Why People Don't Heal - and How They Can

by Caroline Myss, PhD

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New York: Random House 1997 262pp $14

Caroline Myss is probably the first name most people associate with intuitive assessments. She has been writing and lecturing on this subject for several decades. She is also one of the few medical intuitives who have participated in research. C. Norman Shealy, MD found that Myss had a 93% congruence of her diagnoses with his own (Shealy 1975/1978).

Many intuitives perceive energies and their assessments may be difficult to match with those of conventional medical diagnosis. While they may have abilities to identify medical problems, it is difficult to label their intuitive impressions as medical diagnoses. Medical intuitive assessments is generally a more accurate term. Myss is an exception to this caveat, as witnessed by Shealy's confirmation of her accuracy.

Myss is enormously popular on the lecture and workshop circuits, with a bitingly witty presentation. While her trenchant wit has made her a much sought presenter, it has also limited the depth to which participants would open in her workshops. On the one hand, this makes it safer for participants - knowing their deeper shadow issues will not be touched. On the other hand, this approach keeps people from dealing with their shadow issues, perhaps even from becoming aware of them.

In this book, which was on the New York Times best seller list, Myss presents a good, basic review of the ways in which the body can speak about the tensions and conflicts its owner is carrying - often buried beneath conscious awareness. The bioenergy body is discussed, with focus on the charkas (major bioenergy centers). In a light but stimulating analysis, Myss explores overlaps between astrological ages, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalistic tree of life - related to the chakra energy system.

Myss has many practical, helpful suggestions. For instance,

The perception that time and life are linear experiences handicaps the healing process. Examples: "If this treatment does not help within a month, it's not working and I must not be healing," and "At my age, what can you expect?" Your focus should be not on "time" but on the cycles of nature, which are mirrored in many other processes. In the natural world, seasons of warmth and ease and productivity are inevitably followed by periods of cold, difficulty, and retrenchment, but these difficult periods are themselves followed by a recurrence of warmth and pleasure. Few traditions understand this cyclic principle and flow better than the Chinese, whose spirituality, like that of Native Americans, is closely tied ot the earth. As the Tao Te Ching puts it:

The Way of Heaven is like the flexing of a bow.
The high it presses down; the low it presses up.
From those with a surplus it takes away: to those without enough it adds on.
Therefore the Way of Heaven -
Is to reduce the excessive and increase the insufficient.

(p. 170-171)

This book is well worth the read.


Reference:
Shealy, C. Norman, The role of psychics in medical diagnosis, In: Carlson, Rick (Ed), Frontiers of Science and Medicine, Chicago, IL: Contemporary 1975; also in: Shealy, C. Norman, Clairvoyant diagnosis, In: Srinivasan, T. M. Energy Medicine Around the World, Phoenix, AZ: Gabriel 1988, 291-303.

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