Book Reviews

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

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K.C. Cole. The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything

Orlando, FL: Harcourt 2001.   $14.00 274 pp.   9 pp References

This highly unusual book presents an utterly engaging and easily comprehended discussion of many of the latest developments in modern physics.

K. C. Cole explains how the apparent emptiness of space between stars and galaxies – which she calls “Nothing,” must contain something that completes the equations of modern physics. Nothing also exerts a powerful force. The universe is expanding at an accelerating pace. There is no way to explain this expansion without resorting to a “hidden factor” that produces the acceleration, and Nothing fits perfectly in this gap. (I prefer to capitalize Nothing but Cole leaves it in lower case, which often produces startling and humorous statements.)

I hope to convince the reader that nothing matters. Most of modern physics and mathematics would be unthinkable without it. The human mind we use to perceive and explore those worlds relies on notions of “nothing” in very tangible ways – creating something out of nothing as handily as it does the reverse. (p. xi)

Space isn’t empty; what we think of as empty space is permeated by powerful influences. Indeed, matter itself is only the energetic geometry of forces in empty space. (p. 69)

It may seem strange to IJHC readers to include a book on advanced physics in this journal on healing and caring. The points of clearest intersection of healing with physics are in the inter-convertibility of matter and energies and in the evidence that the observer creates that which is observed.

While most readers untrained in science would expect to not understand much in a book that explores advanced theories of physics, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to this book. Cole has a gift for explaining complex theories in simple terms and images. For instance, here is an example of her exploration of the relationships between matter and energy fields.

Matter condenses out of field like water droplets condense out of water vapor in a steamy bathroom. Particles of matter are concentrations of field that travel through the field like ripples in a rope or a wave in water. The essential “stuff” –that is to say, the rope or the water—does not travel from place to place. Only the kink travels. Just as rumors can spread through a crowd of stationary people, concentrations can spread through stationary fields. Particles are more like rumors than people.

  “Seemingly solid matter is nothing more than a manifestation of fields that do not ‘occupy’ space at all,” exults [Robert] March (emphasis his). The field is not so much something in space, as of space.

  This view of matter explains, among other things, why every electron in the universe is exactly the same as every other electron, every top quark the same as every other top quark. A particle doesn’t really exist in its own right. It is only a particular manifestation of a field. And globally speaking, the field is everywhere the same. (p. 73)

Cole gives brief acknowledgement to the overlaps of transpersonal awarenesses and modern physics – as in Buddhist awareness of emptiness.

Cole presents her discussion in little bytes, punctuated with quotes from physicists that counterpoint Nothing in particular.

My only criticism of this gem: While a substantial list of references is provided, many quotes and points of discussion are presented without references.

Francesca McCartney, PhD. Intuition Medicine: The Science of Energy

Mill Valley, CA: Academy of Intuition Studies and Intuition Medicine 2001.  8 1/2 x 11 in.   94 pp. www.intuitionmedicine.org

This workbook provides a basic introduction to the study of intuition medicine. While it is better to have such introductions in person, this book, supplemented by a series of audiotapes, can provide a good taste of the subject.

I am pleased to see a major emphasis given here to grounding exercises, which help to keep the student and practitioner centered and in touch with earth energies. Without this, it is very easy to get “ungrounded” and confused in doing intuitive and energy work.

Other chapters introduce the aura and chakra energy systems for healing, colors in healing, male/female energies and more.

(See interview with Francesca McCartney in this issue of IJHC)

Malidoma Patrice Somé. Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community

New York: Penguin/Arkana 1997, Swan Raven & Company 1993.  103pp  $12.95

Malidoma Patrice Somé, author of Of Water and the Spirit, describes a broad spectrum of ways in which rituals can be helpful. His perspective is that of a shaman trained in the West African Dagara cultural tradition, now living and teaching in the US. He eloquently shares his experiences of powerful shamanic healing practices.

For Somé, rituals are potent interventions on many levels. At the social level they are forms for expression of religious beliefs, or communal celebrations. Rituals affirm our connection with our community. A healing ritual may draw together relatives from the immediate and extended family, as well as from the community at large.

Where ritual is absent, the young ones are restless or violent, there are no real elders, and the grown-ups are bewildered. The future is dim. (p. 12)

Industrial society has lost much of its awareness of rituals.

Indigenous people are indigenous because there are no machines between them and their gods. There are no machines barring the door to the spirit world where one can enter in and listen to what is going on within at a deep level, participating in the vibration of Nature. Where machines speak in place of gods, people are hard put to listen, even more hard put to vibrate with the realm of Nature. (p. 17-18)

Healing rituals, properly performed, are tools to achieve specific healing effects. People performing the rituals may enhance the power of the rituals through their innate gifts for healing, through their learning in apprenticeship the ways of a shaman, and through the assistance of various natural energies and spirit assistants.

A person who lives in constant touch with the invisible realm of incomparable power is always in a good temperament and very understanding of people and situations. He does not fall prey to retaliatory invitations and does not experience wide swings in mood.

It is this kind of balance in a person that people in my village recognize as the presence of power in a person. This presence of power hides in a balanced person and speaks adequately enough about its aliveness. This hiddenness of power in a person is valued in my village because it speaks to life through its invisibility. This Presence of Power is not presence to the eye, but presence to the psyche. (p. 42)

Rituals also affirm our connection with the Infinite Source and with Nature. It is not merely reciting the words of a ritual or performing other acts that make it potent. Rituals must be used in a proper context.

Language in itself does not create or provide a space in which the natural and the supernatural world can safely migrate into this world. Sometimes, the words into which we want to put certain sacred spirits are a deadly virus to those very spirits. So, rather than let themselves be damaged by us, these spirits damage us instead.
(p. 38)

Ritual can serve to create and nurture community, and can heal the collective group.

Community is formed each time more than one person meets for a purpose. Development of community depends on what the people involved consent to. What one acknowledges in the formation of the community is the possibility of doing together what is impossible to do alone. This acknowledgment is also an objection against the isolation of individuals and individualism by a society in service of the Machine. What we want is to create community that meets the intrinsic need of every individual. The individual can finally discover within the community something to relate to, because deep down inside each of us is a craving for an honoring of our individualism. (p. 49)

This is a book to be savored, rich in healings on many levels.

Robert Jager. The HungerMaster: Weight Management Program

David L. Waltos and D. Heidi Waltos. The Healing Partnership: A New Model for Healthcare

Oldenberg, Germany: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg 2002.  A4 size, 415 pp   10 pp references

The authors detail a wealth of clinical observations, self-healing exercises, theories, rationale and suggestions for developing integrative care that includes bioenergy medicine and spiritual awareness. This book can be helpful to anyone who is seeking to develop their personal skills in these areas. Of particular interest to this reviewer are thoughtful sections on the caregiver’s needs and process in providing holistic care, and extensive suggestions for further reading.   www.gesundheitspartnerschaft.de   ulrich.bernath@uni-oldenberg.de

Leonard Shlain. Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution

New York: Viking Penguin 2003.  420 pp $25.95  15 pp References

Leonard Shlain proposes that a need for the nutrient, iron, drove women to adopt the granting of sexual favors in return for their hunter partners’ providing them with meat from their kills. He develops an elaborate Darwinian evolutionary theory that monthly menses (rather than annual estrus) provided a genetically selective advantage, allowing women to have the sexual availability that they could then trade for favors with their sexual partner.

More than just helping with survival, Shlain argues eloquently that the moon cycle of menses, linked with the periodicity of lunar phases, opened women to the awareness of time – past, present and future.

The correlation between her menses and the moon led Gyna sapiens to appreciate the significance of a month. After she had vaulted over a bar set at 29.5 days, she raised it until she cleared nine months, and by so doing finally connected sex with birth. Men learned the art from the women, and, to their eternal dismay, they also learned that their life was limited. (p. 273)

Foresight has proved to be the sexiest idea that Mother Nature came up with since Her clever invention of the penis two hundred million years earlier. Whereas the penis significantly advanced the fortunes of every reptile and mammal species that acquired one, foresight dramatically increased the fortunes of only humans, as the expense of all other species.

Here, then, is the answer to the key question I posed in the preface. The reason women bleed so copiously every month is so that humans could anticipate the future. Gaining the ability to maneuver conceptually in the dimension of time was so powerful an adaptation that whatever price the human species would have to pay would be worth it, because it guaranteed that they would exercise dominion over all the other animals. Unfortunately, one sex was more disadvantaged than the other. The Faustian bargain Gyna sapiens unwittingly and involuntarily entered into was an awesome tradeoff. Iron-deficiency anemia, loss of estrus, and potentially debilitating menses were the tolls she paid to do something no other animal had ever done before - see beyond the moon to the next month. (p. 184-185)

Shlain’s discussion of the possible roles of sexual favors granted by women in prehistoric times, in return for male support and protection, is highly speculative. On the one hand, it appears to overlook the loyalty of males of many species – from birds to wolves to elephants – without monthly menses. On the other hand, it suggests a guiding hand in evolution because the appearance of monthly menses and the growth of brain size to enable the conceptualizations Shlain hypothesizes must have preceded the benefits that they conferred. While Shlain repeatedly suggests an anima mundi, a collective consciousness that guides the course of evolution – while explicitly stating that he subscribes to transpersonal beliefs.

The basic thesis is original, well argued, and supported with a wealth of historical notes, images from art and history, and written in a very engaging style. After the first half of the book, however, the discussions appear repetitive. Shlain puts a series of propositions related to sexuality through the same analysis, to the point that this reviewer became bored. Despite these criticisms, this book is well worth the read.

A DVD with a lecture on these materials is rich with imagery. This provides a more succinct presentation, a feast of pictures, and the pleasure of the author’s voice and screen presence. The book, however, is a richer experience in concepts and discussion.
Lshlain@aol.com

Mitch Albom. The Five People You Meet In Heaven

New York: Hyperion 2003. 196pp $19.95

This one of the most engaging, spiritual books I have read. It is written in the simplest of styles and formats, the story of Eddie, a maintenance man at a carnival who dies and transitions to the next plane of existence. Here, he meets five people who interacted with him significantly at various stages of his life – some whom he hadn’t ever realized had had such important interactions with him. The insights he gains from these five people are lessons for all of us, such as:

That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind. (p. 48)

Strangers… are just family you have yet to come to know. (p. 49)

No life is a waste… The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. (p. 50)

Eddie had had a particularly bitter relationship with his father. As Albom’s tale unfolds, Eddie comes to understand his father better.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair. (p. 104)

This book is warmly recommended – suitable as a gift for opening into spiritual awareness.

Bill Sweet. A Journey into Prayer: Pioneers of Prayer in the Laboratory – Agents of Science or Satan?

Bill Sweet 2003.

Bill Sweet brings us a variety of details on the work of Bruce and John Klingbeil, Christian Scientists who explored the effects of prayers on living and inanimate systems. While their research was not arigorous as one might wish, their ideas are fascinating – suggesting that there may be differences in the effects of prayers that include intentions for outcomes and prayers that are for unstated results.

Sweet’s book adds more to the picture of the researchers than to the original research reports, The Spindrift Papers.

Reference:
Spindrift, Inc. The Spindrift Papers (Spindrift Research, % Bill Sweet, 500 Huntington Commons Road, # 447, Mount Prospect, Illinois 60056 http://www.xnet.com/~spindrif) 1993.

Michael Reagan. Reflections on the Nature of God

Philadelphia/ London: Templeton Foundation 2004   160 pp    $19.95

Another in the series featuring photos of stars and galaxies, mostly from the Hubble space telescope, with a rich selection of quotes from scientists, poets, authors and others who have been touched by an awareness of the vastness of spiritual dimensions.

Divinity is not playful. The universe was ot made in jest but in solemn and incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. there is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see.
      Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Leah Bendavid-Val. Families

Washington, DC: National Geographic Moments 2003

A rich feast of photographic gems from around the world.

Heidi Charissa Schmidt . Too Many Murkles

(Illustrated by Mary Gregg Byrne) Bellvue, WA: Illumination Arts 2004. $15.95

  11 x 8 1/2 inches.An engaging tale of a girl who accepts life as it is, helping those around her to stop fretting and worrying. Suitable for 5-7

Nathalie Christie . No More Toy Guns

(Illustrated by Deanna Moreau-Cohen), Santa Barbara, CA: Nathalie Christie 2004. 9 x 9 1/2 inchesSuitable for PK to 1st grade students.

Nathalie Christie is a teacher and assistant director at St. Mark Preschool in Santa Barbara, California. She has written this book for parents and teaches to open discussions around violence that young children may be exposed to in real life or through the media. She also encourages young children to deal with conflicts in peaceful ways.

Nathalie is also a long-time and devoted crewmember on the Bridging Heaven & Earth television show and the Bridging Foundation and has graciously offered to donate 20% of the proceeds of her extraordinary new book to the Foundation.

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