IJHC (The International Journal of Healing and Caring)

Larry Lachman and Ric Masten. Parallel Journesy: A Spirited Approach to Coping and Living with Cancer

Carmel, CA: Sunink Presentations, 2003.

Larry Lachman is a psychologist who had surgery at age 39 for prostate cancer that presented as a single nodule. Ric Masten, an author and poet, was diagnosed at age 69 with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already spread. He has had surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Each writes of his experiences in his own way. Lachman presents linear descriptions and psychological analyses that are well organized and extremely helpful - as could only be written by someone who has both experienced dealing with cancer and has helped many others to deal with cancer. Masten wonderfully parallels all of the issues discussed by Lachman through poetry that is trenchantly honest, spoken from the heart, and yet maintains a centeredness that is utterly refreshing. Masten's poetry is on the even pages; Lachman's on the odd pages. It is utterly engaging to read of similar experiences that are shared in these two very different styles. In addition, each inserts meta-observations and comments in the margins about their own narratives and each other's.

Here is a typical example, contrasting each of the authors' styles of approaching their cancers:

MASTEN: Of course the doctor is most optimistic about all the new and miraculous treatments available. But before I go into that, I want you to know that I find myself experiencing a strange and wonderful kind of peace. Hell, I've lived nearly 70 years already - done exactly what I wanted to do with my life. All worthwhile dreams have come true. Made my living since 1968 as a 'Performance Poet' - Billie Barbara and I have been together for 47 years - growing closer with each passing day. We have four great kids, five neat and nifty grandchildren. All thing considered, I've been truly blessed and whether my departure date is next year or 15 years from now I'm determined not to wreck my life by doing a lousy job with my death. (p. 2)

Lachman has excellent suggestions for dealing with practical issues of managing the physical and emotional aspects of the illness, as well as for psychological pacing of healing efforts. He makes suggestions I have not seen elsewhere, such as doing your best to put together several teams of support people, so that they can take turns and then no one person gets worn out in being helpful. He clearly has had a wealth of lessons from his own illness that deepens and enriches his advice to others. Here are further suggestions, in his own words:

LACHMAN: Respect your style of coping. You will cope with surgery best if you are aware of your preferred way of handling stress. There are two major ways of coping with surgery; both are considered to be 'active' styles of coping. They are: Avoidant Copers - Those of us who don't want to be overwhelmed with information that we don't need or be asked to make too many decisions. They way and avoidant coper reduces stress is by saying, 'Just knock me out and get it over with doc. Spare me the gory details.'

By creating my own healing narrative... as well as using the SANITYMatrixª described in chapter 2, I was able to soulfully construct my own story about what my experience was in having cancer and how I felt about it. I was able to determine what type of relationship I wanted to have with my illnesses. I was beginning to put a new face on my inner Humpty Dumpty- reformulating what I wanted to do from here on and how I wanted to do it.

...I began to formulate my Five Insights For Recovery. I was beginning to map out how I would finally be able to embrace my new after-cancer self. The five insights for recovery that I came up with were:

4. Reclaim a spiritual path by connecting with a religious or spiritual community.

5. Change my pace of living from having to be always-on-the-go to being more balanced, relaxed and centered. (p. 161, 163)

I found this book appealing not only for the contrasts and blends of presentations, but for the poetry of Masten itself, which I like and find to be moving, educational and enlightening. Here is one of Masten's own favourites:

Who's Waving?
I ain't waving babe, I'm drowning
Going down in a cold lonely sea
I ain't waving babe, I'm drowning
So babe quit waving at me

I ain't waving babe, I'm crying
I'm crying, oh why can't you see?
I ain't fooling babe, I ain't fooling
So babe quit fooling with me

This ain't singing babe, it's screaming
I'm screaming that I'm going down
And you're smiling babe, and you're waving
Just like you don't hear a sound

I ain't waving babe, I'm drowning
Going down right here in front of you
And you're waving babe, you keep waving
Hey babe, are you drowning too/
Oh (p. 126)

Masten's sprightly, continuous-line cartoon drawings ("one-liners") add dimensions of awareness to this book.

(More of one-liners in the IJHC section on Healing through Creative Arts.)

Wayne Muller. Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a painful Childhood

Wayne Muller brings us a classic on how to deal with the invariable wounds of childhood.

A painful childhood invariably focuses our attention on the inner life. In response to childhood hurt, we learn to cultivate a heightened awareness, and sharpen our capacity to discern how things move and change in our environment. Childhood pain encourages us to watch things more closely, to listen more carefully, to attend to the subtle imbalances that arise within and around us. We develop an exquisite ability to feel the feelings of others, and we become exceptionally mindful of every conflict, every flicker of hope or despair, every piece of information that may hold some teaching for us. Thus, family pain broke us open and set our hearts on a pilgrimage in search of the love and belonging, safety and abundance, joy and peace that were missing from our childhood story. Seen through this lens, family sorrow is not only a painful wound to be endured, analyzed, and treated. It may in fact become a seed that gives birth to our spiritual healing and awakening. (p. xiii)

Your life is not a problem to be solved but a gift to be opened. Just as the pain, hurt, and suffering that came to you as a child were powerfully real, so is the tangible resilience of your spirit equally vital and alive. (xiv)

Muller suggests a variety of meditations and exercises that help to absorb, accept and transform our negative reactions to our childhood wounds and to grow and deepen our emotional and spiritual awareness in the process.

Guerrero, Diana L. What Animals Can Teach Us about Spirituality: Inspiring Lessons from Wild and Tame Creatures

Diane Guerror brings us a lovely introduction to many of the ways in which animals can heighten our awareness of our own caring, moral, healing and spiritual qualities. She illustrates these through specific animal examples:

This book is a good invitation to reflections on how we can be more mindful of many of these qualities in our lives, and how we can extend our investments in healing - ourselves and others - beyond our own species. It can serve as a good introduction to spiritual dimensions as well, particularly for those who might not be open yet to the broader dimensions of psychic animal and spirit communications explored in some of the articles in this issue of IJHC and in other books reviewed here.

Sheldrake, Rupert. Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals

New York: Three Rivers 1999. 352pp $14.00

Rupert Sheldrake is renowned for his theory of morphogenetic fields. These fields are species-specific collections of experiences individuals have, which are available to all members of the species. These fields provide information on knowledge and behaviors that are helpful to the species, such as migration routes and other learned behaviors. For instance, mice have learned paths through laboratory mazes, and members of the same species who were not direct descendents of the original lab animals subsequently learned the same mazes much more quickly.

In this book, Sheldrake has gathered several hundred reports of dogs, cats and other pets that evidence telepathic and precognitive communications with humans. These occur most often with the animal's primary caretaker, but may also occur with other people who have close bonds with them.

The evidence is presented engagingly, with many examples from the very broad spectrum of phenomena reported in Sheldrake's survey. Pet owners describe not only dogs and cats who show clear alerting behaviors prior to their owners returning home, but also intuitive anticipations and acknowledgments of death of someone close to them; intuitive homing behaviors; and applied/ trained assistance to owners who are blind or have epilepsy or diabetes.

Sheldrake's hypothess that morphogenetic fields explain all of these phenomena is an interesting variation on the themes of intuitive/psychic awareness, collective consciousness, and spiritual dimensions of reality.

Sheldrake's book is highly recommended to anyone interested in animal communications that extend beyond the ordinary physical world of visual and auditory channels.

Margrit Coates. Healing for Horses: The Essential Guide to Using Hands-on Healing Energy with Horses

New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., 2002. 165pp HB $21.95

Margrit Coates has a gentle, yet thorough way of presenting her discussion on healing for horses. A gifted, natural healer from childhood, Coates was drawn to work with horses long before she had the means to do so. Her career in PR for a firm involved in equestrian products brought her into contact with many horses. Though she was successful in her work, and the primary wage earner in the family, she elected to study and practice healing and transitioned into this as her major occupation.

Coates found that she could mentally communicate with horses, who told her of their physical and emotional traumas and pains. She was able to relieve many of them through healing, with rapid - often immediate - changes in behaviours to validate that healing was effective.

Although I believe that I am channeling healing from God you can believe that you are channeling healing from anywhere - the sun, the moon or the stars, for example - and the energy source is the same. An important thing to remember is that you can't just force healing on to any person or any animal - you need to have permission from the horse for the healing to be accepted and the horse will judge you by what is in your heart. Healing should be offered to the horse with love. The most important thing for someone to believe when they give healing is that they are going to help. It is the intent to heal which the leader must have in his or her heart. The intent becomes in itself a very important source of energy linking to the horse. Attuning to the healing energy requires a mixture of empathy, compassion and intent and the more strongly we can direct these feelings to the horse the stronger the healing will be. We need to remember that the horse, like the human, will have a need for healing on three levels - emotional, mental and physical. (p. 37)

This book is replete with explanations of various forms of healing, equine problems which have responded to healing, and further CAM approaches (acupuncture, craniosacral therapy) that can also be used for healing.

What I found most interesting in this book are Coates' un-hyped descriptions of spiritual moments when she looked into particular horses' eyes and found herself transported into a timeless dimension.

This book is attractive as well as informative, a pleasure to hold in one's hands.

Though out of print, this book is still worth seeking, as it suggests many ways in which people with animal can learn to enhance their own intuitive awareness and communications with them.

Your attitude toward animals...
Believe in your own intuitive ability...
Be ready, receptive, mentally quiet, and alert...
Cultivate flexibility...
Be emotionally peaceful...
Be alert and calm...
Let communication assume its own form...
Practice with a wide variety of animals in various situations... (p. 48-50)

Smith has clear and easily understood discussions on ways to understand animal problems on many levels - including the physical, emotional and relational (animal and human).

You'll find that different animals, like different humans, respond in varied ways. Some have a lot to say; some say very little. Some will be quite cheerful, others sad or bored. Accept what you receive, no matter how different it seems from your expectations. (p. 65)

Communications with animals can improve your relationships with them, and can invite them to cooperate with you and help you more.

Talk it over with your animal friends, and establish what purposes or jobs they can fulfill in relation to you and your environment. Be sure the functions are suited to the animal's physical capacities. Don't ask your turtle to answer the phone and take messages, even though she wants to communicate with your friends. Ask her instead to look aster the apartment by radiating her brightness and warm presence there. Ask your Siamese to help keep the place clean and cheerful, your German shepherd to watch the kids when they play in the yard.

Don't punish animals when they don't seem to do exactly as you want. Be patient and clear up any disagreements or misunderstandings. Reestablish what is needed that the animals can reasonably deliver, in alignment with their natural physical and personal inclinations.

Other examples of jobs or purposes that many animals take up happily are: keeping you happy: cheering you up when you're down; entertaining the family with antics; creating warmth around the house so all feel welcome; adding beauty to the environment with their physical appearance, mannerisms, song or purr; guarding property; creating a feeling of safety so that no negative influences can enter; getting you out to exercise; keeping you calm and soothing tensions; expanding your viewpoints about life; sharing or enhancing an activity you enjoy, such as running, swimming, Frisbee competition, or equestrian skills; or even assisting you with your work or other activities spiritually at a distance. (p. 125-126)

(See also the article by Martina Steiger, in this issue of the IJHC, on asking cats to get along with birds.)

April Frost and Rondi Lightmark. Beyond Obedience: Training with Awareness for You & Your Dog

New York: Three Rivers/Crown/Random House (Orig. Harmony Books in 1998). 355pp 3 resources, 2pp Bibliography $13.00

April Frost is an animal communicator who comes from a place of deep love and respect for animals. She relates to each as an individual, and works with each by communicating and explaining - as well as using the clear and consistent behavioral approaches common to animal trainers. She advises people to explore what is right in their unique relationship with their animal companions, taking into account their own personality and that of their animal.

Frost has excellent suggestions and discussion on basics of training for the habits that will enable dogs and people to get along comfortably together.

In addition to offering training to people and animals, Frost has dedicated much of her life to helping animals in need. She describes a remarkable rescue of 13 malnourished dogs out of larger pack that had run wild all of its life in a pen, never having known a positive relationship with humans. The dogs were wounded physically and scarred emotionally. Here are a few paragraphs about her approaches in healing them:

Every dog had some kind of wound or infection: lacerations, punctures, and tears. I treated these with herbal medicines made from plants that I grow in my gardens or gather in the wild: tinctures of oat straw, chamomile, and Saint-John's-wort for depression and to support the central nervous system; herbal poultices; infused oils and salves containing rosemary, plantain, flaxseed, burdock, or calendula to treat the wounds. We treated their ear mites daily with olive oil infused with garlic, rosemary, and rue. And I used homeopathic remedies: aconite for stress, staphysagria for rapid healing of incision-type wounds, Ledum for punctures.

Some of the dogs were running a fever from their infections. I had long been interested in the use of colored light to stimulate sensory reactions and the immune system, and I used it here because it is simple and noninvasive. I hung droplights with colored bulbs on the crates, flooding the interiors with colored light. The color of the bulb and the length of time varied from dog to dog; I gave the feverish ones regular doses of blue light. I gave every dog a color bath in green light - a color that balances and stabilizes the energy of the system - for at least ten minutes a day. Stoff, who had been pulled from beneath the shed, was exposed to red light for ten minutes a day to build up his vitality; then he received ten minutes of green light for balance. (p. 81)

One evening as I was sitting in prayer and meditation, an inspiration came to me. Reiki practitioners work mentally with certain sacred Japanese symbols to help them access and direct healing power. Now I created a new symbol of my own and filled it with all of my love and hope for these dogs, until my whole being was energized with a sense of power and conviction. I projected the symbol like a shining gift to each dog in the room.

I could feel that the love I had sent out through the symbol was being returned. It was coming from the dogs. The sensation was so intense that I could feel wave after wave of gratitude wash over me. We had finally found a common ground, and it was not of the physical world but of a brilliant, unifying spiritual reality. Love had conquered the fear. As I began to realize the full impact of my discovery, I wept with joy.

I continued to use my symbol every evening and saw that it was a powerful tool. I had discovered a level of communication that they were willing to accept; we had reached a new dimension of awareness. Some time was still to pass, however, before I saw the results manifest in the visible world. Now if only one of the leaders would spontaneously approach us in friendship and trust. I knew that such a positive example would ripple through the rest of the pack. (p. 83-84)

Frost brings us great wisdom in this book, suggesting many ways in which we can learn to appreciate and care for the animals we choose or who choose us as companions in this great adventure we call life. Dogs are very much in the present, and can help us find our own sense of the now that opens into spiritual awareness.

Talking to your animal mentally, explaining the messages you want to convey, is very potent in training them to understand ways of behaving that will help the two of you get along well. Establishing intuitive and psychic communications with animals also provides another avenue for opening into spiritual dimensions.

Allen Schoen and Pam Proctor bring us a rich, detailed spectrum of ways in which love, intuition and complementary/ alternative therapies can help animals small and large. This book is rich in anecdotes and reports of healings on physical, psychological and spiritual levels for animals with these approaches after conventional veterinary care had exhausted its potentials to help. Schoen integrates acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal remedies in his practice.

This is a truly wholistic book, addressing body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit - both of the animals who were helped and of their owners.

Schoen illustrates his work with many heartwarming stories of his challenges and adventures with animals and their owners.

A typical example is Schoen's description of how he nursed a wild hawk who was paralyzed from the neck down following injuries from a power line. Schoen found ways to tame and heal this wary creature so that it could recover, eventually returning to his wilderness home. As with many of his animal patients, Schoen found himself learning and growing in the process of his ministrations.

...no creature can remain forever closed to the healing power of love. I knew that if I could establish an intimate relationship with a bird of prey, I could communicate with any animal, no matter how distant or fearsome it might appear to be. All I would need was a sensitivity of spirit, a willingness to open myself nonjudgmentally to a dimension of reality where feathers, fur, skin, scales, or hair are stripped away - and where the only language is love.

Hawkeye had his freedom, and now I had mine. He had given me my wings, and I was ready to soar." (p. 71)

Ted Andrews. Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

Ted Andrews brings us an outstanding resource on our relationships with animals as reflections of our participation in the collective consciousness. He explains how animals present us with signs and omens that alert us to what is going on in our inner consciousness and how our awareness and intentions manifest into the outer world. Going further into spiritual dimensions, as we waken to our interconnections with all that is, we become more conscious of our co-creation with the ALL.

Andrews points out that many people view such suggestions as no more than superstitions. Superstitions, he points out, are "not based upon knowledge or reason. Superstitions often involve irrational fears and behaviours. Superstitions often involve actions that are taken to avoid bad luck. Relationships and correspondences between natural elements and one's own life are not formed from a base of knowledge." (p. 44)

He gives as an example of superstition the periodic overpopulations of rodents that occur, with corresponding mass increases in owls and other predators.

For the superstitious person, one with no knowledge base, this may appear to be an extraordinary revelation of evil from Nature; especially so since both rodents and owls have a long history of being perceived negatively. For those who have a good knowledge base of both of these animals, the interpretation would be entirely different.

Many predator and prey species have years in which populations plummet and years in which populations erupt. Many rodents are subject to boom-bust cycles. For their natural predators, this cycle is often matched. Short-eared owls have an instinctual knack for appearing overnight in a horde, to descend upon abundant food sources. Such appearances are not reflections of evil manifesting. Rather their appearance serves as a boon to help restore the balance of nature. (p. 45)

In contrast with superstitious beliefs, which intrepret any occurrence of a particular event as representing a given meaning, Andrews explains how nature offers us signs and omens that invite us to understand our relationships with nature, the worlds within us, and spiritual worlds beyond. He has extensive dictionaries for bird and animal totems and what they may convey.

Andrews also suggests ways in which we can open to deeper awarenesses of these realms.

Animals using human speech

The parrot N'Kisi is causing a sensation in the worlds of cognitive science and interspecies communication. N'Kisi has a vocabulary of 950 words!

Check out the website below for an overview of this parrot's abilities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm

Dolphin and whale communications

Jim Nollman shares information on his website: Interspecies Inc. http://interspecies.com/

JUST FOR FUN

This is a good for a fun scan, with some clear resemblances and others with props of glasses and hats.

Wayne Jonas MD and Cindy Crawford BA (editors). Healing, Intention, and Energy Medicine: Science, Research Methods and Clinical Implications

Reviewed by Eric Leskowitz, MD

Whenever the topic of energy healing comes up in a conversation with an allopathic medical colleague, the conversational arc is typically determined by an awkward interaction between interest and fear. As long as my pro-healing perspective is presented with a minimum of jargon and a maximal emphasis on objective findings, my colleagues listen intently (for there now seems to be a large reservoir of curiosity about these phenomena among the uninitiated, in pleasant contrast to the outright hostility that used to accompany such inquiries as recently as 10 or 5 years ago). However, as these discussions gain momentum and veer close to the brink of embracing truly weird or apparently inexplicable phenomena like energy healing or intercessory prayer, a sort of allopathic fear reflex kicks in. The conversations will then retreat back into a compromise position, when my colleague reminds us both that we really should wait until adequate studies are done before making up our minds about this subject. Up until recently, I have had no adequate response, aside from quoting the details of a few favorite studies which I had become familiar with, and making reference to Dr. Dan Benor's magnum opus, a compendium of studies, abstracts and analyses called Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution (Southfield, MI: Vision Publications, 2001)

However, a recently published book called Healing, Intention and Energy Medicine: Science, Research Methods and Clinical Implications (Churchill Livingstone, 2003) has permanently changed the landscape of the field. This impressive collection of 22 review articles brings together an array of perspectives that allows students of the field to find under one cover everything from statistics to clinical data to understanding mainstream prejudices against these approaches, all accompanied by a massive bibliography of well over 2000 references. The focus of the book is a little narrower than its title implies - "energy medicine" here does not refer to the entire range of treatments that involve so-called subtle energy; energy-based modalities like acupuncture and homeopathy are not addressed here. The emphasis is on approaches like Therapeutic Touch and intercessory prayer.

The book's organization is a strong point, with 4 major sections devoted to:

1) critical summaries of current research on healing (13 chapters on such topics as intercessory prayer, remote viewing, and bioenergy healing);

2) methods and challenges for research on healing (9 chapters on topics like statistical issues in healing research, randomized clinical trials, and the social dynamics involved as healing research enters the mainstream);

3) an annotated bibliography of clinical research on healing (focused assessments of 63 representative studies that quantitatively rate each study along the dimensions of internal, external and model validity);

4) an amazingly comprehensive bibliography of spiritual healing, energy medicine, and intentionality research that includes 259 books and over 2200 published reports - 122 laboratory studies, 80 randomized controlled trials, 128 reviews, 95 reports of non-randomized studies, 271 descriptive studies and 1268 commentaries, critiques, and letters.

Some quibbles. The rating scales in Section 3 are not fully explained, especially regarding how the actual numerical subtotals are tallied within each of the four validity domains. So it's a bit hard to know how to compare two studies in more than a grossly qualitative way, especially as the results are sometimes reported as percentages, other times as raw numbers - i.e., is a study rated at 50.3 truly one third poorer than a study scoring 75.2? Nevertheless, it was fun to search through these comprehensive ratings to see how old favorites stacked up - the Byrd intercessory prayer study did well (all subscales over 65), while I was disappointed to see that Wirth's Therapeutic Touch/wound healing classic wasn't included in this section. I did feel an excitement that reminded me of looking through the list of batting averages in the Sunday Sports Section to see if Nomar was still leading the league in hitting.

This book is not geared for clinicians so much as for researchers and educators in the field of CAM in general, and energy medicine in particular. For them, this book is indispensable. The editors and contributors are to be commended for this important opus, especially its comprehensive depth of coverage and its consistently high quality of analysis. Anyone interested in knowing the state of the art regarding some of the most unusual and challenging forms of treatment being used today, and any energy practitioner or CAM practitioner who is looking for some factual backup should have this work within easy reach.

Eric Leskowitz, MD
Pain Management Program
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
125 Nashua St.
Boston Ma 02114
Email: Rleskowitz@pol.net

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. 278pp OOP

There are reports from people around the world that they have wakened in the night with a sense of terror, unable to move, and aware of the presence of a frightening old hag.

David Hufford brings us a thorough investigation of this fascinating phenomenon. Hufford is Professor in the Department of Humanities at the Penn State College of Medicine (Hershey Medical Center), with joint appointments in Behavioral Science and Family &;Community Medicine. He also is Director of the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine at the Hershey Medical Center, an endowed center devoted to improving doctor-patient communication.

Hufford has had a long-standing interest in traditional healing and parapsychology, both of which serve him will in his analysis of the old hag reports, which have not been included in much of the literature on psychic and spiritual experiences.

He states the challenges in the starting point in his investigation:

1. No first-person account exists for many such narratives in their present form, the current stories have developed during oral transmission.

2. Others are misinterpretations of ordinary events caused by the action of tradition on the imagination of the one reporting the experience (e.g., marsh gas for Will-o'-the-Wisp).

3. Some are either outright lies or errors of memory in which the one claiming the experience has placed himself in an account he at first heard involving another person.

4. Some are the experiences of those who have been victims of a hoax by someone who has used the tradition as a model (e.g., Ichabod Crane in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow").

5. Some are actual experiences caused, often intentionally, by fasting, use of hallucinogens, or other methods known to produce powerful subjective experiences that vary cross-culturally and are shaped by expectation.

6. Some are the experiences of abnormal individuals whose psychotic episodes are shaped by their cultural repertoire (e.g., the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenics are known to have changed over time keeping with the culture in which schizophrenics live. (p 13-14)

Hufford gathered 93 reports from students at Memorial University in Newfoundland, clarifying their experiences with a detailed questionnaire.

Hufford investigates and writes with great clarity, coming to the following conclusions:

1. The phenomena associated with what I have been calling the Old Hag constitute an experience with a complex and stable pattern, which is recognizable and is distinct from other experiences.

3. The -pattern of the experience and its distribution appear independent of the presence of explicit cultural models.

4. The experience itself has played a significant, though not exclusive, role in the development of numerous traditions of supernatural assault.

5. Cultural factors heavily determine the ways in which the experience is described (or withheld) and interpreted.

6. The distribution of traditions about the experience, such as those involving the Old Hag or the Eskimo augumangia, has frequently been confounded with the distribution of the experience itself.

7. The frequency with which the experience occurs is surprisingly high, with those who have had at least one recognizable attack representing i 5 percent or more of the general population.

8. The state in which this experience occurs is probably best described as sleep paralysis with a particular kind of hypnagogic hallucination.

9. Although there may be some connection between the etiology of this experience and narcolepsy, and although certain illnesses could be confused with the experience, the Old Hag experience itself does not indicate the presence of any serious pathology.

10. The contents of this experience cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of current know1edge.

This book does much to clarify an interesting element in the spectrum of transpersonal experiences.

Reviewed by Chrissy Holmes, Bristol, England

This CD has an attractive cover. There is a brief introduction about Kim and her many skills. This is followed by an explanation of the benefits of meditation. There are 2 meditations.

The first "Journey to the stars" lasts for about 30 minutes. Kim's voice soothes over you, allowing you to relax. Her voice is very expressive - you can tell she's smiling as she speaks. She starts by grounding you, and then performing an exercise designed to open your chakras. This tape is fine for novices, as she guides you step by step along the way. The music in the background is quietly spacey. Then the journey begins. Kim leads you from a meadow up a mountain. She peacefully brings you to a stream. This journey involves all the senses. You feel refreshed by a waterfall you come to - you can feel all your tensions being released from you. The journey leads on up the mountain to its top where you become immersed in Light and become one with it. A feeling of peace and safety descends upon you. You continue on your journey to your own special star. You then enter a Temple there where you're balanced and receive any guidance and healing that you need. The return is gradual, coming out of the Temple, then through the stars and to the mountain, passing the waterfall and eventually back to the meadow. Your chakras are closed just the right amount for you, and you are grounded. All in all, a refreshing and uplifting journey - a truly cosmic experience.

The second meditation is entitled "A Self Healing Meditation". Again, it lasts for around half an hour. This meditation is more relaxing than the first. You start enveloped in white light. Kim then travels down the chakra system, expanding them as she goes. Her voice is very expressive, yet warm. Music gently lulls you in the background. She leads you, balanced and attuned with your higher essence. She then grounds you with golden roots all the way down to the core of Mother Earth. Your journey begins in a peaceful garden, full of flowers. The light flows into any areas of your body where its needed in order to heal your physical body, then on to the emotional level, and on to the mental and finally spiritual levels. You can request guidance in any healing you need. The meditation has the feeling of a country garden with birds twittering around in the background. There is less of Kim's voice in this meditation, giving you more time for reflection. Gently, awareness is returned to your body, You come back to the garden and its flowers surrounded again by the Light. Harmony, healing and balance are brought into your body. Your chakras are slowed, closed just the right amount for you, and brought into alignment from the base chakra upwards. You are grounded and then your awareness is brought back into the room and your surroundings. I felt very cherished and cared for after this meditation.

So, in conclusion, these meditations are great for anyone - you are guided through them both, so they are fine for novice and the more advanced alike. "Journey to the stars" is a more uplifting meditation, leaving you refreshed and ready for the day. The second, "A Self Healing Mediation" is quieter and more reflective in nature, leaving you feeling relaxed and nurtured. All in all, great value at $15.99 (£12.95).

Order CD through:
Roger Ford
315, Goldenwest Avenue
Ojai, CA 93023
Tel 805 640 0211
http://www.awakenthehealer.com/

Book Reviews

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