work may be to add a representative for 'the [specific] enemy' such as the Nazis or other oppressors.

When we hate a group owing to the suffering of those who came before us, we weaken ourselves. In essence, we label and identify our forefathers as victims instead of acknowledging their fortitude. When we truly honour the fate of our parents and previous generations, we gain strength from them. No longer are they the downtrodden; they become elevated to the status of a proud and strong people who endured against all the odds. With the same posture, it is important for black people to honour the burden of guilt carried by the white community, understanding that forces were at play that were greater than the sum of individuals. Resistance to what is (or was) simply creates focus, and that focus in turn creates perpetuation. When we hold focus on a group and its descendants as perpetrators, we ourselves perpetuate our status, or the perpetrators, there need to be victims; this is the greatest dance of fate. So when we truly honour the fate of those who were victims, the power of the perpetrators diminishes, be that real power, or the power we give perpetrators in our consciousness. (125)

Family Constellation work bridges the gap between psychotherapy and shamanism, for in such constellations the dead are given a voice and resolutions can be found. The nature of the Soul is to evolve and grow; it cannot do so when its burdens are shouldered by others, especially if those others are descendants. In such constellations, both our presumptuousness and dare I say, arrogance, are revealed, for we are often caught in the trap of putting ourselves above those who passed life on to us. When we do so, we are not in the place of receiving within the family hierarchy. (p. 111).

What is important is the individuals carry only their own burden of remorse, not that of others. In order for South Africa to be healed, the black population must find a way to embrace the guilt of the white population in their hearts, and white South Africans must learn to take individual responsibility and not to feel responsible for the actions of governments and governmental organizations from the past. When these inner movements are not made, then the cycle of victim and perpetrator simply perpetuates.
(p. 137)

Payne further suggests that this process has the potential to bring healing to all of our ancestors throughout the collective consciousness.

Imagine that your parents are standing behind you, your father behind your right shoulder, your mother behind your left shoulder. Place their parents behind them in similar fashion. Add you great-grandparents behind them, plus another generation and yet another. Keep seeing row upon row of family generations extending out from behind you as if you are the tip of a flat triangle that fans out, back into the mists of time.

Allow this vast crowd to grow and grow, adding generation after generation in your mind’s eye until eventually you see the beginning of all life, the source, that original spark. It is still a mystery, buy you may wish to call this God or simply “The Source”.

Just sit for a moment and feel the strength of support coming from this vast crowd of ancestors, each one having passed the fit of life on to the following generations. Now imagine that you are turning 180 degrees in order to face your parents. Look over their shoulders at this vast crowd and in your mind’s eye scan each of the generations as far back as you can go, allowing yourself to feel their richness of experience. Each generation endured hardships, created triumphs and laid the foundations for future development for the next generation. Embrace the knowledge of how all of these ancestors grew in mind, heart and spirit through the passage of time, each generation having opened doorways to new ways of being, doing and thinking for the next generation. Now look at your parents and realize how all of this evolution, wisdom and learning has been given to you as a gift of life by the two very special people standing in front of you, your parents.

Now bow to your parents and your ancestors, inwardly feeling the gratitude for life.
(p. 169-70)

My own approach to healing the collective consciousness is broader than Payne's. This includes all beings (not only our own ancestors, but also others who are our contemporaries) and all living and conscious beings to join in the healing (Benor, web references).

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a 'must read' for anyone interested in deeper healings through the collective consciousness.

References:

Benor, Daniel J. Suggestions to clear the PTSD from humanity’s collective consciousness – hopefully to help us avert collective suicide.
Brief version  http://wholistichealingresearch.com/World_Healing_Collective_Consciousness.html
Full version  http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/col_con_hooponopono_whee.html

Chris Hedges. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, NY: Nation Books 2009.  232 pp  $24.95  References 6 pp     

This is one of the clearest and best focused discussions I have seen on the problems of modern society that are leading us to self-destruction. Chris Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent. In 2002, Chris Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times who were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism.

Anyone who has wondered why the world is in the mess it is in today will come away vastly enriched by this book. Hedges has a brilliant clarity of understanding of complex issues and a clear, succinct way of explaining them. There is no doubt that this experience was helpful to him in appreciating the chief perpetrators of terrorism in the world today. Can you guess who these are?

Hedges builds on the images of the spectator lives that most people in the modern Western world live – fed by the media, which have come to define for us what is real and what is desirable in our lives. The average person spends over four hours daily watching TV – which means that many people spend far more than that time in rapt absorption of whatever is placed before them.

The media have systematically studied how to influence viewers to buy into their presentations – conceptually, emotionally and with their media-molded purchases. More insidiously, those who control the media have systematically manipulated our social structures so that the manipulators actually control our perceptions of reality and can thereby manipulate our behaviors for their benefit and profit – not just in the marketplaces, but in the social and political arenas of our lives as well.

Those who manipulate the shadows that dominate our lives are the agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion. They are the puppet masters. No one achieves celebrity status, no cultural illusion is swallowed as reality, without these armies of cultural enablers and intermediaries. The sole object is to hold attention and satisfy an audience. These techniques of theater, as Boorstin notes have leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare, and crime. The squalid dramas played out for fans in the wrestling ring mesh with the ongoing dramas on television, in movies, and in the news, where “real-life” stories, especially those involving celebrities, allow news reports to become mini-dramas complete with a star, a villain, a supporting cast, a good-looking host, and a neat, if often unexpected, conclusion. p. 15-16

Those who are in control are the ones who have the money to buy media time, to purchase and thereby control media outlets, to pay for lobbyists to influence politicians, to bribe politicians, and thereby create a global consumer society that is primarily focused on accumulating ever more material objects. And our focus on objects is dehumanizing, because within this system people have become objects for manipulation for ever greater profits rather than living beings.

The veterans [of WW II] saw their wartime experience transformed into an illusion. It became part of the mythic narrative of heroism and patriotic glory sold to the public by the Pentagon’s public relations machine and Hollywood. The reality of war could not compete against the power of the illusion. The truth did not feed the fantasy of war as a ticket to glory, honor, and manhood. The truth did not promote collective self-exaltation. The illusion of war peddled in the Sands of Iwo Jima, like hundreds of other Hollywood war films, worked because it was what the public wanted to believe about themselves. It was what the government and the military wanted to promote. It worked because it had the power to simulate experience for most viewers who were never at Iwo Jima or in a war. But as Hayes and the others knew, this illusion was a lie. p. 21-22.

We consume countless lies daily, false promises that if we spend more money, if we buy this brand or that product, if we vote for this candidate, we will be respected, envied, powerful, loved, and protected. The flamboyant lives of celebrities and the outrageous characters on television, movies, professional wrestling, and sensational talk shows are peddled to us, promising to fill up the emptiness in our own lives. Celebrity culture encourages everyone to think of themselves as potential celebrities, as possession unique if unacknowledged gifts. p. 26-7.

Celebrity is the vehicle used by a corporate society to sell us these branded commodities, most of which we do not need. Celebrities humanize commercial commodities. They present the familiar and comforting face of the corporate state. p. 37.

Hedges clearly explains the processes whereby our social structures have shifted from serving the people to serving corporate interests. Our schools increasingly prepare people to be uncritical, unthinking consumers. Our politicians, responding to corporate inducements, favor short-term interests, motivated by goals of immediate corporate profits. The interests of individuals, and long-term collective interests are ignored – including the health and welfare of humans and other living beings, environmental concerns, and fiscal responsibility.

Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask whether the message is true but rather whether the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the most convincing fantasies.
This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefines reality by the parameters set by their creators. These creators, who make massive profits selling illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they control. p. 50-1.

The flight into illusion sweeps away the core values of the open society. It corrodes the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to grasp historical facts, to advocate for change, and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways, and structures of being that are morally and socially acceptable. A populace deprived of the ability to separate lies from truth, that has become hostage to the fictional semblance of reality put forth by pseudo-events, is no longer capable of sustaining a free society.

Those who slip into this illusion ignore the signs of impending disaster. The physical degradation of the planet, the cruelty of global capitalism, the looming oil crisis, the collapse of financial markets, and the danger of overpopulation rarely impinge to prick the illusions that warp our consciousness. The words, images, stories, and phrases used to describe the world in pseudo-events have no relation to what is happening around us. The advances of technology and science, rather than obliterating the world of myth, have enhanced its power to deceive. We live in imaginary, virtual worlds created by corporations that profit from our deception. Products and experiences – indeed, experience as a product – offered up for sale, sanctified by celebrities, are mirages. They promise us a new personality. They promise us success and fame. They promise to mend our brokenness. p. 52-3.

We have all seen the growth of a culture of lies and deception in politics, banking, commerce and education. Hodges points out how this has been facilitated by our abandoning the teaching of values and analysis in our schools.

The flight from the humanities has become a flight from conscience. It has created an elite class of experts who seldom look beyond their tasks and disciplines to put what they do in a wider, social context. And by absenting themselves from the moral and social questions raised by the humanities, they have opted to serve a corporate structure that has destroyed the culture around them.

Our elites – the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street, and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools – do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one. They are petty, timid, and uncreative bureaucrats superbly trained to carry our systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions that will satisfy the corporate structure. Their entire focus is numbers, profits, and personal advancement. They lack a moral and intellectual core. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they believe, is a secondary product of the free market – which they slavishly serve. p. 111.

I quote Hodges at some length because of his cogent, clear summaries of the problems leading us to self-destruction and to ways we might someday restructure society to be supportive and healing to the individual – rather than exploiting people and viewing them only as valuable as they can be manipulated into being gullible consumers.

This is one of the clearest and best focused discussions I have seen on the problems of modern society that are leading us to societal suicide 

Rob Hopkins. The Transition Handbook – From oil dependency to local resilience

Hopkins, Rob. The Transition Handbook – From oil dependency to local resilience. Foxhole, UK: Green Books Ltd. 2008.  240 pp    8 pp References  4 pp Resources  $24.95     

Rob Hopkins initiated the Transition Town Movement in a student project at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. His ideas of dealing with the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil at local levels first took root in Totnes, in western England in 2005. The movement currently has member communities in growing numbers of countries worldwide. (Guelph, Ontario, Canada where I live has a fledgling group. Click here to see list of Transition towns.)

Governments around the world are doing a poor job of reducing oil use and carbon emissions. The Transition Town Movement is exploring, developing and promoting new ways to deal with these problems at local levels. Every person can make meaningful contributions towards these ends.

Transition Initiatives are based on four key assumptions:

1. That life with dramatically lower energy consumption in inevitable, and that it’s better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.
2. That our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany peak oil.
3. That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now.
4. That by unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognize the biological limits of our planet.
   (p. 134)

Hopkins' plan has been spreading rapidly – not only due to the immanence of potential tipping points beyond which our world could be toast – but also because of his positive attitude and his open-ended, visionary approaches.

Hopkins demonstrates the positive attitude that infuses a lot of the earth-healing literature and initiatives. This is a very important contribution of the Transition Towns Movement. Quoting (p. 94-5) from Tom Atlee:

I’ve started viewing both optimism and pessimism as spectator sports, as forms of disengagement masquerading as involvement. Both optimism and pessimism trick me into judging life and betting on the odds, rather than diving into life with my whole self, with my full co-creative energy. I think the emerging crises call us to transcend such false end-games like optimism and pessimism. I think they call us to act like a spiritually healthy person who has just learned they have heart disease: We can use each dire prognosis as a stimulant for reaching more deeply into life and co-creating positive change.

And so I’ve come to conclude that all the predictions – both good and bad – tell us absolutely nothing about what is possible. Trends and events only relate to what is probable. Probabilities are abstractions. Possibilities are the stuff of life, visions to act upon, doors to walk through. Pessimism and optimism are both distractions from living life fully.

And (p. 98) from Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth Anderson:

Today as we are besieged by planetary problems, the risk is that we will deal with them in a pessimistic and unproductive style… Transfixed by an image of our own future decline, we could actually bring it about. A positive vision of the future, according to writer and philosopher David Spangler, ‘challenges the culture to dare, to be open to change, and to accept a spirit of creativity that cold alter its very structure.

Hopkins' approach invites people to come together in their town or neighborhood to brainstorm ideas and suggestions for initiating and building local initiatives within the Transition Town model. Many of the suggestions that have been gleaned from Transition Town meetings are marvelously practical and of immediate benefits to business owners who are unde various financial pressures. For instance:

Oil Vulnerability Auditing (OVA). In essence, it is a method for auditing the various processes a business uses, and where it utilizes oil, whether directly as fuel, as lubricants, in transportation, processing, packaging and so on. It allows the person conducting the Audit to build up an accurate picture of where oil is used, and then to explore, by pushing up the price of that oil, where the business’s vulnerabilities lie. At $100 a barrel? $120? $150 a barrel? Which parts of the business’s operations become unviable first? Is it the degree of dependence on transportation for the goods that they sell, prompting them to explore more local sourcing, or is it the energy intensiveness of their processing?
 
OVA is a risk-assessment tool. It looks to the bottom line, and requires no allegiance to the peak oil/climate change arguments. (p. 194)

Visions for far-reaching changes are encouraged, with development of timelines which provide goals that promote imaginative initiatives to make them possible.

For instance, Hopkins suggests the following Healthcare visioning with a target date of 2030:

The closure of local hospitals in favour of centralised ones – so rampant twenty years ago – has been reversed, and local healthcare centres are now not just about treating illness but promoting health in many diverse ways. They have forged partnerships with local schools, promoting food growing and familiarizing young people with the whole food cycle from seed to salad. The wellbeing of the individual is seen as inseparable from the health of the community. Human biology is now a compulsory school subject, and has expanded to include nutrition and basic herbalism.

About half of the medicines prescribed by doctors are now locally sourced, with local farmers growing certain key medicinal plants which are processed in local laboratories. Local chemists also now make over 50% of the medicines they sell on the premises. Doctors are able to prescribe a range of complementary treatments, as well as involvement in local community gardens, and access to affordable good food. The growth in access to meaningful work, the rebuilding of social cohesion and an emerging common sense of purpose, has resulted in fewer stress-related illnesses and cases of depression. Conventional and complementary practitioners are seen very much as two sides of the same coin, and the concept of promoting health rather than just treating disease has lead to a range of innovative measures.

As a result of people’s moving away from being sedentary consumers to becoming more physically active producer/consumers, there has been an increase in musculo-skeletal problems. Doctors are now able to issue prescriptions for, for example, Alexander technique sessions. It has become more commonplace, as in China, to see free Tai Chi sessions in local parks in the morning. Technology has also enabled certain tests and observations to take place online in the patient’s own home, what is known as ‘tele-medicine’. (p. 109-10)

Hopkins' book is very highly recommended for anyone concerned with global heating and its consequences.

References:
Tom Atlee, ‘Crisis Fatigue and the Co-creation of Positive Possibilities’, Co-Intelligence Institute, http://www.co-intelligence.org/

Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth Anderson (2000), The Cultural Creatives: how 50 million people are changing the world, Three Rivers Press.

Shaun Chamberlin and Rob Hopkins. The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future

Shaun Chamberlin and Rob Hopkins. The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future. White River Jct., VT: Chelsea Green Publishing 2009.  192 pp.   $22.95

This is an excellent supplement and extension to the ideas and suggestions in Hopkins' book. It offers excellent ideas – both in content and processes – for arriving at decisions and implementations of transition plans. As with many of the current ecological challenge discussions, this one maintains a positive, optimistic tone.

As I became more involved with the rapidly-growing Transition movement, it quickly became clear to me  
that this sense of ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’ was widespread among those giving their time and energy to improving the situation. (p. 14)

Chamberlin and Hopkins point out that Energy Descent Action Plans (EDAPs) require far more than technical 'fixes' for poor planning and for the uses of available resources. They point out that it is our attitudes towards our relationships with the world that require changes.

Kenneth Boulding produced what he calls his ‘Dismal Theorem’: If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.

‘Uterly Dismal Theorem’: Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before.

The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery. (p. 46)

Man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side.
                    E.F. Schumacher

A few of the many simple, practical suggestions made by Chamberlin and Hopkins:

Changing our diets is a major contribution to restoring the environment. Meat production contributes to approximately 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. About one third of the world's arable land is used to grow animal feed.

Diets containing high meat and dairy content use inordinate amounts of water. A single kilo of grain-fed beef use up 15 cubic meter of water, compared to a kilo of grain that uses 0.4 to 3 cubic meters.

This is known as ‘embedded’ or ‘virtual’ water and we are effectively importing this water from other countries which are under much greater water stress than our own. According to the WWF, the UK effectively imports 62% of its water footprint, and in his book When The Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce calculates that the equivalent of 20 Nile rivers move from developing to developed countries each year. (p. 57)

What is Chamberlin and Hopkins suggest is most needed are local initiatives to develop local resources and local markets.

The most powerful energy resource we have available to us is the creative intelligence of the people.
                    - David Fleming, 
                      Inventor of Tradeable Energy Quotas (TEQs)

How is this for a vision of a future car-pooling initiative?

… ‘E-thumbers’ tapping information into their phones at the roadside. They are registering their desired hitchhiking destination to the national open source Lift-Hiker system. With GPS (Global Positioning System) technology now integrated into both mobile phones and car navigational aids, any driver who wishes to fill space in their vehicle simply presses a button, and any nearby person who wants a lift in that direction is sent the details of the driver’s name, type of car, number-plate and a suggested rendezvous time and location… sharing the cost with E-thumbers picked up along the way. (p. 75)

And how is this for a vision of a holiday that saves on fuel and carbon emissions?

Staying at Home is the New going Away
Two weeks in Tuscany is just so 2010!
All the rage now for the discerning holidaygoer is staying at home. In the pursuit of the low-carbon, non-TEQ-busting, perfect two-week break, thousands are now looking no further than their own place. Holiday advisor Gisella Hawkin gave the Sunday Times her eight tips for the perfect stay-at-home holiday.
· Lock away all communication devices, laptops, palmtops, mobiles, Z-phones and chat-hats.
· Time your holiday so that it falls at a time where your home plot is brimming with vegetables.
· Visit all the local places you have never visited, museums, parks, theatres, restaurants.
· Take bike rides.
· Take some time to read the pile of books you spent the previous year putting to one side for when you had the time to read them.
· Start a list the previous year of all the things you would do if you had the time, and then design your two weeks around them.
· Use the TEQs you have saved by not traveling to treat yourself to a visit from an aromatherapist, a masseur, or even a chief for the night!
· Do a painting or study course…  (p. 78)

The 12 Steps of Transition planning are clearly laid out, discussed and amply illustrated.

1. Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset. This stage puts a core team in place to drive the project forward during the initial phases.
2. Awareness-raising. Build crucial networks and prepare the community in general for the launch of your Transition initiative.
3. Lay the foundation. This stage is about networking with existing groups and activists.
4. Organise a Great Unleashing. This stage creates a memorable milestone to mark the project’s ‘coming of age’.
5. For sub-groups. Tapping into the collective genius of the community, for solutions that will form the backbone of the Energy Descent Action Plan.
6. Use Open Space. We’ve found Open Space Technology to be a highly effective approach to running meetings for Transition Town initiatives.
7. Develop visible practical manifestations of the project. It is essential that you avoid any sense that your project is just a talking shop where people sit around and draw up wish lists.
8. Facilitate the Great Reskilling. Give people a powerful realization of their own ability to solve problems, to achieve practical results and to work cooperatively alongside other people.
9. Build a bridge to Local Government. Your Energy Descent Action Plan will not progress too far unless you have cultivated a positive and productive relationship with your local authority.
10. Honour the elders. Engage with those who directly remember the transition to the age of cheap oil.
11. Let it go where it wants to go… If you try and hold onto a rigid vision, it will begin to sap your energy and appear to stall.
12. Create an Energy Descent Action Plan. Each sub-group will have been focusing on practical actions to increase community resilience and reduce the carbon footprints.
(p. 92)

While all of these suggestions might sound like contributions that are too small to make a difference, Chamberlin and Hopkins share these quotes (among many such helpful observations that counterpoint their text):

Large-scale problems do not require large-scale solutions; they require small-scale solutions within a large-scale framework.
          - David Fleming (p. 151)

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.
          - Chinese proverb (p. 167)

If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.
          - Paul Wellstone, (p. 167)

This book and Hopkins' book (reviewed above) are very highly recommended for anyone who is looking for ways to make this world better and to help it survive the challenges that humanity is posing to it. It is a wonderfully rich resource in conceptualizations and suggestions for ways to understand and address the changes that could come upon us at any time that we exceed the unpredictable tipping points of peak oil, major financial collapses or other problems that bring our multinational, globalized commerce to a crawl or a standstill.

Frederic C. Craigie, Jr.. Positive Spirituality in Health Care: Nine Practical Approaches to Pursuing Wholeness for Clinicians, Patients, and Health Care Organizations

Frederic C. Craigie, Jr. Positive Spirituality in Health Care: Nine Practical Approaches to Pursuing Wholeness for Clinicians, Patients, and Health Care Organizations. Minnesota, MN: Mill City Press, 2010. 380 pages. References and 2 appendices. $21.95     

This substantial volume offers much more than its title promises. In his warm, conversational and humorous style, Frederic Craigie, a clinical psychologist and medical educator, shares his passion for integrating spirituality, or the spiritual dimension, in three crucial areas in health care: clinicians, patients and health care organizations. He invites his readers through fascinating stories, interview transcripts, research reviews and case histories, combined with a wealth of professional and personal experience and wisdom, to broaden and deepen their understanding of why spirituality matters in the health care setting.

The author proposes four reasons why spirituality is important in health and wellness care and builds his entire book on these four premises: 1. Spirituality is intimately related to health, wholeness and well-being; 2. Spirituality mediates choices in health behaviors; 3. Spirituality often frames the ways that people cope with adversity and peruse the journey toward wellness/wholeness; and 4. Spirituality is important because people want to be known in this way by their caregivers.

Frederic Craigie uniquely focuses on ‘positive spirituality,’ which he understands not as the antithesis to ‘negative spirituality,’ but rather as the signal and emphasis for the direction and the pursuit of inquiry for all parties involved in health care. He encourages clinicians to learn the art of conversation that explores what truly matters to the patients, what is sacred for them and what sustains them. Throughout his entire book he provides wonderful practical examples, questions and suggestions. At the end of each chapter, F. Craigie includes a broadly based and substantial list of references. It would be extremely useful for the next edition of the book to include a final bibliography for ease of access because otherwise so many useful pieces of information will remain hidden, especially for those readers who tend to peruse books, which the author himself encourages.

The book consists of two main parts, followed by two appendices: The initial three chapters of the first section, “The Context,” offer a framework and considerable background materials on the subject of spirituality and spiritual care from a clinical perspective – a truly whole-person oriented clinical perspective. I particularly enjoyed the section on ‘Patient and Clinician Perspectives on Spiritual Care,’ in which F. Craigie identifies three themes as core elements of spiritual care (p.87): 1. “Being present” (intentionality in attention to emotional, social and spiritual needs; 2. “Opening eyes” (patient and caregiver recognizing the human dimension in one another); and 3. “Co-creating” (collaboration in developing holistic care plans that would maintain the humanity and dignity of patients in the face of death). The author develops much of the practically oriented second part of his book out of these three elements.

The fourth chapter explores the ‘three interlocking pieces,’ or ‘arenas of health care’ and their mutual influences and interdependence, which are the personal, clinical and organizational arenas.

The bulk of the book on Positive Spirituality in Health Care outlines F. Craigie’s nine practical approaches to bringing positive spirituality into health and wellness care. In this section, the author devotes three chapters to each of the three interlocking arenas of health care. Throughout these nine chapters, the reader finds specific strategies (total of 24) outlined for practical use. I appreciate the Index of Strategies at the beginning of the book as convenient access to the specific tips the author has developed.

In the personal arena, F. Craigie emphasizes the clinicians’ connection with purpose, their cultivation of character qualities, as well as the importance of groundedness and fostering of intention and presence. The only time the author seems to subscribe to one particular method, as opposed to a more generic approach or a wide variety of ideas, occurs in the chapter on Positive Psychology, the language and tools of which he recommends for cultivation of character qualities. Not only does Positive Psychology suit his approach to the topic of Positive Spirituality, but it is also heavily researched and thus satisfies the thirst of evidence-based materials by more conventional clinicians and practitioners. However, he also encourages clinicians to develop their own language and style of conversation and inquiry or to resort to other resources. (p. 153-4).

The clinical arena centers on the spiritual connections that are important to the patients. How do clinicians find out what matters to their patients? Frederic. Craigie suggests that clinicians may employ a two-part inquiry here: inventories and conversations. He contends that in the realm of spirituality, inventories serve as great tools for research, and highlights a few of them, such as the Spiritual Well-Being Scale. However, it becomes clear that the author’s personal preference lies with constructing nurturing conversations.

The author has worked out a specific approach to conversation, based on three principal templates that help organize conversational spiritual inquiry. Most significantly, the success of spiritual care conversations lies in the quality of the partnerships of clinicians and patients. Dr. Craigie masterfully outlines and describes his template for collaborative spiritual care conversations in a separate chapter. A discussion of recurring themes of transcendence and valued directions from these conversations ensues in the following chapter. As specific pathways to transcendence and to pursuing ‘valued directions,’ the author has chosen to explore eight approaches, which overlap significantly, but may provide a multitude of openings and evoke varied and various resonances with individual patients. These eight themes are: Letting Go, Willingness/Acceptance, Mindfulness/Being Present, Non-Attachment, Serenity, Spiritual Surrender, Gratitude/Gratefulness and Forgiveness.

The final three chapters of this book address the ‘soul’ of health care organizations, often known by other words, such as ‘spirit,’ ‘atmosphere,’ ‘tone,’ or ‘environment.’ In the earlier part of the book, ‘The Context,’ Frederic Craigie already delved into the literature on organizational soul and data from cross-sectional studies, intervention research and transformational narratives among others. In these last few chapters, however, he outlines and explores what appears close to his heart and soul, “How the soul of organization may be nurtured as part of the overall process of spiritual care.” (p. 312) In these ways, the author offers specific approaches to developing and nurturing organizational mission and values, cultivating a spirit of community, and fostering empowering health care leadership.

The book concludes with two appendices. Appendix I lists Fred Craigie’s favorite Spirituality and Health websites, which include organizations and magazines that offer valuable information. As the author points out, this is just a sampling. Appendix II offers his favorite books on the subject of Spirituality and Health Care, whereby most of his selections dates 2003 or newer.

Frederic C. Craigie’s book Positive Spirituality in Health Care contributes significantly to the field of integrative health care that holds dear the wholeness of each person, be it clinician, patient or administrator. This stimulating and enriching resource would be most beneficial to anyone involved in the health care setting, particularly nursing students, medical students and current health care providers, to support them in building purposeful relationships within their organizations, among themselves, and between them and their patients.

Review by Martina Steiger, ThD. Martina serves as a Spiritual Life Coach, educator, writer, speaker and editor. She offers mini-retreats as an opportunity to review and renew. For more information visit http://www.martinasteiger.com/.

Judith Orloff. Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How to Tap into Your Own Inner Wisdom.

Judith Orloff. Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How to Tap into Your Own Inner Wisdom. Revised edition. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2010. 359 p. US $15/ $18.95 CAN.       

In this revised edition of Second Sight, Dr. Judith Orloff points to some of main changes that have occurred since the original publication of her book in 1996. She points to a wider acceptance of intuition in society at large. Approximately half of Americans use complementary therapies. The National Institutes of Health funds research on holistic therapies. Spirituality and spiritual experiences have become topics in mainstream media. Particularly in business and leadership intuition, often referred to as “gut instinct,” has garnered importance and support. However, resistance and skepticism remain prominent among many physicians. 

Dr. Orloff’s own relationship with intuition has undergone “miraculous changes” (p. xi), as she has deepened her confidence and freedom to fully own who she is so she can convey her ideas. She does not attempt, though, at any point to convince others of a particular message. She continues to focus on explaining and exemplifying how intuition can be integrated into everyday life.

Second Sight is largely autobiographic, as the subtitle suggests, written openly and honestly, which draws the reader into the story. Throughout the book Dr. Orloff emphasizes that intuitive skills are available to anyone and can be practiced and honed. She offers various tools to access inner wisdom, with a special focus on dreams and dream interpretation. Learning to listen to and to trust that inner wisdom of intuition constitute the core of Dr. Orloff’s invitation to the readers.

Part I, “Initiations,” of Second Sight deals primarily with Judith Orloff’s life as an intuitive child in a scientifically minded family, right through her medical training and into her practice as a psychiatrist. She elaborates on her inner struggles of ignoring and denying her intuitive abilities, which forms the basis for the ten years leading up to the original publication of Second Sight. It is then the author learns to own her intuitive skills and openly share them with others. She reveals how she relies on her intuitive skills and integrates them in her interactions and treatments of patients. One of my personal highlights is her proposition that the use of intuition needs to be grounded in sound intentions, which can only be explored in a spiritual context.

As the title of Part II suggests, “Teachings” is focused on sharing tools with the readers that are meant to develop and nurture their own intuition. It is most useful for those who are just beginning to learn about intuition. With the backdrop of her patients’ stories of failures and successes, the readers are guided through various ways to tap into their inner wisdom, such as meditation, dreamwork, synchronicities and déjà-vu experiences.

Even though countless publications on the topic of intuition have emerged in the fourteen years since J. Orloff’s Second Sight first appeared on the market, her conflicted personal story, her trials and tribulations of uncovering and learning to trust her own intuitive abilities still resonate with those readers who may have gone through similar controversial experiences.

Review by Martina Steiger, ThD. Martina serves as a Spiritual Life Coach, educator, writer, speaker and editor. She offers mini-retreats as an opportunity to review and renew. For more information visit http://www.martinasteiger.com/.

Yuliya Cohen. Healing Without Effort: Energetic Boundaries

Yuliya Cohen, Healing Without Effort: Energetic Boundaries. Energy Restructuring Institute 2007.   77 pp   $39     

You may have had any of a variety of experiences that relate to the boundaries between yourself and other people. You might have felt the good vibrations of a person near you, perhaps eliciting a smile or producing a warm glow. You may have felt negative vibrations when someone approaches you, perhaps producing a feeling that they are being too intrusive in your personal space. Conventional psychological thought is that these are purely social phenomena, cued by non-verbal communications such as smiles, frowns, and social norms for acceptable interpersonal distances.Have you ever felt frustrated in not being able to manifest the positive experiences you want to have in your life? Have you ever felt helpless to change your life situations? Conventional thought is that these factors in your life are the results of your genetic endowments, over which you have accrued layers of life experiences that shape and limit your capabilities to manifest that which you want in your life. Other conventional wisdom suggests that what happens to all of us is much more a matter of chance than of our own willed manifestations.

Yuliya Cohen suggests that there may be more helpful ways of understanding ourselves and our relationships with others in our lives. Cohen is a healer, energy restructuring coach, psychic and spiritual teacher. She is the originator of the Energy Restructuring System of effortless healing.  Lest you think she is one of the cadres of ungrounded intuitive, wishful promoters of 'think-good so you'll feel good,' I must add that she was formerly an engineer and computer science researcher, prior to developing her Energy Restructuring® System. And it is a delight to read this book, which presents her personal and clinical observations, experiences and theories on the biological energies and intuitive awarenesses that shape and guide them in our lives – all through the keen, analytical mind of an engineer.

This book will guide you through descriptions, theoretical explanations and experiential exercises to perceive, understand and be able to adjust your biological energy fields for greater peace, satisfaction and success in your life. You will also gain understandings of how these fields can be helpful in clearing personal and interpersonal challenges that lessen the quality and enjoyment of your life.

You will learn to
          identify your personal energetic space
          develop affirmations that shape, strengthen and protect your personal space
          create a sacred, nurturing personal space
          connect with and open more fully to the nurturing, loving energies of the universe
          use these approaches to clear yourself of negativity

Some interesting further energetic possibilities include:

Epigenetic alterations of one's body, through intentional enhancements of the functions of your genes: Cohen suggests new ways that you can understand your genetic potential. From an energy perspective, genes are not just programs for development of physical structure and fixed physiological functions. They contain energetic inherited memories that can be altered through energetic interventions. Therefore, your capacity to enhance your life may have fewer limitations than you and I were taught to believe in our conventional western education.
Identification of past life residues that may be warping one's current life experiences.

A sample visualization suggested by Cohen has many applications.

Sense the energetics of negativity of something you are experiencing in your life that you feel is a hardship, and how it cramps your sense of your personal space.
Invite the negativity to leave your space, sealing your personal boundaries after it departs.
Reconnect with and strengthen your awareness of the Sacred Space.

This sort of powerful imagery and energy field manipulation becomes an ever stronger, empowering tool the more you practice this exercise. Many further exercises are suggested by Cohen for enhancing your personal power.

Numerous helpful clinical examples illustrate Cohen's discussions. Cohen's innovative exercises are helpful for clinicians in their work, as well as for clients.

A lovely suggestion is for practicing 'scaling' (harmonizing) your field to the field of another person with whom you are interacting. Cohen suggests a novel way of applying this: When you anticipate a challenging interaction with someone you find it is hard to get along with, you can pre-harmonize your field with theirs, so that your upcoming interaction can proceed from a more harmonious starting point. Just think of the difficult people in your family, social, work and other relationships with whom this could be helpful! I can guarantee you that Cohen has more suggestions than you can imagine for the helpful applications of this and other exercises she offers in this excellent book.

There are very few criticisms I can muster in my wish to be thorough in this review. Cohen's origins in a culture that was not English speaking is occasionally apparent in slightly stilted languaging of what she shares. There are also occasional items of content discussed very briefly that I felt were slightly misleading, that left me wishing this book had had a tighter editing. For example, a critique of qigong is made for teaching that there are only three chakras. As this is but one of several thousand examples of qigong, and as most of the others acknowledge the full seven major chakras, Cohen's criticism comes across as unfair. These are but minor issues, however, that do not diminish in any way the great value of this book.

In closing, I would add that Energy Restructuring offers an excellent complement to many other therapies. I will be using many of Yuliya Cohen's suggestions in my own practice of WHEE: the Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT.

Daniel J. Benor, MD
IJHC Editor
Author of Seven Minutes to Natural Pain Release

Skywriter Communications Inc. Operation: Emotional Freedom - The Answer (DVD)

Operation: Emotional Freedom – The Answer. DVD. Skywriter Communications Inc. 2010. http://www.operation-emotionalfreedom.com/   $19.95  Widescreen  78 minutes  Includes bonus interview with Gary Craig, the founder of EFT.     

This is an extraordinary and very important film that anyone involved in dealing with wartime Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) will want to see. This DVD documents a pilot study of a 6-session intensive treatment with Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) for a small group of combat veterans.

There are Viet Nam War veterans who are still suffering sleeplessness, hyper-alertness, anxiety attacks, flashbacks, anger, depression and emotional lability, inability to concentrate, low self esteem, conflicts with family members, suicidal thoughts and other disabling symptoms. No treatments have been successful with these veterans, including: psychotherapy, trauma debriefing, numerous prescribed medications, marijuana and other self-prescribed drugs and alcohol, and other treatments. Veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering similar problems, and have had similar difficulties in finding effective therapies.

Sadly, the US government has also made if very difficult for veterans to obtain disability benefits and treatment, such as available, through the Veterans Administration. Appalling numbers of veterans are suiciding – reaching the point that there are more suicides than battlefield deaths.

The improvements shown in this film are nothing short of revolutionary in the history of PTSD treatments. EFT enables these veterans to release most of their troublesome symptoms, to the point that they are able to function in much more normal ways. They can sleep, tolerate everyday stresses, relate in positive ways with their families, friends and employers – for the first time since returning from combat zones.

A caution bears mentioning: The film opens with combat scenes that may help civilian viewers appreciate the stressors which traumatized these veterans. These combat scenes could be retraumatizing for combat veterans who might also wish to view the film.

Caron B. Goode. Kids Who See Ghosts: How to Guide Them Through Fear

Caron B. Goode, Kids Who See Ghosts: How to Guide Them Through Fear, San Francisco: Weiser 2010.  219 pp   2 pp resources   $16.95     

I'm impressed in my casual survey of parents' reports that increasing numbers of children are seeing spirits. Perhaps this is the result of parents and western society in general being more open to this, so that children don't shut off these abilities as quickly as they used to. Perhaps we are similarly enabling children to access intuitive gifts that they would otherwise ignore to the point of atrophy.

Caron Goode makes good on the promise in her title. She provides numerous suggestions, amply illustrated with stories of children who were enormously relieved to have the validations, acceptance and guidance of knowledgeable

This book will be a boon not only to such children, but also to parents who may be at a loss as to how to respond when children report they perceive spirits that their family and others in their environment do not see.

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